Easy As Falling Under A Bus.
by:Angharad Llaw Euraid.(see The Mabinogion)
part: 153.

At the hospital, Dad played up. He wouldn't eat his sandwich and he wanted to go to the pub. I didn't. I was tired and I had work to do. When I told him I was expecting to go for surgery around New Year, he got quite cross with me.

"Why are you doing this to me, you knew what was going to happen once I told you? I am not playing at this, this," I pointed at myself, "What you see is what you get."

He didn't want to discuss it. But I did.

"You seemed to accept that I was going to marry Simon, but you didn't contemplate I was going to have to alter something first? Did you think I was joking about Simon?" I played with my engagement ring.

"Daddy, this ring is real, it's probably worth over a thousand pounds knowing Simon, I don't know and sometimes I'd prefer to stay ignorant. It isn't a joke, it isn't some civil partnership ceremony. I shall be married as a female to a male. I would like you to give me away - I mean, as my father at the ceremony. Would you do that?"

I looked across at him, and he was sat very still, a tear was running down his face. I didn't know what to do. I was caught in that dichotomous tension of wanting to slap him and love him at the same time. He seemed to be able to do this at the drop of a hat.

"Will you at least think about it, because if you don't I know someone who would be pleased to do it."

He glanced at me, another tear followed the first one, then he looked away.

"I'm going Daddy, I love you, but some days you make it very difficult." I stood up and walked out, I had tears of frustration in my own eyes by the time I got to my car. I didn't know if this was deliberate, or his strokes or unconscious. I suppose because I was vulnerable to him, he pushed my buttons. I did the same to him. The only difference was that he needed me, I didn't need him any more. Yet I knew I couldn't abandon him, not without him giving me great cause.

I drove home, whimpering and when I got indoors, I had a real bawling session. Of course Simon called before I'd got my breathing back to normal.

"You've been crying, what's the problem?"

"Nothing, just tiredness."

"Don't give me that, what is it?"

"Daddy played up, he wanted to go to the pub and I said ,no, I was too tired. I was going to do a whole mass of work, but I've done nothing except cry. I might as well have taken him to the damned pub."

"Let it go babes, he's probably had a naff day too. Let's face it, he doesn't do anything does he, so the highlight of his day is when you visit."

"And I let him down, is that what you're saying?"

"No, not at all. I suspect it was a miscommunication, that's all."

"Maybe. I'm exhausted, so I'm going to bed with Paddington."

"If he makes one move on my fiancee, tell him he's an ex bear!"

"Before or after the move?"

"I'll let you decide."

"I think I'll pass on that, the idea of being seduced by someone wearing a duffel coat and wellies, is just too much."

"Oh damn," he paused for effect and I half suspected what was coming, "I've just bought new ones, why do ya think I sent Paddington, to smooth the way."

"Simon, if I thought for one moment, that any of that was true, I would show you where you could stick your ring, and it would be somewhere above and between your wellies, at speed!"

"Ouch!" was his only retort.

"Before you say it, "Yes I am a cruel woman, but I meant it. I am too tired to think, so I am going to have a cuppa and go to bed. If you wake me up for any reason, then I will personally grind your bones to make my bread! Goodnight."

I unplugged the phone and went to bed. It was about eleven by the time I'd taken my makeup off, cleaned my teeth and washed. I decided I wouldn't call into the hospital on the way down to Simon's, I would give Dad some space, and take some myself. If he saw it as punishing him, tough, I didn't give a shit. I was in a no compromise mood. If someone upset me tonight, annihilation would follow, knee jerk fashion. Good job I wasn't PM or US President, because if one of our soldiers got shot in Afghanistan, the way I felt, I'd have nuked Kabul, or maybe just Southmead Hospital.

I got cross with myself for such a silly attitude, maybe I should just nuke myself, except I was too big to get in the microwave. I slipped into bed and then couldn't sleep. Life's a bitch....and then you get insomnia.

It was two thirty, the computer had just won it's first game of Scrabble, but only because it cheats. It wouldn't allow me a two letter word, then played it itself and went out. I checked out the window, it wasn't a full moon.

After another cuppa, only this time a milky coffee, I went back to bed and finally slept. I woke hearing lots of traffic noise, when I looked at the clock it was nine thirty.

I showered, packed, dressed and threw on some lippy, at half ten, I was on the road. I'd not prepared anything for my father so I went straight to the cottage as I'd planned. I felt very guilty, but I'd live.

Simon was out when I got there, he was driving his car. Fortunately Stella was there, so I unburdened to her.

"I'd just let it go Sis, it's not worth the effort of the upset. If you knew if he was playing you up deliberately, then you could take action to thwart it, because you don't, you can't. Let it go and see what happens."

How come everyone else was a better expert on my life than me? We had some more tea and I went for a walk in the garden to get some air. The garden to the cottage is large, as is the cottage, a misnomer by any standards.

Near the French windows, is a patio giving way to a lawn and flower beds. Beyond that is a pond with small fountain, one of those solar powered things. Past the pond is a vegetable patch, with some sprouts and leeks still in situ, the rest had been dug and spread with manure.

Once past the smelly element, there was a large garden shed plus compost heap and water butt, and so on. There was more lawn, then a wild bit, with apple and pear trees and a hawthorn and hazel hedge, with various other trees and shrubs growing in it. The hedge was probably ten feet high and almost as deep. I could just about see, though it, bearing in mind it was autumn/winter time. Then I saw something I could not believe.

I ran back into the house to get my camera, and called to Stella. She came rushing out, "What's the matter?" she asked thinking there was an emergency.

"Who does the garden?" I asked.

"Why?"

"Who does it?"

"An old boy called Sam, why?"

"Tell him to do minimal work on this hedge."

"He chops a bit back each spring or winter or some time, I don't know, Simon arranges it all. Why, what's the problem with the hedge?"

"It isn't a problem, see this green leaved stuff, ouch!" I pricked my finger, "this is hawthorn, very good hedging material. Properly laid, nothing will come through without armour plate. This really needs relaying, but there could be a problem."

"Oh why is that?"

"The other dominant growth here is hazel, it's been coppiced in the past by the look of things, that provides fire wood and stuff for hurdles, bean sticks and so on. It also provides catkins and hazel nuts, favoured fare of...."

"I don't know, squirrels, we get them in the garden fairly regularly. Even had one get in the house few years ago, what a mess."

"Quite, no not squirrels."

"A bird of some sort?"

"The hedge presumably gives food and shelter to dozens of birds at different times of the year. No, look there," I pointed.

"What am I supposed to see?"

"See that clump in the hawthorn?"

"Oh yes, bird's nest is it?"

"Yep, Muscardinus avellanarius, to be precise."

"What bird is that then?"

"A dormouse bird."

"What? A dormouse, we have dormice in our hedge?"

"Yes."

"Hooo-weeeh, wait till Simon finds out. How did you spot that?"

"See the footprints?"

"You can identify them from that?"

"Pretty well, plus the gnawed hazel shells, then look for the nest. there it is. The shells are jagged not round like mice eaten ones."

"Oh wow, this is brilliant, you really are an expert aren't you?"

"Sort of," I blushed.

&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&

Comments please, this was nearly lost when the site went down as I was posting it.