The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike, est. 2007) Part 2544 by Angharad Copyright© 2015 Angharad

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It was Monday, yet again. I’m sure that some weeks there’s more than one Monday, in some it feels like there are seven. I was teaching ecology—wonderful. Trish and Livvie were squabbling over something, Lizzie had woken early and I was trying to feed her and organise breakfast. Jacquie was staying at a friend’s house and Stella was staying upstairs until I left. Then she’d rush out with her two to the crèche.

It looked as if I’d have to take Lizzie and Cate to work with me—oh well, I hope Delia is good with little ones. Julie and Phoebe arrived to lend a hand sorting out the querulous siblings while I changed Lizzie. I left her in the baby-recliner and rushed upstairs with Cate and washed and dressed her. No wonder Simon goes early, perhaps if I did, I’d stay sane as well.

In the end, Daddy took Danni, Trish, Livvie and Mima to school, while I got the two littlies ready, ate a banana and drank some water—no time to make tea—and packed a bag for all the stuff I needed to take with me for them, including a complete change of clothing for each. They might be girls but with my record, they’d probably end up covered in some noxious substance and need steam cleaning or something equally child friendly.

Somehow I got them to my office, asked Hilary to bring up some temporary fencing from the store room, and trapped them in a corner where they couldn’t do too much damage, unless they played with the double electrical socket. We had to move them.

Hilary, who’d met both of the little ones before, grabbed both and set off down the technician’s room promising to return them in two hours when I’d finished teaching. I was so shocked that it took me at least three seconds to be able to ask Delia to make me some tea. It was the first cup of the day and like nectar.

I trotted over to the lecture theatre where I was due to entertain a hundred students in ten minutes time. Our other technician Stefan, a Polish chap, was carrying out the box of stuff we needed to play ecologists with a hundred children, none of them mine—thank goodness. Trish has more idea than most of this lot.

In the prep room behind the lecture theatre, I filled a thermos flask with boiling water after warming it. I sealed the lid and carried it through to the lecture theatre and placed it on the floor behind the lecturer’s bench. I then went and got a mug, some fresh milk, teabags and a spoon—and a handful of digestive biscuits. I’d set them some work to do and make a crafty cuppa while they supposedly exercised their brains.

They weren’t a bad lot really once you got them to shut down their tablets and concentrate on listening. “But, Professor, I like to record your stuff so I can watch it again.”

“Sorry, all my stuff is one off. If you need to record things, how about using a pen and writing things on a piece of paper, or even in a notebook.?”

“How d’you do that?” she said and I felt like going and never coming back.

“If you’re too stupid to know that how are you sitting in one of my lectures?” She didn’t answer me. “Anyone caught recording this electronically or digitally, will be forced to eat their device in front of the rest of the class.

For an hour I explained about the ecological systems of woodland. Or shall I say I asked them to tell me about things. They were supposed to have read about it or should I say, about them. I suspect that pulling teeth would have been easier.

I asked for the thing which would distinguish a wood from a forest. One of them actually said, ‘size’. I nearly strangled them, I’m sure I could have claimed provocation. “Right, let’s get it over and done with; for the purposes of this argument, ie the difference between woodland and forest, size is not important.” It got loads of groans before they laughed.

“Is there a difference?” I asked. No one seemed to know—and we’re going to give them a degree in three years time? Who’s going to supply it—the tooth fairy?

“Give me the name of a local forest?” I asked.

“The Black Forest,” came back the response.

“If that’s local, then the fame of this course has spread further than I thought.”

Eventually someone said, ‘The New Forest.’ The correct answer. “Is that local, then?” asked a voice and I shook my head in disbelief.

“It’s in the county of Hampshire, that local enough for everyone?” I asked. There were murmurs of approval. We moved on. I won’t bore you with the rest but essentially, the term forest, especially when applied to the New Forest, meant an area used by the king for hunting. The difference between a wood and a forest? The answer was trees. A woodland must have trees, a forest doesn’t have to. Educational this, innit?

After a cuppa, I sent them off to grab a quick toilet break, we did the practical. Hilary and I had made up packs of things from a woodland. Working in groups of four they had to tell us something about the items—things like acorns or hazel nuts, various leaves or sprigs of leaves, feathers, fungi or bits of wood.

A hour later I finished the second part of the lecture. I set them another chapter to read and told them to re-read the first chapter of the set book. I also told them in no uncertain terms, that anyone who didn’t know about these two chapters by next time might be asked to leave the course. They went out buzzing, I was exhausted.

The day didn’t improve. Jacquie came and collected the two little ones, which did help. I sat down with a cuppa in my office and having a quick browse of the internet came across an article about Hen Harriers on the Guardian website. My tolerance of hunting, which is zero, dropped even further. The massed slaughter of red grouse by small groups of very wealthy men, seemed to mean that hen harriers disappeared—not necessarily at the same time—but through the actions of some estate game keepers. Not all shoots are at fault, but it’s difficult to recognise which ones aren’t because hen harriers can cover hundreds if not thousands of miles. But if any of the shoots were telling the absolute truth, we should be knee deep in the species, we’re not, ergo, someone is lying. Also the lack of prosecutions for deliberate acts of cruelty or destruction to birds of prey and the piffling sentences handed out even where prosecutions have taken place is an example that English law only applies to the ordinary folk, the rich and powerful seem to be immune to it or its consequences.

I emailed a copy of the article to Simon and Henry announcing that if ever it happened on our estates, I’d personally hang, draw and quarter the person responsible. They each emailed back declaring they’d help me. I wasn’t sure I believed them.

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/jan/13/-sp-myste...