The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike, est. 2007) Part 2489 by Angharad Copyright© 2014 Angharad All Rights Reserved.

I slept rather badly that night, worrying that our different philosophies would split us apart. I’m an egalitarian, a true feminist believing that everyone should have the same opportunity to develop their potential. I don’t believe that we should all be paid the same because people like doctors study for years to acquire their qualifications. They’re also likely to have large debts which will take years to pay off.

So what about people who aren’t clever enough to be doctors or other top jobs? We should all be paid a living wage, sadly many wage slaves don’t earn enough to live without benefits paid by the government, and those on zero hours contracts are in a sort of double jeopardy—they might have no work yet have to be available just in case, effectively preventing them looking elsewhere for work. Alas, this seems to be the way things are, in the disposable age people are disposable.

I wondered about my idea to run distance learning. Lots of universities do it these days in competition with the Open University, but I’ve never been involved before and wondered if it would work. The first priority was to achieve self sufficiency in paying for itself, and this only because if it didn’t it would be closed down. The second was to try and educate as many people as possible to what was happening to force the powers that be to change things.

Sadly, until we develop nuclear fusion as a form of energy provision, we’re going to continue destroying this planet. Carbon based fossil fuels are inefficient and produce pollution, and the latest means of acquiring them is potentially very environmentally dangerous. Fracking means lower imports of fuel but what is it doing to the environment, but then building certain soft drinks plants in India or Africa also produces huge amounts of pollution and alters the water table because they use so much of it.

Let’s face it, most global companies are far more interested in profit that preserving wildlife, so once again we have conflicts of interest. Unfortunately, some of these companies are too powerful and can destroy economies or democracies causing widespread damage to communities. So they have leverage which means governments often allow them to get away with dumping waste or over-consuming natural resources. Could Simon’s bank be like that? Are they involved with some of these harmful processes? Very likely. Only the Co-op bank wasn’t and they nearly went bust and have been forced to become more commercially minded. I didn’t want to be at odds with Simon or Henry, at the same time I didn’t want to be appearing to endorse a bank which was profiting from destroying my heritage. No wonder I’m unable to sleep.

I went downstairs and made some tea hoping I’d be able to break my train of thought and get back to bed. As I sat in the kitchen I quickly became aware that temperatures were tumbling and I moved my chair closer to the Aga, which stores heat and is thus a bit like a giant radiator. I was sure it was getting colder, and shivered, my dressing gown not warming me much at all.

I sipped the last of my tea and I now felt very cold. It almost felt as if the back door was open, except I knew it wasn’t. Why did I feel so cold? I was sure I saw my breath for a moment, then I began to feel I was not alone—here we go, more stuff I don’t believe.

Became aware I was being watched but when I turned around, couldn’t see anyone. I shrugged and tried to laugh it off but it persisted and finally, out of the corner of my eye I thought I saw movement. The ghost of Stanebury stood before me, the white or grey lady thereof, I think she’s called. Normally she only appeared to let the Lady of the manor know she was there—I’d had that visit so what did she want? If it was enrolment on my distance learning courses, she’d have to apply like all the others.

According to what I thought I remembered of the legend, she came to inform the incumbents that the estate was in trouble or being damaged by current policy, or people of the estate were.

“What d’you want?” I asked—as if a wraith could answer my questions.

“The people of Stanebury are suffering.”

“Why?”

“You are going to call for policies that will lose jobs.”

“I’m not deliberately trying to do that, but I consider the rest of the planet is more important than one estate.”

“You are the Lady of the household, it is your job to protect them.”

“I’m also a scientist responsible for much bigger projects,” she scowled at me.

“Nothing is bigger than yer responsibilities tae yer people.”She scowled again.

“If we destroy the environment they lose their jobs anyway.” I tried to explain what I was doing but she simply glowered at me. Wonderful. Is she stuck in a time-warp and thus not able to understand? Didn’t people call the natural area in which they lived, the environment, centuries ago? Possibly not.

I tried again. “Milady, the area in which the estate resides is called its environment, and that environment is part of a larger one and so on. In protecting the larger environment, the smaller may suffer, but we are committed to alleviating their suffering as quickly as we can by diversifying through introducing new techniques or technologies or training. If you think I’m looking to stop grouse shooting, you’re well informed but wrongly so. If it does stop, I will endeavour to offer jobs doing something different which is equally lucrative for those who were disadvantaged.”

She glowered at me as if she felt I was lying—I wasn’t, but then, I hadn’t decided what I should advise Simon to do on the estate. I might well suggest he stop shooting on a commercial scale, but how I had yet to consider, our local eco-friendly ghost was seemingly jumping the gun—no pun intended.

No matter how much I tried to explain about setting up workshops and so forth, she called me liar. I was beginning to get hacked off by her. I thanked her for her interest but told her it was my concern not hers and for her to leave. She as good as refused until I gave an undertaking to stop my deprivations. As I hadn’t done anything yet except get very cold, I told her to go, very firmly.

She glared at me and told me, no. I therefore asked the blue energy to remove her, but with love. There was a large blue flash and she was gone and suddenly the temperature rose several degrees. Did I dream it? Was my conscience affecting me, because it could impact on Simon as laird. I had no idea but I didn’t think having her visit was conducive to easy slumber. I was wrong, I got back into bed after a quick visit to the loo and went straight off. Strange thing life isn’t it?