The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike) Part 1121 by Angharad Copyright © 2010 Angharad All Rights Reserved.

On the Tuesday, Jenny did most of the breakfast stuff while I emailed Alan to see if he had any more out takes he could do for me. He replied, saying he’d look and see what he could do.

I took the girls to school and Danny went off to catch the bus. I always felt a little guilty that he went off on his own, and spent so much time on his own compared to the girls, who were like a pack of hyenas–they spent much of the time squabbling amongst themselves or giggling like demented pixies.

I did offer to take him for a ride in the mornings before school if he wanted, but he decided he wasn’t that keen, but I did promise him one for the weekend, depending upon the forecast. He was still using Stella’s bike and she seemed to let him borrow it as he wanted it.

Trish had more or less healed from her DIY surgery, and she grumbled about playing football, which she’d have to do today. Livvie in contrast, was well up for it. I took Trish aside and explained to her that I knew she could play much better than she pretended, and I wanted her to do her best when she did play.

“But, Mummy, it’s a boy’s game,” she protested.

“Are you playing against boys?”

“No, I s’pose not.”

“So it’s a girl’s game, and I want you to try your hardest. You’ll be at no advantage in having a sort of boy’s body, because at your age the sexes are very similar and when it’s time for puberty, they’ll be giving you a female one anyway. So get stuck in, the girls playing with you won’t be taking prisoners, so play as if you wanted to win. I know you can–so stop messing about–okay?”

“All right,” she sighed, “Don’t keep on about it.”

“I just want you to enjoy it as a game. It’s just that–a game, and increasingly is being played by women.”

“Okay, I said I’d try a bit harder.”

“No, Trish, you said you do your best, and I’m holding you to that promise.”

She shrugged again and went off to join the others.

I didn’t feel I was bullying her, because I knew that she was holding back, hoping it didn’t make her seem too boyish. I hoped I’d shown her that it wouldn’t be boyish to do her best.

I pottered about mainly doing the mammal survey. Someone had sent in lovely photos of fallow deer, but they were from a deer park in Dorset, so they didn’t count in our survey. Another, sent some pics of red deer from Leighton Moss RSPB reserve and they most certainly did count.

Red deer are the largest of the deer resident in the British Isles and are more common the further north you go, although I think they occur on Exmoor. They are so called because the colour of their coats is a rufous brown, and a big stag can be quite an awesome sight with five or more tines, and weighing up to 500 pounds, is a formidable animal especially to another stag. I have a vague recollection that while they’re growing antlers they don’t produce testosterone, but the antlers are caused by testosterone–so the biochem is quite complex. Some are unable to produce antlers, and are called hummels and one with antlers but no tines are called a switch. That’s about all I can remember, oh, and they would have been the deer hunted by Robin Hood, if he existed. Mind you it would take some arrow to bring down a large stag, seeing as accuracy with long bows was poor, maybe they weren’t at as much risk as films and folklore would have us believe.

I’ve tried firing a long bow, and apart from having to be built like a circus strongman and be about seven feet tall, you’d be lucky to hit the castle let alone anyone in it deliberately. The success of the longbow was its rate of fire, a mediaeval archer could loose an arrow every six seconds, so it was like machine gun fire. And they were often deformed having a larger arm on one side than the other–a bit like tennis players and fiddler crabs, plus they could shoot an arrow a couple of hundred yards. In the mythology of archery, there is a report of a Welsh archer attacking a Norman castle, putting an arrow through a four inch oak door and the hand of the defender trying to close it. It was Welsh archers who slaughtered the French knights at Agincourt and Harfleur and contributed to the English victory. The two fingered wave usually seen as gesture of some rudeness is said to originate from archers waving to French soldiers–who cut off their first and second fingers to render them useless as bowmen. Another suggestion is it was done by poachers against landowners, who would enact equally horrible punishments, such as chopping off fingers or putting out eyes. Lovely people our ancestors.

I collected the girls and Livvie was full of the football game, especially as her sister had scored a hat-trick of goals. Trish was unusually quiet about her achievements so I left it until we were home and I asked her to help me in the kitchen, conveniently closing the door on the others. We have an unwritten rule, if the kitchen door is shut–keep out–Mum’s in a bad mood or doesn’t want to be disturbed.

“I hear you scored three goals: well done, young lady.”

“Yeah–it’s all your fault.”

“My fault? You scored them.”

“You made me promise to try my best.”

“Yes I did, and I’m glad you did–I’m really proud of you, my big girl.” I gave her a hug and she began to cry. “What’s the matter, poppet?”

“They want me to play for the school team.”

“Well that’s an honour, isn’t it?”

“But what if someone says I was a boy?”

“Let’s deal with that if and when it happens. In a couple of years or so, you’ll be starting low dosage hormones, which will make your body very female as you grow. As it is, your body won’t produce many male hormones now thanks to your DIY job, so you’ll have more oestrogens going around than testosterone.”

“Is that good, Mummy?”

“I don’t know, we’ll have to get advice on that, but I suspect it will start to make you less and less male as you get older, and then the supplement of medicinal hormones will certainly make you look and feel female.”

“Is that what happened to you, Mummy?”

“Sort of, if I was red deer, I’d be a hummel, one without antlers, because my body didn’t seem to recognise testosterone, so I remained neutral or slightly girlish in my body size and shape until I started hormones, which caused me to have a puberty in my late teens early twenties.”

“I think you look really nice, Mummy, I hope I grow up like you–into a proper lady.”

“Um...” I blushed in response, “Shall we get this dinner on the go?” I said, changing the subject.