Stay at home Sleepover

Stay at Home Sleepover  ©

By Michael Casey

Last night my girls had a stay at home sleepover, were they too lazy to visit their friends, or was it the usual Casey inspired comedy? A bit of both I suppose, as the 2016 Olympics are on and they have been staying up late to watch them.  So the girls fetched their duvets from upstairs and spread out on the sofas in the living room. Totoro thought this was fun and snuggled up under the duvet of daughter number two. Meanwhile daughter number one stretched out under her duvet on the larger sofa. As for me I was exiled to a corner sat on a hard wooden chair, though the girls did throw me a cushion to sit on.

The last of the chocolate was eaten by them, and I consoled myself with a drink of hot Horlicks, Totoro the cat just snored beneath the duvet. We watched the Olympics on tv and wondered did the bike riders have paper rounds to make a bit of pocket money for sweets,  it would be good training after all, killing two birds with one stone. Laura Trott having to deliver 700 newspapers a week, as part of her part time job.

 Obviously she can’t do this all the time, there are tournaments and Gold medals to win after all. So when she is busy she gets Sir Bradley to do her paper round for her, and if he is too busy then Sir Chris does the honours, they are like a family after all, and Sir Chris is the least busy after all, besides he wouldn’t want to get a fat arse with too much commentating, so he’d jump at the chance to deliver 700 newspapers a week.

Now  to speed things along the bike riders need to learn who to fling those newspaper onto those porches as they hurtle past, Sophie Hitchon has just won bronze at the hammer so she of course gives expert lessons to the bike brigade, so the newspapers land on the porch in just the right place. This is of course cross training,  once fully trained the bikers will also be able to hurl their bikes back on the rack too, just like in fairy tales where everything happens as if by magic. It’s all about running rings around the opposition, running Olympic rings around the opposition.  Nigel Farage claims credit for it, but it’s nothing to do with him, ask  Jimminy Cricket sat on his top lip.

Back home in our living room, my girls were enjoying their late night at the Olympics, so I went to bed after making sure everywhere was locked up first. Upstairs I opened my bedroom window as we were having a minor heatwave. It was too hot to sleep, I could hear the tv downstairs, about 2am the synchronised elephants climbed the stairs, no not a metaphor for the gymnasts , nor that Dutch doctor who fell of the swing thing, my girls my very own elephants. They decided it was too hot downstairs so they climbed the stairs, or rather invaded them judging them by the news. The cat ran up after them sounding like a mad bell ringer, Totoro has a bell on her collar so we know where she is.

With a leap and a bound Totoro was along the landing and did a vault to and through my open bedroom window into the roof outside. She only got 7.5 for artistic impression si she won’t be in the contention for a medal. Then we all grabbed a torch and shone them on her in the dark of the night, my  small daughter was tempted  to climb out the window after our escapologist cat. I persuaded her to go outside into the night instead while me and her big sister held the cat transfixed in the light of the torches.

Small daughter managed to get out the back door before the cat scarpered into the jungle of back gardens, then as she scrunched paper, Totoro is a writer’s cat after all, so loves the sound of paper, especially if its money. Then small daughter leapt, just like the girl did in that race, instead of running over the line. Though in our case you have to be careful not to be garrotted by the washing line in the dark, anyway Totoro was brought back inside the house by 2.20am. As for our neighbours they thought a UFO had landed, what with the torches and lights moving about, why Aliens spoke Chinese probably mystified them too. But if you have a bilingual cat only Chinese is strict enough to scold naughty cats. Miaow

So today, Totoro has been told to write out 1000 lines, and what did Totoro  say to this?

Do you want it in English or Chinese? Then she said On your bike, I’m not doing that.