The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike, est. 2007) Part 2733 by Angharad Copyright© 2015 Angharad

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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.
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Is it old age or do the weekends come round faster than I’m ready for them? On Monday the girls go back to school and I go back to work as well. If things have happened as they were intended Diane King, her from Bristol, will be shadowing Delia for at least another week if not two. Will I be able to cope with two of them? How would I know, I don’t know anything, Delia runs the department, I just sign the letters, including one to the Times declaring the badger cull to be a huge and probably expensive mistake, the money for which could be used to vaccinate badgers instead of killing them.

If the figures I saw are correct then last year every badger killed cost over seven thousand pounds. This lunacy based upon ideology and a need to keep the farming lobby happy or quiet because they tend to vote Tory.

I got a call from someone I knew in the mammal society about a dormouse survey they were doing near Dorchester but they couldn’t find anyone with a licence that could lead it. I discussed it with Simon who said he’d watch the youngsters on Sunday, because Danielle was playing soccer on Saturday morning.

I called Dorchester back and said I could do the Sunday and they accepted it, saying there were a handful of volunteers who would come then. We had about a hundred nest boxes to check at two sites, so a handful could cope.

When I told Simon I was going to Dorchester on the Sunday, he said something about some steam fair or other at Tarrant Hinton, and asked if the girls would like to go and look round it. Trish, Livvie and Meems said yes, the latter because her daddy was going. Danni said no. I asked her if she fancied dormousing with me and to my surprise she said she’d quite enjoy that. I told her I’d buy her lunch and she smiled at that. I also said I was coming to watch her play that morning and she smiled even wider.

We ended up with two carloads going to watch Portsmouth ladies versus Brighton Belles. It was quite a physical game, which I found difficult to watch. Brighton were well aware of Danielle’s abilities and every time she was near the ball someone chopped her down. Apparently Portsmouth were well aware of this probability and while Brighton seemed to control the midfield stifling everything Pompey tried, eventually, Danni was chopped down illegally within range of one of her bendy free kicks. The inevitable happened and she curved one round the wall which then flew into the top corner of the goal while their keeper simply stood and watched in disbelief. Pompey 1 Brighton 0.

In the second half Portsmouth counter-attacked after ten minutes of Brighton aggression and one of their players ran on to a through ball from Danielle, only to be hacked down in the penalty area. Despite the protests that she dived, she hadn’t by the way, Danielle scored again from the penalty spot, not only making the goalie go the wrong way but the ball was blasted into the net and I doubt she’d have saved it anyway. The final score was two nil and there was a danger that Danielle was heading for top scorer in their league. They’d played three times and she’d scored six times. If they achieved promotion, they’d get into the premier league and be up against the likes of Liverpool and Chelsea ladies. She couldn’t wait but at rising fourteen, she was officially still a junior.

She watched rugby on satellite television with Tom and Simon and then football with England winning both games and Wales beating Italy but losing two players with serious leg injuries just before the world cup started. Halfpenny, him with the long lashes, was one of the casualties so I hoped he’d be well enough to play, he kicks most of their points. Simon said without the two that were hurt, Wales had no chance of winning the competition.

On the Sunday morning, Danni and I set off in my Jag for Dorchester having been warned to avoid the showground area, which is to the east of the town. Using a map suggested by Carol, my contact in Dorchester, we headed to Weymouth and then up to Dorchester thereby missing the show traffic. We arrived at ten only to find the car park full of cyclists on mountain bikes. The local CTC had an event on. Danni of course pulled my leg and said if we’d known we could have brought the bikes with us.

I’ve only ridden an off road event once and nearly killed myself with a low branch—wrecked my helmet—so I decided I’d keep to riding on roads. She still laughed at me all the same. Once the hoard of two wheeled loonies had passed, we parked at the long stay car park, which astonishingly was free on a Sunday. We grabbed a couple of cups of tea from the cafe there, which didn’t look that salubrious but when Carol arrived she told us the food was good and portion control was something they tended to be very generous in.

We left my car and set off in Carol’s Range Rover Vogue—very nice, though she was complaining that some article in the Telegraph suggested it took twenty three seconds for a car thief to open one and steal it. If ever I get one, I’ll buy a big chain and padlock—well it works for my bike most of the time. I said this and Carol laughed as we headed to a wood up past Cerne Abbas. Danni had never seen the famous Giant—a huge figure cut into the chalk of the hillside. The figure is famous in being equipped with a rather large phallus, which made Danielle snigger. She took a piccie with her phone and we continued to the woodland.

The survey took about an hour and we found two dormice. The various notes were made and we drove off to the next site, which was a woodland on a hillside with a bridle path going through it. The path was quite rutted from use by tractors and difficult enough to walk on let alone cycle on. Apparently, the off road event we’d seen starting was coming through an hour or two later.

Our group found one dormouse with babies—four of them—and a couple of volunteers had a go at handling the babies—imagine turbo charged cocktail sausages, in grey. The cars were parked at the bottom of the hill and as we set off towards them, some of the cyclists came through. I had to admire their bike handling skills on the rutted path, then suddenly one of them, a middle aged man flew off his bike over the handlebars and landed heavily on his shoulder. Another close behind came off trying to avoid hitting the first casualty.

They both lay there groaning, I left Carol to help the casualties while we ran up the path to warn later riders and prevent more injuries. “Things seem to happen when you’re about, don’t they, Mummy?” quipped Danielle as we trotted back up the hill.