The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike, est. 2007) Part 2996 by Angharad Copyright© 2016 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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The girls were at the hotel with Amanda, or the older ones were. The little ones were home with Stella who had a few days off while the weather was nice and the hospital was quiet. Why people’s prostate problems would seemingly have a quiet period eluded me, though I had a vague recollection of her saying that most were old men so went on holiday before the schools finished. As said schools had finished and loads of grandpas were no longer on holiday, one would expect the clinics to build up again. That I still had a prostate gland occasionally concerned me, though oestrogen in high doses probably meant it was shrivelled up anyway.

I arrived at the hotel and looking at the pool meant I had yearnings for a swim and whilst i could have borrowed a cozzie, I decided I wouldn’t, instead getting home for a cuppa and a chance to research the Cumbrian dormouse sites.

After dinner I did some basic checks and found that dormice do exist in small populations in Cumbria and Northumberland—so much for my encyclopaedic knowledge of all things dormeece. The information wasn’t new and I must have seen it before—I’d obviously wiped it from my mind. Perhaps it disappeared along with my marbles when Stella launched my career as a test pilot for Scott bicycles.

It really shook me that I could forget such a thing though I seemed to recollect that they needed larger territories because the food was less available than in the south of the country. So in reality a small population was barely hanging on to existence, because it has to be at the edge of their tolerance. Comparing it with somewhere like Lithuania or even Switzerland where winters tend to be much colder, they seem to be holding their own although winter mortality is about 60% in Lithuania, but the summers are warmer and drier. I suspect it’s wet winters that harm them which are often mild and stimulate waking from hibernation torpor and that uses up essential fat supplies for which there are no replacement foods available. The dormice would then hibernate again and die.

I looked at my computer and had another record for a beech marten. This is a close relative of the pine marten though slightly smaller, sometimes called the stone marten and one which has the unusual habit of biting through cables and pipes in cars. Nobody knows why they do it though it was suggested they do so in Japanese cars because they use fish oils to lubricate cables. It’s a bit farfetched and doesn’t explain why they do it to other makes of cars as well. Seems humans aren’t the only animal with unusual or unexplained habits. With cars, humans seem to drive them into each other or large immoveable objects like bridges, at speed.

I was still smarting at my forgetting about the small populations of dormice up north, yet when I looked at my notes for the film I mentioned it there. Obviously early onset Alzheimer’s. Perhaps I was mixing it up with ancient records for Yorkshire, because a small colony there was thought to be extinct several years ago. It might be just that I need a holiday, the only problem being I have to take half a dozen or more children with me.

Danni sneaked into my study and asked if I wanted to go for a ride. It seemed as good an idea as any I had and might stop me thinking about dormice with north country or Geordie accents—that was too surreal. ‘Squeak – way aye.’

The youngsters were all watching something on the telly, some cartoon or other but I did tell Simon we were out for an hour and should be back before it got dark. He was watching the TV as well with Meems sat on his knee. He had his girlfriend so he wouldn’t miss me for an hour.

We did pretty well the same ride we had the other day with Danni wheel-sucking all the way up the hill. At one point I did accelerate and she was adrift for a moment then she caught back up with me. Were I really racing, I’d have accelerated again as soon as she relaxed for a moment. This usually happens when the pursuer has caught the target and feels they don’t have to ride so hard so almost slow down. I didn’t pull away again partly because I didn’t want to be mean and also because I thought she’d catch me again.

We rode across the top of the ridgeway then after switching on our super bright LED lights back and front, we started the descent. My superior weight enabled me once more to pull away and I gave it my all for a few moments losing sight of the computer because my eyes were watering so much from the slipstream and this despite wearing good sunglasses.

At the bottom of the hill I didn’t wait for her but continued to dash for home as I’d got my second wind. I arrived home and was wiping the bike while waiting for her. Five minutes came and went, then ten and I began to worry a little. When it became fifteen I hopped back on the bike and rode back the way I’d just returned the only difference being that my heart was in my mouth as my imagination ran riot and I berated myself for not waiting at the bottom of the hill. If she’d had some sort of accident and it prevented her from playing in her international, she’d never forgive me; not that I’d forgive myself in any case.

Some five minutes and nearly three miles back, I discovered her hunched over a wheel—she’d punctured and was trying to fix it. She looked quite young and was struggling to lever the tyre off the rim. I stopped and between us, we had the inner tube changed and the tyre back on in about seven minutes. Hardly up to Lewis Hamilton standards but one puncture on the TdF last week took over six minutes but that was a neutral support motorbike with Mavic wheels. Adequate but only just.

Danielle followed me back home. She was fuming for not being able to get the tyre off by herself. I tried to explain that it’s about having strong enough thumbs to get it off and then back on. She couldn’t see the argument at all, so I told her I was an expert and she seemed happy with that. Strange creatures, teenage girls.

The cartoon was still going—turned out to be Snow White – the Disney version, so they were still watching it when we snuck back in and into the showers. I think that’s what you might call a result.