We ate lunch at the pub and the landlord let us use a back room, so we were able to have look at the day’s filming. Alan and Darren thought it looked brilliant, I felt so self conscious watching myself, that I felt quite ill. I went off to get a coffee. When I came back, Alan said, “You wait till Old Mother Hubbard, sees this married with some of the stuff Des did. You don’t need to wear a miniskirt and a plunging neckline.”

“Ooh, yes please,” said Darren.

“I have no objections if you want to wear them, Darren,” I said and he went very red and quiet. “However, until David Attenborough turns up in that sort of kit, I won’t either.”

“So it’ll be just you then, Darren,” said Alan, sniggering.

“You’ll need some slouch boots though, unless you go for stilettos,” I teased the young man. Then recalled my own past and decided he’d had enough. It certainly didn’t sound as if he was gay, so how had Alan acquired him.

“So how do you two know each other?”

“He’s doing film making at Filton College, I teach there occasionally.”

“So, does this count as work experience?”

“Sort of, I also do a bit with Nick Park.”

“Oh, Wallace and Grommett, I love those.”

“They don’t let me do anything on that, but I have helped on some of the other stuff, the short films. It’s great fun but so painstaking, it wouldn’t be something I’d want to do very long.”

“Nor me, I’d rather sit in a wood and count dormice. Anyway, you can take some stills of me if you like. I’ve brought my camera, I might just be able to cope with seeing one or two exposures of me, rather than half a bloody DVD.”

“I don’t understand your problem, Cathy, you appear sexy and attractive, you do a good presentation and you know your stuff inside out. Your love and enthusiasm shine in every shot we take.”

“Look, I do the stuff, surely I don’t have to watch it as well?”

“If you want some editorial control, it’s probably essential.”

“Yes, that makes sense, I just wish I’d thought of it earlier.”

“Why?”

“Because then, I could have had someone else edit it.”

“I can do that for you, but if you want some control as you have insisted, you’ll need to have some input as well, which means watching it through a few thousand times. Don’t worry, after the first couple of hundred times, all you see is the technical aspect. When I was doing my degree, I did a film of some male strippers, a short documentary. These guys had the most amazing bodies, but after looking at the film for a couple of days, I didn’t see anything but the technical aspect of the film.”

“Geez, are you gay then, Alan?” said Darren.

“As a butcher’s hook,” he smiled at Darren who went a little pale.

“Does that matter?” I asked, “You’re only working together, not sleeping together.”

“Unless we do some night time filming,” said Alan, winking at me. The look on Darren’s face was a picture.

“Darren, how do you know I’m not what I seem?”

“What, like a lezzie?” he said.

“Or a drag artist?” offered Alan.

Darren started to laugh, “Come off it, I know a foxy chick when I see one, besides, she’s engaged to that Lord wassisname. So she’s kosher, alright.”

“Actually, I’m transsexual,” I said and Darren fell over laughing.

“Pull the other one,” he said and roared again. Well, I did try to tell him, and he chose not to accept it. I was quite happy.

An hour before dusk, we went back to the woodland and set up again, this time with some of Des’ equipment and my night vision stuff from Portsmouth. We shot some conventional film of me showing the camera the night vision kit and explaining how it works.

For the next six hours, we sat and waited for movement in the trees where we’d decided to film. Then, to my delight we got a little bit of a dormouse zipping back to his nest, and we got some nice owl calls as well. During the night, we also got footage of a couple of owls, a pair of deer who wandered past us, a couple of voles and a brown rat. Nearby some night jar had nested in the summer, but had now gone south for the winter.

It was just as well, we weren’t using a script, I’d have been unable to read it in the dark and it was all over quite quickly. Two minutes if we were lucky, but it would be enough to mix with Des’ film.

“Forecast is good tomorrow, I’d like to do some more of you walking through the woodland, explaining about the ecology of woodland and where it fits in the landscape of Britain.”

“Yeah, okay. Where and when?”

“What about that university land you went to in Gloucester.”

“Oh yes, hmmm, I think this is a better site.”

“Okay then, back here, by nine.”

“It’s four already. I’m going to kip in my car, I’ve got a sleeping bag,” I said yawning.

“Okay, I suppose we could do the same. What about it Darren?”

“Um, I think there’d be more room in Cathy’s car.” Alan laughed at his assistant’s response.

“You can’t sleep with me, I talk in my sleep and I can’t have that being reported.” I was joking but Darren looked very sheepish.

“I won’t tell anyone, Cathy, honest.”

“What’s wrong with Alan?” I asked.

“Nothing, but there won’t be room for him and me.”

“Okay, but all I’ve got is a blanket for you.”

“That’s fine,” he said.

“I got the impression, he’d never slept in a car before. It can get very cold. I wasn’t looking forward to it, but it would save two hours of driving and obviously meant those two hours could be used for sleeping.

We shifted all the camera stuff into the front foot wells and I put the back seats down, in my dad’s Mondeo. It was an estate car, and I knew I could lie outstretched in it. Darren, I wasn’t so sure about. “If you so much as look at me, you’re out in the cold, okay?”

“Sure, Cathy, I’ll behave, honest.”

“You’d better.”

I locked up the car with us inside, leaving just a little gap at the top of the windows to reduce condensation. Much to my amazement, I actually managed to get a few hours sleep and Darren–he was as good as gold, until he farted about an hour before we got up.