The torpor of winter didn’t affect him.

By training his mind scientifically and taking a brisk walk everyday he had successfully eliminated the effects of reduced sunlight exposure disrupting his Circadian rhythm and depriving him of serotonin.

This meant that if he was more than usually waspish to his cleaner Mrs Mudisamy, who was the only other collection of human cells he encountered on a regular basis, it was clearly only because of her laxer than usual cleaning effectiveness.

And if he was experiencing maudlin thoughts and wondering whether his life’s work had been strictly worth his solitude, then it was due to some scientific imbalance caused by the unwelcome necessity of visiting his brother William, his unbearably loud children and irrelevant wife last week to discuss their inheritance.

William insisted on him partaking in a wee dram “to loosen him up” and it always affected him. Even now, days later, he could feel the chemical imbalance caused.

Damn irrational people and their attempts to dilute his purity of scientific thought.

Grumbling to himself that the insufferable woman would soon be here with her annoying pleasantries and loud contraptions, he walked across the room and reached for the rope to his black out blinds forgetting the water bottle he had left on his desk. The bottle tipped and water cascaded onto his computer, which contained his thesis on the limitations of the Panspermia Hypothesis. The machine was a write off.

Luckily he had it saved on three different memory sticks but it meant he couldn’t work on it today. He cursed his inefficient water bottle emptying routine.

As he cleaned the mess up he became aware of the sun streaming through the window. Out of it he saw that the cherry tree in his street, only yesterday bare and bedraggled, had become a burst of radiant white blossom. Small creatures buzzed round it attempting to extract pollen. His mood changed.

Mrs Mudisamy unlocked the door and removed her coat replacing it with her blue cleaners tabard. She’d been cleaning here twenty years and the day she dreaded was this one. The official first day of spring. For this was the one day a year, in which the usually taciturn professor’s trap was sprung. The day when he suddenly turned from distant pedagogue into over attentive, clumsily-amorous suitor and she could see his extraordinarily large and hopeful erection poking through his 10 year old, way-too-short trousers. Luckily, usually, all it took was her to firmly remove his hands from her breast and remind him of his thesis to get him back more or less on track.

Here he came, dancing down the hall!

“Ahh Mrs Mudisamy” he cried “May I say you look very beautiful today? I bear good news!”

“Have you finished your thesis?” she enquired hopefully.

“Thesis! What are theses? Or yet computers on days like these?” he asked mainly addressing the hoover.

“No the good news is I’ve made us a picnic and WE, are going to the PARK!”

Mrs Mudisamy thought about Mr Mudisamy who hadn’t shown any interest in her for ten years and despite herself was flattered. In any case it beat another day of cleaning.

“Why not?” she heard herself say.

And that was the start of their unlikely affair.