get on your bike

dear readers, herself has taken up cycling to work. the new offices are 5 miles from where we live. herself needs to get fit so she has decided to kill two birds with one stone (a saying, dear readers, no birds were harmed in the making of this post) and get out her bike. yesterday was the big day. the bikes live in a funny tent in the front of the house. herself spent quite some time oiling the chain, fiddling around with levers and strapping her clutter on the rack. when it was finally time to leave, farewells were said. himself was rather concerned about the whole venture.

"what if you fall off, or get a puncture?" he said.

"i'll phone you to come and fetch me." replied herself, confidently.

"but then i'll be late for work!"

herself said it was nice to know he cared.

all went well and herself arrived home glowing. or more accurately melting. some guests were due so she leapt into the shower. she came down smelling fragrant and looking rather damp, only to discover a little accident that young dave had had earlier on the sofa. young dave had helpfully been pruning the bamboo and had accidentally swallowed some. it did not stay down long. bamboo is tickly stuff in the throat. herself was not best pleased at having to deal with the sofa after her shower, but himself was busy cooking curry. he is always cooking something when messy jobs need to be done.

the sofa was thoroughly scrubbed ready for the guests and order was restored. the peeps were very much looking forward to seeing them. they are pirates. they have many pirate costumes and often go to parties dressed in them. there was some debate as to whether they would come dressed as pirates for the meal, but it was a weekday and piratical gear seems to be confined to the weekend. mrs pirate works with himself and comes once a week to do art with my boy. she is very talented at the art thing. they have made some wonderful creations. i think her secret is that she allows my boy little breaks in the art session. these are called 'bullet breaks' and my boy can charge around making gun noises and letting off steam before getting back to the business of creating.

the young pirate is a year older than my boy and is a person of the beefburger persuasion. for some reason this has only been discovered recently, although all 3 peeps had diagnosed him the minute they met him. the problem is that the doctors in charge of diagnosing beefburger people have some sort of test that they use which bears no relation to beefburgerness. it involves things like imagination and empathy, both of which a lot of beefburger people have in large quantities. it does not involve asking parents if they have to cut the labels out of clothes, or buy socks with no seams, or anything that actually helps spot beefburger people. so the young pirate has been in the dark about why he is so clever, and has such a fantastic memory.

the pirates kept the peeps entertained all evening. the young pirate has some brilliant words which he is teaching the peeps. he has a book at home full of words that no-one has ever heard of. my boy is enthralled at some of the things that words have been made up about. for example, there is a word for the quality of being bread. this word is paneity. so, dear readers, if you suddenly find yourself turned into a loaf of bread, you can say to yourself "i am just encountering a spot of paneity, it will soon pass."

another brilliant word is haeccity. this means "thingness". i will not try to explain what thingness is. the very idea of it makes my head hurt.

the peeps also learned of the medievel practice of corsned. this was used to test whether a person was innocent or guilty. the person was given a piece of bread, or mouldy cheese. if they could swallow it they were innocent. if they choked, they were guilty. herself was interested in this from a lawyerly point of view, no doubt with a view to short-circuiting the problem of the wheels of justice grinding slowly.

young dave has clearly developed his own version of corsned. i fear he is doomed to perpetual guilt. even young dave cannot keep down a mouthful of bamboo...