Easy As Catching A Cold.
by Angharad.
part:389

I snuggled down with Simon, I had missed his warm muscular body and his strong arms which were currently holding me against him. “This is nice,” I said.

“Erm, what?” he said sleepily.

“You’d nodded off. Am I that boring?”

“No, but neither were you up at five o’clock this morning.”

“Oh poor Simon,” I cooed.

“Shut up and go to sleep,” he said.

“But then you didn’t have the trauma of a disappearing dormouse and the wild goose chase to find her.”

“No, I’m not barmy enough to keep little tree rats as pets. Now go to sleep or I’ll go down and chuck her out the back door.”

“You wouldn’t dare, would you?” The second part of my remark was said very quietly.

“Not if you go to bloody sleep, now shut up and sleep.”

“Simon,” I sniggered, “do you want to do it again?”

“Oh no,” he groaned, “let me rest.”

“It’s okay, I was only joking,” I was too sore anyway and I might want to cycle tomorrow as I strove to get fit again.

I was so unused to much company in bed, that it took me a while to relax. Also, Simon was so warm, it was like lying against a medium hot radiator. So after a while, we ended up lying back to back, it was cooler that way.

At five o’clock, Simon’s watch alarm went off and he staggered out of bed. “Can’t you call in sick?” I said loudly as he went to the loo.

“’Fraid not, besides they know where I am, and I don’t want Dad on the phone playing hell, things are tough at the moment in finance. Are you going to run me to the station?”

“No I’m not going to run to the station, I might cycle or take the car, but I don’t think I could run that far.”

“Ha ha, very funny. Now get out of that bed and put the kettle on for your lord and master.”
“Lord and what?” I squealed with laughter.

“Can you get me a towel, please?”

I rolled out of bed and got him a towel from the airing cupboard. He was in the shower. I did the necessary and went to fill the kettle. I was making him coffee when he arrived downstairs. He kissed me, then took a sip of coffee — “Um, thanks, Love; oh that feels better.”

“What do you want for breakfast?” I asked him.

“A bit of toast will do, I’ll get something on the train.”

“You’ll pay through the nose for it.”

“So? The bank can pay, I’ve come down to see their ecology expert.”

“They aren’t going to sack me then?”

“Nah, Tom told Dad that you would probably be doing work for the university here, and also for the Dept of the Environment. He was happy with that, especially as Tom said you were still doing your PhD.”

That could prove difficult, but I didn’t say so to Simon. Losing my study group was too bad.

“A penny for them.”

“I was just thinking how much I’d miss my study group.”

“Yeah, Tom was on about setting up a system to organise that. He still wants you to supervise the dormouse colonies and analyse the data. It’s still your students who are collecting it.”

“I’ll talk to him sometime. I ordered broadband for here yesterday, it’ll will take a few days.”

“Oh good, get a bundle with free calls and things.”

“Look, eat your toast and shut up.”

“I don’t get much chance to talk to my fiancée these days.”

“You could have talked with me last night but…”

“I was shagged out.” He said this and we both fell about laughing. “I’ve always wanted to say that and mean it.”

“No stamina–men these days.” I said casually.

“You try it after working a twelve hour day.”

“Simon, I can’t.”

“Why, cause you’re not working?”

“Simon, in case you were still asleep last night when we were erm–you know what–I have a space where you have dangly bits, admittedly, purpose built for the receipt of such bits.”

“God, you take me so literally.”

“I do or the Almighty does?”

“You. Geez, we’re going to be late, come on Fanny-Annie, get me to the church on time.”

“Eh?” I gasped.

“The station, or it’ll be a trip to London in your People’s Wagon.”

“No way, Jose. You’ll make your train.”

I kept my word, he did get to the station in time to catch his train. He looked a bit pale when we got there and was muttering something about ‘driving with Stella’. I kissed him goodbye, and drove home. Spike had eaten a big lump of the bread.

I had my breakfast cereal and fed Spike a couple of nuts. I needed to keep handling her if I wanted her to remain comfortable being touched by humans. I thought back to the number of people who had handled her, it was quite a list. She’d only bitten Neal because he touched her babies. She’d nearly had a nervous breakdown when that awful child, Jemima, shrieked at her, but otherwise she was quite good. Unless I counted the two occasions she’d used my blouse as a latrine.

After my little cuddle with Spike, I changed and got the bike out. I was hammering up a hill on the downs when a familiar voice called. “Cathy, Cathy Watts, wait for me.”

I chose to ignore it, at least until I’d finished the climb. I was seated on a bench at a viewpoint when he caught me up. I’d almost got my breath back too.

“That was mean.”

“Mean? Who says so?”

“I do, you know I’m slower than you up hills.”

“I’m not as fast as I was.”

“How are you now?”

“Getting there, don’t know if I’ll ever get back to where I once was, but I’m gonna try.”

“Good for you. You could have told me you were in Brissle.”

“I only got here the other day, loads to do.”

“So, how long before you go back to Portsmouth?”

“I’m not.”

He gave me a curious look, “Why not?”

“They upset me and I interrupted a professor’s meeting and threatened to kill Tom.”

“You what?”

“Weren’t you listening?”

“Yes of course I was, I am simply shocked. I mean, you and he were like daughter and father.”

“We still are. I was cross with him for giving up on my dormouse project.”

“Yes, who’s going to run that now?”

“No one, well, not the breeding bit. I’ll be collecting data from my previous researchers and doing the analysis.”

“So all is not lost?”

“Not quite.”

“Good, we need to do the filming of you walking about near the nests and then do the voice over bit for the rest of the film.”

“Oh yeah, I’d nearly forgotten about that.”

“We’ll need to do some of it before the greenery gets too autumnal.”

“I think Bristol wants me to do some assessment of some sites in the Forest of Dean.”

“What, for dormice–kewl.” He smiled broadly, “We could do it there, then. I’ll need to film you catching the little buggers and weighing them, or something similar.”

“Once I’ve got the site sussed, I’ll let you know. I could do some live trapping depending on the site.”

“Yeah, that’d be good. Look, I’ve gotta shoot off, lets have dinner one night.”

“Yeah, fine–give me a call, you’ve got my numbers and email.”

He pecked me on the cheek, “See you, Cathy.” Des waved and was gone back down the hill. I glanced up at the clouds, it looked like I was going to get rather wet before I got home.