The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike, est. 2007) Part 3147 by Angharad Copyright© 2017 Angharad

---

This is a work of fiction any mention of real people, places or institutions is purely coincidental and does not imply that they are as suggested in the story.
*****

Monday morning dawned and I felt tired unsurprisingly. The thought that we lose an hour’s sleep next weekend made me feel even more tired. I decided I would go to bed earlier that night, that is Saturday, and probably won’t sleep knowing my luck.

“Are you going away for Easter?” asked Diane bringing in my first dose of caffeine in a mug, albeit from tea—if I took anything stronger I’d be twitching by lunchtime.

“Hadn’t really thought about it. Danielle could be playing football, so I’ll have to keep that in mind, but there’s also the fact that we start on exams as soon as we come back and I’m not sure going off somewhere would make it any better.”

“Oh, I thought you said you had some holiday homes.”

“The thought of trying to get a flight to Menorca over Easter and then one back—no thanks.”

“You have one on Menorca? Never been there, done Ibiza long time ago.”

“Yeah, not far from Mao, the capital.”

“I thought it was Mahon?”

“In Castilian Spanish, it probably is, in local Catalonian, it’s Mao, like the chairman.”

“They have a chairman in Menorca?”

“No you dopy dick, never heard of Chairman Mao?”

“He’s Chinese not Menorcan.”

Sometimes I wondered how she managed to find her way to the office—perhaps she has a ball of wool she unravels, or does crumbs like Hansel and Gretel.

“I know that; I didn’t say he was Menorcan.”

“You implied it.”

“No I didn’t. You were so absorbed in your normal day dream world you weren’t concentrating on what I said.”

“But I cling to every word you say, bossy professor lady thing.”

“Thing?” I squawked.

“Yeah, you know what I meant, you know boss of the world type thing.”

“I don’t know about me needing a holiday but it sounds like you need one.”

“You’re right there, this place is getting me down a bit.”

“Well use my place in Menorca, we’re not going to, unless you’d rather go to Scotland. I’m sure they could find room for you at Stanebury.”

“You’d let us use your house in Menorca?”

“Diane, are you listening to what I say at all. I just stated you could if you wanted to, but you’ll have to let me know so I can contact the woman who looks after it for us, so the pool is clean and so on.”

“That would be amazing.”

“What, getting the pool cleaned?”

“No, spending Easter there.”

“In the pool?”

“Yes—no, you know what I mean. Your villa, I presume it’s a villa?”

“Yes, with four bedrooms, so you could sleep in a different bed every three days if you like.”

“Wow.”

“Before you go completely crazy, you’d better see if you can get some flights and pray that they airlines don’t go on strike like they promised.”

“Yes, generous and nice boss lady professor thingy.” She left me in peace at last. I suppose I could go there but it’s lovely when you get there, the trip to airports and waiting around at them for hours is a pain. Bloody terrorists. If Danielle isn’t playing too much we could zip up to Scotland for a few days, that would be easier, though with the little ones and no help, I could end up busier than staying at home. I could go to Bristol, happy city, according to Trish and some useless questionnaire thing they did. Most of the people I knew who lived there were grumpy buggers at the best of times. I switched on my computer and was soon answering emails when in sailed Diane.

“Got some.”

“Got some what?”

“Flights, from Gatwick.”

“The parking will cost more than the fares.”

“Ah, we have a cousin who lives about five miles away, we can leave the car there.”

“Have you booked them?”

“Why have you changed your mind?” she looked ready to collapse into tears.

“No, I just have to tell my agent in Es Cau.”

“Agent?”

“Yes, the lady who looks after things.”

“Oh yes. I’ll leave you then.”

“Yeah, go and do some work but don’t bring me anymore,” I shouted as she disappeared through the door.

I clicked into my private emails and sent one to the Balearics. Ten minutes later I received a response that she’d provide milk and bread for our visitors if they told her which they liked. I thanked her and said I’d find out.

Diane was in a daze the rest of the day, which meant she didn’t do much more than fawn over me making cups of tea and providing a hot cross bun with one of them. Oh well, it seemed to make her day so that was good and I wasn’t using it, so why shouldn’t she?

It makes me smile when I consider that you can get hot cross buns all year round in England. They aren’t hot and most I’ve eaten seemed to be of reasonable temperament so I assume the cross must relate to the bit of dough they put on the top of the glazed bit. My point is, if you can avail yourself of HCBs all year, why not mince pies which only appear a few weeks before Christmas and disappear soon after? As I’m fat enough, I shouldn’t really eat either but we all deserve little treats don’t we.

At home I mentioned to Simon that I’d offered the house on Menorca to Diane. He looked at me aghast and said he’d offered it to a colleague as well. I felt sick. “But Diane has bought her tickets and she’s so excited, I can’t pop her balloon.”

“You’ll have to,” he said, “I told Mike he could have it last week.”

“You should have told me, it’s nominally my house after all.”

“Yeah, sorry about that.”

“Could we arrange for this Mike to go to a hotel instead?”

“You want to pay for it?”

“If I have to.” Having felt so good earlier, I now felt like poo. “In future, you must tell me if you’re planning on letting someone use it. Plus I want to go there some time this spring or summer.”

“Fine, but you must stick to the rules too.”

“I will, I’ll organise a diary which we’ll need to put any dates in.”

“Okay,” he said then added, “but it’s your house, so you’ll be the only one using it.”

“What about this Mike bloke from the bank?”

“What about him?”

“You told him he could use the house.”

“Uh not quite,” he said blushing, “I told him he could take two weeks off and he said he’d book a place in the Balearics and I happened to mention we had a place out there. Then quickly added, but it’s my wife’s and she goes there to fight crime and watch dormice.”

“Garden dormice, Eliomys, there’s an article in the Mammal Review about them.”

“Oh good,” he said sneaking out of the room.

“The next time you wind me up like that, Simon darling, it will cost you.”

“I did say sorry,” he called back quietly.

“Oh no you didn’t.”

“I’m sure I did, anyway have to make a call a moment,” he said and I heard a door shutting. Bloody coward.