I sat in the traffic on the motorway. I yawned and felt my eyes fill with tears. I was late. All my good intentions from the night before had come to naught. After cuddling with Simon, his sweet nothings and manual dexterity wore down my resistance and he had his wicked way. Oh, I enjoyed it as well, so I shouldn’t complain too loudly, but it was nearly two before I got to sleep and I was a bit sore when I woke up and showered. I left him instructions to strip the bed and wash the bedding–however, he was still lying in them, half asleep, when I told him. I left him begrudging him every minute of his lie-in.

The traffic moved a little and I could see the problem, a truck which had thrown off half of one of its tyres, the police were in attendance. I waited my turn for another eight or nine minutes before I got past the obstruction and drove like a maniac to Hartpury House and my class.

Despite the congestion, I was only five minutes late and they were all busy chatting. The class were mainly women, outnumbering the men by a factor of three. As I yawned, I wanted to curse all men as tricksters only after one
thing. If it had been a class of women only, I might have done that, but with some men in attendance, it wouldn’t be a good idea, or a good ideal, as they say in Brissle.

I apologised for showing my tonsils–yes, I still have them–and got on with the registration and the lesson. We did some more ecological systems, the rainforest and the ocean. Then it was lunch. It was quite interesting that two of the class had been to a tropical rainforest in Amazonia. Their descriptions, especially of the birds of paradise and their weird calls, made me want to pack up and head for South America after lunch.

After lunch we looked at the ecology of broadleaf woodland and that of the littoral zone–not something that occurs in libraries, but the seashore. My slides of dormeece and starfish got some oohs and ahs, until I pointed out the crown of thorns starfish, was doing enormous damage to coral reefs–not quite the seashore, but it always pays to show that nature is red in tooth and starfish, and not as innocent as we like to think–which of course is anthropomorphising it as well, so I’m a total hypocrite.

Our mini field lesson was looking around the edge of the woods near the Centre, in fact in the grounds of the house. At last I was in my own element, European broadleaf woodland. I knew most of the trees, the birds, the mammals and many of the flowers, grasses and mosses. The larger ferns I recognised and some of the fungi, so I was able to answer most of the questions they had. We looked at succession and climax woodland–not somewhere you had your first erotic experience, but a woodland of oak or beech, sometimes ash.

We stayed late, no one seemed interested in going home as I showed them how the woodland worked as a system, how plants now dying back under the canopy of the trees had grown quickly in the early spring, flowered and produced seed and started the cycle again, waiting for the first warm spring days and the absence of leaves on the trees.

I showed them how some trees protect themselves and their territory, a black walnut had nothing growing within yards of its trunk. It poisons the ground, so nothing much can survive there, secreting toxins from its roots.

At six, over an hour late, I prised myself away from my class and set off for home. Of course I caught the end of the rush hour, so it was nearly eight when I got home–more than twelve hours after leaving it. As I sat in the traffic, I did wonder what Simon, Stella and Tom had got up to in my absence.

It seemed they all rose late and then worked off their guilt by doing chores. Tom tidied my garden, Simon washed the cars and Stella did the laundry, including my bedding which Simon had stripped from the bed. It was dry when I got home and Stella had even ironed it, something I didn’t bother with. Simon and she were putting it back on my bed when I arrived home. I felt like climbing straight in and going to sleep–instead, Tom told us all to get tidied up and he’d treat us to dinner.

I didn’t really fancy cooking, at the same time, I didn’t really want to go out either. I was very tired, however, the others wouldn’t allow me to cop out. So reluctantly, I washed and changed into a skirt and top and went out to dinner with them. Considering how funny such company had been in the past, it seemed rather sad, to me at any rate, that we were all so subdued. I kept yawning and having to wipe tears away, I was also sniffing quite a bit, enough for Simon to ask if I had any tissues with me. We ended up arguing and not speaking for the rest of the evening.

When we got home, they all decided to have a drink–I went straight to bed and was asleep before Simon came up. I was aware of someone getting into my bed but didn’t really wake. The next morning, when I did wake, I was surprised to see it was Stella who was lying next to me.

I slipped out and showered, coming back to the bedroom to dress. A sleepy Stella looked at me with bleary eyes. “Hi,” she said.

“Hi, where’s Simon?”

“He grabbed my bed, sent me to sleep with you.”

“Why?”

“He said he was in your bad books.”

“What’s new?”

“As he said he conned you into sex the night before, he didn’t think you’d want him near you, last night.”

“Oh, how does he think we’re going to cope when we’re married?” I realised what I’d said after the words left my mouth.

Stella didn’t pick up on it, so I said nothing more about it. “You know what he’s like, weasels out of things he doesn’t fancy, and confronting a strong, irritable woman is one of those he doesn’t fancy.”

“So who’s that then?”

“Who’s what?”

“The strong, irritable bowel, I mean woman.”

“You are, silly.”

“Oh–hey, who’s irritable?”

“You were last night.”

“Was I? I was very tired.”

“You were, besides, I didn’t fancy sleeping alone.”

“So are you irritable woman, proof?”

She laughed, “I didn’t mean it like that–you know what a coward Simon is when it comes to confronting women?”

“Sort of,” I shook my head. “I have to go and get some breckies and get off to work, I’m taking them off on a field trip today.”

“What sort?”

“Ecology of woodland and some limestone meadowland. Tomorrow it’s river systems, oh and a canal.”

“Sounds nice, can I come tomorrow?”

“I don’t see why not, there may be room on the minibus. I’ll ask the class. Would you be up to traipsing about all day, and having to listen to me rabbiting on and on?”

“Yeah, why not?”

“In which case, I’d love to have you if the class are happy for you to come.”

I spoke to the class at the first opportunity, they were very happy to have Stella accompany us. We drove off to a forestry area and compared the two types of habitat, looking at the commercial and ecological aspects of the place. They weren’t too impressed with the commercial growth of softwoods but when I showed them hazel coppicing, they were suitably agreeable. I wasn’t really manipulating them–well, not much.

After a pub lunch, we set off for the Doward, a hill in Herefordshire which has some traditional English, hay meadows, full of wild flowers and insects. One of the men was trying to photograph butterflies, wood whites, marbled whites, ringlets as well as meadow browns and gatekeepers. We heard several warblers singing, and were lucky to see a spotted flycatcher–a bird increasingly rare these days–and we used to get them in the garden, when I was a kid.

They all went back to the college feeling very satisfied, it had been a super day as far as the weather was concerned. I prayed it would stay the same for the next one, their last day. It seemed most of them were enjoying themselves, and so was I, this was what I was meant to do, not sit before a computer. I suppose we all have to make adjustments to cope with life.

Back at home, Stella had gone shopping with Simon, Tom had walked his dog and they were both pooped, so after a cuppa, I sat on the sofa and went off to sleep which apparently, Tom and Kiki also did.