The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike) Part 1853 by Angharad Copyright © 2012 Angharad All Rights Reserved.

The following week was half term for Danny, the girls and Phoebe. I’d spent part of Sunday printing out three copies of my doctoral dissertation and binding them with one of those spiral binder thingies. You know you have to punch holes all down the one side of the page and you put the comb, as they call it, in the binder and open it and it curls itself through the holes and hey presto, you have a bound copy of whatever.

The complete thing was two hundred and seventy pages, with seventy of those being a bibliography and notes. Having read it several times, I was glad someone else was tasked with marking it. Hopefully, they’d see me, the interview panel, that is, sometime just before or after Christmas. Part of me wanted before and part, afterwards.

Universities close from end of October for teaching but all sorts of stuff goes on afterwards. Research, marking, checking equipment, courses for staff, writing papers interviewing students for next year, interviewing new staff, management meetings, oh and interviewing hopeful PhD students.

I tried to forget about the stress of that and leave to the powers that be to pass or fail me. If the latter happened, I might leave academia and make films or write books about wildlife including possibly some children’s stories, such as the Dormouse that Roared-—based on a tale I told the girls ages ago.

Jacquie was quite good at drawing, so between us we could possibly produce an illustrated book for children. It was something to think about, or perhaps I’d set myself up as a freelance ecologist, but then the PhD would help–oh why does life have to be so bloody difficult?

Phoebe had arranged to go with Julie to the salon, so Stella, Jacquie and I were baby sitters in chief, to the horde of kiddiwinks who happen to live with us. The weather was awful, not as bad as New York with its underground boating lake, but too wet to make any outdoor activity feasible.

To keep them dry we went swimming at the hotel, we walked when it wasn’t raining, where the biggest task would be choosing eight music tracks to have washed up with me. One lunch time while I was miles away in my head, Trish asked me what I was thinking about.

“Whether it would be Beethoven’s ninth or the Mozart clarinet concerto.”

“You what?” she looked completely bewildered.

“If I was stranded on a desert island which pieces of music I’d like to take with me.”

“Oh.” She stopped and thought for a moment, “Wouldn’t a boat be more use, Mummy, and some sort of motor?”

“Only if you were trying to escape.”

“Wouldn’t you be trying to?” she looked disappointed in me.

“Why? It might be nice not to have to do anything for a few days.”

“But who’d look after all of us?”

“Daddy and Auntie Stella would organise something, with David about you wouldn’t starve.”

“But I’d miss you, Mummy.”

“Only for a short time.”

“What then you’d be rescued?”

“No, I meant you’d only miss me for a short time–you’re a very resourceful girl, so you’d help the others to organise things.”

She got closer to me, “Don’t tease me, Mummy, we'd all miss you dreadfully.”

“Yes, I expect you would but you’d eventually get used to living without me.”

“No I couldn’t do that.”

“Of course you would–it’s what will happen when you go off to university. Oxford’s not too far away but Cambridge is a bit of a trek from here.”

“I might not go to university,” she folded her arms and pouted.

“Yes you will.”

“You can’t make me,” she said her whole stance hardening in defiance.

“You have no idea what I’m capable of doing young lady, never ever underestimate me.”

“Huh, you said I was cleverer than you were.”

“I still think that, but sometimes it’s not just about pure cleverness, it’s about a lots of things, including the fact that I have a great deal more experience of life than you do.”

“But if I’m more intelligent than you, I’ll be able to see what you’re doing and stop you, won’t I?” She punctuated this rather frightening statement with a curious little smile–her eyes remained rather cold.

“Probably–I don’t know why I bother, but you’ve just shown me that you wouldn’t actually miss me at all, because you’re so clever.”

“I would miss you, lots and lots, Mummy,” suddenly Dr Strangelove had been replaced with an eight year old again.

“I’d miss you too, darling.” I gave her a hug and she almost purred as she relaxed in my arms.

“I’m glad you would, because it might help you decide to build a boat.”

I had to smile, because I can’t knock a nail in straight, let alone plane or saw properly. Also where would all the tools come from? I’ve never navigated or sailed a boat, so I’d have no idea and would probably be better staying put than sailing round in circles to either starve or more likely thirst to death, if I was snatched by a great white or capsized by a dumb whale. It would be just my luck to meet Moby Dickhead.

“What sort of boat would you build, Mummy?”

“Probably something like the Polynesians use, a dugout canoe thing with an outrigger.”

“What’s a dugout canoe and an out thingy?”

We went to her computer and I showed her primitive canoes and some with the outrigger float. She huffed and puffed, “It’s a bit small, isn’t it?”

“Remember, I’d be on my own and I wouldn’t be able to knock up Ark Royal single handed in a million years.”

“I probably would, Mummy. It’s all about splitting trees into planks and then fitting them together.”

“You need special tools to do that, wedges and hammers and things, plus the saw or hammer to cut the tree down in the first place.”

“I saw the man on Time Team make an axe and cut down a tree.”

“That was a man, darling, you’ll be a woman–we aren’t as physically strong.”

“It’ll just take longer, that’s all.”

Sometimes I envy children the ability to see things as straightforward and black and white as they see them. “How are you going to make the axe?”

“Oh you bash two stones together, tie the sharper one to a bit of stick and chop the tree down.”

“It’s that easy, is it?”

“Yeah, gotta be, I mean anyone can bash two stones together.”

“It’s a bit more than just bashing them together, it’s called flint napping, and requires great skill and some strength.”

“Well he didn’t, he shoved it on his knee and bash bash he had a axe.”

I would be wasting my breath arguing. She knows and won’t be convinced, even though I know she’s wrong, because I’ve seen it done and it takes hours and hours to get an axe from a lump of stone.

“Where will you get the string to tie it to the handle?”

“I expect there’ll be some there somewhere.”

“What if there isn’t?” I was pushing her now to see what she’d do.

“Oh, probably unravel a pair of knickers.”

That surprised me but it could possibly work if it was spun into string from thin thread, but then you need resin to hold the string to the stone. If there aren’t any pine trees or similar it’s hardly likely to be possible with coconut juice.

“Muuum,” called Livvie.

“Yes, sweetheart.”

“Bramble’s been sick on the hall carpet and Kiki’s eating it...”