The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike, est. 2007) Part 2597 by Angharad Copyright© 2015 Angharad

---

This is a work of fiction any mention of real people, places or institutions is purely coincidental and does not imply that they are as suggested in the story.
@@@@@

I let Trish contemplate on our conversation for half an hour or so then made it obvious I wasn’t working at my desk. I know she hadn’t been doing her homework just holding the book while she thought about something else. She noticed me watching her and she stood and came over to me at my desk.

“I’m sorry, Mummy, I didn’t mean to be rude and embarrass you. I’ll try my hardest not to do it again. I love you, Mummy.” She then started to sniff and tears formed and ran down her cheeks.

I opened my arms and she virtually flung herself into them and I wrapped her in a monster hug. “What am I going to do with you, Missy?” I said quietly kissing her on the top of her head.

“I don’t know,” she sobbed into my chest. “Please don’t send me away.”

“Trish, you are my daughter, when you came to live with us I promised never to send you away. I haven’t changed my mind—I will never send you or any of my children away, unless they want me to.” I said this slowly but firmly so it was unequivocal. “I love you all, and you all have a home here with me as long as you wish. That was and still is my promise to you all.”

“Thank you, Mummy.”

We hugged for several more minutes and at one point I think she almost went to sleep standing up while I hugged her. She was too big to sit on my lap for very long so I didn’t invite her to.

David called us to dinner and I sent her to wash her tear stained face before we went to eat. It was still obvious that she’d been crying but no one mentioned it, I presumed because they thought they knew what had happened.

The girls were excited that there was to be a solar eclipse the next day and that the school was going to allow them to watch it from the playground using special coloured plastic to protect their eyes—even a few seconds of staring at the sun can damage the retina—the screen at the back of the eye. I decided I’d stay with them or at least hang around until they came out to watch the celestial event without telling them. I checked with Sister Maria and she seemed pleased I’d be there, another adult to supervise the girls and try to stop them watching it without eye protection.

At ten past nine the girls started entering the yard lining up at the side which offered the best views of the eclipse. It had already started though not much was visible through the cloud except a slight unseasonable darkening of the day. They interspersed older and younger girls, the older girls were asked to make themselves responsible for two or three younger ones to make sure they used the special glasses.

My girls saw me and waved but stayed in their classes. I spent my time watching for little ones not wearing their protection and pointed them out to the older girls who dealt with it.

By nine twenty the light was fading though not as dark as it was in 1999 when it went as dark as late evening. The cloud thinned rather than broke but we saw some of the ring of light around the moon. We couldn’t see the bead of light as they begin to move apart due to a thicker mass of cloud. Then the cloud thinned again and a crescent of light formed which we watched and photographed mainly with mobile phones. Another bank of cloud pushed in and the event was curtained from us. Sister Maria gave the instruction and the girls began filing back into school.

“Thank you for helping, Lady Cameron.”

“My pleasure.”

“Your girls didn’t rush over to you—I’m impressed.”

“I presume they were told to stay in class lines.”

“They were but I didn’t expect them to do it.”

“We were both impressed then.”

I took my leave and drove to work. Apparently hardly anyone did anything until the eclipse was over, so I hadn’t missed much—it was cloudy there too—so I really didn’t miss much.

For the next hour Delia and I slogged our way through my correspondence and other paperwork. Then, after a cuppa, we dealt with the meeting of the council I would chair next week. We were still lacking a vice chancellor, a new one as yet unselected. I was appalled at the salary on offer, two hundred and sixty thousand pounds. My own was significantly less, a modest eighty thousand if I stayed in post for the year, much of which went in tax. I wasn’t complaining, to pay it one must earn it and with my bank based income I was well over the basic rate level.

In the afternoon I did a refresher lecture on cell division—not my specialty—but one I’ve done for a few years now. I then went on to deal with some bio-chemistry before finishing with a quick flit through the fundamentals of ecology.

When I’d finished several students came up to thank me as they now understood the citric acid cycle, or meiosis and so on. A couple actually said they wished I’d taught them in the first place as I’d made it so much more understandable. I suspect I got a bit of insight into how Professor Brian Cox must feel after he’s done one of his television specials and receives feedback from viewers. It was certainly more pleasant than being told it was a waste of time. Part of me missed actually teaching not just doing the odd class—but my time was so busy. I decided I needed an assistant, someone to do some of the detailed planning, but who had a background in university education. I’d do the overall planning, except with ecology, where I’d do the detailed as well and keep a small teaching brief as well, especially fieldwork, and would lead a few fieldtrips myself.

Erin phoned as I returned to my office to remind me to be available for interviews regarding the harvest mouse film at Easter—or on Good Friday to be precise. Delia showed me four requests for interviews, two were phone ones for radio, one was on ‘Start the Week’ for Monday week where I’d have to go to Bristol to take part in the programme, the other was a television breakfast show on BBC. That meant going to London so I wasn’t as enthusiastic. Both would pay expenses and a fee of a hundred pounds. I knew I could justify the time involved away from college because the university benefits from the publicity of one of its departmental heads narrating and directing the programme. It tends to up recruitment figures, as I insist my name and the university are titled as I come into view on the film ie Professor Cathy Watts, Portsmouth University.

I finished my call and went off to collect the girls from school. When I arrived there, as I walked to find them my Black Berry peeped and on opening the email discovered some teenager had filmed a pine marten in Cornwall. To say I was taken aback would be an understatement—there are no records of one in the county for about a hundred years. Had it been taken from somewhere else or had it found its own way there? The former seemed most likely but without a DNA test, which population it belonged to would be speculative.