The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike) Part 1791 by Angharad Copyright © 2012 Angharad All Rights Reserved.

“Dad, can I have a helicopter for Christmas,” Danny was off accosting Simon as soon as the car stopped.

“A helicopter? D’you know what they cost?”

“Yeah, forty five quid.”

“Eh?”

“In the models shop in town, the remote control helicopter is forty four ninety nine.”

“Oh a toy one–you had me worried for a moment. Go and help your mother with the shopping.” Simon dismissed his son and went back to umpiring a cricket match between the girls. At least I think that was what he was doing.

Danny returned to me and we carried the shopping in and Catherine carried her own shoes, which she then dropped in the goldfish pond. Why are all my children so strange? And, why didn’t I throw her in after them like I felt I wanted to do.

Danny eventually pulled off his shoes and socks and fished them out for us. I haven’t told you about the pond, have I?

I think I told you Tom’s house is about three hundred years old if not older. At one time, at the back they had a formal garden and fish pond. It had long since been filled in and grassed over, then a year or so ago, it began to show through the grass when we had a bit of a drought.

He got one of the architecture students to do some research and we discovered a picture of it, dating from 1815, the year of Waterloo, when Napoleon was defeated for the second time and exiled to die on St Helena some time later.

We got in a group from the technical college who were studying construction techniques and dug out the fishpond, which measured ten by twenty feet and three feet deep, with what looked like the remains of a fountain in the middle. There were two smaller ponds beyond, but we left those for now.

Having had them dug out, we then had some historian in to advise us on renovation and the insides were coated with waterproof cement and a plastic membrane was laid on top. Finally, it was filled with water and left for a couple of weeks then we put in a pile of pond-plants in baskets or pots, left that for another week or two to settle. By this time, the new fountain was ready and installed. It has an electric pump to work it, which much of the time is solar powered. We also installed some under water lights which make it look more interesting after dark and helps to stop people and other things falling in. We did put in a hedgehog ladder at my suggestion, and I think a few small mammals have used it, including next door’s cat when it fell in trying to catch a fish.

It was only when we considered it was safe to do so, did we introduce half a dozen goldfish, and we also put a number of small devices in to discourage the heron, although the most successful to date has been Kiki who barks at it and chases it out of the garden.

I took the credit for managing the project, although Maureen was very helpful including liaising with the tech college department. She has one or two of the qualified students working for her and since the Bank employed her to do a pile of jobs, her business hasn’t looked back. In fact getting hold of her to do things for us is at times a trial–although as soon as she knows I want her, she’s there as quickly as possible. It seems she’s grateful because I was the first person to believe in her as a woman, and it was from that that she prospered. So she keeps telling me, I explained that her good reputation and hard work might have been part of the reason as well as my genius.

One of the most exciting things we had in the pond was some fresh frog spawn back in the spring, then loads of tadpoles–some of which the fish ate–and finally, little froglets, which we find all over the garden. Move a plant pot and a froglet hops out–that sort of thing.

Then the college asked if it could use the work on the pond for a project on their website. We agreed, after all what could harm us in that? Then they said the local paper wanted to do a story on the restored garden. We agreed reluctantly on the grounds that they didn’t identify the property. You know the old adage, never trust a newspaper man–now we know why.

A reporter and photographer turned up with the lecturer from the college who was leading the restoration team with Maureen. We kept out of the way, watching from the balcony beyond Tom’s bedroom–the kids were fascinated, except Danny who was out with his friends.

They took photos and so on and then went off to write up their story and what no one told us was they included both the old picture of the house and an aerial photo of the house showing the crop marks in the lawn. Both told everyone whose house it was and not only that, we started getting calls from people wanting to see our pond.

At first, Tom considered it was okay to let some of them come to view it, then when they saw the rebuilt outhouses and garages, and could see my old Jaguar under sheets in the garage, they began to tell their friends and we had six people pestering me to sell them the Jaguar at whatever price I cared to name.

Then someone put together two and two and it became, a question of the dormouse woman’s house with the restored Georgian pond–does she have any dormouse on her estate?

Estate? It’s an old farmhouse with a couple of fields still attached, a small woodland and orchard. As far as I know, we don’t have any dormice–wrong sort of woodland, not enough undergrowth and certainly not enough honeysuckle–they use its bark to make their nests.

Then we had an article about, ‘How the other half live, about the sickeningly wealthy banking family who own the farmhouse and the wife of bank director Simon, who plays at being a biologist and university lecturer.’

When Pippa called me up to say what had been printed, I was disgusted when she brought over a copy, Tom saw it and went apoplectic . When he recovered with the help of a wee dram of ‘water of life’ he called his solicitor and issued a suit for libel against him, and his family. Simon did the same and me? I bathed the kids and left them to it.

It looked as if it was going to cost a lot of money, which both men thought was worth the cost to protect the principle–which one they didn’t explain, least not to me. This all happened a while ago because tomorrow it goes to court and the local paper is on about the wealthy bullies riding roughshod over the poor working man and woman. It could have come from the Socialist Worker, and if they knew the truth, Simon, Henry, Tom and I are all left of centre political party supporters. Simon advised the Labour party and Henry before him–albeit in a covert way. They both refused to help their namesake when he became Prime Minister.

It looked like tomorrow could be very interesting, oh and the bloody fountain has stopped working again according to Meems.