The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike, est. 2007) Part 2768 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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Despite her shock at being asked to do some housework, Danielle complied with my request and stripped off her bed, I asked Trish to do hers and washed the two lots together. During this time, the one person down the drive multiplied to four. Daddy offered to go and ask them to leave. I told him to let them stand there, I wasn’t going to talk to them.

An hour or so later, we put the laundry in the tumble drier and set that going. Stella, Jacquie, Danni and I had a cuppa and a mince pie—I bought some nice ones in Lidl and we were busy doing a quality test on them, though it might require two or three to come to any sort of conclusion. Can’t think why I’m putting on weight.

We’d just finished having our tea break and I was deciding what drudgery I could instruct the children to do next, when the doorbell rang. Of course Kiki went nuts bouncing behind the front door and sounding like a dog about three times her size. Spaniels seemed possessed of a huge bark which perhaps compensates somewhat for their very small brains.

I wasn’t expecting any callers but before I could stop her, Meems had opened the door. Walking rapidly towards her, I her I clearly heard a male voice ask, “Is your mummy in?”

“Mummy, are you in?” she asked looking towards me, which I suppose became rhetorical as well as redundant.

“I’m sorry, I don’t have anything to say to you other than to suggest you’re wasting your time.”

“Are you a witch, Lady Cameron?”

“Only when Jaguar make broomsticks,” I said attempting to close the door only he stuck his foot against the door post. “You realise I am well within my rights to call the police? Your foot could get hurt if you don’t remove it.”

“C’mon, tell us about how you threw that bloke up the tree.”

“What?”

“He said you waved your hands and he flew up a tree and got stuck there.”

“I did no such thing, I shouted at him because he was going to stamp on the hedgehog and he fell over a bush. Anything else happened in his imagination.”

“So you’re not a witch?”

“I’m a biologist which as you may know is something quite different. He, on the other hand is telling lies and probably being well remunerated for it. Now go.”

He moved his foot to presumably get his voice recorder out of his pocket and I shut the door and bolted it. The doorbell immediately rang but I walked away from it holding Mima’s hand. We all ignored the doorbells and phones ringing unless we recognised the number on caller display—that little program on the phone has saved me hours of aggravation in dealing with cold callers.

In the old days, we let Meems answer it. She used to say, “I’s Mima who’s you?” and put the phone down before they could answer. It was quite funny until she did it to Henry when he was trying to get hold of Si for some meeting. He read the riot act to Simon who then asked me to stop her from answering the phone. We simply put it out of her reach.

Trish was very different, she used to answer it as if she was some sort of receptionist and this was at about five or six. She’d pick up the phone and say, “Hello, this is the Cameron household, I’m Trish, can I help you?”

She’s always been a bit different we just didn’t appreciate how different. Her brain power is quite frightening and it worries me a lot of the time because if she really understands how much cleverer she is than most people, she could become a real problem or possibly have problems.

I saw some report on the internet that the chap from GCHQ who was on secondment to MI6—yes, James Bond’s employer—and was found dead in the zip up bag, was super bright. Apparently, there’s some Russian defector suggesting that he was photographed in compromising situations to try and get him to become a double agent. He refused and because he could then name the mole in MI6 they killed him. It seems the Russians aren’t just a pain the arse to me, they are one generally. With this bombing campaign in Syria, I wonder how long it will be before one of their planes comes down and ISIL execute the pilot. What happens after that, goodness only knows but I suspect they will start bombing ISIL not the Syrian opposition to Assad’s murderous regime.

I received a book from the book exchange people I’d ordered a week or so ago when I discovered the title. It’s about how life changed from simple bacteria, the only life form on earth and how between one and two billion years ago, some of them merged in a symbiotic relationship creating a complex cell form, from which all living things have since evolved. Professor Brasier’s book shows how it occurred and what happened afterwards. It’s interesting that it hasn’t happened since as far as we know, but it certainly kick started evolution.

On the other end of the spectrum, NASA have discovered a star is transforming into a white dwarf, which means it’s burnt up all the hydrogen and then starts on the heavier elements which reduce it to a much smaller but very destructive object with a huge gravitational effect that destroys any planets in its system. Eventually it will turn into a red giant collapse on itself and become a black hole. Our own sun will eventually do exactly the same thing and destroy the near planets having roasted them extinct of life it will then suck them into a destructive orbit in which they’ll either crash into another planet or end up colliding with the white dwarf. Either way, the earth will disappear in a few million years. If humans are about then, it will interesting to see how they correlate that with their religious beliefs. Perhaps they’ll ask Brian Cox or his equivalent in that time, to stop it happening.

Happy days...

http://www.theguardian.com/science/2015/oct/21/nasa-images-o...