The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike) Part 1291 by Angharad Copyright © 2011 Angharad All Rights Reserved.

“They’re now suggesting tens of thousands of people have lost their lives in Japan.” Simon came out to the kitchen after watching the news, “and it looks like they’ve got three power stations in melt down.”

“I’m not surprised at the casualties, I saw the film of the wave breaking over one of the towns–it was compelling, like the video of the World Trade Centre attack–at the same time horrifying. Those poor people.”

“Frightening when nature gets going–and we think we can control it.”

I nearly fell of my chair, this was a banker talking–he only knows there are such things as dormice because (a)his nanny read him, Alice in Wonderland, (b) his wife made a film of them–oh, and he did get shot while out counting them.

“We can’t even control the bank rate,” I offered back to him and he looked aghast at me.

“I had a dormouse come in for a loan the other day,” he said obviously trying to get my attention–I was at my computer.

“Now I know you’re lying,” I quipped.

“Would I lie to you?”

“You just did.”

“How do you know that?”

“They’re still hibernating.”

“Are they? Must have been another sort of mouse then.”

“Mus musculus I expect.”

“Nah, it didn’t look very muscular to me.”

“It’s the name for the house mouse.”

“It didn’t seem to want a mortgage, so can’t have been one of those either.”

“Perhaps it was a wood mouse–Apodemus sylvaticus?

“Nah, I would have remembered.”

“Did it have a hairy tail?”

“Yeah, and it said meow.”

“Simon, get to the punch line.”

“The office cat came in with a dead furry thing which caused havoc amongst the girls in the office. Would you believe, I had to come and move it.”

“Almost certainly a house mouse–do you mind if I finish this?”

“Wotcha doin’?”

“Trying to do a quick analysis of the records for January.”

“I don’t know how you find the time,” he observed but didn’t go. I tried to ignore him but he persisted, “How did your talk go?”

“Better than this is.”

“Good, Trish said they gave you some flowers.”

“Seeing as you don’t bother much with doing it these days, I was quite glad to have some.”

“You told me you prefer them in the garden.”

“That was Stella, although I don’t recall her helping much to grow them.”

“That’s Stella for you, more of an end user.” He shrugged, “You’re not doing that very quickly are you?”

I’m surprised I’m not totally bald. “No, I’m easily distracted.”

“I can usually shut it out when I’m doing figure work.”

“I can’t–he keeps coming through the bloody door,” I said abandoning my task and shutting the lap top more noisily than I should have done.

“Are we going to bed then?”

“What? You distract me with news of an international disaster then stand over me while I’m trying to run an analysis–which I don’t find easy at the best of times–and then you want me to come up to bed to satisfy your urges. I’m having a cuppa before I do anything, it might just save your life.”

“Not for me thanks.” He sat down at my computer and switched it on, before I had the tea poured, he’d got into my program and was moving stuff about on the spread sheet. “Right, now that’s tidied up, what d’you want to know?”

“How did you do that so quickly?”

“I spend half my life looking at these things–what d’you want to work out.” I told him and he did it while I drank my tea–I’d been at it for over an hour, he finished it in ten minutes.

“I’m astonished, it usually takes me an hour or more to do.”

“Ah, but how much of that is data inputting?”

“No, an hour after I’ve put all the data in.”

“Why?”

“Because I don’t have your skill with spreadsheets.”

“Okay, next month, you put the data in and I’ll do your analysis.”

I offered him my hand, “Deal,” instead of shaking it he kissed it, then began kissing the palm and then moved up my arm, kissing me up to my elbow before grabbing me into a clinch where he kissed me on the mouth. A few minutes later we went up to bed holding hands and–you don’t want the sordid details.

“Did the cat bring in a dead mouse then?”

“Yeah, only it was last week–I wanted you to move from your computer because I could see you were struggling.”

“Why didn’t you just say so?”

“You’d have accused me of not understanding what you were doing.”

“I wouldn’t have,” I said in disbelief.

“Yes you would, you were just number crunching, so it doesn’t matter if you’re doing numbers of polecats or Euros or even polecats with Euros, it’s just numbers.”

“I know–I just hate maths.”

“It isn’t maths, it’s spreadsheets, maths is about integration or looking at the angle of the curve you produce. This is simple.”

“For you–but then men are better at numbers than women, we’re better at word skills.”

“Only ‘cos you never shut up–and the best analyst we have is a woman, so don’t fall back on stereotypes, most of this stuff is because you weren’t taught the basics properly.”

“Probably, but we had a maths teacher who was only interested in the brighter kids.”

“You got a first didn’t you?”

“Only because I slaved at my dissertation for three bloody months–every night I was at it until one or two in the morning, and I’d done the same with my assignments. The fact that I’d been allocated dormice ecology as my subject made it an almost enjoyable slog.”

“I had to do something on the futures market–could have been worse I suppose.”

“Did you have to clean up the dead mouse?”

“No, I sent for the bloody caretaker, that’s his job and because it was his scrawny moggie who caused the ruckus, I thought it was fair enough.”

“I sometimes wonder if I’d like another cat.” I remembered fondly the one we’d had when I was a child.

“You can if you like, I’m sure Tom won’t mind as long as it doesn’t dig up too many of his seed beds.”

“I don’t know, cats seem always drawn to crossing busy roads even when they have acres of ground to hunt in on this side of the road.”

“Yeah, they have no road sense–a bit like the average cyclist. Ouch, was there any need to squeeze me there?” I took my hand from his groin.

“The average cyclist is far less dangerous than the average motorist.”

“Only because they’re using smaller weapons,” he replied.

“They’re also travelling slower and more integrated with their environment, not locked into a metal box with music pounding louder than the blowing exhaust.”

“You’re more a motorist than a cyclist these days.”

“Necessity,” I said quietly.

“Isn’t that the invention of mothers, or something.”

“Or something–like the mother of invention, perhaps?”

“Nah, I prefer my version.”

“Yeah, you would,” I said snuggling down with him and drifting off to sleep.