The Weekly Dormouse. (aka Bike, est. 2007) Part 3323 by Angharad Copyright© 2021 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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After the hullabaloo of Christmas, New Year was very quiet. I believe that Julie, Sammi and Phoebe were going out on the town and I allowed Danni and Sarah to go with them on the understanding the older girls would look after them. It made me smile that of the five of them, Phoebe was the only biological female, though you'd never know it without a medical exam or chromosome test.

The taxi brought the three who were living here back at about 2.00 am briefly waking me but I soon went back to sleep knowing they were home. The usual fireworks at midnight were noisy but I felt probably fewer than in previous years. I don't like fireworks, especially after what nearly happened to Julie, so I'm irritated by those who do use them. I always feel they're imposing themselves on others without a by your leave. But then people seem to be increasingly selfish and Covid hasn't helped. Apparently, the numbers of people flying and refusing to wear masks is increasing and they are often abusive to airline staff. Surely they should know if it is a condition of buying the ticket or boarding the plane and comply with it. If they don't perhaps they should show them the door while still airborne.

I really don't understand people these days are they stupid, pig-headed, or anarchic? Those who are most ill in hospital through Covid are the unvaccinated, and while some may have been so through casualness, others are there because they deliberately refused the vaccination. What I don't get is the thousands of NHS staff who refused because it was made mandatory. I don't know the issues but it seems common sense to me that unless you have a valid reason for not being vaccinated, especially in a high risk job, which many NHS ones are, then you should be called to explain yourself to your manager.

We haven't forced staff at the university to have the vaccines but we do encourage them to do so, often a little word from someone who has lost someone to the disease is enough and we also remind them of the staff we've lost, who have died or are on long-term sickness through catching the virus. Personally, I think it's both irresponsible and inconsiderate not to be vaccinated and also to refuse to wear face masks in public areas of the university. like corridors or lecture theatres. As it looks as if the government is wanting things to return to normal, it seems likely we'll doing our lectures and other work with students within a few weeks.

I know staff and students are grumbling about wearing masks and using hand sanitiser gel so I've commissioned some posters thanking people for wearing masks by having a picture of an old lady sitting in a wheel chair with a nurse wearing a mask behind her, the caption reading, 'Thank you for having consideration for me.'

Talking of consideration, I asked Diane where Nikki was, it seemed she'd been doing quite well with exercises until she fell doing one of them and broke her arm. As she has her arm in a rigid harness thing with her elbow sticking out, she can't attend for work. Seems like my good Samaritan act is causing others as much harm as good. When I said this to Diane, she told me off in no uncertain terms, "Cathy, without your intervention, Nikki would be having no treatment and thus have very little chance of improving. At least with what you've managed to get for her, she now has a chance of making her life easier and more successful. She's a lovely kid and thinks you are the most wonderful woman on earth." Watching me blush and stutter, she added, "But then we all do in this department."

I turned back to my office and called for tea as she cackled behind me like an extra for Macbeth. The mound of paperwork had propagated itself over the holiday despite one or other of us coming in and dealing with the urgent items. But then it's a well known fact that paperwork breeds while no one is looking at it, it's like those stone angel things in Dr Who that move while no one is looking at them. We had an episode of that at New Year where the Doctor dealt with the Daleks yet again, though in a sort of Groundhog day fashion. It would seem the Daleks are like lots of humans, only half as clever as they think they are. I suppose I should be included in that somewhere.

Debbie came by as Daddy was on his way to take me to lunch and she got invited as well as did Diane, so today was an expensive one for Daddy. He never complains, well not about money, he did when the restaurant didn't have his chicken curry available and he had to have beef instead. We don't have that much beef in our diets, even with mince David tends to use minced turkey or pork which is lower in fat and we don't eat that much processed meat like bacon or ham or even sausages.

In the end he actually enjoyed his curry and his moan about it, I suppose it gave him something real to complain about albeit something rather trivial. Usually he doesn't complain that much, more the odd whinge that the girls are doing something or I have. I'm aware that in being myself I do things with which he doesn't always agree and sometimes it takes a while for me to realise it. If I know I've upset him I usually apologise because I'm so fond of him and he has been very generous to me and mine. The girls love him to bits as well, but that doesn't stop them annoying him because they're young and self-absorbed. We have thousands of students who are just the same, and while I don't wish them to lose their childhood, some of them are in their twenties and should know better, or would if their parents had exercised proper boundaries.

I know, that for some it's their first time away from home, so we do tend to indulge them during their first term, after that we expect them to have a bit more control and to act like adults because they tell us they want us to treat them as such, right.

They're not all like it, and hopefully the numbers of problem students decreases with time, they either grow up or leave. All universities have their failures and we do take it very seriously but we can only work with people, we will neither do it for them or force them to change, we're not the army, we're a place of learning (sometimes).

The main item on the menu that day was Sarah. Debbie seemed pleased with her willingness to learn and thought she should achieve the level I required, however, she said she felt guilty because she hadn't disclosed to Sarah that she was also transsexual. I told her that she had been but was now legally female, as she'd done the Gender Recognition Panel thing and been accepted by them. She confessed that since her troubles at Sussex and then her outing here caused by the hate-brigade of TERFs at Sussex, she hadn't thought much about it until that professor of philosophy had resigned over accusations of transphobia, which I understood - the allegations after hearing her speak on Radio 4's Woman's Hour, she was a TERF and a lesbian. I have nothing against her personally nor her being a radical feminist but she is an exclusionist whereas I'm an inclusionist. Okay, I'm a romantic, I want everyone to be happy with themselves and each other while knowing it's impossible because some folks seem unable to be happy and others are only happy when making others miserable. I admit I intensely dislike the latter because I see it as some sort of perversity. I know, I suffer from a Goody-Two shoes mentality at times but enjoying the discomfort of others is not something to be admired, it's one of the worst of human emotions - though we all do it, even me. Yeah, can you believe they called me all sorts of names at Sussex, including Mary Poppins, because I was 'practically perfect in every way.' When I got a first, they felt justified and someone actually crossed my name out on the list and wrote in Mary Poppins.

We had an interesting lunch, the food was the same as ever, except Daddy's, but the discussion was good including the story that tumble dryers produce thousands of minute fibres, especially plastic ones from man-made fabrics, which are present in the air, and in fresh and sea water. Apparently, they produce significantly more than even washing machines, so that is something I shall be considering if we could do without at home or at least reducing its use. If you must use them, and I accept that sometimes they seem necessary, it's better to use them with a full load as proportionally, smaller loads produce more fibres.

The fibres are mistaken as food by invertebrates and they in turn are eaten by larger creatures such as fish or birds and each time one of them is predated by something bigger, the amount of fibres gets bigger. It's like the accumulation of toxins, especially fat soluble ones which build up in larger animals, especially oceanic ones like seals and whales and some fish, the mammals especially tend to have large amounts of body fat to protect them from the cold and that provides opportunity for the toxins to accumulate in them. Sometimes they are indicated as involved in diseases or misadventures these animals suffer. However, perhaps the worst fibres of the lot are those dumped by fishing boats, especially French and Spanish ones in the form of ghost netting.

Big trawlers can drag fifty or more miles of the stuff behind them and mishaps happen where some of the net is lost accidentally. However, it also seems that these continental trawlers have been dumping it as well as other illegal rubbish in the North Sea. As you can imagine if this is near the bottom of the ocean things which are swimming down there, hunting or whatever, can become entangled and drown, sometimes inflicting severe damage with the fine netting upon themselves as they struggle to escape. If people like the French and Spanish are doing it, it's very likely that the Chinese and other fleets are also doing it, so everywhere we look humans are abusing and destroying the environment and its denizens. We really are despicable as a species and it always seems that there are ten or more times of despoilers to those trying make things right. The worst thing, much of it is due to laziness or sheer wilful ignorance.

"Why do we bother?" asked Debbie as we drove back to the university. Tom indicated I should answer her question rather than himself.

"Why? because if we don't things will be even worse and biodiversity will suffer even more, if we believe in the right of other species to share this planet with us in reasonable conditions, you can't ignore things, you have to work to educate the ignorant in the hope that they will take up the issue with the stupid and change their minds. If we wait for governments to do anything, we'll wait forever, they use green issues as sound bites but do as little as possible towards them unless they are seeking votes or support, or as a distraction for more nefarious activities. Some politicians are only interested in what enables them to climb higher up the greasy pole, but there are one or two decent ones who do care and we have to feed them with data to expose the activities of others and the state of play in our biological systems.

"We've lost more species in the past twenty five years than we had the previous hundred and fifty and unless something is done internationally, it's only going to get worse."

"So is what we do of any value at all?" asked Debbie.

"Of course it is, we're educating the people who are going to have to sort it out, we have to fill them with passion as well as purpose, we have to give them the skills to show how bad things are but also to work out how to improve them. Sadly Covid has interfered with some of that and also distracted governments from doing what they should, it has, however, demonstrated quite clearly what happens when humans are engaged in activities in places they shouldn't be."

"Oh aye," said Tom.

"Yes, while we may never know how Covid got into the human population in China, whether it was from bush-meat or lax laboratory bio-security, we know that the source of the closest form to that which caused the first epidemic is found in bats. We shouldn't be either eating them or disturbing them. After forests, which are pretty impenetrable, have been visited by loggers, much of it illegally, then all sorts of other activities follow them, mining, hunting, ranching, soya bean growers and so on.

"If governments protected these areas instead of taking kickbacks, because nearly all governments are corrupt these days, including our own, most European ones, the US, India, China, Russia plus places like Brazil, there would be a chance we could sort the planet and protect biodiversity which we need to survive ourselves. But most of them prefer to take the kickbacks. One day, probably after it's too late, these scumbags will be called to account by desperate nations. I hope to live long enough to see it happen."

"Why don't you stand against them, for the Green Party?" asked Debbie.

"If I actually believed they were any better than the others, I might support them but I don't," we arrived at the university and walked back to our respective appointments possibly feeling less optimistic than before we ate.

"Is it that bad?" asked Diane as we entered our suite.

"Actually, it's probably far worse but they hide much of the data from people like me."

"Perhaps Debbie is right then, you should stand up and denounce it."

"They'd only destroy me or kill me in an unfortunate accident, remember Dr Kelly. The vested interests have more power than the green movement are ever likely to have unless it gets so bad everyone is affected and forced to act. Until then, we're stuck with watching our own decline and eventual demise from greed and stupidity."

"I'd better put the kettle on then..." she said heading towards the little kitchenette we have.