The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike) Part 1610 by Angharad Copyright © 2012 Angharad All Rights Reserved.

“So, is that it, then?” I asked James.

“I’ll keep digging if you like but it’s going to get expensive and I really don’t know if I’ll find much else.”

“Why not try Buenos Aires?” asked Si.

“Sorry, I don’t want to disappear just yet.”

“Is it that dangerous?” I felt shocked.

“Not for normal tourists although their president has been trying to stir things up I hear, just because we’re replacing an old destroyer with a new one.”

“And the Duke is going to be flying a chopper about the place.”

“Duke?” asked Si.

“Yes, William Wales, Duke of Cambridge, part time chopper pilot.”

“How can he stand to leave that cracking crumpet behind for an island full of sheep–although, you did say Wales, didn’t you?” he smirked and James snorted.

“Simon, how dare you? Some of my best friends are Welsh.”

“Oh yeah, Offa’s Dyke,” snapped Stella.

“Stella, isn’t it about time you got over that?” I gave back to her.

“What’s this?” asked James.

“Nothing, a good friend of mine who happens to be gay worked with Stella for a short time and they got drunk together and she propositioned Stella who was suitably horrified and has been vigorously denying she’s gay ever since.”

“It wasn’t like that at all, your creepy friend Siá¢n was always sniffing round me.”

“She isn’t creepy.” I defended my ex-school chum.

“She’s nice,” added Julie.

“She’s okay and she’s a friend of Cathy’s, end of story.” My lord and master had spoken and for once I was quite happy with his opinion.

I thought back to my experiences with gay women, only Dilly had been a problem, so maybe I was lucky, on the other hand I wasn’t into gay women so they had nothing to fear from me or I from them. I was in competition with other heterosexual women–or would have been if I hadn’t landed Simon. These days I’d need a bigger net and winch–he seriously needs to lose some weight. Mind you, I’ve put on five pounds in the past six months, so I need to do some more exercise and less eating.

Julie who’d been sitting at the back of this group excused herself as her mobile began to emit strains of Lady Gaga. She returned a few minutes later. “Mummy, that was Phoebe, can she come down some time soon?”

I hadn’t thought of her for a long time. “I thought she was coming for Christmas, what happened?”

“Her mum wasn’t very well.”

I remembered that she’d been quite ill with cancer at one point, or at least of Neal telling me she was and he wasn’t the sort to exaggerate, except when he described me as beautiful. “Yeah, better make sure you can get the Saturday off first.”

“Oh I will, they owe me one, thanks, Mummy.” She practically skipped out of the dining room.

“I hope they don’t get themselves kidnapped again,” said Stella.

“Kidnapped?” James was suddenly interested.

“They were chased by a thug, that’s all, I went and picked them up.”

“Like hell, you rescued them in suitable Batwoman style.” Stella was always prone to exaggeration–at least as much as I was to understatement.

“Cathy, I can believe anything where you’re concerned, especially mayhem and mischief, they seem to follow you about like long lost friends.”

“Me?” I gasped, “Meeeee? Frankly I’m shocked Jim. Talk about give a girl a bad name.” My protests were dramatic and as sincere as secretions from a crocodile’s lacrimal glands.

“I have to support my wife’s assertions here,” said Simon as everyone tittered. “Nothing unusual happens while she’s present.”

“Mummy,” squealed Trish, “Mima’s fallen down the toilet.”

There was a momentary silence while everyone took this on board. “Hurry, Mummy.” Then as I left there was loud sound of laughing behind me.

“No, nothing unusual, Simon,” said James.

For some reason Mima had been standing on the toilet seat, not the cover but the actual seat and had slipped and both feet had gone down the loo and appeared to be stuck in the bit where it narrows and forms the channel which leads to the outlet.

She was crying and looked a bit shocked by the experience, which was hardly surprising. Thankfully, I’d cleaned the loo that morning, although I suspect it had been used, so I wasn’t too happy about putting my hands in the water. I sent Trish to get my kitchen gloves and she rushed back a minute later while I tried to calm Mima and Livvie stood about and generally got in the way.

Simon came to see what was going on and the boys were outside in the hallway trying to see as well. I managed to work out that one of her feet had twisted and was jammed on top of the other one trapping her. While I was trying to see how to free it, Simon came in grabbed her and with a sharp tug yanked her out, leaving her shoes behind which I then rescued.

On my suggestion he took her up to the bathroom and began to run the bath. I dumped her shoes in the kitchen sink and washed them quickly, leaving them to dry stuffed with newspaper. Then I ran upstairs where he was just about to pop her into the bath. She’d stopped crying by this time although her eyes were all red and she had some nasty bruises on her feet and ankles.

I bathed her and comforted her. It transpired she was standing on the loo seat because she was trying to rescue a spider because she thought I didn’t like them. I don’t mind spiders too much actually, having studied them at A-level and dissected a few–not something I liked very much. I don’t think invertebrates have too many pain receptors but I don’t like killing things unnecessarily. I remembered how one drop of chloroform on a bit of cotton wool and they went frantic and died. I suppose I would if someone dropped me in an enclosed vessel and poisoned me–ugh–too many memories.

I stopped doing invertebrate stuff because of the tendency to kill anything interesting and shove it in a specimen pot or mount it on cardboard. Museums have millions of butterflies and moths mounted on pins–it’s quite excessive to my mind, which is why I’d rather study living things in their systems/habitats than dead things in a laboratory.

The most dangerous thing to endangered species are probably biologists, a bit like the mental health team to a psychiatric patient.

I thanked Mima for her generosity of spirit but informed her that I wasn’t scared of spiders, unless I either walked into a web and it got on my face or my hair–then I got all girly–not a pretty sight in a woodland at night, when you can’t see the bloody webs; or, one of them appeared on my bed while I was in it. Then it has to be caught and chucked out the window. Crazy isn’t it. She offered to check my bed for spiders if I didn’t like them. I lifted her out of the bath and hugged her.

“Twish don’t wike spidas,” she said and we both laughed.