The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike, est. 2007) Part 2410 by Angharad Copyright© 2014 Angharad All Rights Reserved.

I spent the evening drafting a report for the board meeting, the stuff from my assistant at the bank and the report from Dan complete with photos was enough to fill four pages of A4, so that was enough. I showed it to Simon who thought it was fine. I then emailed it to Henry’s secretary who would fit it into the rest of the reports for the meeting. Once we had the centre up and running, I’d invite the board down to visit and include a guided tour plus a walk in the woods.

Of course, if I’m still acting professor, that could all be delayed somewhat as I’ll only be able to spend minimal time there which will add extra onus on Dan. He says he doesn’t mind as it would look good on his CV, I hope that doesn’t mean he’s thinking of leaving.

Phoebe is Neal’s next of kin but it seems rather unfair for her to have to deal with coroners and police, so yours truly, as her guardian cum foster parent, took the responsibility off her. I know that Lizzie is actually a closer relative in law, but somehow a one year old is even worse at making decisions about funerals, so I did everything.

Post mortems completed, the coroner released the body to the undertaker, so we could then get the form to take to the registrar for the death certificates. As a suicide, at least we didn’t have to worry about claiming insurances—they don’t pay out for self murder. So I offered to pay, and with Phoebe’s agreement, set in motion a plan to let Neal’s house and use the rent to pay the mortgage, the house being then handed over to Lizzie on her twenty fifth birthday. I asked the same company who deal with the leases on two other properties we own to run the rental for us. It costs money but you factor all that into the rent.

Phoebe had popped by the house every week to check it was all okay, and I agreed to go and help her remove any personal belongings of Neal or Glo, clothing and so forth. We decided that it would wait until the weekend.

The next day I duly went and saw the registrar and with Phoebe registered the death. That was traumatic enough, then we had to freeze bank accounts and so forth. As the university had still been paying Neal, six months full pay and six half pay, his bank account was in a healthy state, so we agreed it would pay for his funeral and I’d pay for the wake afterwards. The rest, we’d stick in an ISA for Lizzie to which Simon would add the same he did for the others, a thousand pounds, every year. As none of them were twenty five, we hadn’t told them about it, because that would be when they collected the money if they so wished. Once they took control, Simon would stop paying in the money, so I had a feeling they might try and leave it if they could.

I know that lots of people do much better things for their kids but they don’t have ninety five kids, which is sometimes what it feels like. I never thought I’d say I’ve got enough children, but I honestly can these days, possibly more than I’d have wanted.

We’d just got home when Mr Henstridge phoned to say he’d begun enquiries about indefinite fostering or adoption of Lizzie, which Phoebe supported. “Pity you can’t adopt me as well.” So I asked him to look into that too. We actually considered Phoebe one of our children and she addressed us as mummy and daddy, so it would only be formalising a de facto arrangement.

I spent the afternoon working on my budget for the department. Five per cent cuts would mean I’d have to lose a member of staff or find sponsorship for one. I needed to find a large industry that could sponsor us for about seventy five thousand a year, which is a bit much to ask for a dormouse on their logo. That was serious money. With the recession, no one had spare money to invest in a tax dodge PR campaign or not of the amount we needed.

I talked it over with Tom and all the names he suggested I’d already approached. I even suggested resigning as meeting a significant amount of the necessary savings but he immediately stopped me, pointing out that much of my costs were met by the bank as director of the woodland centre. He checked my figures and we discovered my savings were now twenty five thousand to find. Still a deal of money but better than the original amount.

I did quick costings and decided that if we moved the captive breeding to the woodland centre the bank would temporarily fund it if we made the programme a registered charity, The Dormouse Society, for instance, we could save the required amount. Tom was quite impressed and agreed to all my ideas. He then told me to draft a business plan and constitution for this charity and to apply to the charity commissioners to get it registered, and also to find a few trustees.

I immediately wrote to HRH the Prince of Wales to ask him to be patron once we got charitable status, and to St Attenborough as a back-up. The latter was likely to be a safer bet.

This all had to be accepted by the university before any of it could be enacted, although I would still go ahead and try for charitable status for the dormouse breeding prog, and asked the university legal department to send me some guidelines for starting an educational charity. Well, I sent them an email before my energy ran out and I went to bed—it was ten o’clock and I hadn’t really stopped since breakfast.

Tomorrow, I told Si and Daddy, I was going to spend a holiday with the children and nothing was going to stop me. I also told Si, as soon as I got the budget accepted I was going to our villa on Menorca and taking as many of the children as I could get into the minibus.

Simon agreed to come with me for a week providing the internet was up to scratch. I told him I was going for three weeks. The look of astonishment was—astonishing, he was gobsmacked, then told me he’d cope by himself. He’d still have David and Tom in the house but he also had the option of staying with Henry and Monica. I’d decided I would ask Sammi if she wanted to come with us as she hadn’t had a holiday for months, and even Julie, though I doubted either would come.

So those were the plans on my mind as I drifted off to sleep rather than budget savings, and I had dreams of trying to see the local dormice which are different to our ones.