The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike) Part 1794 by Angharad Copyright © 2012 Angharad All Rights Reserved.

Simon practically threw me off him and we both rolled into a sitting position and I felt the warmth of a blush come from somewhere near my toes.

“The look on your faces,” mocked our discoverer. I bent down and reaffixed my shoe to my foot which had fallen off during our romantic interlude.

“Why aren’t you working?” challenged Simon.

“Your dinner is cooking, the kids are all well and being supervised by Stella and Sammi, while Jacquie does some cleaning.”

“So what are you doing here, David?” I asked.

“I thought I’d park the car and take a wander along the front, get a bit of fresh air before going back to finish the dinner.”

“What is for dinner?” asked Simon.

“Better ask her ladyship, she’s the one who asked me to cook it.”

Simon turned his gaze to me, “Well, your ladyship, what are we having for dinner?”

“Steak and kidney pudding,” I said and David nodded.

“You’re joking?” Simon said in surprise.

David and I both shook our heads.

“Oh that is brilliant–I’ve been asking Cathy to do it for ages–I love steak and kidney pud.”

David shrugged, “No biggy,” he said, adding, “What happened to the court case.”

“They chickened and settled out of court,” Simon said standing up, then my dippy bloody lawyer gave the money away to charities.”

“Oh–much was it?” David asked.

“Fifty K.”

“Oh, oh well, you’ll have some nice letters from the charities.”

I sniggered.

“It’s not funny, Cathy,” Simon berated me but that only make me laugh even more.

“What’s so funny?” David looked bemused.

“I got to decide the charities,” I managed to get out before going into a full blown giggle fit.

“Eh?” Now David was completely lost.

“I told Martin, my dopey counsel to ask Cathy about charities hoping she’d stall him and we could choose ones where we’d get some advantage.”

David didn’t look impressed.

“She gave it to a children’s home and bloody dormice.”

“Oh,” said David.

“I suggested half go to the home from which we derived Danny, Trish and poor old Billie; and the other half to go to the Mammal Society for education purposes.”

“Sounds fine to me,” David shrugged again as if to ask what was Simon making the song and dance about. “I’d best get on with my walk then get back to finish the pudding.” We said goodbye and he strode off towards Southsea.

“You really asked him to do steak and kidney?” Simon said almost rhetorically.

“I told you I did.”

“Thanks, babes,” he said kneeling down to kiss me and the next moment was lying on top of me and my wretched shoe came off again.

About twenty minutes later we drove home and the children made quite a fuss of us. “How’d it go?” asked Stella.

“Out of court settlement,” Simon said over the noise of the girls greeting me.

“Oh well, you can buy me a new coat,” Stella beamed at him.

“No I can’t, bloody Martin’s sending it to two charities.”

“Okay, you be one of them and I’ll be the other,” Stella really did have a peculiar sense of humour.

“She gave him two charities,” he nodded at me.

“Cathy, you didn’t?” Accused Stella.

“Yes, look it wasn’t my fault, you told me to give him the name of a couple of charities–so I did.”

“You were supposed to stall,” Simon berated me again.

“Serves you bloody right, I told you I didn’t want to go in the first place.” I stormed out of the room and up to my bedroom to change out of the suit.

“Why you cwoss wiv Daddy?” asked Mima following me into the bedroom.

“Because he’s accusing me of things I didn’t do.”

“Naughty Daddy.”

“Not really, Meems, he just doesn’t think sometimes, or imagines I can read his mind.”

“I wike him when he gives me chocwate.”

“I think we all do, Meems.”

“Daddy is nice.”

“Mostly, Meems, but occasionally he gets things wrong and then blames someone else, usually me.”

“Dat’s wong,” she declared loudly.

“No, that’s Daddy.”

“Of what am I declared guilty without a chance to address the court?”

“Too late, the lions have been released, buster.”

“I’m innocent, Mima–you believe me don’t you?”

“Siwwy Daddy,” was her estimation.

She pushed past him and out of the room.

“What was that all about?” he asked.

“That was female solidarity,” I beamed and he groaned.

I changed into my working clothes and I left Simon lying back on the bed in his underpants.

“Wanna carry on where we left off at Southsea castle?” he patted the bed alongside him.

“No thanks, I’ve got to email Martin.” Well, seeing him lying there in his boxers did very little to rekindle the flame that had been extinguished by David and the onshore breeze. Simon groaned at my statement.

I went down and made myself and the other adults a cup of tea before checking the water in the steamer–it was fine–David certainly knew what he was doing. I then went to send the email to Martin and check on the survey–we get loads of strange reports during the summer holidays when townies think they’ve seen the black beast of Bodmin in East Anglia and to prove it send me an out of focus picture of a domestic cat.

Sure enough, I had one of some sort of newt I think, and the sender was asking if it was a baby crocodile. I wrote back suggesting he ask a reptile expert, I was recording mammals. An hour later, he wrote back snottily that he hoped it was a baby croc and it ate loads of my precious mammals. I thanked him for his time and suggested he saw his optician if he couldn’t tell an amphibian from a crocodilian.
The final leg in this stupidity was him declaring, ‘I am an optician and I’ve never been so insulted in my life.’ I suspected he’d get over it, especially when someone accused him of fraud over the cost of spectacles frames–which are a total rip off.

I had a nice photo of a red squirrel sent me but no mention of where it was seen and I don’t chase these up unless they are something really special, and I suspected this was from Brownsea Island or the Isle of Wight, where red squirrels still survive their invasive American cousins.

I closed down the computer as Danny arrived home, he ran upstairs to his room before I could say, hello or anything else. That was so unlike him, so I followed a few minutes behind. He was lying face down on his bed and I thought I could hear sobbing.

I tapped on his door and entered, “What’s the matter, son?” I asked as I walked towards him.

“Nothing,” he sniffed.

“Got a cold have you?” I played dumb.

“Hay fever,” he replied sniffing.

I sat on the edge of the bed after closing the door–no need for an audience. “Why don’t you tell me about it.”

“I’m alright,” he said still burying his face in the bedclothes.

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah, ’course.”

“Look at me and say that,” I asked firmly.

“I’m okay, leave me in peace.”

“Danny, look at me.”

“Go away,” he said and I heard sniffs again.

“Not until you talk to me face to face.”

“Go away.”

“Danny,” I said firmly and pulled his arm partly turning his body.

The face that confronted me was tear stained and sporting a very nasty black eye on his other eye, not the one that supposedly hit the handle bars. “Happy now?” he almost shouted at me and burst into tears again.