The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike, est. 2007) Part 2637 by Angharad Copyright© 2015 Angharad

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This is a work of fiction any mention of real people, places or institutions is purely coincidental and does not imply that they are as suggested in the story.
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I began to think a trip to Bristol as soon as I could find the time would be useful. I could go and visit my mother’s grave, or my parent’s grave—Mum was buried, Dad was cremated, but they were buried together. For a moment I thought I’d got that wrong too, then remembered my father’s will requested he be cremated, as I will be in time. It’s funny, we all know we’re going to die, except we try not to think of it because it frightens us. One book I read suggested that ultimately all fear is a fear of death. I’m not so sure. I think I could live with being dead—duh; try again. Being dead doesn’t worry me save for missing out on parts of my children’s lives. However, the actual dying bit, terrifies me. It might be scary or painful or it might be as easy as going off to sleep. We never know until the time, which is also scary. Especially so to a control freak like me.

I hate having things happen over which I have little or no control. The way I transitioned many moons ago was typical of this. If you recall, I was always going to when I was ready, although I always found some sort of obstacle to put in the way. It was great, I could blame the obstacle because I was an innocent and always perfect in every way. So when Stella kick started me by hitting me off my bike and it kept involving other people, it wouldn’t go back into the bag or bottle depending upon whether one considers cats or genies the appropriate allegory.

Simon got involved, albeit unwittingly dating a boy he thought was a girl—well she was except in one quite important place. Tom got involved, but he knew previously. Stella, obviously as she was the main instigator of the event; Dr Thomas and my own GP, Dr Smith were in on the secret as I needed their agreement for the oestrogens I was taking. Then it all moved up a gear as the university became involved and my colleagues and students all got in on my act. My parents were next, or I should say parent. Mum died as I got to her, she was dying and probably delirious saying something about angels when I got to her bedside with Stella.

In one of my strange lucid dreams, she has since told me that she knew who I was, but that may be nothing more than wishful thinking. Dad wasn’t sure about me at all although we managed to tolerate each other at my mother’s funeral. Then he had his stroke and he needed me and for once I was the stronger participant in the relationship. I think he really tried to cope with my change though I can’t say for certain that he ever did. The number of people who got to learn of it seemed to grow and grow and then it sort of stopped except for the odd mention which I often managed to bluster through, or had someone defend me—which was nice. I’m quite capable of fighting my own battles but to have someone else do it for me is quite deliciously girly, unless I have to rescue my rescuer—oh well, life is just an exercise in futility, so we should expect these things.

To get back to the original premise, that of losing control of my life or situation, it would seem I frequently lose control of but survive the experience. You’d think I’d learn from the experience, but I don’t this being real life not some penny dreadful story.

When could I go to Bristol? The weekend would be the easiest in theory but knowing my luck, something was likely to happen to complicate matters. Things never go straightforwardly for me. I always have to do a ten minute detour when I’m already half an hour late—usually through no fault of my own. If I leave early to get to an appointment, something always seems to happen which lasts a bit longer than the extra minutes I allowed.

We can’t control everything—yet. The religious say their god can, but the evidence is all negative. Man’s ingenuity is solving the easy stuff and sophisticated thinking will one day resolve the more complex ones and we will control our environment hopefully to exclude hazards and obstacles. Whether that will include major weather systems is another matter, but the military would love to control the weather to cause adverse conditions for their opponents. It can disable armies, kill many and destroy environs, so it would be a useful weapon. Currently, apart from seeding storms to try and release rain, which is expensive and uncertain, we can’t do much to control our environment.

Obviously, if we could ignore the weather it would make life easier, but anything outdoors means being at the mercy of the elements, which doesn’t rest easy with most of us. So we try to control things and end up messing it up or getting very frustrated. The weather doesn’t upset me these days but my frustration at it sometimes does when I go into six year old full blown tantrum. Frighteningly, I’m rather good at it.

Doing dormouse surveys in the rain doesn’t add much to the experience except to put people off. They get wet and muddy and it’s potentially more dangerous slipping or falling in the treacherous conditions underfoot. Fortunately, my team of surveyors are all young and hopefully bounce reasonable well, but I know of survey teams which comprise several older people and that could be raising the risk factor by several degrees. Having said that some of the older types are retired scientists or other professionals who do a wonderful job of keeping my survey data arriving. That reminds me, I promised Delia she could handle a dormouse if we found any, much of that could be weather related.
“Wot we’s ’avin’ for tea, Mummy?” asked Cate grabbing my leg like a randy Jack Russell.

It looked like my peace and quiet was over and I once again reverted to a busy mother and wife. As we walked hand in hand back to the kitchen I suddenly realised I’d given David the rest of the day off, he had something he needed to do and both Lorraine and Helen were off as well, so guess who had to organise tea... It could be worse, I suppose—yeah, much worse—all of this could be an illusion as they drag my dying body from a hedgerow in the pouring rain. I shuddered, given my previous thoughts about death and dying, that was not one of my preferred examples.