The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike, est. 2007) Part 2405 by Angharad Copyright© 2014 Angharad All Rights Reserved.

I shut the door with an audible sigh of relief. Served him right, oversexed moron. I checked with Delia—wonder if she can cook—that he’d gone and asked her to make me a cuppa, while I picked up the financial statement which showed me that I had to save a hundred thousand pounds off the current funding or generate an equal amount of revenue. “How about a dormouse sale?” I said to myself.

“Could I buy one?” asked Delia bringing in my Rosie Lee.

“I beg pardon?”

“You said you were selling dormice, I’d love to have one.”

“I see, have you ever seen one?”

“I saw your film, they looked sooo cool.”

They’re actually quite warm, never mind. “Have you seen one, a live one?”

“Uh no, Professor.”

I was about to scream, ‘I’m not a professor,’ but decided it would be an overreaction. Instead I said, “Come with me,” I locked the office and she secured her door as well, then I led her down to the labs to be the next sacrificial victim to the goddess of dormice.

Of course Danni and Meems were already there with Hilary filling feeding pots or placing food items on the framework they used for exercise. This included things like hazel bushes growing in tubs, up which they could climb like rockets. The whole thing is encased in glass and can be darkened to simulate nightfall. Because we feed them during the day, they tend to come looking for food in the day, so they’re more active than they should have been, but as a visitor attraction that is rather useful.

Delia fell in love at first sight, women do, even those who don’t like mice. When I picked Spike up and placed her chewing on a hazel nut in Delia’s hands, she was blown away. How is it that this thirty grams of fur and flesh has this effect on people? The sort of expressions they have are like they’d just handled some valuable relic or shaken hands with a top movie star—but this is a dormouse, a rather elderly one at that.

“She’s tickling my hand,” whispered Delia and even Meems rolled her eyes, “Look at her tiny little hands.” Spike was turning the nut around in her paws—they don’t have hands—she’s a rodent. We spent a little longer there before I suggested we move back to the office.

“That was absolutely brilliant, Professor, I can see why you’re captivated by them, they are just so cute.”

I smiled, I was fed up with talking about their degree of cuteness, it only matters when we’re trying to protect them or sell something to benefit them. However, I let her witter on for several minutes it seems to require that before they talk sense again—the curse of the dormouse had struck again.

“I can see why you want to study them, they are just so cute.”

“I want to study them because we regard them as a bit of an indicator species with regard to the health of the woods or woodland areas.”

She looked blankly at me.

“Indicator species indicate how the environment is going, if they’re absent when they should be there, something is happening which is affecting them, which means we need to investigate and sort it because sooner or later if it’s killing dormice, we’ll be on the menu.”

“Do things eat dormice then?”

“Yes, including woodmice if they find them in a torpid state they’ll eat their brains.”

“Ugh, how awful.”

“It is and woodmice are usually more numerous than dormice.”

“Can’t you stop it?”

“How, by educating woodmice?”

“Can’t you kill some of them?”

“Not really, I’ve felt like it when one of the little buggers has nipped me.”

“Why do they bite?”

“If some potential predator about a hundred times bigger than you was possibly about to kill and eat you, wouldn’t you have a go at it, you’d have nothing to lose and it might let you go and eat someone else.”

“But you weren’t going to hurt it, were you?”

“It doesn’t know that, does it?”

“I suppose not. Sorry, I must sound like a complete idiot.”

“Not at all. It’s something you haven’t encountered before so your thinking is off the cuff and thus not very ordered. Dormice are very susceptible to all sorts of things from cold and wet with food shortages, to predation and disease and finally destruction of habitat by humans, mainly farmers.”

“Can’t you educate them?”

“What humans or farmers?”

“Both,” she offered looking aghast.

“The good ones already know, the bad ones don’t want to. If we notify a farmer who is about to rip out hedges or cut down a woodland that we’re going to register as a SSSI because of dormice or bats or anything else, a week later it doesn’t exist. The same happens with developers with archaeological remains. Put a JCB through it and there’s nothing left to preserve. Trees felled—they promise to replant but never do or don’t intend to—and Natural England does nothing about it.”

“I heard they stopped churches getting rid of bats even though they were causing damage.”

“Bats in the belfry?” I smirked and she chuckled. “Their urine can be a bit of a problem, but they’re all god’s creatures—ironic, isn’t it?”

“I’m not sure I follow you.”

“The church postulates that god created the world and all its creatures, and some of them are pissing all over buildings and other impedimenta used in the worship of him. I find that ironic—doubly so because they’re protected by law.”

“Oh, I see. Dormice don’t do things like that do they?”

“What despoil churches?”

“Cause damage.”

“The sort you saw just now don’t, too few and they live in the woods or hedgerows. Another species, the edible variety introduced from Italy by Rothschild to his estate near Tring, have escaped and chew cables and other things. They’re bigger and also more aggressive—you need special gloves to handle them—they bite.”

“Edible?” she almost blanched.

“So the Romans thought and countless Italians since, though they’re now protected. Besides, you’d need quite a few for a sandwich, and I believe they are an acquired taste and need lots of cooking.”

“I’ll stick to chicken,” she said unlocking her office. “Thanks for showing me your babies.”

“Was it that obvious?”

“You were like a mother hen, but a proud one.”

“They’ve given me hours of pleasure, do little or no harm to anyone, and are adorable—and we still don’t know everything about them.”

“Would you really want to know everything? What would you have to discover if you did?”

“I’d find something,” I said considering myself mildly rebuked.

“Professor Watts, I believe you would.”