The link to the programme, if you can use it is worth the half hour it takes to listen.

I wasn't sure if this survey was going to take place because the forecast was so awful, cool and rather damp - as in heavy rain. However, when we met in the car park for Thorncombe Wood, just up from Hardy's Cottage (Thomas Hardy's birthplace), the rain had eased off to virtually nothing. The decision was we'd give it a go. A bit of a walk later we went on to the survey site, which was new to me and checked the boxes and tubes for dormice.

I can't cope with 12 hour working days so well as I get older.

After a stupid and annoying afternoon I've had a wonderful evening courtesy of The Dorset Chamber Orchestra who gave a concert in my local church - it's used for quite a few musical things because it has good acoustics.

Tonight after Legends 9 & 7 by Dvorak

Symphony in D by Arriaga

came the finale with Violin Concerto in D minor by Brahms with soloist Frida Backman, and she was excellent. This is one of the great violin concerti of the classical canon and a favourite of mine. For those who don't know it:

I've been out to the hedgehog group meeting this evening and feel it's too late to start writing Bike. Hopefully, I'll continue dealing with Cathy's dilemma tomorrow.

Don't forget, I write other things as well as Bike. http://bigclosetr.us/topshelf/book/13585/angharads-story-tre...

Angharad

I've been helping with the field work on the Mammal Society's Dormouse and Conservation course. Basically, we, the helpers, assist the course participants in checking the nest boxes--showing them how to do it and making sure anything in them which could be a dormeece is kept in the box until everyone has a chance to see it. To do that we plug the hole with moss temporarily which has no effect upon the dormouse.

Quite an active weekend despite I think having a continuing UTI which gets uncomfortable to painful at times and can be embarrassing as well especially if I don't make the loo in time. On Sunday which was a beautifully sunny and warm out of the cool breeze, I visited with a few others of the mammal group to one of the committee members garden which also happens to be a nature reserve. They have dormice in their hedgerow, which was why I was there along with the others hoping to see some.

From the Guardian, a chance to listen to Greer digging herself into a hole.

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/apr/12/germaine-greer-...

It seems the Boss is backing the campaign to overturn the ridiculous law passed in North Carolina about public toilets and biological sex - didn't know toilets had a biological sex - says a lot about me as an ecologist! But then this is North Korea, I mean Carolina - are they the same people who are trying to build a missile to hit the US? I thought North Carolina was in the US, just as well I don't teach geography.

I have had a very busy weekend and apart from my little bagatelle about ancient bikes not really had time to sit and write. Yesterday, I spent all afternoon and much of the evening marshalling on a checkpoint for two audax rides. These are endurance rides, the long one was 200Km and the shorter 100Km, that's roughly 120 and 60 miles respectively. We were close to finishing when we heard from the ride organiser that there'd been an a serious accident about a mile or so from the end of the ride.

Ms Freeman raises some valid points about the current most famous/notorious transgender person.

http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2016/mar/19/caitlyn-...

One query I have about her and one or two other wealthy 'celebrity' gender swappers is have they had SRS as well as all the other surgeries? In which case the real life test/ Harry Benjamin rules don't seem to apply if you're wealthy enough.

A fascinating programme on BBC3 which is now only available via the internet. In Brazil, there are more transgender sex workers than anywhere else on earth. Stacey Dooley interviews some of them and some of the women sex workers, both groups feeling that they have little option if they want to earn a living. For the transgender girls, it appears there is very little else for them to do.

I feel so lucky I was born and brought up in the UK.

We don't often hear the other side of the coin, here is one person's take on it. Joshua's dad decided to become a woman and his story, in retrospect, of how he felt about it. A very interesting piece.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/mar/08/when-my...

A bit sort of nebulous, but then so is the question and the concept of identity. One might ask, is the silly answer to a silly question, not sure but as someone who has reinvented their identity at least once, it made some sense. See for yourselves.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/mar/02/why-don...

Thanks for everyone who commented, I read all your words of wisdom.

I've been thinking about this for some long time and today I enrolled for the first module of my Environmental Science degree, although it doesn't actually start until October. I am now officially an undergraduate (again) and will be for the next six years after which I hope to be able to call myself an ecologist, albeit somewhat poorer financially, I expect to have achieved a long term goal and therefore will have a smug grin on my face for weeks.