The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike, est. 2007) Part 2847 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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So Laura Trott got a gold in the omnium in a world cup competition. She’s a prodigious talent. It didn’t say what happened to Cavendish, I think he was competing in the men’s one. The only think he hasn’t got is an Olympic medal and he’d really like one, oh and a TdF yellow jersey, so he’s after one of those as well. He’s the most successful British male rider of all time with the most wins, a green jersey, a British champion’s jersey, a world champion’s jersey and so on. Nice to know he still has ambitions though he’s getting a little old to be the best sprinter—it tends to be a young man’s game. I hope he still has it in his legs to win a few more races and hopefully his Olympic medal and yellow jersey.

After the discussions with Sister Maria about Trish and their apparent delight at the card she wrote, today seems rather flat. At various times I’ve bought the girls nice pens and they’ve lost them or broken them. So this time I’ve bought some cheap ones which they can use to keep their journals, hopefully it will keep their writing from disappearing altogether in favour of texts or computers. While I was ordering the pens I got a huge bag of a hundred cartridges in washable blue ink. Generally, I use black ink but thinking of getting stains out of clothing, the washable blue is better for the girls.

My Lady Sheaffer skripsert VI clipless pen, one of my proudest possessions, still writes like a dream, I use it for signing letters and occasionally for generally writing things, is a step or two up from those the girls will be using, to start with, it’s a vintage pen which I believe goes back to the nineteen sixties, it’s paisley gold on blue enamel with a stainless steel nib. I don’t think is especially valuable, except in sentimental terms as I think I saw one advertised for sale at fifty or sixty pounds recently. But it’s really beautiful. The genuine ink cartridges for Sheaffer pens are quite expensive so I cheat – I buy bottles of ink and refill the cartridges with a syringe—one of the advantages of having a laboratory at hand.

Like so many things today, all the different manufacturers make different disposables so while there is a generic cartridge for mostly cheaper fountain pens, the majority of the more expensive pens, Parker, Sheaffer, Cross, Waterman all have their own fitting cartridges aren’t interchangeable. While I accept the ink might be better than in the generic cartridges that I get for the girl’s pens, I use a branded ink like Parker Quink or Sheaffer to refill my own cartridges. The only problem is keeping the pen upright in a handbag that gets thrown into the car or dropped on the floor of my office, otherwise they can get ink running or leaking. I usually use a pen box, which fits in an upright pocket in the bag in the same sort of way a mobile phone pocket keeps them upright. Occasionally, I have the odd mishap and have to wipe it off or wash out the pen top, but generally it works.

If my study at home or my office in the university was searched and syringes with needles found strange assumptions could be made, but the only residues found in them would be ink.

I told Diane what I was doing with the girls regarding journals and pens, using my own to sign my letters. She thought it was a good idea although she said she hadn’t used a fountain pen since she left school—the same one I went to (only the girls’ one, if you can remember that far back I went to the boys’ one—yeah it was a mistake).

“You didn’t have that one in school did you?” she asked indicating the pen I had in my hand. “It would have raised a few eyebrows.”

“No, I had a Parker, quite a nice one—I still have it at home somewhere and used it regularly at university.”

She looked at me. “How old are you—thirty one or two?”

“Two,” I sighed.

“That’s right, about a year or so after me.”

“The relevance of which is...?”

“You are up to date in all sorts of things yet at the same time old fashioned.”

I gave her a curious look to indicate I wanted more information.

“Well, the fountain pens and handwriting are the most obvious ones. You seem to prefer mostly classical music to modern pop from the stuff you play on your MP3. Your dress sense is modern classical, so your clothes can last years, which probably isn’t bad because most of them are suitably expensive for an aristocrat’s wife. The bikes you tell me about are pretty up to date as far as I can gather as is you car but there’s something about you which harkens back to an earlier generation, isn’t there?”

“Is there?”

“Yes, a sort of old fashioned values: honesty, decency, hard working, close-knit family. I’ll bet you all have dinner together, don’t you and that digital phones are banned from the table?”

I blushed. “Have you been to dinner at my house?”

“No, is that an invite?”

“Possibly when life is a little less hectic.”

“I’ll bet you iron your knickers too, don’t you?”

“Goodness, is that the time?” I said trying to deflect her attention from my blush or my laundry intimacies. Yes I did iron them—when I have time—it’s supposed to help kill any bugs in the lining in the gusset, because so many machines wash at such low temperatures, I also wash them by hand sometimes like I do tights or stockings or bras—but I don’t iron those.

I did two hours teaching on ecology today and quite enjoyed it at the same time I’ll be glad to get my staff back so I can concentrate on my own job of running the department and supervising research. Apparently the government want professors to spend more time teaching and less time researching or publishing research which shows how little they understand what universities are for. Research and publication of papers is what makes our reputations not the numbers of bums on seats. Sometimes I think they confuse us with theatres or bus services. Now they’re talking about ending student grants yet they claim to want more of Britain’s young adults to have degrees, preferably in something other than media studies. They say one thing and do the other.

Going off to collect the girls I decided I might just ask Diane and her husband to dinner one night, if only to expose her to the talent and skills of our resident chef—doesn’t everyone have one? But not until I feel less stressed by staff shortages. At the moment, I’m just happy to get home and relax a little—okay sometimes I do it with my eyes shut (I try not to snore) and sometimes I just read or listen to music or spend time with the younger children—it helps them remember who is designated as their mother—though I haven’t got to the stage of needing a badge or sash to help them identify me—nah, I’m home more than that. It’s Simon they ask questions about, like—‘Who’s he?’