The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike, est. 2007) Part 2144 by Angharad Copyright © 2013 Angharad All Rights Reserved.

The weather had become decidedly cooler with intermittent showers and occasionally longer periods of rain. Autumn, I decided was not the best time of year to be stuck in Scotland.

I spoke to Daddy on the phone and he assured me the dormice were all stuffing like crazy on the fruit and nuts we gave them with the odd meal worm. Their weights were also coming up to suitable for hibernation and in the next month or two they’d be looking to bury themselves in the peat we provide in their cages. We even make holes for them to use and the whole thing has a covering of grass. Most universities using dormice as experimental animals just let them bury themselves in a shed, but I’m trying to understand what happens to them when they do hibernate, physiologically and so on, without them being at risk from predators like rats. I know one biologist who lost all four of her captive dormice to rats because the soil container under the cage broke through old age and a rat got in and killed all the dormice.

I was now allowed up and walking on very weak legs, but I was doing so without getting so out of breath. Danni decided to invite her friend to dinner that evening and I instructed Mr Dunstan to set up the family dining room–not the banqueting hall.

Danny wore a dress and I did her hair for her–not much one can do with short elfin like hair, but I made sure it looked as nice as it could and I also did her makeup, which she seemed to enjoy. I began to wonder if I’d lost my last remaining son and in the next day or so, we’d have to have a very difficult conversation about her future.

Richard came with his mother whom I’d invited as well, his dad was away on an oil rig. He was smartly dressed in a shirt and sweater, the latter a handknit by the look of it, in a lovely Fair isle pattern. He wore jeans and lace up shoes. He was quite a bit bigger than Danni with a shock of red hair topping off the lot.

His mother, from whom he got his red hair, had a mass of the stuff, green eyes and freckles–she was covered in freckles. I have some, because I’m a red head somewhere you won’t get to see it, but I didn’t have anything like as many as she, nor as big, some were two or three millimetres in diameter if not larger. She came from the south west of Scotland–as did I, Dumfries is in Dumfries and Galloway which is part of south west Scotland, and was all settled by Viking invaders a thousand years ago–hence the number of ginger nuts living there.

“So where’re you from?” she asked me.

“Originally?”

“Aye.”

“A little place called Dumfries.”

“Whit, you don’t sound Scottish,” she exclaimed.

“I was born there, we were visiting my grandmother.”

“Obviously, God decided you were to be one o’ the master race.”

The smile on her face meant she was joking, least I hoped so. “Perhaps, and my adoptive father, is another Scot.”

She looked puzzled until I explained that since my own parents had died that Tom had sort of adopted me, although I was an adult at the time. I decided that was enough of my personal disclosure, except how I met Simon, through Stella bumping into me which made her laugh.

“So, she quite literally bumped into you?”

“Yes, knocked me into a hedge which probably saved me from more than a few bruises and scratches and as she was a nurse and realised that I was in mild shock, she took me home and plonked me in a warm bath. She had to loan me some clothes because I was in cycling skins which had become shredded and by the time I’d sort of changed and she tidied up my hair–she was hairdresser before she took to nursing–Simon had come home and I Iiterally fell for him.”

“Love at first sight–how romantic,” she purred.

“No, I caught my heel in my skirt hem and fell on top of him.”

“Oh no,” she shrieked then roared with laughter. If this woman was the audience I could quite easily be tempted into doing stand up.

We chatted for perhaps half an hour before Mrs Cuddy told us dinner was ready, so we left the fireside in the lounge and moved into the dining room, where another log fire sparked and roared.

Danni had chosen the menu–would you believe we had cottage pie–not a sign of haggis anywhere, with a trifle for pudding. I’d asked Mrs Cuddy if we could have a paté for starters, and she made a wonderful smoked salmon one with very thin slices of toast.

The two teens chattered away to each other, occasionally calling one of us to answer a question or verify something.

“So what d’ye do for sport, Danielle, play hockey?”

Danni blushed and looked at me, I winked back encouraging her to tell the truth but perhaps not the whole truth. It would also be interesting to see how much she actually said about herself–boys tend to talk more about themselves than girls–as an indicator of how much boy was still left inside.

“I’ve played hockey, but I prefer football.”

“Aye fitba’s a great game,” agreed Richard.

Melanie, his mother having started the discussion added her opinion, “I wish we’d had the chance to play it like they do today. I did try a bit at university but it wis too late and I stuck to hockey.”

“Which uni?” I asked her.

“Leicester, I did English.”

“Sussex, I did biology/ecology.”

“Aye, I saw your film aboot dormice, it wis very guid.”

I thanked her and the conversation went back to football. “Which position d’ye play?” asked Richard.

“Right wing or outside right, depending upon which formation we play,” offered Danni.

“Aren’t ye a bit sma’ f’ a forward?” he replied.

“How big d’you think the other girls are?” was Danni’s response which I thought very clever.

“Aye, I wisnae thinking o’ girls. D’ye score ony goals?”

“Fifteen last season.”

“Wow, ye’re obviously a guid player.”

I began to worry that she’d say something which could be checked up on line so I changed the topic.

“It’s certainly gone colder this last day or so, no wonder they don’t get dormice up here.”

The cottage pie arrived and we tucked into it. My appetite hadn’t come back to normal since my illness, probably because I was a regular couch potato at present; however, Richard tucked in with gusto and Danni and Melanie ate their share as well.

At one point I had a coughing fit and had to leave the table, Danni rushed over to me with some hankies and a glass of water. It took me a minute or two to return to the meal where I had to apologise.

“Don’t apologise, ye canna help a cough, Richard said you’d been ill.”

“Yes, that’s why we’re still here, Dr Sinclair won’t let me fly home yet.”

“Aye, take yer time, no point in rushing things.”

“I have to get back soon, I’ll be teaching in October and I’ll need to check my notes against the syllabus.”

“Of course.”

“Plus, this young lady will need to get back to school.”

Mrs Cuddy came to collect the dishes and bring in the trifle which despite it being one of my favourites and it looked absolutely wonderful I decided I’d eaten enough. “Lady Cameron, the bairn’s waked up, I think she’ll need feedin’ soon.”

“Thank you, Mrs Cuddy, I’ll come and get her.”

“I’ll get her, Mummy,” and with that Danni followed Mrs Cuddy out of the room.

“She’s a nice girl, isn’t she?” commented Melanie.

“I think so,” was my response.

While the others ate their pudding I fed Lizzie who spent more time watching the others than suckling.

“She looks like you,” observed Melanie.

“Um–she’s not mine.”

“What?”

I then told her the long story of Neal and Gloria and she gasped. “You’re a wonderful friend, Cathy, taking in his sister and his baby, but whit could make a young mother kill hersel’?”

“I don’t know, but I felt I had to help as much as I could him being friend and a colleague and Phoebe being a friend of my eldest daughter.”

“My goodness, you’re a one woman charity,” she observed.

“So Simon keeps informing me.”

“Aye he’s a banker and a Scot, so he would,” she joked.

They left about an hour later as Richard had homework to finish, though Danni and he had a few minutes together before they left and she'd lost her lip gloss again.