The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike, est. 2007) Part 2758 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.
@@@@@
It looked like I’d be teaching again, more ecology—I should be able to do this in my sleep, after all I taught it for three years here plus bits and pieces elsewhere. The problem is that I haven’t done it for a while and my head has been full of football with Danielle, or the rugby world cup with Si and Daddy, other various domestic events like Trish asking where she could buy some plutonium to see if it was possible to build an atomic bomb using household appliances only. Added to this were minor things like staff shortages, the accounts department trying to cut my budgets, the mammal survey having some problems with dodgy records and it might be easy to see that my functioning brain cell was refusing to remember much about the ecology of meadowland.

Then as I was getting some fuel in Tesco’s service station when who should I run into but that dotty witch woman, Ariadne something or other, Dougal—that’s it, Ariadne Dougal. She always looks, to me at least, as if she’s about to audition for a designer witch. She must have money because all her clothes are from up market designers, but they’re always black. She doesn’t wear a pointy hat or carry a broomstick round with her but she might as well. At forty plus, I doubt she’d naturally have a head of black hair, there’d be a few white ones, but no, everything is so black it almost has a bluish sheen to it. She’s quite tall but wears very high heels, and talks with a plummy accent.

I was in a hurry and didn’t have time to talk, I never do when I run into someone I’d rather avoid. “Oh, Lady Cameron, how nice to see you again.”

“Mrs Dougal,” I nodded back while standing in the queue to pay for the forty quid’s worth of diesel I’d just shoved in the car and the pack of doughnuts I’d got for Diane, the technician and one for li’l ol’ me.

“Oh, Ariadne, please, Lady Cameron.”

“In which case it’s just Cathy, then.” Not that I wanted to be on first name terms with Harry Potter’s granny.

“Cathy, it is. Have you given any more thought to committing to the cause?”

I wondered what she was on about—probably joining the local coven or some such thing and I decided dancing naked round bonfires wasn’t for me, even if they were offering tuna jacket potatoes afterwards. “Uh, not really, too busy with the family and running a university.”

“A university? Really?”

“Well one faculty.”

“That would make you a professor?”

“Yes of biological science. Excuse me, pump number six—yes forty pounds,” I handed over the money and my points card—well every little helps, so they say.

“I am in esteemed company, how wonderful and so young.”

“I’m sorry, Ariadne, I have to dash, got two people off sick and am having to do extra teaching.”

“Of course, I understand, do take care.” She offered her black gloved hand and I stupidly took it. “Oh the goddess is so strong in you, my dear, you should commit to her, you know.”

“Maybe another day, eh. May the force be with you, too,” I said and rushed off to my car realising then I’d used a quote from Star Wars. Perhaps I could tell her I was an apprentice Jedhi next time we met, though where I’d find a light sabre might prove difficult—obviously Trish’s next project to build me one possibly if she has time before constructing her atom bomb.

I arrived exhausted at my office asked Diane to make some tea and dropped the doughnuts on her desk. Her eyes lit up at the sight of the cholesterol enriched diabetes aids—they’d help you acquire it. I didn’t care I’d not had any breakfast, we all overslept and getting the girls to school was one big hassle.

When she entered with a cup of life saver and my share of the LDL* I was stuck into my notes on meadowland ecology. I could probably wing it, but I had a quick check on the CD I had with the photos on—quite a few of cowpats. They support all sorts of insects and fungi. Loads of photos of plants, some with insects on them, others which are important for foodplants for a diverse number of butterflies and moths. I had one or two of infestations of hedgerows with the webs of caterpillars—they can actually kill bushes or trees if there’s enough of them. I also had some piccies of mammals—voles, deer, mice—harvest mice are so delicious, such dainty little things and so on. I finished with a couple of bird pictures of pigeons, starlings and even some gulls—they often roost inland, finally I had some pictures of greylag geese—a small flock of geese eat as much grass as a sheep, so belong in our catalogue of grassland species.

If I get bored or stuck I can always get them to identify the pictures—I probably will anyway, it tends to identify those who are likely to want to get involved in survey work—if you know what you’re looking for, it kinda helps.

When John the technician brought in a tray of things which live in the grass or under it, some of the girls were unimpressed. Possibly they don’t like handling leather jackets or earthworms, yellow underwing moths or meadow brown butterflies, hunting spiders or snails. Trish and I collected them from the orchard the night before. The spider was in one of those bug pots with a magnifying top, the butterfly and moth were already dead when we found them and the earthworm was wriggling about in a glass box of soil.

When I asked Jon to bring out the tray of fresh cowpats, they all groaned or squealed—I was only joking anyway. Did I mention that the girls outnumber the boys on the course by three to one? Well they do. Sadly none of them seem to have much in the way of operational cerebral neurones, as it took over five minutes to get someone to tell me what the dominant type of plant would be in a meadowland ecology.

A rather pretty but extremely dim specimen of young womanhood sitting in the front suggested an oak tree as the dominant species. I asked her why and she declared it was taller than anything else and therefore dominant. It was only when I asked, “Okay, let’s try it another way, what’s the dominant species in grassland?” Can you believe someone said, ‘sheep.’

“What’s another name for grass or meadowland?” I asked I hoped implying I meant in this country. Obviously the implication wasn’t stressed enough because the answer came back as ‘prairies’. “So what’s the dominant species there?” I asked in desperation and got back, ‘buffalo.’

At this point I was about to hand in my notice and join an enclosed order of nuns, when someone asked, “Do you mean grass, professor?”

*LDL – low density lipo-protein or bad cholesterol.