The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike, est. 2007) Part 3057 by Angharad Copyright© 2016 Angharad

---

This is a work of fiction any mention of real people, places or institutions is purely coincidental and does not imply that they are as suggested in the story.
*****

On the Friday evening, the girls, who were now on half term holiday, were like bottles of pop and I was not in the most patient of moods having had a disagreement with Mr Hancock about the films he was about to make for us. At one point he swore at me and told him I’d find someone else and put the phone down. An hour later he called back to apologise, it took Diane a few minutes to persuade me to take the call. At the moment we’re still negotiating the structure and format of the films and beyond that, costs. I found it stressful and with one or two other things that happened, felt less than tolerant of anyone who annoyed me.

To their credit, the girls were trying to avoid setting me off, especially after Danielle picked up on my mood within seconds of being in the car with me and by confirming her suspicions by asking me if I’d had a good day, the others realised that adopting a low profile was conducive to a longer survival rate, despite their natural excitement of their week off.

I had hoped to take the afternoons off to do things with them, and also as one of my mornings included a dormouse survey, wondered if the older ones wanted to come with me. I expected Danielle to volunteer and possibly Trish, which would leave fewer to be supervised by the childminder I had engaged for the mornings. She’s an out of work teacher, so hopefully will pose them some challenges in a physical and cognitive sense. I did warn her about Trish and Livvie being exceptional students, so she has been warned.

Of course, something which didn’t exactly add to feeling calm was expecting Simon home. We hadn’t actually spoken since the end of the director’s meeting, which possibly showed we both needed a good shake. I had decided that we’d both be tired, so it would be better to talk about it in the morning. I was therefore proposing a truce.

David was doing fish and chips for dinner, the only problem being that he’d precooked the chips and I had to flash fry them again prior to dishing up. That was no big deal, I’ve done it before but I don’t like cooking with very hot fat, which you need for decent chips, so it didn’t add to my good temper even though I’d known about it for a few days when we agreed the menu. I could have changed it, but everyone else loves fish and chips, so who am I to stand in the way of their furry arteries and fatty liver disease?

I fed the younger children, Simon having texted that he and Sammi were held up by a problem with the train and it was running half an hour late. By the time they got home, it was an hour late and the older family members were grumbling about rumbling tummies. So I did another lot of chips and fed them. This effectively meant that only Sammi, Stella, Simon and I were sitting down to eat the last of the food. Sammi rang from the station that they were on their way and I put the last of the chips and peas on to warm through.

Just by looking at him when he came in, I could see he’d had a day like mine. However, he did give me new orchid to replace the one Bramble knocked off the kitchen windowsill while she was engaged in a game of impersonating a flycatcher. I thanked him and pecked him on the cheek and quietly suggested my truce. He nodded an agreement and I served dinner with a glass of Chablis—it helped to take the edge off both our moods.

Sammi cleared the table while Stella disappeared to make coffees and I wondered if they’d been taking lessons on discretion, Stella especially, but she knew of our disagreement earlier and I suppose offered us a few minutes space together. That made Simon smile because she’s usually one who jumps in at the deep end and wades all over him in any dispute with me. Perhaps she’s growing up, or possibly Tom, who’d eaten with the girls, had dropped a hint in her lughole.

The evening was calmer and more enjoyable than I’d anticipated and Simon handed me an envelope to read in the morning. For a moment I felt myself go quite dizzy fearing it might be the beginnings of separation or something, but he said not to worry about it, it was nothing bad. I still felt sick when we went to bed and finally was as soon as I lay down—I only just made it to the loo in time. Simon came in afterwards to check on me.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

“I think I will be now.”

“What brought this on?”

“Nothing,” I said rising from my knees to rinse out my mouth.

“You went a funny colour when I handed you the envelope—that’s it, isn’t it?”

I couldn’t look him in the face, even in the mirror. With that he disappeared. I wondered where he’d gone and as I returned to the bedroom he entered with the envelope in his hand. “I wanted it to be a surprise but you’d better look at it now if it worries you that much.”

“I can wait until the morning.”

“Here,” he tore open the envelope and drew out the contents handing a sheaf of papers to me. I took them and sat on the bed. It took me about twenty minutes to read them quickly.

“Thank you,” I said and pecked him on the cheek.

“I’d have offered the contract to Portsmouth but when I spoke to the guy from East Anglia, he suggested Cornell would be the best to organise it. I hope you’re not angry? It was done with the best of intentions.”

“If you asked them to do a dormouse survey, I’d probably kill you but as this is an assessment of the environmental damage in the Amazon from hydroelectric damming, it’s outside my usual sphere of interest, though I probably could have organised it. How much is it costing?”

“Half a million dollars in the first instance.”

“Thank you, for that you should get a very good survey.”

“We better had or the Brazilian government will be chasing them through the courts.”

“I see on whose advice?”

“Our Director of Ecological Issues, who else?”

“This will be the one who replaces me, will it?”

“Ut uh, it’s a job for life according to Henry.”

“His or mine?”

“C’mon, this was supposed to be a good thing, not the cause of death of my father, he voted for you, remember?”

“I do remember. So he’s the one who changed your mind, is he?” I felt less happy about the survey.

“Uh no, I thought about what you’d said and read the paper again, spoke to Dad and between us we spoke to the Brazilian representatives agreeing in principle the loan if they were prepared to commission an ecological survey to look at the damage caused by the dams but by a third party agency. They agreed to Cornell doing it as Cambridge were going to be too expensive. That’s why I’ve stayed up in town, because the bloody Yanks keep such stupid office hours.”

“I think that’s something to do with time zones.”

“No, they’re just bloody perverse, ever since we gave them independence—all those puritans we dumped out there.”

“I think they asserted rather than we gave them independence.”

“We let them think that—or they’d be asking us to run the place again and this bloody shower couldn’t run a bath let alone North America or stupid Brexit.”

“Si, let’s go to bed, I don’t want you up half the night with indigestion because of the incompetence of the UK government.”

“Just look at exchange rates, they’re through the floor and still falling...”

“Si, can you do something for me?”

“What?”

“Shut up and kiss me...”