The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike, est. 2007) Part 2221 by Angharad Copyright © 2013 Angharad All Rights Reserved.

I was torn trying to decide what to do, get lunch started or find the missing box. In the end I did neither as Jacquie arrived with Lizzie so I had to sit down and feed her. Don’t get me wrong, I love breast feeding and it does sort of validate my femaleness, though her recent habit of teething on my nipples does tend to make me prefer to express and feed her with a bottle. I suspect she might be a regular carnivore when she gets a few more teeth, in which case I will bottle feed her.

When I’d finished and had a cuppa to recover, I started the bread machine and put some jacket potatoes into the Aga for lunch. I had some grated cheese and made up a bowl of salad while Jacquie bathed Lizzie and dressed her.

Finally, I had some time to go and look for the missing box. For the next hour I searched through the bedroom trying to remember what I wore last night. I had on a beige coloured nightdress, a pair of panties and my dressing gown. I glanced at the bed stripped down to the mattress–the sheets were in the wash, along with my nightie–and my dressing gown. Oh poo.

Rushing downstairs I almost knocked Cate down, she’d come to look for me. She held out her hands for me to pick her up, so I carried her down to the utility room only to see the machine slurping away as it washed the bedding and my dressing gown. I hoped it wasn’t a watch Simon had given me.

As we stood there watching the drum of the machine turn one way and then the other, I became aware of bits of gold stuff floating on top of the water–the remains of the gift paper in which it had been wrapped. Things were getting no better. It was half past eleven.

At twelve the washing machine finished its final spin and I waited with bated breath as the door release clicked and I could open the door. I shut the utility room door to try and cover up my crime of negligence perhaps that should be negligée negligence?

Teasing the tangled pile of cloth from the machine I tried to pick out the worst of the gold paper, like tissue it had gone everywhere. Loading it into the laundry basket I checked through it and found the now papier má¢ché remains of the cardboard box the paper had covered but no sign of the contents, whatever they had been. I was almost in tears of frustration as I sifted through the bedding, my underwear and nightwear. Oh god–had it been so fine it had gone through the filter and washed down the drain? Surely not? Oh bugger.

Cate followed me into the utility room pushing door open wide then she sat on the basket of damp washing while I felt like strangling her. I sent her off with a flea in her ear and I went through all the washing again. Whatever it was, it wasn’t here. How do I tell Simon?

Unable to face anyone, I heard him come in talking to Jacquie and I grabbed the laundry and fled upstairs to the airing cupboard cum drying room, where I busied myself with hanging up the bedding and my nightwear. That I was hiding from Simon was a separate factor.

I have never taken so long to hang up a sheet and duvet cover plus my nightdress and dressing gown. I was still picking out bits of gold paper which had attached themselves to all sorts of places on the bedding and clothing. However, it was a distraction and it busied my mind while my unconscious rehearsed ways of telling Simon that I’d lost my marbles and his present.

‘Darling, I seemed to have had a minor lapse of brain function and your lovely present went through the washing machine and down the drain. It’s probably just lying off the Isle of Wight in fifty feet of water, but I want you to know that I thought t was lovely–what was it again?’

No, that wouldn’t do at all. Think again.

‘Simon darling, you know my lovely present? Um, unfortunately, I um, seem to have put it in the washing machine and um, can’t find it. I don’t suppose it was insured, was it?’

I heard him call me, but I pulled the door closed and rearranged the bedding for the umpteenth time. I was also sweating like I’d run a marathon. Phew it was hot in here. I sat down on a box and my eyes welled up with tears and I sobbed. How could anyone be so stupid? I’d lost my precious present without even laying eyes on it. PhD–ha, how the hell had I achieved that? Tom will probably tell me on his death bed that they only gave it to me out of sympathy, or that Simon paid for it by handing over the nature reserve to the university.

I seemed to have dealt with the issues about my femaleness, now it was realising how stupid I was–and I was teaching degree level students! I shall never live this down–I expect I’ll even be drummed out of the Mammal Society for having a brain smaller than the dormice I claim to study.

The tabloids will love it. I can see it now, Dormouse film maker had sex change instead of cystoscopy. ‘I thought I’d signed up for an examination of my bladder,’ claims man who ended up married to a Lord. He only discovered what had happened two weeks ago–five years after ‘her’ operation and the adoption of ninety four children.’

Was I catastrophising? Just a little. It was more likely to be something like, ‘No wonder she likes dormice–sex change dormouse scientist is found to have a brain the same size as her dormouse’s. Recent scans have shown that Lady Cameron, otherwise known as Dr Cathy Watts, who had complained of feeling something rattling round in her head, actually has the brain of a dormouse. Doctors are now trying to find ways to fill the void with soft packing. Dr Watts says she feels she could sleep all winter...’

I felt even worse as I discovered I’d nodded off to sleep and standing up from the box, I’d over balanced and was now tangled up in the damp bedding, which was when the door opened. I froze.

“Cathy? Cathy, is that you under that bedding?” The voice belonged to my lord and master.

I whimpered my response and felt him tugging at the duvet cover until I was clear of it.

“What the hell are you doing up here?”

“I was hanging up the bedding and fell over and got tangled up in it. I couldn’t get free.” I burst into tears, “I’m sorry, Simon.” I sobbed all over him while he bent down and pulled me to my feet.

“I lost it...” I began to say and he interrupted me.

“You lost your balance, easy enough to do–tell me...” here it comes, “...why has Cate got your new bracelet.”