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Day 17 - A Holy Show


"Please Daisy! Will you just stop going on about it!"
     "What were you thinking, John? You've made a complete spectacle of us in front of the neighbours!"
     "YOU were the one who asked me to go back to the car to get the milk!"
     "Well I didn't know that YOU were in nothing but your underpants! Seriously John, this has got to stop now.  You're going too far!"
     "Why can't you understand that I'm just taking precautions to protect us all, Daisy?  Even that police officer understood, once I'd explained it."
     "He might have agreed to let you off with a caution John, but he looked totally unamused. They've got enough to be doing at the moment without dealing with idiots who parade around in their undercrackers IN BROAD DAYLIGHT!"
     "For the last time, I did not parade! If anything, I dashed."
     "You can sort lunch. I'm going for a sunbathe in the garden. Around the BACK of the house.  Suitably clothed in my shorts and t shirt!"
   
The weather was fantastic. Because the twins, had started whinging about not being able to visit my parents and their hot tub, John blew up and filled the paddling pool for them.  I felt something tug deep in my stomach, as I noticed how their long limbs pretty much spanned the full length of the pool.  Only last year,  the two of them had seemed so natural, splashing about in it; now they seemed so grown-up and ever-so-slightly out of place. Cleo joined me on the patio, bringing her copy of 'The Hunger Games' with her. So it hadn't been merely a prop used to conceal her secret rendezvous with Callum!  I smiled inwardly.
     She joined me in the sporadic scolding of John, throughout the day.  "God, Dad! I'm just grateful that no one I know lives in this cul-de-sac.  I'd just never be able to go out again if anyone at school found out about it! The amount of times that you've complained about me going out scantily clad !"  
She did a little impression of John when she said the last two words.
     I giggled.  "That's really good, that. You sound just like him! Thank God we have a back garden that we can hide away in, that's all I can say.  I've never been so grateful for self-isolation.  At least it means we don't have to face the neighbours for weeks!"
     "Mum ….. it's Thursday," said Cleo, peering over the top of her sunglasses.  "It's the clapping tonight.  We have to go out for the clapping!"
     "Bloody hell, John!  It's going to be mortifying!" I pulled my sunhat right down over my eyes so that I didn't have to look at him fiddling with his pump.

I made sure that I handed out the pots and wooden spoons myself this week.  I dug out all the old, burnt out, buckled ones that only came out at Christmas when I had to cook twenty six different kinds of vegetable.  The kids threw themselves into it, making an almighty row.  They were probably getting a lot of pent-up noise and energy out of their systems. I suppose I handled the pot quite aggressively myself.
     Much as I appreciated the opportunity to take my anger out on a piece of kitchenware, those two minutes seemed never-ending to me.  I felt every eye in the cul-de-sac upon us.  How many people exactly had seen John prancing around in his underpants, and had the word spread to those who hadn't? What if the whole cul-de-sac were at this moment getting an eyeful of the perv at number 18?  Was it my imagination, or was Grumpy Aging Biker across the road smirking?
     "Nice evening!" Margaret called out as the clapping began to ease.
     "Yes. Lovely!" John called back.
     "Lovely, Margaret," I agreed.
     "Nice to see everyone out in their driveways!" shouted Gordon. "We don't see enough of our neighbours these days." He put a protective arm around Margaret and they went inside.
     I glared at John. "Well, I hope you're satisfied! Get in kids!" I said, stomping into the house.
     "What have I said now?"
     "Well isn't it obvious?  Gordon made a point of mentioning the driveway which is where you were strutting your stuff.  Then there was that comment about not seeing enough of their neighbours! It was obvious what he meant!"
     "I think you're reading too much into it now, Daisy!"
     "Oh do you? Do you now?  Stand back, John.  I need a bloody drink!"
     "Stop being so dramatic, Daisy!"
     "Dramatic? The way things are going, I'll be drinking neat whiskey out of this pan by the time this lockdown is over!"
   


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