The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike, est. 2007) Part 2457 by Angharad Copyright© 2014 Angharad All Rights Reserved.

I suspect the only thing worse than attending a staff meeting is trying to chair it. If you’re not careful it descends into a grumble session, when I felt that was happening I’d throw it back to the complainant and ask them what they wanted to do about it. If they made a suggestion, providing it was feasible, I asked them to explore that option and got Delia to minute it. Surprisingly, the grumbles seemed to dry up after my second invitation to sort it.

The only good thing about the meeting was it made marking look attractive, however we did agree responsibilities for various duties and I explained we were interviewing the next day for the two posts we were short, given that some departments had vacancies frozen, my lot seemed grateful for small mercies. They also told me that it was my dormouse film that brought in the punters. Someone even asked after the harvest mouse film.

That was being put together. Alan had been ill, did I mention he had diabetes? Well unfortunately he has and that causes flare ups every so often. I have tried healing him but each time I get back the answer, ‘When he controls his input of calories better, he will be healed.’ Part of me thought that if he controlled the calories he’d probably cure himself. It was hoped the film would be available for Christmas, I still had to do some voiceover for the sound track and we’d have to shoot one or two bits of me standing in front of a green board and he’d be able to paint me onto various scenarios he’d filmed. They do it in films quite a bit.

Also, he’d managed to insert a fibre-optic camera into a nest and filmed the birth of a litter and the immediate after care by the mother. Someone told me there’d been pictures of dormice in the Guardian this week. I didn’t see them because Daddy tends to take the newspaper to work with him, despite me being the one who pays for it.

I spent the afternoon explaining how I did the mammal survey to someone who agreed to assist me. It’s hardly rocket science but he struggled with the concept of surveys. How could he call himself a biologist if he’d never helped with a survey? Then it was time to collect the girls.

I’d gone up to change out of my decent clothes into my playing clothes—the ones I don’t mind getting dinner on—when I was met with giggles coming from the kitchen and David blushed as I entered the room.

I let it pass assuming that something of a toiletry humour had been discussed and I grabbed a cuppa and after speaking to all of those present, decamped to my study to look over the CVs of the candidates for the interviews. I wondered if they were as nervous as I. I hate interviewing, it’s like sitting in judgement and a wrong remark or answer could prevent someone from getting the job they deserve.

Danni came in smirking. “What is going on out there?” I asked referring to the giggles.

“Oh, David’s making sausages.”

“Great, I love his own made ones compared to the muck they sell in supermarkets. What is so funny about sausages?” As soon as I said it I expected some reference to scatological matters.

“Nothing,” she said smirking and blushing simultaneously, showing she’d mastered the art of multitasking. Her guilty looks conveyed anything but the innocence she protested.

“Nothing, eh? So why are you blushing?”

“I’m not,” she declared glowing brighter by the second.

“No course not, you’re always bright red in the face, aren’t you?”

“I’m not am I?”

“You are and it isn’t sunburn.”

She glanced in the mirror and muttered something before she made an audible excuse and departed in unseemly haste. I finished my tea and returned to my task.

“Wotcha doin’?” asked Trish, this from a child it costs about five thousand a year to educate—obviously they don’t do grammar or pronunciation.

“Looking over some CVs, why?”

“Canniva look?”

“No, they’re confidential.”

“Oh, alright then.”

“What did you want?”

“That’s confidential,” she chuckled and made off. I suppose I asked for that but personal stuff should be protected from those who don’t have a legitimate reason to read it. By no stretch of the imagination could I justify showing any of them to her.

Ten minutes later, Livvie appeared. “Dinner will be ready in ten minutes, Mummy.”

“And we’re having David’s homemade sausages, yummy.”

In response to my ordinary comment she burst out laughing.

“What’s so funny?” I enquired suspecting it was all related to the dirty laughs I heard earlier.

“Oh just something Trish said.”

“And what would that be?”

She blushed but it looked like the lavatorial element was about to be revealed. “David was putting the skins on then and Trish said they looked like condones. I told her the word was condoms, and David said that’s what the skins were.” She blushed a much deeper shade of rose than before.

“And did you believe him?”

“Nah, they’d melt when you cooked ’em.”

“How d’you know that—about condoms?”

“They’re called rubbers in America, and rubber melts.”

“How d’you know what they call them in America?” I didn’t know such things at her age.

“Oh, I read it in Cosmo while waiting in the salon.”

“Julie and Phoebe’s salon?”

“Where else?” she said dismissively and skipped out of the room before I could say anything else. Part of me thought I might speak to David about it but in the end decided it was unnecessary and would only embarrass him, and he’s such a nice chap who I’d hate to lose.

I washed my hands and wandered down to the kitchen, it was six and getting dark. How sad to have the nights lengthen and the weather worsen. It seemed like the wonderful summer was now over with forecasts of wet and windy weather for the next month rubbing in the point.

Simon had just arrived and asked David to give him five minutes to change. He dashed upstairs and I ran behind him because I knew he’d just drop his clothes on the bed instead of hanging them up or ditching them in the laundry hamper. Just as I thought, he’d dumped his two thousand pound suit on the bed and his handmade shirt on the floor as he was pulling up his jeans. I hung his suit in the wardrobe and tutted.

“Oh don’t fuss, you sound like my nanny.”

“Nanny as in hired childcare?”

“Yeah, what other use is there?”

“Oh, some kids call their grandmothers nan or nanny.”

“Good lord, do they? I thought it was the dog’s name in Peter Pan.”

“That’s Nana.”

“Fancy calling one’s grandmamma after a dog.”

“Compared to some of the things you call other drivers, it’s all a bit tame.”

“How d’you know?”

“Little piggies have big ears and even bigger mouths—c’mon we’ll be late for dinner, and that just won’t do.”

“Yes, Nanny.”

One of these days...