The Weekly Dormouse. (aka Bike, est. 2007) Part 3248 by Angharad Copyright© 2020 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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For RL/D who enjoys my nonsense, I hope he feels better soon.

Simon's good humour was due to England winning a test match and him winning some money as a consequence. I suspect he loses more than he wins but what he does with his money is his affair. I'd just ordered a book on trilobites, these were like marine woodlice about three hundred million years ago and came in all sorts of shapes and sizes. I'd been in love with them since I was a kid and I've been hooked on fossils ever since, I even have one or two in my study but not the monsters that have occurred in other climes. The largest found so far was from Manitoba Isotelus rex at 720 mm while one of the largest from the UK was a specimen of Paradoxides davidis which was found in 1862 near St Davids in Pembrokeshire and which measured over 500 mm. This species comes from the mid-Cambrian some 500 million years ago and it's astonishing how life suddenly took off in the Pre-Cambrian possibly because there was enough oxygen in the atmosphere to support more complex and active forms. Much of this oxygen was provided by simple algae and cyanobacteria rather than land plants as many of these had barely developed.

Fossils are the original way of dating rocks and they still are used in the field for this, so if you have certain trilobites or ammonites you know the rough age of the rocks you're examining. It also showed geologists that the continents had changed both in position and attachments. Again we know about tectonic plates and how they move, but this fairly recent and not proven until after the 1970s, when theories about the formation of oceans also were understood. The next new ocean will apparently be in the Great Rift Valley in Africa as the ground splits apart and the sea rolls in which is what happened with the formation of the Atlantic ocean, meaning that the small continent of Avalonia was rent asunder to form it with North America forming on one side and the British Isles and Europe on the other. Scotland apparently joining what is now England and Wales, showing that the Earth wanted it to be part of the United Kingdom, even if Nicola Sturgeon doesn't.

So until radio-dating of rocks became possible, approximate dates were made by geologists using field observation of stratification and position of fossils to make estimates of the age of the earth. This led to a few mistakes and where you have complex rock formations with folding and tilting of rocks it led to great disagreements between scientists, where the only certainty is the bigger the reputation the bigger the ego underneath it. No change there then, and as my reputation isn't enormous, it doesn't bother me - well unless someone disagrees with a pet theory...

I remember trying to explain to my girls about fossils, how they were dead organisms that had been turned to stone by petrification and that trilobites had become extinct over 250 million years ago before the dinosaurs had evolved in an earlier mass extinction event at the end of the Permian. They of course were aware of stories or mythologies where things or people had been turned to stone, usually by gods or angry Gorgons, usually females are the victims because they danced on the sabbath or some such nonsense, or were a coven of witches and so on. These days we know it's all nonsense but it seems that there is an underlying misogyny beneath almost all myths or histories and I don't understand why, except we know many of them originated during periods when humans worshipped sky-gods and men were in charge and nearly all religions are controlled by men who don't want women to rock their boats and essentially demonstrates a profound fear of the female, especially female sexuality.

There was a fascinating cartoon in the Guardian recently demonstrating an article from a book by a woman comic about benevolent sexism* holding women back and it really made me think that I've been caught by the same tricks that it showed managers playing, which reinforces 'feminine roles' without valuing what women can actually do, so "Everything is so much nicer with a woman running things, but don't worry about having any authority just keep smiling at the men and they'll run things for you as long as you make the coffee."

With a houseful of girls, I have to try and change things so they don't have to put up with the nonsense I had to which is possibly better than it was in my mother's day. She was a stay-at-home mum - for that read brainwashed prisoner of the kitchen. She seemed happy enough with her lot but it didn't give her a chance to choose if it was what she wanted, it was just expected and she complied having got herself a husband who could support her and any children reasonably well. If my girls want to do that, I'll have them marched off for therapy under the mental health act.

Okay, so I'm a feminist who likes trilobites, big deal, it isn't because they're cute it's because I'm trying to understand how they lived, their ecology and why there were so many types and possibly also why they became extinct in such a short time when other crustaceans didn't. I'll have to get round to reading that book** by Richard Fortey the trilobite man from the Natural History Museum, he'll have some idea. I do know that many of the fossils are actually shed skins, not dead animals, as with all crustaceans, if they need to grow bigger they have to shed their skin or carapace and these were dumped on the sea bed and subsequently fossilised, but even so it's still mind-blowing to hold something in your hand and realise it's at least 250 million years old.

While I was musing on this profundity and eating some toast, I'd woken early and decided I'd come and have my breakfast in relative peace and quiet, when the thunder of hoofbeats indicated the entry of Livvie followed by Meems. "She's cwtching with Daddy," replied to my unasked question about the whereabouts of Trish and Hannah.

Lizzie was in her high chair with me, so the concept of peace and quiet was perhaps a little illusory, she started shouting at Meems who went over to her and kissed her only to get some banana rubbed into her hair. This then turned into a minor spat with Meems telling her off and Lizzie's giggles turning to tears. Then Livvie got involved and told off Meems for being so stupid and I told all three of them off, which resulted in the two older girls running off sniffing past Tom who then asked me, "Whit wis goin' on?" Another normal day in paradise. Some days I do wonder why I bother.

I finished my toast and tea and instead of sitting down with Daddy, I grabbed Lizzie and took her up to bathe her, she had banana in her hair as well. When I got upstairs there were giggles emanating from the bedroom, so Simon and the two girls were obviously having fun. Livvie and Meems were in the shower and when I checked, Danni was reading about hedgehogs. I asked her to bathe Lizzie while I got myself washed and dressed, for once she simply got out of bed and did as I asked. If hedgehog books were having such an effect on her I did wonder if I ought to recommend a dormouse one.

I went into my own bathroom and Simon and the two girls were still being silly, I suspect he was telling them some nonsense story because they were laughing out loud. They hardly noticed me enter the room and slip into the bathroom grabbing some underwear as I did so. When I exited the bathroom, all three of them had gone, presumably, to get breakfast, I just hoped that Simon slipped on some pants over his undies. Boxers are not the best wear in the kitchen.

"What d'you want Lizzie to wear?" called Danni and I grabbed a few things and took them down to her. She continued to look after her younger sister while I made sure that Livvie and Meems dried their hair properly before putting it in plaits. Then it was to see what the gigglers had had for breakfast. I don't so much have time to get bored as exhausted. It wasn't eight o'clock and I'd been busy for the past hour, while Simon sat at the table trying to convince me how much work he'd done feeding his fan club after entertaining them. His look suggested that he'd done me such a large favour, but being school holidays I wondered if he thought about how I cope when he isn't there because if he did, it wasn't noticeable.

Finally, just as I was about to clear the table, Stella arrived with her two, so I left them to it. She'll probably complain, but I had a report to write for the bank, some dissertations to mark and a life to lead. Perhaps the last part of that was pure fantasy.

http://www.trilobites.info/ A website about trilobites - very good.

**Fortey, RA., (2000) Trilobite! Eye witness to evolution. Harper Collins, London.

* https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/aug/13/benevolent-sex...