The Weekly Dormouse. (aka Bike, est. 2007) Part 3395 by Angharad Copyright© 2023 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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Why do Mondays seem to happen much more often than weekends? I asked myself. I had a meeting with Natural England, which meant I had to dress up more tidily than I would for my office, although I'd look reasonably tidy for that too. The radio came on and the headlines were all about some well-known newsreader who was caught up in some controversy about some payment for revealing photos via his mobile phone with some young man. The young man was saying it was no crime and the police were saying they could find no evidence of criminal behaviour, the newsreader was in hospital suffering from mental issues and that his wife had revealed his name to the media. It was also problem for the BBC which one or two papers were trying to worsen. I knew that feeling and I hoped our well respected broadcaster would recover healthwise and also careerwise. I contemplated this in the shower then I dried my hair and dressed before checking on the kids. Only the ones in school needed to be up and this was their last week before the end of term and the festivities involved, David said he had it all in hand and when I looked Sarah had taken the girls down for breakfast and was going to take them to school.

I had breakfast with them, checked my makeup and my hair then gathered up my laptop and the papers necessary for the meeting. It was eight o'clock and I had to be at Bristol for ten. I let the Jaguar belt along when I could and as much of it was motorway I was able to give it a run and charge up the battery. I was there on time, it was about dormice and they were asking me as a leading researcher, about habitat conservation, especially as our research had shown the value of corridors of hedges and small woodland on biodiversity. Where we had them the figures for everything was just so much better and the message I left them with was we need more corridors, cut hedges less and wildlife will start to recover and much of the loss of biodiversity was due to intensive farming and loss of habitat. I didn't know how much my opinion and research would count but at least I was trying my best protect biodiversity, especially my beloved dormice.

While I was in Bristol I checked on both houses, Des' old one was fine but my parent's house had been damaged by an attempted break in. I rang Diane and told her I had to sort that out before I could return, I also phoned David and lastly Simon, because he handled the insurance. I sent him photos of the damage done to a window and the back door. I was fuming and wanted to strangle the perpetrators but instead I waited while Simon organised someone to come and assess the damage and then fix it and also to have cameras fitted that would alert the police and notify my phone.

I shot to the nearest supermarket and bought some sandwiches for lunch, some milk and some cakes, I would have to entertain the insurance assessor and the security firm who did the cameras. The two visitors didn't overlap so I had to wait there until I saw them both. It appeared the security man could fit cameras that covered the back and front of the house tomorrow. I spoke to Simon, who told me that they were doing him a favour and to accept it or see someone break into my parents old house. It began to look if I was staying overnight. The damaged door and window could also be fixed tomorrow so I left a message for Diane to cancel my appointments for tomorrow. I called Daddy who told me to get it sorted as once a house was known as easy to break in, it would become a tourist attraction to thieves from all over.

Went again to the supermarket and as I was returning the steering seemed odd. Stopped the car and examined the wheels, I had a flat front tyre. I drove to a local garage labelled my car keys and popped them through his letterbox telling him I'd call him first thing tomorrow, then I got a taxi home and ate the meal I'd bought. It was premade lasagne but it tasted okay along with a couple of rolls I'd bought.

I went to bed early intending to be up early for the workmen tomorrow but also to call the garage to fix my wheel. It's annoying if it had happened on a bike I could have sorted it myself in quarter of an hour to twenty minutes, because it was a bloody car, I couldn't, Jaguar wheels are not small, I'm not sure I could have lifted one let alone got it of the rim. Just when you're on the floor, life kicks you in the teeth, bah, bloody cars.

I had enough food for breakfast and sufficient milk to last me through the day with the odd cup for the workmen if they wanted it plus a pack of digestive biscuits to help the cuppas down or in case I felt peckish. I went to bed and prepared to sleep in an old tee-shirt I kept with me just in case. I also had pair of jeans and some trainers with polo shirt and spare knickers just in case I had to spend the night away from home.

I spoke to the kids and they sounded upbeat not missing me at all was the impression I got, which reinforced my opinion of, 'never expect thanks from cats or teenagers. In bed by ten and asleep by half past I awoke at just after one needing to wee as I got back into bed I thought I heard a noise. I listened again and decided it was just the wind. Then I heard it again. I sat up in bed and if was the thief from before I was going to teach them a lesson on honesty. If I had a chance I was going to honestly beat the shit out of them - yeah, right. Well, I'd do my best unless he was seven foot tall and built like a gorilla, then I'd have to rethink my strategy.

I slipped out of bed and pulled on my jeans and trainers, then I stole downstairs. I had an advantage if he got in, I knew the layout in the dark. I had phoned the police as soon as I realised I had company, and like the ambulance service, they said they'd try and come in the next few days. I was now doubly mad, I was nearly tempted to state I thought I saw a firearm, but I didn't, I just reminded them that I was a woman alone whose husband would foreclose all their mortgages if anything happened to me. They then told me they might be able to make it by the morning. I put my phone in the back pocket of my jeans and crept into the kitchen.

I witnessed him bashing the double glazed window, he hit it in the middle and did no more than crack it, he obviously hadn't heard that you hit it in the corner to break it. He tried again to jemmy the door open perhaps not appreciating it had about six or seven levers that slot into the frame, meaning you need a battering ram if you are serious about entering through that door when it's locked. While he possibly got himself a hernia trying to force open the door I had an idea. I slipped out the front door and ran around to the back and jumped on the shoulders of the thief. It was short action and I had overpowered them in minutes using a cable tie I'd grabbed as I went out. They were soon sitting on the lawn with their hands tied behind them, which is when the police arrived.

They dragged my prisoner up to their feet and pulled back the hood they had been wearing, it was girl. I was shocked, no wonder my surprise attack had been so easy. We all went into my house and I put the kettle on, in between making some tea and serving it, she admitted that she had tried to gain entry before. There wasn't much of her and when I offered her some toast she expressed her enthusiasm. I ended up making some for the coppers too, bang went my intended breakfast.

I finally made her two poached eggs on toast which she wolfed down , she was apparently homeless and I began to have funny thoughts about a story I'd read on the internet about an autistic homeless character who is captured by the householder with a handgun. If this girl turned out to be an autistic, transgendered, homeless person I was going back to bed. They didn't, thank goodness, just a hungry homeless person who now had my breakfast inside them and who thanked me just before the police took her away.

I did get back to bed but it was getting light outside and I wished I had brought my bike with me. I dozed rather than slept and woke with a knocking at the door, it was the security chap followed about ten minutes later by the workman who was going to sort my door and window. On the promise of some tea and toast, the latter drove me to the supermarket and I bought more bread, milk and eggs. We all had eggs on toast for brekkies with umpteen cups of tea. I rang the garage who had looked at mt tyre and told me I needed a new one, it was close to two hundred pounds for said tyre but I needed to get home tonight and so told them to proceed, where upon he told me he had to order it and it wouldn't get there until lunch time. I gave him my address and asked them to deliver the car to me when they had fixed it, he told me that would add to the cost. By that time I didn't care anymore and just wanted it sorted so I could drive home after the house was fixed.

About mid afternoon the car arrived and I thanked them despite having paid a pound of flesh for it, I was glad to see it. Then as the security man was packing up after showing me how the cameras worked, they seemed so small but they worked fine even though I could hardly see them, I had another visitor. The girl to whom I had given a breakfast and had stopped breaking into my house came to thank me. I hadn't preferred charges and there as now a new window fitted and door had a great steel bar across it.

I gave her another cup of tea and we talked, she'd had some sort of breakdown at university and hadn't been right since. Her luck had got worse and she ended up homeless not even able to get a job, she hadn't taken any drugs yet but she was close to it as the despair set in. I asked about her parents and they'd split up some years before and she'd lost her mother's address. It was the UWE she had attended and I rang them to speak to someone I knew, I explained what had happened and arranged to take her to the university to try and get hold of her mother.

While they were sympathetic they couldn't help and as she was no longer their student they no longer had any obligation to her. No one wanted to help her. I rang Diane and told her the tale of woe and she told me to give her half an hour. We were having lunch in Morrison's cafeteria when she rang back with an address. I told Jane, the girl I'd captured, and told her the address she said it sounded about right. Diane had also given me a phone number, which rang and wasn't answered. Eventually it took a message and I asked them to phone me back as a matter of some urgency.

I bought her a new outfit of jeans and a coat and some new trainers, plus a few little extras like knickers and sanitary towels when my phone trilled at me. It was her mum and she was delighted to hear from us. I offered to take her there, it was in Gloucester, and she gave me directions to find her.

An hour and half later she was reunited with her mother and after a short time with them I managed to escape, go to the house in Bristol, clear up and then phoning home I asked David to keep me a dinner and I set off at last to see my own kids who wanted to hear all about my latest escapade.

All through this episode I had kept quiet about being a professor and the wife of an aristocrat. Simon rang and asked me how I got on and I related the story of Jane and he told me that they would write to her offering a chance to apply for a grant to aid her to becoming employed again, I thanked him and I really missed his kindness at times, he really was a wonderful man and I knew why I loved him.