Easy As Getting Back From My Party.
by: Angharad Houdini.
part 140 + dozen.

The drive back to Bristol was as tedious as ever, it always seems that way when you don't feel in the mood for delays. The problem with motorways is that they are fast when they are moving, when they are slow, they become stationary. The latter happened three times, at one point I was sat for ten minutes without moving an inch.

I sat yawning and listening to the car radio, mostly radio four, which is primarily talk radio, news and drama and documentary. There was something on about pandas and I suddenly fancied going to China to see them in the wild. Then I remembered some picture I saw on the internet of a domestic cat in a Chinese market, whose fate was to be killed and eaten. How can they eat moggies? That would be worse than eating dormice, I shuddered as I thought about it, and the pandas lost their appeal.

I called in Morrisons on the way in to Bristol and after filling up the tank, which almost required a mortgage, I did some shopping for food as well and crawled into the house about half past one, exhausted.

I defrosted some soup I'd frozen and also some bread, and got them ready to take to my dad. I meanwhile ate a pasty I'd bought in the supermarket, as much for quickness as anything else.

I changed into something more presentable and slapped on some makeup, then I tidied up my hair and swapped the cars over, taking my little Mercedes to the hospital. It felt so small after the bigger Ford.

Daddy was pleased to see me and ate his soup and bread without a murmur. He also seemed happy to listen to me explaining how things were for me. I showed him the ring and he called the nurses to see it. They oohed and ahhed quite a lot, so I suspect they were suitably impressed. Certainly Daddy appeared to be, especially when I told him that it had been modelled around Mum's jewellery. He kept telling me that Simon was a 'vood ban.' It sounded like some decree from Brussels, but I discovered it meant, good man. I wasn't going to disagree.

Eventually I got home and fixed myself something to eat after setting up the bread machine, and putting a load of laundry in the washer. I do love the glamorous female role, yeah, don't I just!

I had just sat down with a cuppa when Simon rang, he'd seen the physio who said he could start driving again in a few days depending upon doing his exercises. That was incentive enough, I could see him driving Stella up the wall rather than out in the car, plus she was going to resent giving up the Saab for her old banger.

He told me he was going to get her a newer car for Christmas, but not to tell her, because he was going to enjoy the month's wind up first. I am really surprised that either of them has lived as long as they have, I half expect to come one day and find they have killed each other. I hope they are insured.

He told me that the markets were very volatile and he'd lost five million by lunch but had recouped it all by tea and turned in a profit of another million, this time playing with oil and gas markets. I had no idea how he could do any of this, the stress must be horrid, coping with what I had to do now, was bad enough.

I checked my emails, there was nothing that needed urgent action, thank goodness. Finally, I changed and went to bed, and this time I zonked in no time. In my handbag were some earplugs I'd bought in the supermarket pharmacy, I was ready for Simon next time.

The next morning, I was still eating my toast when Stella called. "Hi Sis, your appointment with Michael is next monday at three o'clock."

"What, oh my goodness, I'll not get anywork done that day at this rate."

"It is your birthday, dear."

"Oh hell yes, but that is three appointments now. Two quacks and a nutty academic."

"Four if you count dinner with Simon, John and me."

"Oh no, I'll be as fat as a pig."

"Get the bike out girl, burn some carbs."

"Yeah, I wish."

"Why can't you?"

"I have to see them at the university then make some food for my dad and go and see him."

"Why can't you go on the bike to the university?"

"I've got to take my laptop with me."

"Haven't you got a rack and saddle bags?"

"On my road bike!" I screeched, "That's like holding a drugs party in a cathedral, it's sacrilege."

"Oh, I was just trying to help."

"Yes I know. I have to do a presentation to them, I suppose I could download it to a disc and just take that. I could I supose."

"Do you absolutely need your lappie?"

"No it's just the way I've always done it."

"Well now's the time to try something different Sis."

"I'd better not go in cycling kit."

"Is that the yellow one, we replaced?"

"No that's in my room, this one is a GB racing team copy."

"Ooh, I'll bet that's pretty."

"It is actually, red white and blue, but not for a presentation. I'd need to take a change of shoes, possibly clothes. Nah, it's all too much bother, I'll take the car."

"Hypocrite," she snapped.

"What do you mean?" I felt very defensive and hurt by her attack.

"Well you're doing all this stuff about global warming and using a car when a bike would do."

"Okay, I'll go by bike and do the presentation in cycling skins, happy?"

"Don't be like that, I'm just your conscience, like the cricket in Pinochio."

"Sure, I can see your nose growing from here."

"It's like these international agreements to cut CO2, it takes a hundred jumbo jets to ferry all the government odd-bods, and they can't agree anyway, having put thousands of tons of muck into the air for no reason."

"You won your point Stella, leave out the overkill. I'll go by bike, but I need to get ready because it takes longer."

"Oh okay."

"Thanks for organising the appointment with your friend, I do appreciate it."

"That's okay, see you on saturday, which may be the last time you need to baby sit anyway, if he can drive again. I'm back to work on monday, so he can do the same."

I did my disc and got it and the other stuff I'd need into a small backpack I had used before with the bike. I'd also arranged to take the bike into the office to keep it safe, I wasn't going to lose it twice.

I cycled in a top and jeans, with a cycling jacket on top of that. It wasn't the most comfortable gear, but it worked and I got there safely and in good time.

Bob Smart, my liaison, was impressed that I'd cycled. "I try to practice what we're preaching here." Ever the hypocrite, but with Stella's coaching, I was getting better by the day.

The presentation was to about thirty or forty students and teachers who were running the survey. We at Portsmouth had agreed a system with Natural England and their counterparts in Scotland and Wales. This had been backed by government, so it was how things were going to be done.

I'd contributed a small part to the original draft, and Prof Agnew had included some of my survey work. Now I was selling it, like a politician on the stump. Talk about change of role, this was bigger than my gender change, coming from being a backroom boy to a front line girl.

I know I got some stares from the men in the audience, they were expecting a professor and instead of the organ grinder, here was the monkey!

Bob introduced me and pointedly asked how many had arrived by car. All but two had. He then told them, I had cycled, practising what we were all preaching. I reckoned I'd saved about a couple of grams of CO2. One cow fart would neutralise that, but I suppose his point was to get them thinking.

Then it was my bit, oh boy, was I nervous and sweating more than I did on the bike. I went through the chapter and verse, then fended questions.

"Where is Professor Agnew?"

"He's unavailable," countered Bob.

"Yeah, playing golf, while we get his saturday girl."

I decided to intervene. "Yeah, that's about it. I didn't write the protocol for the system, that was Prof Agnew with a colleague. I did however, prove the system, it's based on my survey techniques, which we've honed over two years. The interim results have been published in the Journal of the Mammalian Society, and therefore peer reviewed. So I'm not quite the saturday girl, Girl Friday, perhaps.

Professor Agnew can't be with us today because he was attacked and stabbed while trying to disarm someone who had a mental breakdown and threatened one of his students with a knife. He is recovering and hopes to be back in harness again by New Year."

"Miss Watts, how do you know that what works with dormice, a relatively sedentary species, will work with say, foxes and badgers?"

"We've tried it, so have you. One of your leading Professors has used my system and found it worked in these larger mammals, it's also been piloted with roe deer."

"What do you need us for then?" called some wag from the back.

"Several reasons, firstly, my expertise is with rodents, particularly the Common Dormouse, you are all experts in your own specific area, either of geography or species. Nothing is written in tablets of stone, but we need to make any tweaks to the system pretty quickly. This is going Europe wide, or at least EC wide within two years, and unlike the politicians, we are going to be a major factor in controlling it. This is the biggest survey ever undertaken in Europe, having mention of it on your CVs is going to be very useful. Finally, I can't get everywhere on my bike, so I have to ask you to get on yours."

The combination of kudos and humour seemed to work and I got a standing ovation. I was nearly in a swoon after what seemed like a hostile period. Then several came up and chatted with me afterwards.

"Well Batgirl, I think you sold it as well if not better than Tom would have done. If you'd come in in your riding lycras, they'd have hung on every movement and gesture and not taken on board one word of it. So you'd have had loads of emails tomorrow. Good job done, I'll make sure Tom gets to hear."

"Thank you, but don't make it too glowing, or he'll send me instead of doing his share."

"Okay I won't, how about some lunch?"

"I can't I'm afraid Professor I have to dash back and see my dad in hospital. If he knows I'm in town, he won't eat hospital food, I have to cook something for him."

"That sounds like hard work."

"It is, but he knows if I cooked it or not. I even have to make the bread, using one of those machines."

"Yeah, they're really good, my daughter has one. It used to be ours but we were eating too much bread, so we gave it to her."

I made my goodbyes and rode home as fast as I could, to make him a sandwich and then dash off to the hospital, in the car and wearing a skirt.

''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''

I did make it back and here are the results. Let's hear your excuses for not writing comments.