The Weekly Dormouse. (aka Bike, est. 2007) Part 3401 by Angharad Copyright© 2023 Angharad

---

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.
~~~~~~~~~

I watched the Women's World Cup Final; I watched as Spain seemed the better side on the day. I saw my daughter come on as a substitute and I watched as time and time again she was flattened by bigger Spanish players as she tried to drive towards their goal. The referee penalised one or two of them but it was clear that she was favouring the Spanish side.

It was incredible that the England goalkeeper saved a penalty to keep them in the hunt, and it was unfortunate that the ball struck the post, out of reach of the Spanish goalkeeper. I was devastated for my daughter, but she had played in a World Cup Final; it doesn't get any bigger and she and most of the women in both teams had behaved with passion and a degree of restraint. Perhaps some of the men should take note, and at least it didn't go to be decided on penalties.

Danni rang me after, she was still overwhelmed by the experience and greatly disappointed. I told her that I was extremely pleased with her; she had done her best and on a different day she might have been on the winning side, but she conducted herself with restraint and a degree of decorum. For that she was my winner and I loved her to bits. I didn't say anything about it just being a game, even if I hadn't changed my mind.

Then we all had the fun of the inappropriate behaviour of a top Spanish football official kissing a player on the lips which shocked her and most of the team and our team too. It was just male arrogance and was wrong. He hasn't apologised and is insistent it was consensual even though the woman he kissed did not agree. Loads of Spanish professional soccer players have said they won't play for their country if he is still in his post. It's quite bizarre that FIFA the world governing body are looking to sack him and the Spanish FA are supporting him and calling the women all sorts of names. The latter are clearly wrong and as the evidence was on television being watched by millions, the Spanish FA will have to climb down.

It's been a funny week, Trump has been charged with another criminal offence, and it looks like Putin has rid himself of the Wagner Group hierarchy in one fell swoop by blowing up the plane they were all on. Hopefully it will cause a few more cracks in the Russian government, which is described as a mafia state. I wonder how much more the ordinary people will take to withdraw their support from a government that is guilty of so many war crimes on their behalf and what that outcome will be? I suspect it may involve Putin's assassination eventually but he is paranoid about his safety, so it won't be easy.

Personally, I won't shed any tears at the murder of the Wagner Groups elite, because they have been responsible for the murder of many innocents, including two British aid workers who were trying to evacuate civilians from a Russian attack. The official story was that they had been killed by shrapnel, it is now emerging that they were taken away and shot - a war crime as they weren't armed. War has lot to answer for.

Putin, like Trump will probably get away with it for while longer; hopefully, as they are both old men, perhaps nature will take its course and the three score and ten will happen - of course, the fact is that only the good seemed to die young, and the Devil looks after his own, so they may well outlive me.

Apparently, Danni will be home on Tuesday or Wednesday. I think she has earned her spurs, or the female equivalent, by going halfway around the world on her own, playing a couple of stressful matches and losing the last one. I admire her almost as much as I love her and I can't wait to give her a hug. The girls have been very supportive so far, even Trish suggested she must be going through hell to have got so far and then been thwarted at the last step. For Trish, that amount of empathy was amazing and maybe it shows that she is growing up at last, I hope so.

The weekend had begun on Friday evening when Simon had come home and was full of passion. He arrived with more flowers, and if the truth be told, I hadn't eaten all the first lot he sent. After dinner, as soon as the little ones were in bed, he rushed me off to ours and wasn't long in showing me how much he loved me, well, that was the theory. Then an hour later he did it again and contradicted his usual adage, 'once a king, always a king but once a knight is enough.' It's a play on ,,, oh never mind, sort it out amongst yourselves.

I had rediscovered a Carly Simon disc and was singing along to The Spy Who Loved Me, when Trish came into my study and asked if I was in pain because I sounded like it. I told her I liked the song which was the James Bond theme tune for one of the films.

"I know, it's all about how good he is in bed, isn't it?" I'd never thought of it quite like that before but when I listened to the words I could see what she was on about and certainly James Bond likes to love 'em and leave 'em. Perhaps, he was that good. Still, I'd only have Simon for comparison and he's good enough for me. But it's only occasionally that I am carnally minded, so it may be not as important to me as to others. We all find our own level and they say that transsexual women are not very interested in sex, possibly even asexual. I don't think I would agree with that, but going a few weeks between sex doesn't worry me, though Simon at times seems to be gnawing on the proverbial bedpost. But then he is a man and they are supposed to be in need of greater supply, for me it's as much about the intimacy of married life as much as anything else. It's nice to be able to say things and do things and he understands. Okay not always, sometimes I think the cat knows more than he does but we do frequently live apart and that has to be a good and bad thing. The smarting between my legs reminded me that he had proved his love for me until I did cry for mercy - I think I had scorch marks and could smell burning, it felt like it. But we had fun and showed devotion to each other.

Naturally, he was upset at the Lionesses coming second in the final, but he was inordinately proud of his girls and that showed after the match when he told me so. I knew it already but it was nice to hear it all the same. He'd made a fuss of all the others and Julie and Phoebe came over for lunch on the Sunday of the match, so he made a real fuss of them as he doesn't always see them when he comes home. Sarah had promised to go for a bike ride with Hannah and Trish and had invited me. I told her I was too busy with work and Trish whispered something in her ear and she just grinned like a Cheshire cat and gave me a knowing look and went off with Trish. it seems like my sex life is a source of amusement for my children.

Any thoughts I'd had off a holiday in Menorca were abandoned when I saw how hot the temperatures were this summer and the stories of the number of fires, many set deliberately, was frightening, except that climate change deniers still don't believe that humans have caused it. It seems that as soon as you produce irrefutable evidence they just go into lock down and refuse to listen; the same is true of religious believers, vaccine deniers and Republican supporters who think Trump had the election stolen and he couldn't possibly be guilty, it was all a pinko Democrat plot, right.

The girls returned from their bike ride and were surprised to see so many people in Southsea. It was heading towards the end of the school holidays so everywhere would be busy and many of them who couldn't afford a flight to Spain could afford a day trip to the south coast. I believe that Brighton, Bournemouth and most of the seaside resorts were the same; plus of course, the floating asylum seaker's cruise ship, the whatever Bibby, was in Portland harbour only hosting Legionella bacteria. What a farce the government have become, we are a laughing stock abroad and they continue making mistakes which are like shooting themselves in the foot. The sooner they are gone the better, but they will hang on until the last possible moment. For what they have done to the environment alone, they should all be hanged drawn and quartered, and the environment secretary would make quite a large quarter, you could feed a hyena for days with her.

I had gathered my pond dipping kit as the waders had arrived and fitted the girls reasonably well. As we were gearing up to load the car, the skies darkened and it absolutely poured down, with the odd flash of lightning and rumble of thunder and occasional hail, accompanying it. In all honesty, the Met office had forecast possible showers which may be thundery at times. It seemed ironic that we were going to play in rivers and ponds but delayed leaving in case we got wet in the rain. Mind you, I have got soaked plenty of times doing field work and it isn't pleasant, in fact, anything but. When your knickers chafe and it runs down under your bra strap it isn't any fun at all, especially if you're stuck in it with a long wait to change or worse a long walk back to a bus or car at the end of it.

Apart from the beginning of this saga, when I got soaked, I also got soaking wet in mid-Wales, bird watching with the RSPB Young Ornithologists. We had gone on a trip to see red kite, pied flycatchers, dippers and a few other things and it peed down as soon as we got there and continued to do so on and off the rest of the day. I had wellies on but they were soon full of water, so walking boots might have been better. The final indignity was coming down a steep hillside hanging onto sheep wire to stay upright when my feet just slid from under me and I landed with a splosh in a puddle in which several bits of sheep excrement were floating. It was funny but nobody wanted to sit next to Charlotte on the ride home, couldn't think why.

Siân thought it was hilarious when I told her about it and I ended up in the bath when i got home for a soak to get the poo off. get rid of the smell and for me to get warm. It was only late September, but I had got quite cold despite having a flask of tea with me. It seemed no one could have fun like me when I was younger and boy, weren't they glad?

I got teased about it because I was bit girly about getting dirty and two or three of the boys were in the same school as me, and they regularly told stories about me as Charlotte, because the organisers thought I was a girl because of my size and long hair, and none of them would put it right, so I was left as Charlotte whenever I went out with them. Something they never mentioned was the fact that I was by far the best birder there and all round best naturalist. as well. It comes to something when you are asked by the leaders what a certain bird is and what insect is that crawling all over Smith minor? I was twelve at the time.