Easy As Strangling A Certain Cat!
by: not >^^<
part:322.

I rushed down to see my latest babies, who were doing fine, they should Spike was an experienced mother. However, I was wasting valuable time, I had so much to do. I would have preferred to stand and gawp at the wonder of new life, but I had to get some things done.

I got Pippa to reorganise my tutorial, the one I'd cancelled yesterday, to today. I also got stuck into my marking and by mid-morning I'd finished one of the tasks I'd scheduled.

I took the tutorial, which went reasonably well and an hour later I managed a tea break, even though it was nearly lunch time;needless to say, I spent it admiring our latest arrivals. The ability to give birth was something I was very envious of, even in a dormouse. I tried not to think about it, remembering my small blessings and also that there were people who were in a worse position than myself. As my gran used to say, 'The cemeteries are full of people worse than you!'

I went back up to my room and looked at the schedules for the filming next week and began to write some of the scripts we'd need. Pippa got me a roll for my lunch and I continued to work on the scripts. It was so boring, all this mundane stuff which one assumes everyone knows but the reality is, most people are as thick as two metre dense marine plywood. Do they know dormice are rodents? Maybe, but they seem to forget squirrels are. Thank goodness we weren't making a series. No stop thoughts like that, Des doesn't need any encouragement.

The idea was to film a birth of a dormeece or failing that, they don't always play ball, a very young one. Then run a programme about the development of this critter during his first year. Des already had some footage we could use which he'd bring down with him. Some would be done with infra-red film at my nesting sites - that reminded me, I needed to check things out there - some at the captive bred ones in the university, and some background stuff which he would then merge. It's all very clever stuff how they edit it all in and do the continuity.

Mid afternoon I stopped for a cuppa and a walk around, I'd done twenty pages of script and my eyes and head were aching. I went out for a walk around the campus for half an hour before I came back and did an hour's teaching on basic biology - the sort of stuff they should have done for GCSE or A-level, but in which quite a number of students were deficient.
I kept telling myself, "Never mind, the bright ones go to Oxbridge or London, we only get the also-rans."

At four thirty, Tom arrived and demanded I take him to his garage to collect his car, and then go home and cook him a splendid repast. Me and my big mouth!

After taking him to collect his ancient Landrover, I doubled back towards town and popped into a local butcher, where I purchased some venison. We had braised Bambi for dinner, with Cabernet Sauvignon. It was rather good.

I had just cleared up the debris when Simon phoned. It seemed a very long time since I'd seen him, in reality about four days, but it felt longer.

"When are you coming back?"

"Sunday, but only for a flying visit."

"Si, that is so, not-nice," I grumbled.

"Sorry, babes, the cost of oil is going through the roof and the bank needs to look at its options. The sub-prime thing is also causing us some troubles."

"I thought you were a broker?"

"Yeah, so did I, I'm also a director and the boss's son, so I have to wear several hats. If you like I could ask for a report from our ecological adviser."

"Don't you dare, I haven't got enough time to breathe now, let alone having to write reports for you lot."

"How about I get a leg of lamb for sunday?" I offered, knowing it was his favourite.

"How about I take you out to lunch?"

"What about Tom?"

"What about him?"

"We can't leave him on his own, he's like my adopted father."

"Okay, I'll book for three. I hope he doesn't get to sleep with us after."

"There is no need to be vulgar," I said in my most priggish voice.

"You sound like my grandma."

"A handbag!" I said in my best Lady Bracknell voice.

"Oh don't!" he responded, "too many repressed memories."

After he rang off, I felt very alone. Tom was in his study beavering away, like he did most evenings. He was certainly worth his salary. I read through some of the scripts and some of it got the blue pencil treatment.

I checked my emails and found one from the police, could I call by sometime soon and talk to them about our intruder? I wondered if it would all be quite as informal as they sounded. I'd ring them in the morning. However, what I felt I desperately needed was a decent bike ride, but when? That was the problem and the weather didn't seem to be intent on helping.

So much to do and so little time, at least I didn't get bored.