The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike) Part 1933 by Angharad Copyright © 2013 Angharad All Rights Reserved.

The week seemed to be passing at an increasing rate. Once upon a time I’d be waiting for the weekends so I could get out on my bike or hide in my bedsit and play with my makeup or paint my nails while wearing a skirt of course. Now, the weekends come so quickly and they’re gone even more quickly. Ironically, I can wear skirts, makeup or nail varnish any time I like but I can’t be bothered unless I’m going somewhere special.

When I teach, I’m often in jeans although Tom has said he doesn’t approve of them for the staff, there is no actual code of dress except when doing certain lectures or obviously meetings or representing the university elsewhere. Then I do dress up and nowadays have the wardrobe and resources to show that I can do girly–posh girly.

I remember Tom picking me up for wearing jeans. “Ye look like ain o thae students,” he complained.

“D’you know how much these jeans cost, Daddy?”

He shook his head.

“Two hundred pounds.”

“Ye wis robbed,” he chuckled to himself.

They didn’t, but he didn’t know that–I got them in Debenhams for thirty quid in the sale, so they were a cut above the market stall trader and comfortable. They were also green and I wore them with a green shirt and knitted waistcoat. I thought I looked tidy enough. I wore a little makeup that day–I was teaching a new set of students–so wanted them to see me favourably, although my lecture would account for most of that. As I was resorting to maximum influence, I had my best teaching aid with me–and she was sleepy after stuffing hazel nuts for the past hour.

I performed to standard if not a bit above, and I always have them doing something different which I change with every lecture so they don’t learn about it from another class. This time it was: “I’ve sprinkled a sample of things around the room, I’d like you all to have a wander and collect some and then we’ll have a discussion was to what it is, what it would mean and so on. You have five minutes.

The boys are always the more adventurous but not necessarily the better guessers. This time one of them got lucky. I asked for a volunteer to tell me what the things were–they were all the same but different.

“Looks like bits of dead insects,” said one of the girls.

“Very good. Now use that to tell me what they could be.”

“Looks like a load of crap,” said one lad within hearing distance although I suspect he hadn’t meant to be so.

“Good–now what does that tell you?”

He blushed like a light bulb.

“C’mon, you’re supposed to be some of the elite doing higher education, use that fat between your ears for the first time–think.”

“Some sort of droppings?” asked a girl from the back.

“Excellent–now what sort?”

“Something that eats insects, I suppose,” she replied.

“Okay, what eats insects?”

“Loadsa things.”

“Let’s have a list shall we? Okay who’s first?” I stepped towards the white board and began writing things down.

Birds; spiders; swallows; shrews; flycatchers; dormice–they’d obviously seen the film or read the book–bats; lizards; other insects.

Now I made them work. We established that the bits of insects were mainly the wings and wing cases of beetles, which would be indigestible. The droppings were dry, which I told them was how they would be when fresh.

We eliminated spiders and other insects and one boy suggested lizards would produce wet droppings as would birds. He was actually doing really well.

One of the girls said because I’d put them there they had to be dormouse droppings. They weren’t. Another worked out they had to be bat droppings. As everything else had been eliminated, she got the prize for being the only one awake.

“Yes, they’re bat droppings, which are usually dry.” Some boy made a comment about constipation but I ignored it. I made them suggest in what sort of habitat they’d expect to find bat droppings. They all went for buildings and were surprised to learn that many bats roost in boxes put up by biologists, in hollow trees, abandoned mines, under bridges and many other places. They also had different roosts for summer and winter hibernation. A deep cave or tunnel remained stable in temperature at about 10C or 50F.

After an hour I’d extracted everything they knew or could imagine about bats. I dealt with the myths–they get tangled in your hair; and the realities–they can be infected with rabies. They are all protected under the Countryside and Wildlife Act.

Finally, I let them go setting them an essay on the ecology of bats and telling them I expected to see at least three new facts which we hadn’t discovered in the lesson. They all went off groaning. I got one of the technicians to clean up the mess from the droppings and left. I had over a hundred students–who says you can’t do interactive with big numbers. I had a large box of bat droppings I’d got from a church belfry so we could afford to throw some away.

The next group would get scattered shells, some eaten by dormice, some by woodmice, some by squirrels, nuthatches and voles. Voles don’t climb as well as the others so tend to eat fallen nuts or acorns. I hoped the first group would say what they had because the next lot would be put off their guard–okay, I’m an evil bitch–what took ya so long?

Did I tell you we had so many enrol for ecology after the dormouse film, mainly girls, that we had to split them into two groups and again for practical work and field trips. The groups were too big to do any sensitive work, but at least they got outdoors and if they were lucky got to see or touch something wild–usually a slow-worm, or strange plant like sundew which is insectivorous–so they’d have something to remind them of the course.

Some complained expecting to see or touch a dormouse–with a group that size–it’s not on unless they called by the labs and saw some captive ones. The dormouse was part of the woodland ecology we did in the second year and it got a great deal more detailed with only fifty places available.

After wandering over an old rubbish tip, a sewage farm and a church, some of them decided ecology wasn’t for them. Who was I to argue, but my courses seemed to remain the largest in the biological sciences department.

I saw several faces I recognised from St Claire’s from amongst the mob who talked me into doing Macbeth. At last I had a chance to revenge myself–you don’t really believe that do you?

Goodness; my mind had wandered a long way from the conference to some past experiences–mostly good ones–especially where Spike attended and stole the show–well she is so beautiful compared to me.