The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike, est. 2007) Part 3109 by Angharad Copyright© 2017 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.
*****

Cutting out a pattern with Cindy was more enjoyable than darning elbows in play jumpers or sewing on buttons. I have a gang of girls but with the damage they do to their clothes, it might have been easier with boys—it certainly couldn’t be any worse. Or could it? I had vague recollections of Danni as a boy coming home with holes in the knees of his trousers and me threatening to darn them with pink floral cloth or send him to school in skirts. Looks like the latter came to pass, but it isn’t her clothing that gets damaged, it’s usually the others.

Now that Trish, Livvie and Hannah have got to the ripe old age of twelve they tend to stand around at break times talking—probably about boys, clothes, makeup or last night’s telly. That is of course, assuming they are talking not texting each other or doing it through social media.

Everyone seems to have a facebook page these days except me. My department does and we have a dormouse one, as well. The girls all have one and I know Sammi does—though quite why, I’m not sure. I bet even MI5 do, spy for us via facebook—no thanks.

Cindy was chattering away as we worked, Danni was almost pensive as she did some work on her embroidery, Trish was finishing some homework so didn’t join us and Livvie was watching telly. Meems, who seems to have two left hands when it comes to sewing, did join us. She had a problem with the project she had in school and wanted some help.

Cindy cut out the material and began pinning it together while I helped Meems. She was making a bag, a shopping bag with a shoulder strap. Instead of a pattern they were given a plan with measurements written on it and she couldn’t seem to relate that to paper pattern. Seeing as Meems is fairly bright, I found that difficult to understand. However, I found some brown wrapping paper and once I drew it out for her using the measurements they gave us, she seemed to twig and went ahead cutting it out.

Shortly afterwards we then cut the cloth she’d chosen, it had a pattern with teddy bears over it and a background of pink—so she’s girly. So what? Then we cut the pattern down a fraction and pinned it on the lining material, which was a strong cotton in a calico colour, and cut that out. Finally for that evening, we pinned it all together, the two liners and the two outer covers. Next time we’d sew them or she could do that in school and cut out the top binding and decide what sort of handles she wanted on it. Providing they met the size of the plan, the handles could be of almost any material that was strong enough to bear a reasonable bag full of items. As she was quite good at plaiting I asked her if she fancied doing plaited handles, her eyes lit up and she asked me if I’d help her make them.

The next day was a school day and Brenda came to get Cindy about half past nine, I got Tom to put the girls to bed and yes, they still liked a story and he still liked to read them one, which meant I could have a chat with Brenda over a cuppa. Julie came to join me while Jacquie and Phoebe played some computer game together.

“I don’t know how you cope with all these girls, I have one and she nearly drives me nuts at times.”

“Ah but the advantage of having several is they distract or amuse each other to some extent, so while they’re killing each other, you only have the winners to sort out and you keep them busy burying their siblings’ bodies.”

For a moment she looked at me as if I was crazy. I am but I don’t advertise the fact. Then her mouth crinkled and she laughed. The two girls didn’t think it was at all funny, but then they do know I’m crazy.

I’d left Danielle and Cindy to clear up my study and put the sewing stuff away. I have a cupboard in there in which I keep my sewing boxes, my collection of buttons and threads, silks and material. They joined us in the kitchen as we finished our teas. Danni and Cindy hugged and then she and I saw Brenda and Cindy off. She went off to bed soon after.

“Why don’t you like facebook, Mummy?” asked Julie who was amending her salon page adding some photos of hairstyles she’d done.

“I just don’t.”

“But why, everyone else uses it?”

“I don’t want to. I have better things to do than spend hours using the equivalent of cyber masturbation.”

“You what?” she gasped then laughed so hard she fell off her chair, she was still laughing as she lay on the kitchen floor. I helped her up and ascertained she hadn’t hurt herself and she was still laughing.

Phoebe came to see what the noise was all about and when Julie repeated what I’d said they both fell about laughing with tears running down their faces. Tom came to see about the noise and when they told him, he just nodded in agreement and grunted something which none of us caught but I presumed it meant he was having his dram.

Jacquie came to wash her cup and Julie told her what I’d said and she chortled but agreed. “Wait until Danni hears it tomorrow,” said Julie loudly, “It’ll be all around the school by break time.” That did concern me but only because it could reflect on Danni or the other girls as having a weird mother. But thinking about it, social media is all about self-indulgence, unless you’re selling something, and there is nothing more self-indulgent than you know what. So my statement was based upon reasoning, not just an off the cuff, one-liner.

Jacquie helped me lay up the table for breakfast, it was Saturday, a busy day for Julie and Phoebe who’d asked Danni and Cindy if they wanted to act as Saturday girls—the apprentice was off on sick leave. They decided they would for twenty quid each. Basically, this was sweeping up, making teas and coffees, washing the towels or occasionally shampooing hair—Danni had done that before, so I told her to take some hand cream with her.

It made me smile, both the elder girls went out at the same time to the same place and returned at the same time, yet each took their own car—I might want to do some shopping on the way home, or various other excuses were offered when I asked why they didn’t car share.

Danni would go with one of them and Brenda agreed to take Cindy to the salon for half-past eight. Mind you at their age I’d have given my right arm to be a Saturday girl anywhere, instead, I went out cycling with my dad or birdwatching with the RSPB Young Ornithologist’s Club and half of them thought I was a girl because of my long hair and relatively small size. Lots to do tomorrow, I said goodnight and went to bed.

The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike, est. 2007) Part 3101 by Angharad Copyright© 2017 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.
*****

Sammi enjoyed her roast lunch but soon afterwards decided she would drive back to London which brought a look of disappointment to Simon’s face. While she was packing her car, still the sporty BMW Z4 or whatever, Simon let drop he’d been looking forward to travelling back up with her the next morning, on the train.

Promising to let me know when she got back to the flat, she set off with Trish looking particularly forlorn at her sister’s departure. “What’s the matter, poppet?” asked Simon who looked nearly as bad,

“Sammi; she promised she’d show me some things on the computer then Mummy suggested she drive back to London and she didn’t have time. I’m never going to prove who killed that man in our garden.”

“I thought the police had already charged someone with the shooting?”

“Anyone could tell it wasn’t him.”

“Well I couldn’t,” replied her dad.

She rolled her eyes in response.

“Now don’t just write me off, tell me why you think I’m stupid...” with that they went back inside the house and getting his attention for half an hour or so was far better than watching him snore on the couch all afternoon.

I had no idea who did it either but then like Simon, I hadn’t been trying to solve the crime. I’ve done my bit of helping the police with their investigations either as a suspect or dutiful citizen and have been underwhelmed with their gratitude.

I’m aware that some of the things I’ve done have been of questionable wisdom but I don’t run away from things like some people do, even when it might seem to be the best option, but so far I’ve survived my mistakes though I’m not always proud of the actions I took—the episode when we were abducted in Scotland is one such, where I took lives to protect my own and those in my care. Do I regret it? I regret it was necessary but not doing it in response to the aggression and murderous intent of others. Would I do it again? Try me and see what happens...

Having been on my feet most of the morning I sat down with the Observer when I’d pried it from the fingers of my somnolent adopted father. I glanced at the photos of Trump’s triumph and felt sick, though I did admire his wife’s outfit. Having said that glancing at the faces of the women in his family group, it looked as if none of them would be safe sitting close to a fire—the silicone might melt. They all look so tight faced, no expression presumably through botox or surgical enhancement. I had more wrinkles than Melania and she’s a bit older than I am, mind you I can go out in sunlight without shrivelling up—oops, my bad.

I eventually found the Everyman crossword and spent a pleasant half an hour or so completing it—once I’d got into it. Once I had, I went into crossword mode and plodded my way through them. It’s not an especially difficult one, but it did make me think a few times.

The kettle was boiling as Si came back from his chat with Trish. “She’s a one, isn’t she?”

If he’d only just discovered that he was more stupid than I’d first thought. “She’s quite bright.”

“Quite, she’s brilliant. She went through the evidence bit by bit and showed where the police had made mistakes...”

“Did she say how she came by the evidence?”

“No but it was probably in the media, on the net and the telly.”

“It wasn’t.”

“Oh, well how did she get it then, bribe a copper?”

“She hacked some of it.”

“From the police?”

Perhaps he has just discovered how bright she is. “Who else?”

“Oh, shouldn’t you be stopping her doing that?”

“I didn’t know she was anymore than I knew about her filming inside their mobile incident room.”

“How did she manage that?”

“A hidden micro camera and some well meaning coppers. She’d jam her iPad and take it in asking if any of them could unjam it for her. They did and while they did she filmed inside the room, white boards, photos, the lot.”

“Crikey, she’s a one isn’t she?”

“I’m concerned she will get herself caught, even if the local plod can’t keep her out or are unaware of her intrusions, the clever souls at GCHQ won’t be. Nothing electronic happens in this country and half the world they don’t know about.”

“Perhaps they’ll offer her a job?” Is he for real?

“The one they’d like is Sammi.”

“But she works for us.”

“Which is why she doesn’t accept their offers, that and the fact she’s not too fond of Cheltenham.”

“Hmm, average age about ninety two, think I can see why she doesn’t go.”

“Plus she can twist Henry into raising her salary to keep her at the bank.”

“I wasn’t aware of that—crikey—I seem to be missing half of what is going on in my own family.”

“A common occurrence in many family men.”

“But why didn’t Dad tell me she was threatening to quit?”

“Easier to deal directly with the situation, I presume.”

“Ever since she got her PhD, she’s changed.”

“Hardly surprising is it? It’s made her very much more marketable and I’m sure if she let it be known she was available, she’d be offered jobs on twice what you pay her.”

“D’you think I should offer her more?”

“No, she’ll tell you when she wants that.”

“So what should I do?”

“Tell her how much you value what she does and that you’re aware she could earn more elsewhere and thank her for her loyalty to the family and the bank.”

“I could do.”

“If you want to keep her, I’d do it frequently and soon.”

“Really?”

“Really—why d’you think she’s gone up to town on her own?”

“To stop her clothes getting creased.”

“There’s an iron at the flat, isn’t there?”

“I think so, I never use it.”

“Well then.”

“So what is she up to?”

“Possibly looking at flats or houses or jobs.”

“Jesus—I’ll speak with Dad on Monday and get her a rise. She’d be so difficult to replace.”

“May be I’ll just give him a quick ring.” He shot off to the study.

I got my mobile out and sent Sammi a text message.
‘If they offer you more money, take it. Love, Mum. x’

A few minutes later she replied. ‘Why would they do that? Sx’

‘UR dad was reminded of ur skills after talking to T. X’

‘Thx Mum. X’

Never let it be said that I don’t look after my own. One of these days she’ll fly the nest and she’ll also get fed up with the bank. She should be in research or teaching, she’s far too clever to work in a bank even at the level she does. I wish I could offer her a departmental head job at the university but she’d want London—either UCL or Imperial College, unless Oxford or Cambridge knew she was available.

“Och ye’ve done thae crossword, ye’re scunner.”

Looks like Sleeping Beauty has woken up or is that Grumpy?

The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike, est. 2007) Part 3102 by Angharad Copyright© 2017 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.
*****

I placated the ‘auld ain’ by handing him the Sunday Telegraph with its crossword still intact, mainly because I hadn’t had time to look at it. I had however ironed several of his shirts which I can only assume he must consider take themselves from the dirty laundry basket, wash, dry and iron themselves before then hanging up in his wardrobe. He never says anything but must be aware somebody does it as he was either doing it himself or having his cleaning lady do it for him before I came to stay.

I’ve noticed when I am ironing, he tends to keep out of the way possibly in case I point out his shirts and the iron and ask him to put the two together.

It was coming up tea time and I was only going to do something light as they’d all stuffed themselves silly at lunch. Simon was still on the phone to Henry when the doorbell rang—no it didn’t ring Simon, it rang because somebody pressed it who was outside the house and thus trying to attract our attention.

As no one else seemed interested in finding out who was ringing the bell, I went myself. Only Sammi and Danielle were not in the house and the latter was playing a game at Oxford so would be home later or would phone to say she needed a lift from the car park when the bus dropped her off.

I opened the door and before me stood a smart casual dressed man. He was about six foot tall and dark haired, which was short and well kempt. “Hello, I wonder if you could help me, I’m looking for Dr Samantha Cameron.”

“Might I ask in what context?”

“I’d prefer to speak to Dr Cameron about that.”

“She isn’t here at the moment, might I tell her who called and perhaps she could call you back?”

“Oh yes, that would be good.” He fished in his pocket and pulled out a wallet from which he extracted a business card.

“Mr Smith, Home office.” I read off the card. “I’m her mother, is there anything I should know?”

“No, Lady Cameron, she’s not in any bother if that’s what is concerning you.”

“It was, and is your name really Smith?”

“’Fraid so, but at times anonymity has its uses.”

“I’m sure it does, but aren’t half the work force at MI5 called Smith?”

“I’m Home Office.”

“So is MI5. If you didn’t know that you’re either very new or lying.”

“I can assure you I’m not lying, I work for the Home Office.”

“So why would you want to speak to my daughter? As far as we know she’s not an illegal immigrant nor a lawbreaker and she isn’t seeking a licence to keep a gun.”

“I’m afraid that’s confidential.”

“If you’re looking to recruit her, better start looking at salaries in excess of seventy or eighty thousand.”

“Thank you, Lady Cameron.” He turned and walked away down the drive where he got into a large Audi car and was driven away.

“Who was that, Babes?”

“Some guy from MI5 wanting to speak to Sammi.”

“You didn’t tell him where she is, did you?”

“Why should I? If he’s with MI5, they should know where she is.”

“This rather worrying.”

“Why? Just offer her more money.”

“It’s not just money is it, she’s really good at her job and would be so difficult to replace.”

“All our children are irreplaceable,” was my opinion.

“I quite agree, but from the bank’s perspective, she is more irreplaceable than most.”

“Excluding yourself, of course.”

“Uh not really, Cathy. Sammi really is a one off. What I do is management and yes, I’m pretty good at it, but she is magical.”

I smiled and my heart pumped a sort of warmth around my whole body. He had just validated Sammi in all sorts of ways.

“Why would the security services be wanting her now? A couple or more years ago they’d probably be wanting to prosecute her for hacking.”

“Because she’s matured and her experiences as a hacker means she knows how to keep them out of our system. She also traces would be hackers and reports them to the police if they’re in this country or to the FBI in the States.”

“We actually get hackers from the States?”

“Oh yeah, don’t we just. They’re mostly teen age boys presumably who’ve made Mister Happy too sore to pull for a few hours, so they try and hack a bank, preferably an overseas one—viz. us. Sammi tells the feds and they go round and frighten said juvenile to death and hopefully, they reform themselves. If they don’t, they get a criminal charge against their names which may prevent them going to university or doing lots of other things.”

“What if it’s the US government trying to hack you?” I asked sure that it probably happened.

“She tells them to sod off and then reports it to the FBI.”

“Not the CIA?”

“As it’s likely to be the CIA trying to hack us, at least we can embarrass them by dropping names to the FBI, the rivalry in domestic matters is enormous.”

“I can believe it. So how do we encourage her to stay at the bank?”

“I’m all ears, Babes.”

I was trying to encourage a joint effort not one where he wears out his ears and I, my brain cell. “Money helps but it would also mean they could try to outbid you.”

“I thought there was a problem with money in government spending?”

“Not if they want someone badly enough, plus they might try dirty tricks such as blackmail.”

“With what—she’s pretty clean living and everyone who needs to know about her gender change, already knows.”

“The hacking, as we appear to seeing prosecutions of sex crimes from fifty years ago, her hacking from five or six years ago is relatively recent.”

“Yeah but we’d have the best defence counsel on the planet to see them off.”

“What if she hacked US stuff and they applied to extradite her?”

“We’d fight that too.”

“But it would effectively stop her working for you, if only with the anxiety it produces. I suspect it would destroy her.”

“And you have a poor image of bankers, compared to that lot, we’re positively benign.”

“What f you were to allow her to do some consultancy work for them now and again?”

“We’d need to get someone trained up by her to deputise.”

“Why haven’t you already done that? If the Russians know she’s the only thing stopping them from accessing your data, they’d take her out some way either by something criminal or by injuring or killing her.”

“You think so?”

“I know so and so should you. People like Putin never sleep, he’s one of the undead from the old KGB, so he has no soul nor heart—he just pretends to confuse people. If they could kill one of their own who’d jumped ship with polonium poisoning, what might they do with a stranger? Remember we have had run ins with them before.”

“I know, Babes. Oh bugger what shall I do?” he said wring his hands. The truth is, I didn’t know—well not for certain.

The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike, est. 2007) Part 3103 by Angharad Copyright© 2017 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.
*****

“Tomorrow you’d best go and speak with her and find out what she wants to do. If that’s to work with the intelligence community, then it may be better to let her do some work with them while she trains someone up to stand in for her. At least that way you won’t be completely without some cover and if she leaves entirely, it gives you a breathing space.”

“I was hoping her loyalty to you would be enough to keep her with us—looks like I was wrong.”

“Si, surely you can’t have expected her to spend her whole life working for you?”

“No of course not,” he blushed.

“You did, didn’t you?”

“Okay—but I mean, she was that scrawny kid when she came to you. You, me, the family—we all helped her become what she is today—I thought that might count for something.”

“Simon, you don’t do favours for people in order for them to pay you back.”

“But we took her into the family...”

“Simon, she is still part of this family, but that doesn’t mean she has to work for the family firm forever. She’s saved your bank a few times, she’s repaid her debt, if there ever was one in the first place. She’s a career woman, she will move on when the time is right for her—in the interest of her career.”

“But what about her loyalty to you—to me—you gave her everything.”

I didn’t believe I was listening to this dribble, it sounded like a betrayed teenager. “Look, husband mine, people aren’t devoted to working for their families forever any more in the same way families make individuals redundant because they no longer fit the bill. It’s very dog eat dog out there and survival of the company is sometimes more important than the individual. There’s little room for sentiment in business—as you’ve told me several times. But that depends upon the business and the individuals. Sammi is incredibly clever, especially with IT stuff. She’s in danger of outgrowing what she does for the bank, hence my suggestion that she be allowed the option of acting as a consultant for the intelligence people—you may keep her a bit longer that way.”

“You really think so?”

“Yes, but you have to reconcile yourself to the almost certain situation that she will move on one day, all doing the above does is defer it a little.”

“But she is so good.”

“I know, I’ve seen her in action, she is better than good, she is brilliant.”

“I wonder if she’d stay until Trish is old enough to take over?”

“Trish wouldn’t be any good at what Sammi does.”

“But she’s super bright and good with computers...”

“Trish will probably end up doing physics and maths and end up researching quantum theory or some other esoteric element of physics, like particle physics.”

“Why can’t she just do the same sort of stuff as Sammi?”

“They think differently to start with. Give Trish a problem and she’ll sit there until she solves it but that’s on paper. Give her a practical problem and she’ll go all round the houses to create a solution, while Livvie or Sammi would drive straight up to it and solve it with hands on stuff. Trish is all theory, so something like theoretical science will be just up her street. Sammi is able to think creatively and do the hands on which is what makes her so special.”

“Like you.”

“Meee? I don’t think so.”

“Rubbish, Cathy, I’ve seen you in action explore a problem, think it through, theorise a solution then adapt it until it works—you do it all the time.”

“Yeah but not create firewalls to keep out the FSB or whatever they’re called these days, Putin’s parasites.”

“She’s had specialist training.”

“So have I but in different spheres, she has a natural aptitude for computers and all things digital, I don’t but I’ll bet she couldn’t find a dormouse nest to save her life.”

“Nor keep a family together in good times and bad, plus give homes to all sorts of waifs and strays while running a nationally important project, a department and doing social work for her students as well as looking after a large historic house.”

“I don’t do all that—not on my own anyway.”

“You do most of it.”

“Nah, I use the children as housework slaves.”

He rolled his eyes, “Why can’t you see that if it weren’t for you, Sammi wouldn’t be in this position, she’d still be screwed up and in the closet—you’ve effectively saved all our children, big and small.”

“I don’t know, I worry about Danielle sometimes.”

“Sometimes? I worry about her all the time.” His remark hit me quite hard. “I mean she has a good life now but she’s playing a dangerous game and her next match could be her last one if she suffers a bad injury. She’s so young with so much talent.”

“She is that, but I just wonder if she’s really adapted to being a girl or if it’s just while the football acclaim lasts.”

“I thought she’d adapted brilliantly, she’s so girly in some ways—I mean, who else buys mascara by the crate load?”

I snorted at his comment, but it was partly true, she is very girly in much of her life and she is never seen without mascara unless she’s asleep. She never has to chuck it as out of date, she uses it all up in a couple of weeks.

“That makes me wonder if she’s role playing some stereotype of a teenage girl she sees around her in school and elsewhere, even here with Phoebe and Julie or even Sammi. I think she only really lives on a soccer pitch and when that stops, especially at the highest level, then what will happen? It keeps me awake some nights.”

“I hadn’t thought of it like that—I was just enjoying seeing her enjoying herself, or what I assumed was enjoyment—see, you are brilliant, you see things the rest of us don’t.”

“It may just mean I’m more neurotic than the rest of you. I worry about Meems.”

“Why?”

“Her speech impediment remains despite what half a dozen experts and therapists. I reckon if she was caught in a nuclear strike her body would disappear but the lisp or burr would remain, it appears indestructible.”

“I’ve got so used to it, Babes, I don’t hear it much and she’s so loving.”

“She’d make a good midwife but she’s cleverer than she appears, not in the class of Trish or Sammi, or even Livvie, but she’s very hands on and has an uncanny knack with empathy. I think she could be clever enough to do obstetrics or even child psychology.”

“Or maybe she’ll just follow you and have loads of kids and a loaded husband.”

“Ha ha.” We cuddled a bit longer when I asked him what he’d do about Sammi.

“Speak to her tomorrow and see what she wants to do and how we can help her achieve it if she helps us train up someone else. What else can I do?”

“I love you, Simon Cameron, you’re one hell of a dad to those girls.” I kissed him.

“Really? Yeah, ’course I am, yeah I am aren’t I?”

The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike, est. 2007) Part 3104 by Angharad Copyright© 2017 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.
*****

By the time I realised it was Monday morning Simon had left for work early, presumably to speak with Sammi. I on the other hand, had to deal with a car load of schoolgirls and the little ones, getting them all ready for school or to be taken to mother and toddler group—this was Lizzie, the youngest of the children and soon to go to nursery—which is of course at the convent.

At the moment I have to pay someone to take her and stay with her when she comes home, a nice woman called Gail Sayle—don’t, she’s married so it’s entirely her own fault. She has a daughter of her own and I drop her off en route to school and nursery, the latter Cate attends. When Lizzie goes there our children will make up half the school—or it feels like it.

That’s Danni, Trish, Livvie, Meems, Cate and soon Lizzie as well. I get a loyalty discount and the school gets five scholarships a year from the bank. Either way it wins, though if you recall, Cindy gets a scholarship which is most of her fees paid if not all. She’s a nice kid, very polite and helpful though we haven’t seen her recently so I wonder if she and Danielle have had a bust up. I hope not, mind you I haven’t had time to do a sewing bee for a while, perhaps later this week I’ll sus Danni out on it this evening.

Life at the university was getting no easier and the financial squeeze that seemed to be happening in everything these days, made it much harder. I was constantly being asked where we could save money by the administration that I complained to Tom about it. Compared to many of the more established universities, we were relatively new kids on the block and although we were doing several exciting things in research, they weren’t as yet bringing in lots of money. What we needed was something like graphene which would make lots of news and bring in the investors and hopefully money from patents.

Until then, I had to try and hide my departmental assets from the auditors and encourage what may prove fiscally useful research or discoveries. One of my departments had got a bid to make some sort of robot to analyse soil samples on Mars using lasers and spectrometers—it was going to cost the ESA about quarter of a million pounds, so that stimulated an enquiry from India for some space equipment or electronic telescope thing. Rumours are that we might hear from the Chinese government sometime this year to do something similar for them. Apparently, our physics department are very good at making mirrors which are polished by computer and then finished by the professor himself by hand—he’s got some sort of knack for doing it and they’re better than anything coming from NASA, so he always has one or two orders on the go. It paid for his new polishing machine which was about a hundred thousand pounds.

Before he came under my management, the machine had already been ordered. When I took over the super department of science, I was told to cancel the order but after talking to him, told him to carry on as he reckoned he’d be in credit with it in two years.

It was interesting because as you know I’m not a mathematician, so physics is something I struggle with. Lots of my colleagues knew this too and I had to learn some equations and other things very quickly to stop them trying to embarrass me or take the piss. They all thought I’d been promoted because Tom, the vice chancellor, was my dad, so it was good old nepotism. That might apply to the Whitehouse but not my university. I got the job because I had shown my mettle in dismissing the previous administration and practically running the council of the university and in uncovering some scams that had lost a great deal of money. However, some of that was kept quiet to try and stop the reputation of the place from dropping through the floor—if students stop enrolling because they think you’re all crooks, the place would be up the proverbial without a paddle in two years.

So when the professor of physics was seen to be talking to me and telling everyone that I was woman of integrity because I’d supported his mirror machine, some of the other departments in my group began to warm to me a little.

Remember I don’t use my married name in my professional life and I assumed that everyone knew what it was anyway, but apparently not. So when Simon sold some shares he’d made millions on, he donated much of it to funding a field studies centre at the university to run in parallel with the one at the woodland reserve we had. As it was a personal donation not one from the bank—he really did make a killing—he got to have it named after him once it was finished. Instead, he asked for it to be called after Billie so that’s what we did.

When the money was offered to the university neither Tom nor I could respond for the university in case of charges of conflict of interest, so the Chancellor himself accepted the donation on our behalf. I was then told to make it happen.

I did have the unpleasant experience of overhearing a conversation between two of the teaching staff, not mine I hasten to add, who seemed to suggest that I must have slept with the donor to get the money for a new facility. At the time I was with Diane and we were queuing for our jacket potato for lunch in the refectory. Boy, didn’t she say something.

“Are you implying that Professor Watts slept with the bank director who funded the new field study facility?” she demanded.

“What if we are?” was the reply.

“Well you’d be quite right—she did it lots of times.”

At first the two men blushed and then sniggered the one even patting the other on the shoulder. As Diane had not been terribly discreet in the volume of her voice, she had quite an audience when she administered the coup de grace.

“They sleep together every night, they’re married you gossiping morons.” The two men were laughed out of the room and I must admit I felt like leaving as well.

Nothing else happened except the campus got more muddy as they continued to build our field study centre and life returned to the usual level of chaos and total panic.

I collected the convent mob including Cate in the people carrier thing, looked like the Jaguar would be for weekends, it just wasn’t big enough for all the little bodies I had to convey to and from the convent. Danni was cock-a-hoop, she’d had a text from the FA to attend for a training session for England women’s team the following weekend. She sent a text to me and her dad who must have told Henry because once he knew it was to be held at Wembley, he told her to catch the train up and he’d meet her at Clapham Junction and take her across town to the training session. The squad would stay at a hotel onsite and she’d text him on Sunday and he’d come and get her and run her home. He wanted to see me about something anyway.

I wasn’t entirely sure about the second part because it usually meant work for me but there we are, that’s life.

The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike, est. 2007) Part 3105 by Angharad Copyright© 2017 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.
*****

These weekends come round so quickly that the days in between seem like a blur. I seem to be so busy with work during the week and then with the family at the weekends.

Simon had stayed up in town to talk with Sammi and in the end, she agreed to stay with the bank for at least two more years but on the understanding they recruit a team to work with her for two reasons: the first, to take some of the pressure off her and the second, to ensure continuity if and when she did leave. He okayed that with Henry and she was given leave to recruit who she wanted, up to five people. So this wouldn’t be the usual recruitment process, but her headhunting individuals. They’d start on a salary of 35k and within two years if they achieved what she wanted, that would rise to 50k. Meanwhile her salary would rise to 75k. I couldn’t comment on that as I earned twice that from the university and then my directorship on top. That stayed at the fifty thousand Henry had granted me in the first place even though he had wanted to double it, I arranged for him to redirect the rest into wildlife schemes as grants. However, the bugger outmanoeuvred me because he increased the number of shares I got each year on my birthday. At the current rate they were worth several million pounds except I had to give the bank first refusal were I to sell them.

So if anything happened to Simon or we divorced, I would be comfortably off as they say. Seeing as I tend to live quite frugally, I suspect I’d live very comfortably and my pension forecasts were also looking fairly good too, mainly because Simon arranged them through the bank, including my university one, which I transferred to the bank.

It was Saturday, Danielle was training with the England women’s squad and she had let me know she was okay, Henry had met her at Clapham and taken her on to Wembley; she’d been really excited to be training there and then playing there in two weeks time. That is assuming she makes the squad, and given her spot kicking, she should for that alone. It also assumes she doesn’t get injured—a constant worry for any athlete but especially in contact sports like soccer.

Henry was going to be bringing her home on Sunday, so tomorrow late afternoon to early evening, as much as anything, depending upon the traffic. These days with shops open for six hours on a Sunday, people can shop all week; why, is another matter unless looking for something special.

When I was about eleven, I found a book in a charity shop called the Dumpy Pocket book for Biologists. It cost me fifty pence which was twice its original price. It inspired me to pursue a career in biology. By today’s standards it may seem a bit dull as everything now is either photos or colour illustrations and is usually A4 format or equivalent, B4 I think. My book was filled with black and white drawings about plants and animals, about how to see things, how to use a microscope, grow things to see under it in pond water, how to dissect things like earthworms or insects (didn’t like that bit very much) or collect specimens but also how everything was connected and how the natural world worked. I thought it was wonderful at the time and still do, as I still have a copy on my bookshelves except when Trish has borrowed it or—and this excites me even more—when Danielle borrows it.

She quite enjoys coming out with me mousing or occasionally birdwatching and from the questions she asks, she is thinking about more than just seeing another twitch for her list, she is starting to have ideas about how everything hangs together. I’m obviously encouraging her without any pressure, if that’s actually possible. I know soccer is her main ambition, possibly to captain England women and win a major international trophy, but if her second career were to include a biology or ecology degree, I’d be so proud.

Trish is into mathematics as I’ve said before, she’s like a computer at times. While Livvie could possibly be heading towards the law or finance, she likes systems so watch this space. Trish is also quite a good soccer player but not in Danielle’s league by a long way, but then very few girls are and I suspect the same applies to boys.

Stella—born to shop—Cameron persuaded me to go shopping with her this morning while Simon watched those girls who didn’t want to come with us. Trish didn’t because she was playing soccer for the school. Tom had gone to watch her and I’d been let off spectating duties because she wanted me to get her some new soccer shorts. She still ran around with a number seven shirt with ‘Beckham’ on the back which she was granted as a concession because she nearly refused to play for the school team if she couldn’t continue to wear the shirt and being their top scorer (she plays more often for the school than Danielle). I find it amusing seeing as David Beckham was pretty well retired from regular playing before Trish was tricked into playing in the school. However, he’s one of Danielle’s heroes and a pretty nice guy, so when Trish also became an admirer, I allowed it to happen.

I think I mentioned taking Daniel as he was then to a bookshop where Becks was doing a book signing and we took him a cup of coffee which he appreciated. I think I saw Beckham mentioned in one of the chapters of Gaby when she attended the BBC Sports Personality of the Year. Becks won it in 2001.

Livvie came with us as did Hannah and Pud but the others stayed home with Simon who fortunately had Jacquie there to help him, Meems also stayed with her dad, so I wondered what she was after—he’s easier to part from his cash than I am and they all know it, including him.

Possibly the one who made the most of his generosity was Julie who got his help to buy her own nearly new Jaguar XE but on the understanding she’d pass on the Smart car to Phoebe, Jacquie already had a Mini cooper which Simon acquired for her in recognition of her help with the children. Danielle still has her eye on my vintage Jag but I suspect Simon would veto that as he fancies it. He’s also been looking at an old Mk 2 like Inspector Morse used to drive but they are said to be awful to drive like the old E types, but they certainly turn heads, especially these days.

Personally, I prefer bicycles but even I can admire a nice car and Henry’s Aston Martin is one such. He doesn’t drive it much, too expensive to insure and drive regularly, probably too thirsty too. But the one they created for the most recent Bond film looked absolutely magical, even if it was a one off. Now one of those I’d like to find in my Christmas stocking.

The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike, est. 2007) Part 3106 by Angharad Copyright© 2017 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.
*****

The Sunday began as usual with me grumbling about having to feed children who should be old enough to get their own breakfasts—whenever I do, Trish immediately asks if she can eat chocolate biscuits for hers and Livvie asks for ice cream. It’s obviously a wind up but it wakes me enough to actually get upright and once out of bed It’s a case of a wee and go down to see what they’re up to.

This particular Sunday, I got down to discover that Trish was busy making me a cuppa and Livvie was buttering some toast for me. She put it on the table and Hannah produced a banana—I quite like ’nana on toast for brekkies. Trish poured me some tea and Meems provided the milk bottle from the fridge.

I thanked them for their efforts and they then got their own breakfasts, mostly sugar laden cereals and milk drinks, probably just as rich in sucrose. When I asked where Cate and Lizzie were, I was told they were cwtching with their dad to give me the space to have my breakfast in peace.

I did wonder what they were after but apparently it was a suggestion from school that they should show their mothers that they loved them by getting their breakfasts or helping round the house. Part of their homework, Livvie and Trish that is, was to show they had done one of these which I had to sign off. With a bit of suggestion, I managed to get them all to help me with the housework because Henry was coming later. Simon winked then accused me of child exploitation, which Livvie challenged him on—“We’re doing it voluntarily, so it’s not exploitation.”

“That’s telling you,” I said and poked out my tongue.

“I know when I’m beaten, I’ll just uh go and find the paper and see who won the rugby.”

He left us to our chores and I said quietly to the girls, “He’ll be lucky, Gramps took it off to his study twenty minutes ago.” They all laughed.

David came over a little after this and began preparing the lunch, a roast leg of pork. I invited him to stay and eat with us and he shrugged and said he would. I then said in a stage whisper to the girls, “See if he stays to eat we know it’s safe for us to,” they roared with laughter and David withdrew shaking his head declaiming his innocence as they’d never proved he murdered his last employer. They thought that was even funnier. We cleaned most of the morning while Simon snoozed in the lounge—he does work quite hard, but then so do I and Tom makes me look like a shirker, frequently working all day and half the night—but he seems to thrive on it. I just become exhausted.

When David dished up I asked him to do one for Danielle and also a spare for Henry as I wasn’t sure if he’d had a proper lunch or not. He probably had but just when you think you can predict what he would do, he does something entirely different and then calls women fickle or unpredictable. I personally prefer, spontaneous.

The pork was absolutely cracking, or should that be crackling, which was abundant and perfect. The rest of the meal was equally good and I ate too much and felt a bit too full after eating. Si and I did the crossword in the paper and by the time we’d finished, Danielle called to say she was on the way home with Henry.

I tried to ask if Henry had eaten or not but she’d rung off. Typical teenager. They arrived about an hour later, in his Aston Martin, she was thrilled to bits and even more so to realise I’d warmed her dinner for her. Henry had only had a snack, so I microwaved his and ten minutes later they both sat down to eat with Simon and I as company. Stella had gone off with her two to see a friend not knowing that her dad was visiting. He said he’d give her another hour before he had to leave. I sent her a text to say he was at the house. She said she was busy so to say hello for her.

That was unlike Stella so I wondered just what she was up to. As far as I could think, the only thing that would keep from coming to see her dad, was being with someone she liked or loved even more. Hmmm, this will require a detailed interrogation later, what is it they use for water boarding?

Once the meal was over, Henry asked if he could speak to me in private at which Simon frowned and declared, “She’s not gonna leave me, Dad, so you’re wasting your time.”

“Don’t bet on it, son, I might just up the offer—everyone has their price,” he fired back as we left my frowning spouse in the kitchen and hurried to the study.

“What have you got to say to me that can’t be said in front of Simon?” I asked him as he closed the door after us.

“Oh lots of things but I know you’d say no to most of them,” he winked, so his sense of humour hadn’t improved which might explain where Simon gets his from, could it be genetic as they seem to be finding everything else appears to be except homosexuality and gender identity. Apparently, there are over a hundred genes involved in hypertensive disease, oh and the latest research on dark humour tends to show it’s appreciated more by people with higher cognitive abilities and better education than those who don’t—there’s a surprise. The report I saw in the paper included a joke which I thought was very funny, see how you rate in the humour stakes.

A mortuary attendant lifts the sheet covering the body of her husband. She nods that it is him then says, “What did you wash it in to get it so white?” Well I found it funny.

I told the joke to Henry to see what he thought about it and he chuckled loudly, said, “That would be Monica,” and chuckled again.

“Does Monica actually know how to use the washing machine?” I asked feigning innocence.

“Oh yes, but Evans does a much better job of it.”

“I liked Mrs Evans, she’s a real sweetie.”

“She likes you too, Cathy, is always asking when you’re coming to stay again with the children.”

“I have no idea, Henry, much as I’d love to renew my acquaintance with Mrs Evans, life is just so busy at present especially with trying to knock my department into shape—get the odd whisper of mutiny—but so far I’ve managed to stamp it out.”

“I can’t believe you’d stamp on anything, far too ladylike for that, now Stella would, no hesitation.”

“Help me down off the pedestal, Henry, I’m just a poor working girl who does what’s necessary to protect what I love or believe in.”

“Yes, I saw that at Stanebury when we had that little contretemps.”

“Contretemps—hardly, Henry, it was the last attempted invasion of Scotland, or felt like it at the time.”

“You acquitted yourself very well, my dear and won a great deal of respect for it, not to mention saving my life and possibly Tom’s and the two girls’. An act of heroism if ever I saw one.”

I blushed as I thought about throwing myself at the Russian girl who was trying to kill us all. Broke my collar bone again and boy did that hurt. Changing the subject, “So what was it you wanted to speak to me about?”

“Ah yes, well it’s like this, Cathy...”

The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike, est. 2007) Part 3107 by Angharad Copyright© 2017 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.
*****

I sat looking at Henry with almost bated breath, what was it he was hesitating to tell me? Had my dubious gender history caught up with me? Was he going to tell me they no longer needed an ecology expert or that some of the directors had complained that I was besmirching the board? I was a big girl, I could deal with it now. I wouldn’t like it, none of us do enjoy rejection but I should be used to it now. It’s happened all my life from football teams to good friends, as soon as they find out, it’s over. At least I had some fun and made a few quid and let’s face it, nothing lasts forever, even if misery might feel like it does.

“Cathy, you’re not listening to me, are you?”

I blushed, “I’m sorry so assumed it’s bad news, what with Brexit and the EU claiming we owe them sixty billion euros or something like that, that you want me to resign from the board or as your ecological advisor.”

“Where did you get that idea from?”

“Why else would you ask to speak to me in private rather than in front of Simon?”

“I can think of many, but you’d say no anyway so I have to keep my love unrequited.”

“You are so full of ox manure, dearest father in law, I don’t believe a word you say about all that. You know perfectly well my history and that alone should put you off desiring a tryst with someone who used to be a boy.”

“Do trans people ever grow out of that stigma?”

“I don’t know, I’m just used to defending myself against innuendo and gossip, most of which was actually as well as factually, wrong.”

“Cathy, I am going to say this just once because it’s becoming an old record. None of us believes you were ever a boy, we see you only as you are now, a lovely young woman who happens to have the misfortune to be married to my ditzy son. You have an impressive academic record and career...”

“Only because your bank has funded it at.”

“Hardly, you’d pretty well got yourself two degrees before we even met, which was over my son’s idle body in the QA if I recall correctly.”

“He’d been shot, Henry.”

“So have I and if you remember it was a bit more serious than a few shotgun pellets.”

“Did the scars ever heal up?”

“What scars? My healing angel didn’t do half a job, I’ll have you know.”

“Glad to hear it,” I blushed.

“I never really thanked you for that, did I?”

“What? Doesn’t buying me a nature reserve here and up in Scotland constitute a nice thank you?”

“That was partly a tax fiddle and a commemoration of our lost granddaughter.”

“Thank you for that.”

“For what?”

“Including Billie in it.”

“Puir wee soul, she deserved better than she got.”

“I’m sure that applies to millions of children worldwide.”

“But they’re not my grandkids.”

“They’re somebody’s grandchildren.”

“Let them pay then.”

“Why d’you pretend to be so hard-hearted?”

“I am, it’s just you, I have a soft spot for.”

“And all my children.”

“Cathy, if they’re your children, they must be my grandchildren.”

I pecked him on the cheek and it was his turn to blush. “I can see where Simon gets his generosity.”

“Damn, I thought I’d had it extracted when he was a boy—and unlike you, he was one. I’ve seen those photos of you as Lady Macbeth in the local paper, even they thought you were a girl, didn’t they? I also heard you’d played the Blessed Virgin Mary in primary school.”

“Where did you hear that?” It was my turn to blush.

“I heard it was to great acclaim.”

“Well, there can’t be many boys with that on their CV.”

“You weren’t one, were you? I heard your own father didn’t recognise you at the nativity play.”

“The only one who could have told you that was Simon, I’ll kill him.”

“The first sensible suggestion so far.”

I glared at him and he just chuckled back at me like some demented goblin.

“He’s the only one I told about that.”

“It’s like that boy/girl racing cyclist Trish likes to read about, your destiny seems to have landed you in skirts or the female role despite your efforts to hide from it.”

“Does Simon tell you everything?”

“No he doesn’t, nor does Stella. No, I have a feeling we were talking about how abused you’d been for trying to be a girl when you were young and he told me about the two plays—no boy could have pulled those off.”

“My mother was furious when the school rang and asked if she minded if they switched my part to a more important one because of sickness.”

“So you got promoted from shepherdess to BVM in one fell swoop.”

“I still can’t think why they had to use me, but I’m glad they did, I had fun once I stopped pretending to be a boy and just played the part.”

“How old were you?”

“Five.”

“And you can remember feeling that?”

“Yes. I didn’t want to play Mary—well, yes I did—but I was trying so hard to be a boy so I played hard to get with the teacher.”

“But once you relaxed you let the girl inside you show?”

“Yeah, I suppose I did.”

“Playing a girl wasn’t your greatest acting role, Cathy; pretending not to be one for so many years was. I’m so glad for you and all the rest of us that you stopped and that you met Simon. We all love you to bits, you know and those kids would die for you.”

I felt a tear slip over the edge of my lower eyelid and it dripped down my cheek.

“Hey, don’t cry.” He drew me into a massive hug and held me while I wept for several minutes. “Let the pain of all those times when they told you, you weren’t a girl, out and never ever doubt that’s what you’ve always been and ever will be, and we all love you.”

Eventually, I pulled away and felt completely stupid—fancy showing all that emotion in front of my father in law. I was blushing and dabbing with tissues at my red face and even redder eyes. What a fool, what’s he going to think of me now?

“Sorry, I don’t know what came over me,” I said blushing when I felt able to talk.

“We all need to offload these things from time to time. You seem to spend your entire life accepting everyone else’s pain but never having time to deal with your own. Don’t worry, I’m not going to say anything but I’m glad you trusted me to hold you while you let it go.”

“Thank you, Henry, but please don’t tell the others, they think I’m neurotic enough now.”

“You’re not neurotic, you care so much that they don’t quite understand and thus mislabel it. Don’t stop being you, we all need a bit of contact with saintliness to remind us to do the decent thing—in my case—once in a blue moon.”

I smiled at his fib.

“So if you aren’t going to sack me, what did you wish to talk about?”

“Oh that, yes, well it’s like this...”

The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike, est. 2007) Part 3108 by Angharad Copyright© 2017 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.
*****

“You see, Cathy....”

The door burst open and in walked Danielle, “Gramps, Sammi’s on the phone, something about rushing bears...”

“Damn Putin, damn him to hell. Sorry, Cathy, I have to go.” He pecked me on the cheek and went briskly from the room. In the background I heard Simon calling to him, while Danni stayed with me.

“Why’s he worried about bears, you’re the wildlife expert?” she looked puzzled.

“I think you misheard Sammi, I suspect she said Russian Bears, a group of hackers who I think they said hacked the Democrat’s emails in the presidential election.”

“Is that why Hillary lost?”

“Not quite but it didn’t help. People have allegedly drawn conspiracies between Russia and the outcome of the election but I suspect after the FBI thing about her emails, which lost her ground, and Trump targeting states that were unsure who they’d support, she lost. One analysis said the Democrats fielded the wrong candidate against Trump and Bernie Sanders might have beaten him, but who knows.”

“I thought you wanted Hillary to win?”

“I did because a woman president might have done something different to a man, let alone one like the current incumbent.”

“You mean the orange one?”

I nodded and she giggled. I smiled back but I felt anything but happy about the way the popular vote was heading towards the right. The people who were voting were misled and not clever enough to see it, including the Bexit vote. HM government were desperately trying to culture trade deals with the US which would likely be entirely in favour of them, not us. Such things as employment and food protection are much higher in the UK, they won’t be if we do deals with Trump and there are loads of health care giants waiting to get contracts to provide NHS services, even though their system is failed and their efforts so far to do things over here have been rubbish. We’re not just different countries, we live in different universes and with our trade secretary hobnobbing with the Trump team, I suspect we’re in for some difficult times, especially as he had to resign before over conflict of interest and to my mind he shouldn’t even have been allowed to remain an MP or a doctor, let alone return as a cabinet minister, but then the woman who leads that party doesn’t inspire any confidence and I wouldn’t trust her as far as I could throw her, or her bunch of criminal ministers. The only thing you could say about her is that she makes Cameron look almost honest and he’s a proven liar.

“Look Babes, I’ve got to head up to town, we have a situation.” Simon had put his head round the door.

“Will you be back tonight?”

“Doubt it, massive cyber attack, they had to call Sammi in and she’s called for Dad to go and see for himself.”

“Want to borrow Trish?” I joked.

“In a couple of years maybe.”

“Have you packed or d’you want me to do it?”

“I’ve done it, babes, if I found you in the bedroom bending over the bed my impulses might have taken over and...”

“You’d have been late for your meeting.”

“Just a bit,” he winked.

“Do I get a kiss?”

“You have to ask?” he walked in grabbed me and gave me a very passionate kiss. I gave him one back and he looked at me and said, “I wonder if I could get them to postpone the meeting...”

I sent him on his way and Danni and I waved him off as he sped down the drive. “Henry didn’t say anything about why he was bringing you back, did he?”

“Nah, he just said he wanted to speak to you about something. He did say I could have his Aston Martin when he died.”

“That could be forty years away and by that time gas guzzlers like that might be prohibited. Besides, unless you were about sixty-five, the insurance would cost more than the car.”

“You could pay for that for me for my birthday.”

“Look here my petrol-head daughter, start saving now and you might just be able to buy a tankful of petrol by the time he gives it to you, at the rate it’s increasing in price, you’ll need a fortune to pay for it.”

“Dad could buy me that for my birthday.”

“Which one, your seventieth?”

“No, seventeenth.”

If we’re all still alive and the US and China aren’t firing ballistic missiles at each other.

The world of dormice is so much simpler, they live or die and aren’t interested in world domination or painting themselves orange. Having said that the way that edible dormice, the ones Rothschild let escape from his menagerie, are expanding and making life difficult for our native hazel dormouse, perhaps there is an element of domination there as well. With that thought, I went back to the kitchen and to sort out the dirty dishes from our late diners only to find that Danni had sorted it earlier.

“What are you after?” I said to her in jest.

“Nothing, I could see you were busy with Grampa Henry and so I did it for you.”

“How was the weekend?”

“That was brill, Mummy, they had a guy there who showed me how to curl the ball even more and to have it curl in opposite directions from the same kick.”

“Presumably not at the same time?”

“Nooo, it curves one way and then the other, it drives goalkeepers crazy.”

“I should imagine it would make their job a bit more difficult.”

“Difficult—impossible. If I get spot-kick within thirty five yards of the goal, I’m likely to score half the time.”

“Isn’t that a bit unknowable due to so many variables?”

“Yeah, but you wait and see, every other one should go in at least, at best every one will.”

“That strikes me as being unlikely.”

“You wait and see, doubting Thomas.”

“I hope I am wrong, but if what you said were true wouldn’t the professionals be doing it?”

“They do but the goalies are better—remember they’re professionals.”

“I’m aware of that, darling, I just said that.”

“Did you—when?”

“Just now.”

“Oh, I didn’t hear it.”

“So are you in the squad for the next game?”

“Probably, no one’s place is certain, so we have to wait until the day.”

“Oh, okay. I’m sure Daddy will try to come and watch it.”

“Why can’t you?”

“I’ll have to see what work I have on, it’s been frantic lately.”

“I know, I see you come home tired—too tired to even let me have Cindy over to do some sewing.”

“She can come tonight if you like.”

Danielle glanced at her watch, “Hmm,” she said dialling her mobile. Five minutes later she announced her friend was on her way with her sewing pattern. No prizes for guessing what I’d be doing for the rest of the evening.

The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike, est. 2007) Part 3110 by Angharad Copyright© 2017 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.
*****

“Charlotte, what’s that bird over there, top of the tree on the left?” Poor old Mr Crabtree, his eyesight was going, he always called me Charlotte, I suppose it was my long hair—it was well below my shoulders and I was nearly fourteen and sailing oblivious towards the iceberg Murray who would attempt to make me so uncomfortable that I left or killed myself. I did neither, but I did get to play Mrs Macbeth, albeit reluctantly.

I know Murray asked my dad to go and see him and painted this picture of me being swishy and trying to attract the attention of the butch types in school, so if he had this girly boy in his school why not use him to play the female lead in the school play? My dad reluctantly agreed and when I went home that evening we had an awful row, where he accused me of shaming the whole family in front of the whole school by being so effeminate. The only reason I didn’t get a hiding was because my mother stopped it.

He then said, “You will go and see Mr Murray tomorrow and accept his offer for a part in the school play, perhaps that will suit your nancy-boy inclinations.”

“What play is it?” I asked feeling a sense of trepidation.

“Little Women,” he snarled at me.

“What? You’re joking, Dad, aren’t you?”

“Yes he is, Charlie, tell him the truth, Derek,” interjected my mum.

I almost sighed audibly in relief. If I’d played a girl in the school play the bullies would have a field day tormenting or hitting me. But I wasn’t going to get my hair cut, it was my only demonstration of individuality which although it caused loads of abuse made me feel a happier dissident than I’d have been with a normal short back and sides.

“No, the poofy little sod can wait until he sees his headmaster tomorrow. It’ll do him good, he looks like a bloody girl with that stupid hair—get out of my sight.” I went up to my room and did my homework. I’d taken my hair out of the band and was sitting cross-legged on my bed looking at my homework when my mother brought me up my tea.

“Goodness you do look like a girl, Charlie.”

“Rick Wakeman had hair this length and no one calls him names.”

“Is that another boy in school, dear?”

“No, he’s a rock musician—plays keyboards.”

“I don’t know, dear, many of them aren’t proper musicians are they?”

“Well shows how much you know—he went to the Royal School of Music to train as a concert pianist.”

“Don’t take that tone with me, young lady—I mean young man.” I blushed with more than petulance. “Well you do look like a girl, you confuse me sometimes, here’s your tea, better keep out of your father’s way for a few hours, he’s still annoyed with you.”

“Why—just because I’m not a mindless bully like him and I like my hair long.”

“Now, I won’t have you talk about your father like that.”

“Why—it’s true.”

“No it isn’t, he’s only trying to keep you safe, the world is a dangerous place for girlish boys like you.”

“Only because there’re loads like him out there.”

“I give up,” she snapped and left me to eat my meal and sulk over my homework, French and bloody maths, two of my least favourite subjects.

Back to old Crabtree, the bird was a cuckoo, I could tell without even lifting my bins but then, I was blessed with excellent eyesight, a useful attribute in someone who wanted to do fieldwork and who thrived on it.

“You are a clever girl, Charlotte.” There were sniggers from behind me but I didn’t correct him, in some ways I liked it. What I didn’t like was the innuendo from Perkins, he was a first-class arsehole and to prove it he was full of shit.

One day Perkins pushed me too far. Mr Crabtree who ran the group had addressed me as Charlotte again and Perkins had begun with name-calling which then became jostling and finally, he threw a punch at me. The thing is if you’re used to seeing lots of punches, and I was, you learn how to duck or sidestep them. If someone hits a wall hard enough they tend to leave you in peace while the lick their knuckles. At the time, there was no wall behind me so I when sidestepped Perkins’ momentum carried him past me and he fell off the boardwalk—we were at a marshland reserve at the time—and into the rather sticky, smelly mud that reeds seem to grow in.

Another girl, Michelle Watkins watched in horror then giggled when Perkins landed with a splat in the goo. We both walked on rather briskly pretending we weren’t involved.

“How did you do that, Charlotte?” she asked me. She was the only girl in the group and I suppose she felt less isolated with me there. She told me that as everyone else called me by the feminine version of my name, she would too, but that I should be proud to be an honorary girl and she thought my hair was lovely.

“Do what, Shell?”

“Dump him in the muck.”

“I didn’t, he did it to himself, I just stood aside and let him.”

“No, you pushed him didn’t you?”

“I didn’t touch him, goodness knows what I’d catch from contact with Polluted Perkins.”

“So what did you do, then?”

“He telegraphed his punch, I just got out of the way as he swung and his momentum carried him past me—and as it happens, into the reeds.”

She laughed as I mimed the action replay.

Sadly, I got into trouble again because Crabtree believed Perkins’ lies until Michelle actually spoke to him afterwards and told him what she saw happen. Perkins not only got dirty, but he was also told not to come until he could show better behaviour in front of young women. I don’t think he was too happy about that. I was, he didn’t come back to the group. He remained a pain in school but didn’t learn.

A week or two after his mud beauty treatment—it didn’t work, by the way, he was still an ugly sod—I was grabbed by a couple of his friends who held my arms while he was going to hit me. They held me against a wall and—guess what—he broke his hand. His fist was coming straight at my face, so I just dropped to the ground with sufficient effort to break the grips on my arms and he punched the wall—quite hard. Then as I got up I managed to swing my arms upwards enough to hit both his helpers in the crotch and they all three seemed to do a funny little dance.

When I got sent home for fighting my dad almost smiled until Murray said there were rumours I tried to chat up Perkins and his pals and that’s why the fight started. When I told my father the whole story that Perkins had ended up in the mud because he tried to hit me and this was supposedly pay-back until he hit the wall and my flapping arms took out his henchmen, he said he believed me.

I yawned and turned over and eventually my memories gave way to dreams.

The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike, est. 2007) Part 3111 by Angharad Copyright© 2017 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.
*****

I woke before the alarm clock sounded. I recalled the memories I’d recalled the night before, they were a long time ago, well for me they were, more than half my life ago. Goodness that made feel old. I thought about Mr Whitehead, he was a good old stick though I wished I’d known it when I was still in school. There were one or two teachers who weren’t too transphobic or should that be homophobic, as people didn’t tend to think about transgender in those days. Anyone who wasn’t one hundred per cent masculine was a poofter, that was me, but I was still hiding it as much as I could, except my girly hair and I as much wore it that way to annoy my dad. Then when I learned it upset Murray, that was even more incentive to keep it long.

There was another kid who wore his hair very long, but he was rather bigger than me, and had a moustache, both of those used to irritate Murray, but Hawkins’ size used to intimidate him. Occasionally we were both told to report to the headmaster for having long hair. On one occasion, I had the school handbook in my backpack—yep the Care Bears one—so I challenged Murray, who decided to lay into me while Hawkins watched.

“Both of you should get your hair cut to above collar length, you’re both disgraces to the good name of the school.” At this Hawkins smirked and although it drove Murray mad, the boy towering over him prevented him from pushing his luck. My relative diminutive size, however, didn’t give me any protection at all. What I lacked in muscle I made up with synapses and I produced the school handbook from my bag.

“I’m sorry, sir, but I can’t see anything in here which relates to hair length. All it says is hair should be clean and tidy and kept out of the way with a band or clips, especially in lessons which involve sport, science, machinery or food preparation.”

He snatched it from me and read the relevant paragraph. His problem was the two schools, the boys’ and the girls’ used the same handbook, so it had to apply to both or either.

“It says no nail varnish either, Watts, but I shouldn’t think that would stop you for one minute, would it?”

“Are you telling me I can wear it, sir?” I looked at my nails, holding them out palms down. They were a bit long and shaped—oops.

“No it bloody well doesn’t, you ridiculous faggot, get out of my office, this minute. You as well, Hawkins.”

“Yes sir,” we both replied but I also bobbed as I said it and Hawkins nearly wet himself.

“One of these days, Watts, you’ll push me too far and I’ll have your arse. You wait and see.”

“Wouldn’t that make you gay, sir?”

“You know what I meant, now gerrout.”

Walking down the corridor back to main part of the madhouse, Hawkins said, “Charlotte, that was quite a show. Be careful, girl, or he will have you, grumpy old psychopath he is.” He went off to his class and I went up to the biology lab, blushing like mad at Hawkins calling me a girl. Inside I knew he was right, but I couldn’t admit it, not here, they’d kill me.

Then a month or two later and I got forced into doing Macbeth’s missus, yeah what bundle of laughs that was—not—until Murray made me wear my costume around the school to get the hang of women’s clothes and also because I’d not been really entering into the spirit of the thing, they somehow thought I’d act more like a woman in the play if i was dressed like one. So Siân conspired with me to try and give Murray a heart attack by me borrowing her spare uniform and turning up in school wearing it.

That was when the bastard called me out in front of the whole school and introduced me as Miss Watts and told them not to harass me as I was helping the school produce the play. I nearly melted I was so embarrassed. Why I hadn’t foreseen such an event escaped me, it was so typical of him and walking round the place in a skirt and blouse did kind of draw attention to me. I just thought of it as a big joke, he obviously begged to differ. He also made me wear it for the whole period of the play.

The radio came on and I rose, showered and got the girls up. Thinking about my schooldays, I glanced at Danielle sitting opposite me at the breakfast table. She had enough mascara on to paint the outside of the house, then I found myself blushing when I remembered I also wore it to school that month with enough coats to clad an orphanage.

I dropped them off at school and took the VW to the university. “Greetings, oh great corrupter of young minds,” said Diane bowing, adding, “We who are about to file, salute you.”

“Just do the tea or I’ll make you work late,” I half groaned as I turned into my office. She nodded at the outer door and we could see Ron Cuttleforth walking towards it. “Oh bugger, what does he want?”

“You have a meeting at nine.”

“No, not with him, please—he’ll be there all morning.”

Cuttleforth, who all his students called cuttlefish for obvious reasons, was someone who regularly wasted my time and his own with outrageous requests for everything from more staff to electron microscopes—what does he think this is, a university or something? He doesn’t just come with one grumble, but he usually has two or three pages of them. Why he can’t retire, I know not, he’s well over the normal age of sixty five, but then Tom was older still and working across the campus, as hard as he’d ever done and apparently thriving on it. I wasn’t, I wasn’t cut out to be a professor, not when that means writing begging letters most of the time. I should be supervising research or discussing which exciting areas we were going to explore this year—right, just one snag, we were being cut back two per cent per annum—bloody Tories.

I knew one day I'd address him as Dr Cuttlefish, but thankfully it wasn’t today and just to keep me wondering if there is a dog, he only stayed an hour, he told me he was going to complain about me to the Vice Chancellor, who can hardly say very much or I’ll make him wash his own shirts. Sometimes I give new meaning to nepotism. It made me chuckle and Diane gave me a funny look when she brought me in a fresh cuppa, in my dormouse conference mug.

“You look happy, has he resigned?”

“If he had I’d be ecstatic but I suspect he’ll still be here when I’ve retired.”

She went off giggling. Heading for forty and she giggles—bloody retard.

The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike, est. 2007) Part 3112 by Angharad Copyright© 2017 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.
*****

I was just about to suggest to my secretary that we popped over the refec for a snack lunch when she called me to say Tom was on his way over. Just what I needed—not.

My door was knocked and Diane announced the arrival of The Queen of Sheba. If she had it would have shaken me because that was what was playing on Classic fm, the music by Handel. Actually it was Tom, no not the Queen of ..., but you know what I mean.

“Hello, parental unit.” I beamed.

“Did ye send that obnoxious cephalopod tae see me?” he said frowning.

“Would I do a thing like that to you, Daddy dearest,” I replied smarmily.

“Aye, ye wud.”

“Give a dormouse a bad name...” I grumbled.

“It’s no yer bloody tree rats I’m ta’king aboot.”

“Not guilty.”

He glowered at me. “Sae wha sent him?”

“I suspect it may have been his own idea, why?”

“I’ll murder them.”

“If you kill me you’ll have to wash your own shirts and iron them.”

“Nah, jest dry them on a hanger.”

Damn, the ultimate sanction no longer works.

“I wis washin’ shirts afore ye were born.”

“So how come I get lumbered?”

“Why keep a dug an’ bark?”

“Cephalopod?” asked Diane.

“Cuttlefish, like octopuses are members of the cephalopoda class...”

“Is that like a biology class or a physics one?” she grinned.

“It’s part of the phylum Mollusca.”

“What you mean cuttlefish are no more than slugs and snails?”

“No they occur in the same phylum, as opposed to something like Arthropoda—which literally means jointed foot, and they have several classes so something as different as insects and crabs are both members of the arthropods, and likewise cephalopods and gastropods—the real slugs and snails are members of the molluscs.”

“Don’t octopuses and cuttlefish have jointed thingies?”

“No neither have any joints nor bones, there was an incredible piece of film on the internet recently of an octopus escaping from a fishing boat by squeezing itself through a tiny hole designed to drain water off the deck. They have tentacles but there are no bones in them and like cuttlefish, have the ability to swim away quickly using jets of water and of course the famous sepia ink can be ejected when they’re frightened.”

“So how come they aren’t in a class of inkypoos?”

“They’re in the order of Sepiidae.”

“Not Quink then?”

Tom decided he’d had enough of this nonsense, I mean he’s a no-nonsense scientist at the cutting edge of—um cheese knives. “Come, dochter escort me tae lunch, efter a’ this I need a curry.”

“I was just about to go with Diane,” I said wondering if I could escape what would be a boring diatribe of what Cuttleforth had complained about.

“Och, she cud come tae.”

“No that’s okay, professors, I’m quite happy to...”

“You don’t have a choice, Diane,” I explained, “it’s like a Papal bull, or some other sort of bull...”

“Okay, let me get my coat.” She went off to the kitchen room where she also hung her coat.

“Are ye implying I’m fu’ o’ bu’?” asked my adopted father.

“Um—if the horns fit...” was the best my frozen brain could conjure up.

Thankfully he laughed, but then most people may not have understood half of what he said, ‘full of bull.’ I grabbed my coat and bag and we went in my car to his usual haunt. Diane had been there before, so that held no surprises for her and Tom paid for all the food and drink—he is a generous soul—he must be to let me and burgeoning brood reside in his home, not to mention Simon and Stella and her two girls. However, the price we two innocents paid was his grumbling about Cuttlefish and how he wanted to report me for ignoring all his requests for extra equipment or staff.

In his defence, Tom explained the facts of life to our complaining academic saying he asked how many staff he’d lost—answer none. So I had actually protected his complement of teaching staff and technicians despite coping with cuts to my budgets by government. Apparently, when he said he preferred things when Tom had been dean of the faculty of science, Tom replied he was lucky that I was his boss now, because he, Tom, would have taken two per cent off his budget which could well have caused him to lose staff.

We all hoped that we’d be left in peace for a while now by the complaining microbiologist, but I wasn’t going to hold my breath. In effect the way I’ve saved money is to cut the training budget, so anyone who wants to go to conferences has to pay their own way but we do give them the time off work to go. It’s a bit unsatisfactory, but so far I haven’t lost any staff through the cuts, which are further evidence of the myopia of the current lot in government and which I suspect will get worse when Brexit begins to bite.

My jacket potato with tuna and salad garnish kept my tummy from rumbling the rest of the afternoon and helped me get through two hours of meetings in the afternoon with my departmental heads, including Cuttleforth, who was noticeably quiet throughout. When I was asked about training budgets, I said we had very little because that was how I’d made the two per cent cuts, Cuttleforth actually defended me by asking how many departments had lost staff. When the answer came back as zero, he asked which was more important to them. The grumblers then became rather quiet. Tom had obviously made an impression on my colleague during their meeting. But the truth is, much of the time I feel more like a manager than a scientist. If I said anything to Tom he simply tell me, ‘I wisnae much o’ a scientist tae begin.’

In my mind I challenged him, “I ran your bloody survey for all these years, doesn’t that make me a scientist?”

“No, thae key word is ran, ye managed it f’ me. That mak’s ye a manager no a scientist.”

“But you gave me a PhD for it.”

“No I didnae, ye got one f’ analysing the survey, which is science.”

In reality, he’d probably tell me something like that yet I knew from my original time with him, that Mary, you remember the one who tried to cut me and stabbed him and was shot as a consequence, told me that Tom offered me the MSc to keep me because he considered I was a good field scientist and he liked my work with dormice. He rarely says anything to my face except to tease me about my work, but the fact that I seem to progress in his university must show he has some confidence in me. Esmond Herbert at Sussex, seemed to think he did and it was through Herbert that I went to see Tom, or to hear him give a lecture. It was on Squirrels and I pointed out some flaws in his methodology and field results.

“And ye cud dae better, I suppose?” he responded.

“Probably, why?”

“Ye’d better come and show me then.” That challenge got me enrolled on a Master’s course which once I’d got I could teach, which was his apparent intention. He wanted someone to teach field studies and some ecology. The rest is history, as they say.

The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike, est. 2007) Part 3113 by Angharad Copyright© 2017 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.
*****

That evening after dinner, Cindy came over and we had another sewing bee. I had loads of other things I could have been doing but I find sewing relatively relaxing, unless I stab myself with the needle and after the day I’d had some rest and recuperation looked a useful aim.

Simon called later on to say that the Russians were still attempting to damage the bank’s website but so far Sammi had kept them out and had managed to return fire once or twice, sending malware back to the hacker. I’ve heard Trish talking about some of Sammi’s work and her offensive programs are very sophisticated, so much so that most hackers wouldn't realise they’d been bitten back until their computers went down which might happen days later. It was also self contained, so didn’t propagate onto other computers, just the one which attacked Sammi.

Simon also told me that the Security Service were definitely interested in her and there’d been a couple of emails, telephone messages and one letter which requested a meeting with her from some Lt. Colonel someone or other, he couldn’t remember who, but it was a woman, which surprised him most.

“It happens, women are allowed to drive cars, vote and even have babies, it is the nineteenth century you know. Even Charles Darwin said that women had brains similar to animals, he just forgot to name the animal or the insect that was analogous to men’s brains.”

“So the next time I say, ‘You’re an animal,’ it could be considered Darwinian.” He threw back at me.

“I know you’re a busy bee, and I’d better go and see what Meems is up to, last time she used my sewing machine she sewed herself to the table cloth.”

“I am a busy bee, at last some recognition.”

“Indeed, darling. The only fly in that ointment keeping to things entomological, is that male bees are called drones. Byeeee.” I clicked off and sniggered, until I discovered Meems had sewn her top to the material she was trying to put darts in. It looked like it would take an hour or more to detach the two, or three, her vest got sewn too in places. She is a disaster with a needle and thread.

I finally managed to separate her from her sewing project, Danni and Cindy smirking to each other as they listened in to me talking to Meems as I worked on releasing her. When she started to sniff a little I reminded her that some of the world’s most beautiful models have been sewn into dresses—I didn’t add that it was deliberate as there was nowhere to put a zip.

“When is this soccer international?”

“Wednesday week, why?”

“You’ll have to ask the school to release you for the day, your parents to grant permission for you to play and to bunk off school and your dad for being available to take you.”

“You said you would.”

“I have meetings all day that Wednesday. You were supposed to let me know which day. Daddy is up in London, so he could probably sneak a couple of hours off to watch you.”

“Sister Maria said she was going to organise a coach trip to support me.”

“Just for her?”

“Don’t be daft, a school trip.” She rolled her eyes and Cindy snorted and had to wipe her nose.

“Ah you going on da school twip, Daniewwe?” asked our very own Vivienne Westwood.

“Yeah Meems, you could say I am.”

“Have a nice time,” she said completely unaware of what was going on.

While this surreal experience was occurring I sent Si a text telling him that Danni’s match was the Wednesday of next week. I had one back saying he’d try and get there and so would Henry. That would give her a boost. I’d love to go but I have nowhere to shove the meetings we’d scheduled and it would take a couple of hours to get to Wembley from here except by broomstick and I don’t know if the others can fly.

I helped Cindy with some more of her project, which was nearly finished, just a question of over sewing the hems and reminding her of how to hem a garment. I got to do fifteen minutes of my own sewing—mending some of the girls’ school clothing and a couple of Tom’s shirts. Sometimes I feel like an auld fashioned wifey, sitting by thae fire and daein’ ma mendin’.

“Watts you will do my mending and darn my socks as long as you persist in looking like a girl—at least I’m indulging you, you might as well practise your girly skills, you fairy.” Murray dumped a whole pile of clothing in my lap while the rest of my class fell about laughing.

“It’s not fair, I’ve got homework to do,” I complained to Mr Samuels the Latin teacher.

He rebuffed me, “Well, Charlotte, you’ll just have to give up some of your beauty sleep, won’t you. I’ve got some socks that need doing too,” with that he took off his shoes and threw his still warm, smelly socks at me and one hit me in the face. I struggled to push it away and felt something warm and soft alongside me.

I awoke from my dream to a purring, warm and furry body which plonked itself down next to me and curled up. The thought of darning Murray’s or Samuel’s socks made me want to retch. Thankfully, lying curled round the cat, stroking her gently took away the nastiness of my dream and I soon went off to sleep again.

At about ten to seven, I awoke with something perched on my head. I put my hand up and a paw poked it and she purped at me—a sort of welcoming miaow. Now I was awake my first duty was to feed her.

I got out of bed and she followed me purring until I went to the bathroom rather than downstairs and she had the pleasure of watching my naked body hop into the shower. She nearly followed me darting back from the jet of water just in time. By the time I’d dried myself and then my hair, she was sitting on the bed washing herself. Dressing in a suit and blouse for a change, once I’d found a pair of tights that didn’t have holes or were stretched long enough to fit someone with legs about ten foot long, I slipped on my boots and the cat accompanied me to wake the girls for yet another fun packed school day. It was as I did this I suddenly realised it was half term next week—damn it, we’d all go and watch Danni play. All I had to do was talk Diane into cancelling all those meetings. Perhaps if I bought some cakes on the way into work—yeah, I know good old fashioned bribery and corruption, but if it works for BAe Systems or was it Rolls Royce—it’ll work for me.

The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike, est. 2007) Part 3114 by Angharad Copyright© 2017 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.
*****

After rousing the girls and leaving them to sort themselves out, I descended to start the process of breakfast. So kettle on, bread in toaster, dishes and plates on table, bananas—damn, we have no bananas. Oh well, I’ll have to eat toast by itself, unless I have a slice of cheese on it, though that isn’t the same and certainly won’t count as one of my five a day, which according to one article I read should be seven or even nine a day. I am an omnivore, I eat plants and furry, feathered or scale covered things plus the occasional crustacean. I eat leaves, shoots, seeds and fruit together with roots of some plants. If I ate much more fruit and veg, I’d be verging on herbivorous only in people we call that vegetarian. Nah, not me, like the dormouse, I’m an opportunist omnivore.

Dormice used be categorised as herbivorous until someone actually did some studies about what they did eat. They do eat fruits and flowers, nuts and some buds and various seeds but much of the summer, they are insectivorous and probably eat other animal protein as well such as birds’ eggs or even baby birds. Nature is very red in tooth and claw and is much about survival of the most adaptive as things which become overly specialised in either diet or habitat are likely to become extinct if major change occurs to their food supply or the world in which they live, much of which is caused by those large two legged rats who despoil this wonderful planet.

I heard on the news that a large number of penguins in southern Africa are in danger of starvation because the climate has changed causing the sea to change and there has also been massive overfishing on an industrial scale, so the sardines they feed on aren’t where they used to be and the African penguins haven’t adapted to this change. Numbers of them have dropped by a third in the past five years, I think they said, which is quite an indictment of human activity.

There are too many of us, we are a voraciously greedy species who often take far more than we need because we think we can make money from the extra. If whatever is exploited, is over exploited it ceases to be sustainable and will thus run out, which usually means the exploiters will move on and exploit somewhere else not caring about the consequences.

If only governments enforced sustainability the world could be so much better. Instead we are fast heading towards a place where wars will increasingly be fought over food and water as climate change means the availability of agriculturally viable land decreases with drought and desertification, plus in the longer term sea levels rising.

Millions are displaced by political or religious power games, often fuelled by world powers fighting proxy wars. The misery of these unfortunates will expand tenfold as much of Africa becomes barren through drought and the migrations we see now will be even greater. Life on a small planet is going to become increasingly difficult because one species has run amok. Plague or famine will eventually reduce numbers, but like so many things, if we really were a sapient species, it could have been avoided—now I rather think it’s too late.

I bought the cakes after dropping the children off at school and explained to Diane as it was half term, I was taking the odd day off, including next Wednesday.

“Aren’t you the lucky one,” she fired back, “half of them have cancelled asking for a rematch, I mean a new date.”

“Danielle is playing at Wembley on Wednesday, I’m taking the girls up to cheer her on, but she mustn’t learn about it until she sees us there.”

“So she’s got another England call up, has she?”

“She’s in the squad but I think very likely to play because she can bend it like Beckham.”

“I remember a film of that name, wasn’t Keira wassername in it?”

“Keira Knightly, yes she was,” I confirmed though I hadn’t seen it myself. I thought it had such a naff title I didn’t bother. Having been with Danielle when she met Beckham, I might think differently now and he was certainly very human on Desert Island Discs the other week, though I wasn’t sure about his taste in music.

“I suppose you want tea?” asked Diane condescendingly.

“If I said yes, to go with the cakes, would it make a difference?”

“It might,” she said looking in the bag. “You’ll make me fat.”

“Only if you eat them, it isn’t compulsory.”

“No it’s obligatory.”

“What?”

“Well if I didn’t eat any, you’d have to eat them all and then you’d get fat, and I’m far too fond of you to let that happen, so you see I don’t have a choice. Besides I can’t just turn my back on an iced custard slice, now, can I?”

“If you put logic like that in a paper that I marked you’d fail.”

“Ah but the logic of cakes is different.”

“If I stay here much longer I’ll be as batty as you, take the one you want and I’ll have the other. Oh and once you’ve boosted your sugar levels cancel the rest of those meetings will you?”

“For you oh provider of such sugary dainties, anything.” She went off to make tea giggling while I put the bag of bananas I’d bought alongside my handbag so I didn’t forget them when I went home. I was tempted to eat one now to make up for my missing breakfast item, but decided the apple turnover I’d have in a few minutes provided some vegetable matter towards my five a day.

I was looking at the messages she’d taken for me. “Is that bloody woman off again?”
I asked Diane, Veronica Erikson, had only been with us a year and she’d been off sick for at least a month of that.

“You know she has diabetes.”

“So does, wossisname in computing, but he’s always here.”

“She also has a little one.”

“Since when?”

“She’s six months old.”

“Is she? I didn’t even know she was pregnant, she’s so fat.”

“She didn’t tell us when she interviewed, and none of you lot picked up on it.”

“We needed someone to teach environmental biology.”

“Isn’t that what you used to teach?”

“Yes, why?”

“Your morning meeting has cancelled and...”

“You wonder if I’d like to bore the pants off a group of first years?”

“It would be one way of burning off the carbs from your apple turnover.”

“Find my notes then would you and I’ll see if I can remember enough to blag my way through it; though had I known I was going to be standing teaching all morning, I’d have worn more comfortable shoes.”

She looked down at my high heeled court shoes and smirked. She’ll have to go.

The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike, est. 2007) Part 3115 by Angharad Copyright© 2017 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.
*****

I sat with my second cuppa and flicked through my notes which were in plastic pockets in a lever arch binder. Goodness, I haven’t done this for a while; okay definition of habitat, ecosystem, biome yep—could probably do this in my sleep but the art is to do it while keeping the students awake.

Flipping to the pocket at the back, did I have any tricks—nah, just a DVD, which I quickly loaded into my ’puter and scrolled through them, a quiz with twenty questions. Now do I make it a team thing or individual? Let’s see how many turn up once they realise their regular lecturer is off sick.

My tea had gone cold so I left it and went for a wee and smartened myself up, freshened my lipstick, checked my hair, that sort of thing. In a Chanel suit, you don’t need much else except perhaps a complementary squirt of Coco. I collected the file including the DVD, my handbag and sauntered up to the lecture theatre. Some of these students probably won’t have a clue who I am, as I usually do the professorial lecture before Christmas. Oh well, those who turn up will get the bonus of sharing in my genius and enormous modesty. I almost smirked as I wandered through the prep room door at the back of the room. Alex the technician nodded to me and told me that the projector was all set up. I thank her, she’s fairly new and when she asked if she could sit in from the student’s side, I agreed. If anything goes wrong she’ll be on hand so that’s okay.

Somehow word had got out that the nutty professor was doing the session and the room was quite full—hang on, there’s a group of second year’s sat up the back, what’s going on? How did they find out? I spoke quietly to Alex and she told me that Diane had sent out a text message practically across the whole department and here I am hoping to wing it for an hour and a half and chat with the students for the last thirty minutes. I’ll sack her when I get back to my office, bloody woman. The thing is I know exactly what she’ll say, “I didn’t want you to be lonely in that big room.”

I loaded the quiz but didn’t run any of it. With two hundred students teams were hardly going to be feasible. So it would be an individual thing if we got that far. I introduced myself and got a round of applause, apparently for managing to walk in ‘those heels.’

“Okay people, we’re, well, I’m going to be talking about what ecology is, how we measure and use it here and why. The why is very important because in this massively overpopulated world, we have to work hard to prove the negative effects that humans are having on the planet its other denizens and their habitats especially in this climate of alternative facts, which means untruths and deliberate lies and climate change deniers, who believe in god but not scientific evidence. Right, somebody give me a definition of a habitat...” We were off and for two hours we kept each other occupied. I made them draw up the habitat of a science student and then build the ecology around it. It was ten minutes of nonsense but then I showed them a clip from my film, ‘Dormouse’ and asked them to do the same again.

“Where do we find dormice, so what is the habitat, and if anyone says a teapot, I’ll make them stand on one leg outside in the cold until the rest of us finish.” They said woodland and hedgerow and then I showed them all the sorts of habitats in which dormice are found, from half way up mountains in Germany, to tea shops in Lyme Regis. The latter is true, a dormouse happened to just wander into a teashop in Lyme a few years ago. Ended up in Paignton zoo so we have a clear record of it, how it got there, goodness only knows.

We did the dietary bit, what do dormice eat? I had to disqualify tea cakes, despite the teashop event. We had nuts and acorns—the latter are very poor food source, very little nutritional value compared to a hazel nut. They got fruits and seeds—which is what nuts are—but they didn’t say insects, which was good because when I showed the clip of a dormouse slurping away on the caterpillar of a purple hairstreak, a butterfly which feeds on oak, they were almost shocked. Even the second years who’d turned up hadn’t seen that clip because we decided it was too icky to put in film, instead having one grab a fly which was curled up for the night. The best I’d seen was one with a maybug, these are cockchafers and I could hear the dormouse crunching it from five yards away.

I stopped after an hour for loo breaks and sent Alex to bring in one of the hibernating dormice, who were in nests in artificial holes in the ground. Each was actually a nest box through which we can monitor life signs and if necessary remove them for feeding or treatment if disease is suspected. We had one die last year and I had the skeleton removed and reconstructed before putting it in a small glass holder. So we had two objects to show them which I kept until the last ten minutes, which just about gave everyone a chance to view my special animals, but asking them to be quiet in case either of them woke up—well, you know what I meant.

Alex took our sleeping beauty back to the labs and I went off to my office. Having just taught for two hours and it being well received, I was buzzing as I got back to my office.

“You managed to stay awake then—though I suppose the pains in your toes ensured that,” she smirked at me. I was so high I wasn’t aware if my feet were sore or not. “You weren’t lonely then?” Told you.

“No, half a dozen turned up and we had a natter over tea and scones for a couple of hours, a bit like your average morning.”

She scowled back at me.

“It went okay, I got Alex to bring in a dormouse and they spent ninety minutes oohing and ahhing.”

“Your usual trick then.”

“Pretty much, did you miss me?”

“When?” she said dismissing my question in a perfunctory manner.

“I was going to take you to lunch.”

“Oh, we all missed you dreadfully,” she said trying not to laugh. “Even the vice chancellor was worried by your absence.”

“What he came over?”

“Only to borrow a book. I told him you were teaching and he said he was glad one of us was having an easy time.”

“Cheeky sod, I’ve a good mind to starch his underpants.”

“Ahem, you were saying about lunch...”

I shook my head, “Come on, Watson, the lunch is afood.”

“A food? Isn’t is usually afoot, Holmes says?”

“D’you want to eat something’s foot?”

“Uh, no thanks,” she replied pulling a face.

“Well, shurrup and get moving.”

The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike, est. 2007) Part 3116 by Angharad Copyright© 2017 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.
*****

“Seen this?” Diane showed me the screen of her smart phone and according to the story, it suggested that the earth was warming at 170 times the rate it should.

I shrugged, “I do my best to avoid adding to my carbon footprint.”

“By driving around in a Jaguar, sure.” It was perhaps my weak spot, that and my addiction to tuna.

“I’m not driving the Jag today, got the VW.”

“The one with the bigger engine than the Jag?”

“Shush, you’re giving away all my secrets.”

“Some ecologist you are.”

“Quiet, look I’ve taken the hypocritic oath, okay?”

“Like doctors?”

“Hush, don’t want everyone to know, besides we tend to be quite miserly with the heating, we know we need to put it on when Lizzie goes blue.”

“I’ve been to your house and it was quite warm.”

“That’s the coal fired central heating and lounge fire.”

“You’ve got gas, you showed me your new boiler.”

“Okay, so I was fibbing.”

“You missed your calling, didn’t you?”

“Not as far as I’m concerned, why?”

“You should have been in entertainment.”

“I am—you don’t think anyone learns anything here?”

“They do when you teach them, don’t they?”

“What not to come again?”

“What is it about compliments you don’t like?”

“A moment ago you were telling me I should be on the stage.”

“The best entertainers are those who communicate the best.”

“C’mon, eat up, we have work to do since you inveigled me into teaching this morning.”

She finished her sandwich and swallowed down the rest of her water. “If I get indigestion, I’m going to sue.”

“Which Sue is that, Sue Smith, Sue Jones or Sue Ryder?”

“Ha ha,” she said as she followed me back to the office. “How do you walk in those things,” she gave a cursory nod at my shoes.

“With difficulty,” I said strutting one foot in front of the other like cat-walk models used to do.

“Careful, or the men will be in agony,” she commented from behind my rolling bum.

Back at the office, I slipped off my shoes and rubbed my tormented toes—had I known I was teaching today, I’d have worn flat shoes with trousers. I looked at the list of emails I had, one from someone whose name I didn’t recognise.

‘Hi Professor, any chance you could do part two of your lesson tomorrow, today was brill.’ It was signed by twenty-five first-year students. It made my tummy go all funny. I had just received a petition from my students. So surprised was I by it that it was still on screen when Diane brought in the teas.

She glanced at my screen, “You’ve got no meetings tomorrow, shall I reply to it for you?”

“I have loads to do, I don’t need someone else’s work as well.”

“Isn’t getting them degrees the priority?”

“Two lectures from me is hardly likely to get them a degree is it?”

“No, but it shows them what the standard should be, if it falls below that they can complain.”

“That will just put everyone’s back up.”

“Some of these kids are building up huge debts to be here, shouldn’t that be a factor?”

“You sound like I did when I first came here.”

“Before you married into the richest family around here?”

“That is of no consideration.”

“Of course it is, you’ll never have money worries again.”

“I did when I was a student.”

“You paid off your debt?”

“Yes.”

“Some may be retired before they finish theirs.”

“That isn’t my responsibility, the university sets the fees, I have very little say in it.”

“If they get a degree that’s all very well, at least they get something for their money, what about the sad buggers who don’t.”

“Don’t what?”

“Get their degree.”

“They’ve wasted their time I suppose, but we do try to advise them before it’s too late.”

“But they still have student loans.”

“Diane, I am not going to justify the right of this faculty to give people degrees, it’s enshrined in the charter and neither am I going to do so for failing people who are not up to standard. We give them every opportunity to pass if they work for it. I got people with dyslexia through the course successfully, we even had a blind girl who got a 2:1 and several disabled students have done well.”

“So you do care.”

“Of course I care, I wouldn’t be here otherwise would I? We all care but we can’t do it for them, they have a degree of responsibility as well.”

“There are twenty-five taking that responsibility, right there.”

I blushed.

“What shall I tell them?”

“We don’t know if our favourite lead swinger will be back tomorrow, do we?”

“She’s sent in a sick note for the rest of the week, work-related stress.”

“She doesn’t do any work.”

“Perhaps the boredom gets to her.”

“Go on send your wretched tweet or whatever, but I’m not promising anything after tomorrow. Well, go on then.”

“I already did, more tea?” she said shutting the door behind her just as my shoe struck it. One of these days...

I looked at my notes for the second in my ecology lectures and asked Alex to come and see me. We discussed the matter and she grinned, “It’ll be a lot of work.”

“I know, that’s why I asked you.”

“It’s funny, Prof, you’re the big boss and the only one who asks us to do things rather than just issue orders.”

“I’d rather lead my staff than drive them, it doesn’t always work, but so far it has most of the time.”

“One condition.”

I raised my eyebrows.

“I get to sit in again.”

“Why, you’ve already got a degree?”

“I like to watch skilled craftsmen at work.”

“I hope you think so after tomorrow.”

“Could we film it?”

“That requires too much equipment and time, plus a very skilful camera-man.”

“Pity, if we did, you could use them when people are off.”

“We’d have to film them all.”

“So, but it would pay in the long run.”

“How much ecology have you done?”

“More straight biology, why?”

“You have a master’s don’t you?”

“In coelenterate biology.”

“I want you to start doing some tutorials with first years.”

“I don’t know if I can?”

“I think you can and I want you to try, get Di to organise it, say two sessions per week.”

“I don’t know, prof, this isn’t what I signed up for.”

“Neither did I and look what happened to me.”

“What?”

“I signed up to do a post-grad masters with Tom Agnew and before I know it I have his job plus.”

“Yeah, but you were always marked out to go far.”

“Was I hell?”

“I heard him say about how special you were and that Sussex sent you here knowing he’d nurture you. I just applied for a job because I needed the money, nothing special, just me.”

“Alex, it’s my job to develop people and that includes staff. See Di and I’ll be with you tomorrow.”

“Okay, Prof, look forward to hearing you teach tomorrow.”

“Go on, clear off and send that psycho on the desk in when you’ve sorted those tutorial dates.”

The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike, est. 2007) Part 3117 by Angharad Copyright© 2017 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.
*****

I didn’t look as important, wearing black trousers with relatively flat ankle boots, bought on a whim in M&S while I was walking through one morning going food shopping. They were half price and they fit me as their name suggested, ‘Foot Glove’. I’ve worn them quite a lot and walked miles in them so I knew they’d be fine.

I was going to wear a jumper as in the British, woolly jumper (and not bouncing sheep) but decided if I was teaching I might get too warm, so opted for a blouse over a camisole and a black jacket, over which I wore a nice wool coat. It had become colder recently and although only predicted to last a few days, I decided to dress to stay warm. I also made the girls wear their vests and cardigans under their blazers, until they said they were too hot in school.

None of my clothes now came from the likes of Primark simply because I could afford to buy more in the way of quality of design and material. They were all of classic design—well mostly—so likely to last me years if looked after, which they were.

I did much more moving around in my more comfortable clothes, so the lecture was more energetic. I was looking at ecosystems and biodiversity, how these interacted, what we might find in them and why? I had a memory stick with literally hundreds of images on it and all with an alphabetical list, so if they mentioned something, I usually had an image of it, mostly photographs but sometimes drawings or paintings.

We looked at the systems through a 24/365 period and I made them think about how things would be affected by the time of day or night or the season/weather—you don’t get too many dormice building snowmen in day time—though Sammi had manufactured a picture of just that with snowball fights as well. Took her a weekend and I used it as my Christmas card one year—I did pay her for doing it, but it was Trish who printed them off for me on Daddy’s laser printer, which will do both sides of the paper or card. She did me a hundred and Livvie folded them and put them in envelopes. We even had my signature printed off in what looked like my usual Sheaffer fountain pen, with its violet ink—I know, it’s so effete it’s stylish. You remember my pen, the enamelled one, very girly, in a blue-grey and gold casing and no clip—well ladies don’t have pens in pockets—and as I learned in a previous incarnation, neither should boys. I got permanent black ink from a leaky fountain pen all through the lining of my school blazer, my shirt and all over my left breast—well the little puffy thing I had in those days (there was a matching one on the other side but it didn’t have a black nipple, courtesy of Quink and Parker pens).

Back to my lecture, the fountain pen, a gift a few years ago, was probably older than I was by twenty or more years, but hadn’t had much use and worked fine—the nib was okay, whether my writing deserved such a beautiful instrument was a matter of debate, having been described by a teacher as the result of a drunken spider having fallen into an inkwell. Okay, he was entitled to his opinion, when i was in school I was accused of having girly writing by some of my classmates—or should that be fellow inmates? It was rounded and quite small, I have to write slightly larger with this pen because it has a medium nib. I prefer a fine one, but beggars can’t be choosers.

A couple of years ago, I thought I’d lost it, the pen that is, not the plot—that went years ago. I searched frantically for it high and low and I couldn’t find it. The problem was I didn’t know if I’d last used it in work or home and the bag had opened in the car when it fell off the back seat during an emergency stop—idiot in front of me was day-dreaming or changing CDs or something, and I barely managed to stop as he did a sudden one in front of me. Thankfully my laptop survived—I have it in a case within the bag, so it’s sort of double cushioned.

It was when I was marking some essays at home that I looked for my pen in the bag and it was somewhat noticeable by its absence. I rushed out to the car and with a torch—it was dark—looked through my car, under the seats, you name it, with no luck. I looked in the bag—removing everything and I felt heartbroken. I don’t do expensive luxury items such as jewellery or watches in case I lose them, but I do love quality writing instruments, especially fountain pens. I still mark with one today, and with violet ink. I was bereft, Simon said he’d get me another, it was only a pen, but it wasn’t just a pen, it was a gift from a friend who’d since died. It was an attachment to them, not just a pen.

Using another from my collection, I have about a dozen pens of different makes and values—I resorted to a cheaper Waterman—I continued marking but felt really angry with myself for losing a cherished item.

A couple of months later Trish spotted something sticking out of the base of my seat in the car and when we stopped she unbelted and pulled out the base of my missing pen. I was so delighted I kissed and hugged her. It took the two of us over an hour to recover the cap which had become detached when she pulled out the base, but we got it. I felt like I’d won the lottery and Simon said he’d send the other back. I now had two, the second was blue and gold rather than grey and it was this second one I used for work and the original was safe in its box in my desk drawer and I only use it at home occasionally.

Back to the present, I finished my lecture and Alex waited to chat with me after the few students who had queries they hadn’t wanted to voice in front of two hundred others.

I’d been making a few notes and she saw the pen and admired it, I said it was a precious possession but not as much as the one I had at home. She had enjoyed my lecture and said she felt enthused by it but at the same time depressed because she’d never make a teacher.

“I thought exactly the same when Tom asked me to do some after I got my master’s. I’d seen him teach and he was jolly good and I felt intimidated but he insisted and I started with basic stuff teaching students who’d not done A-level biology, as well as a few tutorials for those who struggled to understand what they were supposed to have learned from lectures. Their responses to me were very positive and I developed my style from there—it’s a performance, so don’t try to copy me—you won’t. Do your own thing, but do it with verve and enthusiasm, because let’s face it, if you aren’t keen, why should your audience be?”

“Thanks, Prof, I’ll do the tutorials.”

“Next term I want you to do some revision classes on basic biological systems, see how you get on, if you want to start writing lesson plans or accumulating material, let me know and we’ll give you a couple of hours a week to do it.”

“How many classes do I have to do?”

“Let’s say, eight, one a week, that should give you some practice. Well, off you go then.”

Her mouth dropped open as if she was going to say something, then it snapped shut and she nodded and walked away briskly.

The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike, est. 2007) Part 3118 by Angharad Copyright© 2017 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.
*****

It was Tuesday and my children had run amok yesterday according to Jacquie. The full story as I eventually understood it began when Danielle went off to meet Cindy in town and Livvie, Hannah and Trish felt they should have been allowed to go as well. Meems was quite happy looking after Lizzie and Cate and Jacquie was looking after Meems.

Apparently the three middle order mouseketeers made themselves a total nuisance and drove Jacquie to distraction. She used more vernacular descriptions but I suspect you get the picture.

To complicate matters, Danielle would be going off after lunch to catch the train up to London, where Simon would meet her and take her to the team hotel near Wembley, where the England ladies football squad were staying. The team would be picked tomorrow but Danni was pretty sure she’d be picked for at least part if not all the game. The opposition were being supplied by Russia and that had my blood pressure rising once I learned it—surely lightning couldn’t strike in the same place again, or could it.

I also heard that they tried to accuse England of playing a boy and they responded by saying all their players were female. I suggested they should ask the Russians how many had failed drug tests recently. The FA didn’t however take up my idea, possibly in the name of detente.

My visit home, mainly to see Danielle off and run her to the station, was hijacked by having to deal with three stroppy twelve year olds, who I eventually agreed could go to town by themselves provided they promised to behave themselves. They had pocket money to burn and I suppose these days it’s what girls do, meet up and float round the shops to amuse themselves. At their age, I was out bird watching most of the time, most of my contemporaries were also out watching things—boys were watching girls, and girls were watching boys though most interactions would have been flirting or mock scornfulness, their hormones would have been flowing or starting to, mine didn’t.

Having said that, if you recall I had quite long hair and was smallish, skinny and I suppose quite girlish looking, and any of the boys I went birding with knew I was a boy but often called me Charlotte, because they called me that in school or were beginning to. Part of this was due to Mr Whitehead testing his hypothesis, or rather his wife’s that I was possibly more girl than boy. This was a couple of years before the Macbeth production brought it to a head and Whitehead wasn’t involved in that.

He began getting us to read plays in English literature classes and one day he picked on a play with two or three female parts. He chose me to play the female lead which had me blushing and the rest of the class roaring with laughter. Two other boys were chosen to play other women’s parts and other boys were picked for the men’s parts.

He then asked us to stop messing about and to try as best we could to read the parts as if we were really doing it as actors—and there would be no embarrassment from actors about who was reading what. He also told us that if we didn’t do our best in reading the parts, we’d have to read them for the duration of the play, which at one lesson per week could take several weeks to complete.

Of course his idea was to get me to read the whole role throughout the play to see if I could act as a female. Given I had no real experience, I was very uncertain about doing it or if I could do it well enough to pass it on to someone else because at this stage I wasn’t aware of what he was up to.

We simply sat at our desks and read the lines. The first effort was awful, we were all so embarrassed, me more than the rest. So we were told we’d do it again next week and the ten cast members who’d been chosen were told to practice or we’d be reading it until we did it better.

I was trudging home wondering how I could practice it to sound better, in other words how I could find someone to read bits with me, could hardly ask my dad, he’d be on the phone to the school the next day so I thought it would probably have to be my mother—just wunnerful; when fate took a hand and I bumped into Siân who asked me why I looked so miserable.

“We’ve got to read this stupid play for English lit.”

“I’d have thought you were quite good at that sort of thing.”

“I have to read the girl’s part.”

“So, what else would you read?”

“What d’you mean?” I said standing on what was left of my dignity.

“Come off it, Charlotte, you could hardly read the men’s parts could you?”

“I thought you were my friend but you’re as bad as the thugs I go to school with.”

“Don’t be such a priss, we both know you’d be happier as a girl.”

“No I wouldn’t.” I’d never admitted this to anyone before although I knew it myself—deep down inside—telling someone else would make it real, not just my imagination.

“That’s not how I see you.”

“Well maybe you should get some specs then.” I said and stormed off, tears starting to run down my face.

Instead of letting me go she chased after me and stopped me. “Look, Charlie, I didn’t mean to hurt you, you’re my best girl friend.”

“What?” That felt like insult being added to injury.

“I mean it, you’re my best friend and I think of you as a girl, my mum thinks you’re a girl too.”

“What?” I gasped.

“Why else would she let you come up to my bedroom with me?” I’d never thought of that before. I just assumed because we’d been friends for years and we’d always played in her bedroom, or listened to music there as we got a bit older, that it was something all kids did. Sex or fumbles and gropes didn’t even occur to me, I just had no libido at all as i was still trying to understand what I was as well as who I was.

Instead of squabbling we talked as we walked home and when I told her I had to read the part until I sounded like a girl playing it, she offered to help, “It’ll be fun,” she said. For much of Sunday we were up in her room reading the part, me with a dress on over my tee shirt and jeans to help me feel the part. She read all the other parts and once we stopped fooling about, I began to understand her advice.

“Look, Charlie, you’re supposed to fancy this guy, you sound as if he’s just kicked your dog.”

“Oh, sorry.” She’d then read the part and I began to understand the nuance in her tone and expression. I’d copy it and then add something myself. We actually did the whole play and I understood it much better myself as well as understanding the female perspective a bit better, so I could read it with a seductive voice rather than the freshly cut piece of wood I was before. This wasn’t reading the lesson in assembly, it was playing a part, the part of a flirty young woman—now whether i could repeat this in class was another matter, but I had a much better understanding of it.

The following week, I was very self conscious but eventually realised I had to relax and do what Siân had shown me if I was to get out of this predicament, so I took a deep breath and flirted with the three other members of the cast in the first act. The class became silent and I wondered if I’d overdone it but Whitehead waved at me to continue, so I did. At the end he began to clap and the rest of the class did so too, boy did I blush.

“That was brilliant, Watts, I want you to read the rest of Amelia’s part for the rest of the play. Smith, you can read Algernon next week and Plummer, you can do Jonathon...” I felt sick and elated at the same time.

The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike, est. 2007) Part 3119 by Angharad Copyright© 2017 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.
*****

I was still deep in my reverie, having taken Danielle to the station, as I drove home. My ability to read female parts in plays continued to develop because when Whitehead was appointing the cast, the rest of my class would virtually demand that Watts play the female lead.

I did get to play the odd male part too, as if he was comparing my ability to portray a man—it was pathetic. We did Macbeth and I was asked to read the part of the eponymous king—I was hopeless and I did try my best, but it was like a girl playing the part and my classmates told me so. Nowadays, I’d probably have the confidence to do it, as women have played Lear and Hamlet very successfully, Glenda Jackson recently did Lear to great acclaim but I haven’t seen a male actor do Joan of Arc. Is it easier for a woman to act like a man than it is for man to act convincingly enough to pull off playing a woman? Remembering that standards are much different now than they were in Shakespeare’s time.

Then if that were the case, how come I could play a female role but not a male one? It wasn’t lack of role models, I was surrounded by them. I just couldn’t do it, so I ended up reading the part of Lady Macbeth and it was remembered later on when they were looking for a boy to play the part and my father agreed to me doing it even though I didn’t want to.

Murray, the headmaster, played hell with me when I didn’t try at the initial readings of the performed play. I was too embarrassed to do it like I had in class a year or so before, I was doing it in front of strangers which the other cast members were. I knew very few, I also didn’t know Mr Cambridge, the drama teacher because I had no desire to do drama—my everyday life was an act, I didn’t need to do it in my free time as well.

I went home quite upset after he gave me a total bollocking in front of the rest of the cast for acting like a block of wood. I was still shaking and crying when I bumped into Siân on the way home. It was she who told me to fight back.

“How do I do that without looking a total prat?” I asked her.

“Look, Charley girl, they all know what you are or would if they weren’t so bloody thick. It doesn’t occur to them that you really are a girl with the wrong body and birth certificate, so show them. Play it as if you really are a girl, an actress, playing one of the great Shakespearean female parts, like you did with the play when you read it before.”

“That was different, I knew all the other psychos in my class, we’d been together for two or three years. I don’t know half these people and I feel so self conscious, it’s just awful.”

“But they know you, don’t they, the clever girl who might not be as strong physically, but you frequently outmanoeuvre them, don’t you? You have a certain reputation, even we in the girls’ school know about it.”

“What poofy or girly Watts?”

“That’s just the Neanderthals, the more astute realise you’re more girl than boy. Show them that they’re right, let Charlotte free while she’s on stage at any rate, enjoy it.”

“Murray told me I should wear the costume at all the practices, he even suggested he was going to speak to my dad to say I should wear it when I’m in school until the play is over, to help me acclimatise to the part.”

“He can’t do that, that’s tantamount to provoking murder.”

“That’s what he said.”

“Right, then, girl, if that’s how he wants to play it, I know how we deal with it.”

“How we deal with it?”

“Yeah, I’m your acting coach.”

“Are y...oh yeah,” I agreed when she gave me a glower.

“Come round tomorrow and bring some money with you.”

“Why?” I was very suspicious.

“’Cos it’s Saturday and we’re going shopping, right?”

“I dunno, Siân, I’ve got loads of homework to do.”

“Tough, girlo, we’ve got things to get, so be yer by nine, right.” For a moment I heard a trace of an accent, she was getting excited. I had no idea what we were going to do but it didn’t bode well.

When I got to her place she made me wear one of her bras and change my shoes to her trainers then we went to Marks and Spencer and bought two bras, a pack of six pairs of panties, plus tights. She got my ears pierced, though that was hidden by my hair most of the time and what drove my dad bananas until my mother calmed him down—got my nails done. She accepted the argument that as I was playing a queen of Scotland, and she was Scots, I could demonstrate that I didn’t do manual labour and thus have long finger nails.

Once I’d dealt with his hostility and survived I found the courage to cope with the abuse that happened in school. Mind you turning up in makeup and painted nails—for the play got me loads of jeers and jostling. I began to feel like Quentin Crisp must have done.

Murray went bananas and sent me home telling my mother that if I was going to be painted like a girl I should come to school in a dress. She played hell with me for overdoing it—Siân had done the makeup before I went to school. I was also wearing a padded bra under my shirt and tights under trousers.

Mum went and got me a plain skirt and two blouses to wear with a plain cardigan and sent me back to school. Murray wanted me to parade around in the long dress that the play required and I did for one day but it was so hot and I was in danger of falling over the hem, that I protested and the teacher in charge of costumes also complained. I ended up back in the shorter skirt and borrowing Siân’s old uniform blazer and skirt. Effectively, I went to school for a month dressed as a school girl in a boys’ school—today that would have been considered abuse and I’d have been suing them for thousands, then Murray got away with it by claiming I enjoyed pretending to be a girl and it was helping me with learning how to act like a woman.

Oh yeah, my gestures and so on got more natural as Siân coached me, though much of it was her pointing out my already femmy actions. I blushed so often I could have acted like a warning beacon for aircraft.

Given that it upset Murray and my dad, I enjoyed part of it, especially weekends when we’d go out as two girls and I could try things on in shops and so forth. I didn’t do that again for five or more years until Stella launched in me, quite literally, into my new life.

The beeping from behind me suddenly brought me back into the present and I think I may have been the only vehicle that got through the traffic lights, such had been my day dream.

The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike, est. 2007) Part 3120 by Angharad Copyright© 2017 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.
*****
As I drove through the road works, which seem to be a feature of British roads these days, I glanced at my hands. My nails were short but neat, that is clean and nicely shaped, compared to how they’d been when I’d done the Scottish play, then they were acrylic, rather long and bright pink. Thankfully, no one spotted the anachronism, and I enjoyed them because they were so girly and drove my father up the wall, but in reality they were a total nuisance making everyday things like writing or typing difficult. I also used to get them tangled up in clothing or trying to pick up coins from a shop counter was a fiddle, so when it came time to get rid of them, I wasn’t too upset, although I was beginning to get used to them, plus no one told me that they mess up your own nails for months afterwards. I decided I wouldn’t bother doing it again. Besides, scientists tend to have short nails and so do women with young children.

After parking at the university, I tried to tie up any loose ends that needed resolution before Thursday because I wouldn’t be in tomorrow, we were off to Wembley to watch my daughter play soccer for England. I felt quite excited.

The whole afternoon went by in a blur it was such a rush and it felt as if a whole month’s work had arrived in the morning’s mailbag. Diane and I slogged until we finished the urgent things and I left absolutely shattered at five o’clock. Once at home I had to face a pack of whingers which are like hyenas only less friendly. Where had I been, they were looking forward to doing this or that—it rained anyway but I half expected them to blame that on me too.

I called for quiet. “Danni is playing for England tomorrow, who would like to come with me to watch?”

An air of disbelief arose then they processed what I’d said, “What we can go to see her?”

“That’s what I said, but I’m not taking anyone who acts like a spoilt brat. I have just done two day’s work this afternoon so I can have tomorrow off, so I only want good girls for company tonight and tomorrow.”

It worked. Bless them, they tiptoed about as if walking on eggshells and were so helpful, which was just as well, as I was exhausted and my patience not at its best. Of course, they were like bottles of pop at bedtime and I had to get cross with them before they settled down, but they did when I left them listening to a CD of a Just William story read by Martin Jarvis. They’d heard it before but that doesn’t seem to worry them.

I was in bed early and slept fitfully because I knew it would be all systems go tomorrow morning. David had agreed to come over after breakfast and do us a packed lunch to take with us—he makes my efforts look so boring—so after showering myself and rousing the girls—I unlocked the back door for him to get in. He has a key anyway but can never find it and I often leave the key in the lock most nights, I know I shouldn’t in case emergency access is required but I always forget.

Breakfast was bedlam. I had a baby sitter in for the little ones as Stella was working, and that cost me a fortune, Jacquie was also busy revising for exams coming in the next two or three months, then she passes or fails. The amount of work she appears to do, she should walk it, but then I’ve thought that about other things and been wrong.

We finally set off about ten o’clock with a minibus taxi to the station. The girls don’t go on trains very often so this was a real adventure, an expensive variety as train fares in the UK are over charged through outright profiteering by the train companies and a complicit government, mind you this government only seem interested in withdrawing from the EU so everything else is going to pot. No wonder UKIP still won’t die off, despite there being no reason for them to exist anymore, they continue to threaten mainly Labour seats as most of their voters are what were previously Labour supporters. But as Labour only seems interested in internecine feuds, they are losing support and credibility.

It’s just that most of the candidates for UKIP are like Trump, total fantasists who can’t distinguish between reality and their dystopian day dreams, or between fact and fiction. They also tend to rubbish scientific fact, like climate change, and should thus be receiving psychotherapy not votes. Sadly, many if their voters are the same, in denial except to their own prejudicial view of the world—presumably a flat one that the sun orbits.

The train was busy and the four girls sat around a table while I sat behind them in a two chair arrangement. I’d taken a book as well as all the food and drink, which were now deposited on the overhead rack, though I didn’t get to read it because they were either poking their heads over the seat or coming around to me and tapping me on the arm. I didn’t even get to finish the Guardian, such were the interruptions so I felt quite stressed by the time we got to Waterloo.

When Hannah disappeared as we got off the train, I nearly went frantic, but Livvie found her in the loo. We finally managed to emerge from the station and thankfully, Henry’s limo was waiting for us and we took a slow but safe ride to Wembley.

It was outside the famous stadium we met up with Simon and Henry and the girls flung themselves at the two men nearly knocking them over—they forget they’re getting bigger and heavier and are no longer little girls. Henry showed some sort of pass and suddenly we were whisked off to a private box, which left me astonished.

“Goodness, Henry, what do these cost?” I gasped as we were shown into our room for the afternoon.

“About thirty seven K per annum, but it’s not mine, a good friend has done me the honour of a loan for the day.” I put down the food I’d been lugging about and the girls, each had a bag of it as well. The staff there didn’t seem at all fazed by us bringing our own food and they did supply crocks and cutlery as well as drinks.

How the other half live, we had our own bathroom, dining area all indoors then out through the glass doors and onto our own balcony. When Henry had arranged for Danielle to be met at the station, he’d told her he and her dad would be in one of the boxes so she’d know where to look for us.

We ate our lunch and at three o’clock we tripped out to the balcony just in time to see the teams emerging. My heart was in my mouth.

The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike, est. 2007) Part 3121 by Angharad Copyright© 2017 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.

The teams were led out to much cheering, although the crowd was only a fraction of what it would be for a men’s match. Those who weren’t here didn’t know what they were missing.

The teams were led out and I spotted Danielle at once, she wasn’t quite the smallest but nearly. My heart got stuck in my throat and I felt so proud of her. The girls were screaming to her and she looked up and waved at us, though I wasn’t sure she’d have actually seen us as the adrenaline would have been flowing.

Goodness, the Russian women seemed so big compared to some of ours, I almost shouted to check to see if they were really men, then realised my folly. Except I no longer thought of Danni as anything but a girl or young woman. The anthems were played and dignitaries introduced to both teams then as the pitch was cleared of all but the players and officials both teams removed their tracksuit tops and we saw she’d been picked to start, number 7, Cameron. I felt my eyes start to well up and it took lots of control to avoid the diluvium happening.

Russia kicked off and the teams spread about the pitch the ball being passed to and fro, changing sides after tackles or missed passes with touch throws and nothing much happening in terms of attacks on goal. It settled down and most of the pressure seemed to come from Russia as they attacked down the flanks and then the centre of the field but the English defence held out, the shot was well wide and the goal keeper threw the ball out to our Danni, who as it was almost her first touch, tried to do her best with it. Racing down the right wing, she slipped the ball past two defenders and curled it low across the goal mouth, the England number nine was pushed off the ball and just missed contact right in front of the goal. We all sighed in disappointment.

When a repeat happened, Danielle flying up the wing again, we all yelled in protest as she was flattened by one of the large Russian fullbacks. The whistle was blown and the referee and the physio went to tend to her, she was still lying on the grass not moving. Then she bent her leg and they sat her up some cold water round her neck and she got up. She spoke with the captain Susie Wickham and elected to take the kick, a direct free kick. To my eyes she still seemed a bit wobbly but I knew she’d stay on if she could. The wall formed ten metres away and twice the referee had to move them back. I was sending healing to Danni the whole time, so was Trish, I noticed.

She ran up to take the kick and I have never seen anything like it, it swerved in one direction and then cut back across in the other before dropping into the corner of the goal. England one, Russia nil. She was congratulated by the rest of her team and they went back for the restart.

If the Russians had attacked before, then that was like a tea party as they spent the rest of the first half under total siege, when just moments before half time an English defender booted the ball upfield away from danger and waiting on the halfway line was our heroine. She must have noticed that the Russian goalie was well off her line and as the ball thumped in front of Danni, she whacked it up towards the Russian goal where it bounced, went over the head of the goal keeper and took the score line up to two nil. The girls were dancing about on the veranda and even Henry and Simon hugged each other.

The referee blew her whistle for half time and the two teams trotted off the field. I felt so proud of my little girl. Henry hadn’t seen her play for some little while and was most impressed. Then he looked a little circumspect and said quietly to Simon, “I told her I’d give her a hundred for every goal she scored.” Simon absolutely roared with laughter, shouting for her to score a few more.

I drank a cup of tea to calm my nerves and Simon and Henry had something a bit stronger. The girls were so excited that Trish and Livvie had to run off twice to the toilet during the half. I went after my tea and settled down for another forty five minutes of total stress. The girls had draped their Union Jack banner with ‘Cameron’ written on it in duct tape cut to shape and stuck on it. When they spotted they were on the big screen above the tunnel, they danced and shouted even more shaking the flag.

The second half got underway and now Danielle had shown how dangerous she was, wherever she went in the Russian half she was marked by two huge women who towered over her. So they could block her and stop her heading the ball but being smaller, she was quicker and more agile and turned past them twice before they flattened her again. She limped about for a few minutes and didn’t take the place kick, this time the score remained the same.

Mid way through the half, in one of the few England attacks the ball flew across the Russian goal and was headed away by a defender, when I saw her turn and knew what was coming next—it would be glorious or a disaster. Trish gasped and shouted ‘bicycle’, we thought the same.

It’s probably the hardest way to score a goal in soccer, the overhead bicycle kick. Facing away from the goal, the ball bounced in front of her and the next instant she flung her legs and feet in the air and kicked the ball over her head towards the goal, everyone gasped--this after all is women’s soccer—then the roar told her the ball had crossed the goal line. Danielle Cameron three, Russia nil.

With twenty minutes to go, one of the Russians played her off the ball. The way she went down showed she was out for the count before she hit the deck, the offender’s elbow catching her in the face. The flag went up, the linesman and referee conferred and the Russian team were down to ten players as the red card was produced.

Danni was still receiving treatment and although they managed to get her standing, she was very wobbly and taken off, walking across the pitch in a sort of daze. I lost interest after that, I just wanted to see my daughter even though I knew she’d be in very capable hands. She’d gone off to a standing ovation though I’m not sure she’d have noticed.

I sat fretting until after the end of the match. Russia had scored a consolation goal but England won through the genius of my daughter and all I wanted to do was hold her in my arms and take away any hurt she had.

Henry used his influence and we were told we could go and see her soon. Normally my days fly by, today it dragged so slowly.

The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike, est. 2007) Part 3122 by Angharad Copyright© 2017 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.

We were led down to the player’s area and the young woman who took us knocked on the door and it was eventually opened by a middle aged man I half recognised. He certainly recognised Henry and they smiled at each other before nodding, “Can I show the Cameron family in?” he called back to someone in the room beyond the door a male voice shouted something and he pulled back the door and waved us through.

Seeing as we were in an area the public only see via the TV or on guided tours, I should have felt more honoured, instead I felt impatient to see and hold my daughter who as far as I knew was still shocked or concussed. The foul was blatant and unnecessary and I hoped the player concerned gets hanged, drawn and quartered—if they like I’ll do it for them, I have a penknife and bit of string.

“Where’s my daughter?” I asked several times before someone went through another door and brought her through to us. She had a massive bruise on the side of her face and her eye was closing.

She almost ran to me and I hugged her tightly. “I hope that woman gets the full punishment, what she did was just cynical if not downright evil on a fourteen year old,” I said angrily.

“Don’t worry, Lady Cameron, we’ll see that UEFA put the boot in so to speak. But I agree, it was a blatant bit of cynicism and has no place in football, especially at this level.”

“I reckon it saved ’em at least one if not two more goals, the way Danielle was playing, she’d opened ’em twice and they were starting to look frayed round the edges,” offered Henry.

“I agree entirely, this young lady is probably one of the most gifted youngsters I’ve seen for a long while and I think once the film of this match goes out tonight on Sky sports, the bigger teams are going to be knocking on your door,” forecast the man from the FA.

“I take it you mean, ladies teams?” I said to clarify things as Danni could never survive against men players.

“Yes, the Manchester teams or London ones, possibly even Reading.”

“What, Chelsea?” piped a voice from inside my hug.

“Very possibly, you’re going to need an agent, girl and I have just the person for the job.”

“Who’s that?” asked Henry, “I only want the best for my granddaughter?”

“Stan Pickersgill—d’you know him?”

“He wasn’t that pervy bloke I saw when I was on the board at Arsenal?”

“Nah, that was his elder brother, Ted. Stan is okay and he’ll get the best deal for the kid.”

“She already has a contract with Portsmouth,” I said unaware of whether that could be a problem, though the thought of her travelling to Manchester was horrifying simply in terms of the distance from home, even Reading would be a pain unless she was a bit older and studying at the university.

“If one of the big clubs was interested, they buy the remainder no problem. Women’s soccer is going places, especially with talent like young Danielle’s.”

I immediately thought of the publicity when the tabloids found out she was transgendered. “I hope, given her history, that isn’t going to be a problem.”

“Lady Cameron, we are aware of Danielle’s medical history and we are committed to demonstrating we are a full equal opportunities organisation. Danielle meets the criteria set down by the governing body of sport, not just football and we are proud to have her represent us both on and off the pitch.”

I blushed but knew she was a really nice kid with just the right mixture of guts, determination and charm. That she was quite a pretty girl also helped having transitioned before puberty visited, thanks to Pia and her surgical skills—not.

I could feel the energy working on Danni’s face and I hoped anywhere else she’d taken injury. “Can we take her home with us?” I asked as innocently as I could.

“We usually have a debriefing post game, but she knows what she’s doing and she did get a bit of a clatter, yes, she can go home with you.” The girls approved and danced about and I felt Danni squeeze me tightly showing her approval too.

So instead of the train, Henry’s limo took us all home except Simon and Henry, they took a cab back to Canary Wharf and a late evening meeting.

“You was fab, Daniewwe,” offered Meems and the others offered their own congratulations in their own way, even Trish admitted she would have struggled with the bicycle kick. I tried not to snort too loudly, she has neither the skill nor the coordination to pull off something like that, nor I suspect, the inclination. It’s also very dangerous as the person performing the kick is very vulnerable up in the air to being kicked or landing badly. Plus of course, only really skilled and extrovert players even think of it, it is very much the show off’s manoeuvre. When I had a chance I’d speak with Danielle about it and what the options might have been, but for now, she was enjoying the buzz the match had given her and the regard her sisters held her in—for tonight anyway—tomorrow was another day.

By the time we reached home, the bruising on her face had faded quite a lot and by tomorrow, she’d be back to her pretty self again. I invited the chauffer in for a cuppa, which he accepted and as he had to go back to collect Henry from the meeting, it was a short pit stop for him.

Tom, Stella and the girls, including the little ones, were encouraged to watch the highlights on the telly. I sat in my study with a cup of tea and pile of emails to answer, I couldn’t bear to watch her being bashed and bumped by the Russian giants, especially that last brutal foul which had her taken off. I hope I never meet that bitch anywhere or I might just forget I’m a lady and knock her block off.

At bedtime, Tom read to the girls and Danni came in to see me, “Thanks for coming to watch, Ma.”

“Ma—I’ll give you, Ma, young lady.” She smirked and I smiled. “I won’t say it was my pleasure because I felt every tackle you took and that foul at the end, that was so disgraceful.”

“We had them worried, Mummy, they’re supposed to be one of the best women’s teams in the world and we had them under the cosh. Gramps was right, if they hadn’t taken me out, I reckon I’d have had two more goals and it would have turned into a rout.”

“It was hardly in the spirit of the game though, was it? Play up, play up and play the game,” I said wondering if she knew what I meant.

“Oh God, not Newbolt, ‘There’s a restless hush,’” she quoted. “We did it in poetry last term, didn’t go down too well in the First World War, did it?”

“It’s bit old fashioned and jingoistic, but the premise of playing fair isn’t, leastways, not to me.”

“Yeah, yeah,” she said, then hugged me and pecked me on the cheek, “Night, Mummy and thanks for being you,” with that she was gone.

http://ia600308.us.archive.org/3/items/vitai_lampada_1009_li...

The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike, est. 2007) Part 3123 by Angharad Copyright© 2017 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.

I was impressed by Danielle knowing who wrote the poem I’d quoted just a snatch from and not only knowing it but being able to offer some sort of intelligent comment about it. She had grown a little physically but quite a lot emotionally and maturity.

When she’d lived here as a boy, we didn’t expect too much from her or should that be him? Anyway, she’d played football very well and survived rather than prospered at school spending much of her time protecting her then brother, Billy, who eventually decided to become Billie and removed the worry from her.

The attack on Peter and her in the loo in France caused both of them longstanding trauma and seemed to undermine their sense of masculinity as well as other things, including the guilt that formed because they had both ejaculated on being sodomised. Although we tried with the professionals to explain that wasn’t necessarily a pleasure response but a physiological one based upon pressure on the prostate gland, they seemed unable to integrate it as such.

They were both ostracised somewhat after the attack and Peter went on to castrate himself nearly bleeding to death in the process. When he recovered, I encouraged Danny to maintain a friendship because Peter was seen as even more weird by his contemporaries and had very little social contact. When he started to call himself Pia and began wearing dresses, I should perhaps have seen problems arising but I felt sorry for the kid and thought that Danny was tough enough mentally to cope with it. What I hadn’t realised was that Danny and he were both dressing up and wearing makeup, with Danny being better at most things girly, perhaps because he was surrounded by it most of the day.

Once I found out about this, I allowed him to experiment and he even persuaded Julie to give him a makeover. To try and put him off I persuaded him to live as a girl for a month and we even went to Scotland with him as such, then Alison’s suicide had a huge impact upon him and he remained in girl fashion for some extra weeks because he felt he needed to honour her memory at the funeral.

When Pia performed her illegal surgery on him, the surgeons finished the job on the feminised boy believing they were doing him a favour and as Pia had mutilated him enough to prevent any sort of repair as a male possible. It had all been done at speed too before he bled to death, which astonished the surgeons. I suspect it had a similar effect on Danny to wake up as the possessor of a vagina and clitoris which made being a boy somewhat more difficult. I did find out that they had discussed him losing his testicles but I was never sure how much of that was really just bravado and being a little carried away with the theory, which as we all know is very different to the practice.

After an initial reluctance, I got her to give herself to the role she’d had forced upon her and eventually she realised she could still play her beloved football once I’d signed her up at the convent with her sisters. She quickly recovered her previous skills and if anything became even better, learning too, that while she was good as a boy, she was seen as outstanding as a girl. When she was head-hunted to play for a women’s team and then spotted by an England scout, she was signed up first for the school’s team and then for the senior women’s team.

She realised that whereas she’d been accepted as boy who was above average at soccer, as a girl she was seen as extremely talented and she enjoyed both the praise and improved social status it gave her which was much greater than she’d received from being a boy. She’d also proved she could be better at academic studies than she’d thought she could by being home tutored and then enrolled at the convent and as far as I know, she still plans to go to university as well as continue her soccer career. As a boy, I think she’d have had to make a choice between them and the soccer would have won. She might have been good enough to earn a reasonable living at it while she was able to play, but as a young woman, she’s discovered a wider vista and I think will give her greater fulfilment in time than just being a footballer.

The maturity has shown in her becoming more aware of those around her and acting like a daughter or sister, helping the younger children as well as being useful to the adults who protect and nurture her. She seems to have taken to being a girl like a duck to water and I don’t understand why, unless it was going entirely with the flow and throwing caution to the wind. It’s not just the display stuff either, the girly clothing or makeup and hair, she’s also become much more feminine in her demeanour and behaviour and unless she’s become an amazing actor, she seems to be just like any other teenage girl who doesn’t have periods. Her body is becoming quite shapely and her face has softened to make her quite a pretty girl and one who is quite sought after by boys and girls alike because she’s really good fun and very affable.

Her footballing skills were demonstrated at the match and they are really outstanding, with photos of her performing her overhead bicycle kick appearing in the early editions of the newspapers on the net. The tabloids were calling it, ‘the goal of the season if not decade’; which made me worry about the consequences and I half expected the press to be around soon and that could have concerns about her history coming out.

It’s a situation that shouldn’t be of interest as it’s history not even the present, let alone the future. Shouldn’t they be celebrating her achievement as a girl not harping on about her previous history as a boy. It’s almost bound to come out and once she’s linked to me, there will be calls about my unsuitability as a mother whose main aim in life is to turn boys into girls, which we know is neither true nor correct as I tried to stop Billie and Danielle changing sides, so to speak. The evidence will demonstrate that I sought professional advice throughout the time of their transitions, especially with Danielle’s traumatic one.

Why am I going over all this again? Because I think, come the clear light of day, we may well have to justify our right to exist all over again and while the powers that be defend our rights to privacy, in reality, they couldn’t give a damn. Tomorrow, we’ll find out if Danielle is the new role model for young women or a scapegoat and villain for being different.

Tired as I was, I didn’t expect to sleep very much that night despite a clear conscience.

The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike, est. 2007) Part 3124 by Angharad Copyright© 2017 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.

How is it that mornings arrive before I’m ready to wake up? It’s a bit like the old question of wage slaves, why is there so much month left at the end of the money? For just a moment I lay there wondering why I felt so tired and why my eyes felt like they’d been stepped on. Then I remembered, Danielle’s day of triumph at Wembley and my sudden realisations of what that could entail.

The FA had cobbled together a résumé for her briefly stating that she had played for her school, St Claire’s; had been spotted by a Portsmouth scout who recruited her for Portsmouth Ladies and from there, she’d been seen by an FA school’s scout who recruited her for England School’s – girl’s team. She’d played for them and impressed the England Ladies coach who’d invited her to train with the adults despite her being only fourteen and she had done so well, they played her as a substitute in a ladies match and she scored a goal, since when she’d been included in the squad and was loved by all the women who were in awe of her precocious talents.

I glanced down the drive, it was barely six o’clock, I’d had about three and half hours sleep. It was dark though the sky was lightening and I staggered into the shower and tried to wake myself up. It was half past as I made my way downstairs and switched on the kettle. A cuppa seems to help me think and the way my brain felt, it could do with all the help I could get.

With some luck, the tabloids would just take what they had been given and print it alongside a few photos of the match, the one they would all have is of her overhead bicycle kick. If she hadn’t shown off with that, I suspect she’d have been viewed as a precocious talent. After the kick, they’d have reappraised from a good player to a potentially great player. That would create some degree of celebrity, I just hoped we could keep her grounded and that it would all blow over quietly. With a bit of luck something elsewhere would distract them, like China declaring war on the US, or Tony Blair standing as an MP to challenge for the leadership of the Labour party. I wonder if I could find his phone number?

On balance, Tony Blair would probably capture more column space than a five minute wonder like World War III, especially in the tabloids, which would be my major worry.

As the kettle boiled I filled Tom’s coffee machine and switched it on. A fresh pot of tea made I popped some bread in the toaster while it brewed. Two minutes later I was buttering the toast and then eating it with my cuppa. If any press turned up at the house, I’d stay home and work as much as I could online. Thank goodness for scanners and other gadgets, mine is part of the inkjet printer and while its function as a copier is very good, the link to my computer from the scanner doesn’t always work. But the office one does, which is probably more important.

Tom came downstairs and I poured him a coffee. “Whit f’ are ye daein’ up?” Did Yoda ever speak with a Scottish accent?

I explained and he shook his head. “When are they gang tae leave ye alone? It’s no a big deal ony mair, sae why can’t they jest leave ye in peace?”

“No idea, but it may be because they see us as different.”

“But ye’re no. Ye’re jest lovely young women and she’s jest a bairn.”

“I know, but because it happened in the public domain they’ll feel an entitlement to expose her if they ever get wind of it. Given the way the Russians gave Trump the Hillary files and then stirred things up with Wiggins and the prescription drugs thing, who’s to say that they won’t dig and find things about Danni somewhere on line and hand them to the Russian football authorities to attack the FA over their defeat?”

“I thocht ye said thae Russians ken’t aboot Danielle’s history?”

“Yeah, sorry, I didn’t sleep very much last night.”

After I booted up the computer we looked at various newspaper sites and none so far had done more than praise her for her courage, her flair and her skills while bemoaning the lack of a similar player in the England men’s side. As we read the various reports of the match and saw that picture in all of them, they only seemed to report what the FA gave them. Unfortunately, they named the school, but as it was half term, I’d remind Sister Maria to beware strange people walking about, especially after school restarted.

I had another cuppa and Tom told me to stay ‘hame thae day,’ as my family needed me more than the university. I wasn’t going to argue and I’d already made that decision. He ate his breakfast, some microwaved kippers which stank the kitchen out, then he took Kiki for her walk before he went off to work. It’s astonishing that he’s twice my age and has twice my energy.

At eight o’clock my eyes were gently closing when Trish came down and demanded to know why I was up so early as she’d hoped for a cwtch. I sent her back up to dress and started to get her breakfast ready then had to rush to the loo as four mugs of tea and the stress of the day sought egress via my excretory system.
No sooner had I left the cloakroom than the phone rang. I picked it up hesitantly and stayed quiet. “Cathy, are you there?” it was Henry.

“Sorry, I was just swallowing some tea.”

“Oh, okay. Right I’ve spoken to this agent chappy about Danielle and he’s going to be in touch sometime today or tomorrow, once he’s signed her up he’ll protect her from the media and negotiate fees and so on. If any of the big clubs try to contact you before he does, refer them to him and he’ll act as your agent on a pre contract basis. He’s already agreed to represent Danni after he watched the televised coverage.”

“Okay, I’m a bit worried about her history coming out.”

“Don’t, the FA said they were behind her one hundred per cent and after that goal, probably a hundred and ten percent.”

“But that won’t stop them trying to dig up stuff from her past or trying to stir it up now, at the school or elsewhere. You know what it’s like, they’re like sharks that scent blood.”

“I do indeed. Refer them to your agent and warn the school.”

“I’ve sent the headmistress an email.”

“Well done. I have to go.”

“Henry, what was it you wanted to discuss with me the other day?”

“The other day? Which day was that?”

“When you came down here, you asked to speak to me in my study and then didn’t.”

“Did I? I can’t remember, Cathy. If I do, I’ll give you a call.”

Here endeth the lesson, which is, with Henry seize the moment and you might actually discover what he’s on about.

The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike, est. 2007) Part 3125 by Angharad Copyright© 2017 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.

The phone rang an hour later, “Hello, this is Stan Pickerskill, could I speak with one of Danielle Cameron’s parents?” At least it wasn’t someone checking we were in or wanting to sell me double glazed socks or anti-badger ballistic missiles; mind you Tom would possibly buy the latter after a couple of Meles meles dug up his vegetable patch looking for worms. As he’d only just planted peas under cloches, badgers weren’t his favourite mammal.

“This is her mother, Cathy Cameron.”

“Could we arrange a mutually convenient time to get together with Danielle to discuss her future in international and domestic football?”

“That’s going to be difficult, as both Simon and I work Mondays to Fridays and after the weekend, Danielle will be back in school.”

“I could probably do a weekend, Mrs Cameron. I’m concerned that after showing us what she can do on a soccer pitch that she gets properly represented in negotiating future contracts.”

“She’s already under contract with Portsmouth, Mr Pickerskill.”

“I suspect that won't present too much of a problem and I believe I can improve on the peanuts they’ll be paying her.”

“She’s still in school, so I can’t even contemplate her moving from Portsmouth and I don’t fancy her commuting for training and matches.”

“I see, how old actually is she?”

“Fourteen.”

“Good grief, she is young, but she is so talented—she must be the youngest female player to represent England at this level.”

“I accept she is pretty special.”

“Right, I’m going to have to check up on a few things being as she’s so young, how about I try to set something up for next weekend, that is the one after this.”

“I’ll try and have my husband present, he’s in business so understands contract law better than I.”

“What d’you do, if I might ask, Mrs Cameron?”

“I teach at the university.”

“A very laudable occupation, expanding young minds.”

“Sometimes, the problem is we expand them, then they go down the student’s union and after a certain amount of fluid is imbibed, it seems to shrink their brains back down to what they were before they came to us. Quite frustrating at times.”

“I’m sure, nevertheless, I’ll bet you’re more than up to it. What subject do you teach?”

“Biological sciences.”

“Very interesting, I’m sure,” he lied down the phone, “I’ll be in touch soon.”

It’s probably just me but I have a sort of built in dislike of agents, or did before I met Erin, who has done really well for me but she is so pushy at times it makes me cross. These days she really does understand how busy I am so doesn’t push things. I’ve been writing a book on harvest mice, not a text book but neither is it just a pretty picture book and I had lots of research done for it. That cost me quite a bit but paying a good researcher is one way of easing the pain or boredom of digging through indexes (yep the correct plural for books) or catalogues running down facts. The downside, is they produce loads of paper for you to read but it does help to offset any insomnia I might have—though falling asleep in my lunch break is a nuisance.

I glanced across at the box of paper that Janice, my researcher, had sent me. The box had five reams of copy paper in it originally, I suspect it has the same amount of printed paper in there now. She’s an ex biology student from Sussex who graduated a year after me who, when she heard about my change of lifestyle, a few years ago sent me a good luck card with her business card inside it. We met up when I was researching the dormouse book, and I thought I had pretty well everything published about Muscardinus but she found me a few new references and sources and showed me her value. She does lots of networking, so has entries to people and places I’ve never heard of. She doesn’t come cheap, but she is good and quick if I need that element too. When I asked her why she didn’t have a try at writing, she just shrugged and said that doesn’t do anything for her but digging about in libraries and archives, does.

I looked down the drive, there was no one hanging about and I almost felt a sense of anticlimax. I worried all night and got up with the adrenaline coursing through my veins only to find the enemy hadn’t turned up.

I’d spoken to the girls who were happy to stay indoors for the moment at least. If nothing happened by lunch time, I’d take them out somewhere. Julie and Phoebe were in work, Sammi was up in town still getting invites from the security services, Jacquie was at university, I think, Meems was playing dolls with the younger girls including Pudding and Fiona while Trish was probably constructing a thermo nuclear device abetted by Hannah and Livvie, just to prove it was possible with old washing up liquid bottles and toilet roll centres and just a smidgeon of plutonium she got online from amazon.co.ru. It’s cheaper than Iran apparently and came double wrapped in copies of Izvestia, so no expense was spared. Blue Peter will probably give her a badge if it works.

Danielle, her of the moment, had her breakfast and went back to bed—she is a teenager—and is probably using up her call allowance on her mobile as I write this. Mind you it’s not unknown for the girls to phone each other or text if they’re in a different room—at home. Mobile phones have a lot to answer for.

David came over to prepare lunch and seemed surprised I was at home today. “Tired from yesterday—oh, everyone thoroughly enjoyed your packed lunch.”

“Oh good, what d’you want for today and what’s for dinner?” He went and consulted the clip board by the fridge. “Oh, that’s going to take some time to prepare.”

“I’ll do lunch if you like, the bread machine is on so I’ll make some soup if you like.”

“Which one?”

“I’ve got some ham stock in freezer, I’ll do pea and ham.”

He agreed and while he made tea I got the box of stock from the freezer. I’ll defrost it in a large pot and soon chop some vegetables and I cheat, I use tinned peas plus a few dried split peas.

Half an hour later my soup was simmering on the Aga and I left David fiddling about with some intricate sauce required for a new recipe he’d created. I went upstairs to get our own superstar footie player up and I was right, she was on her phone chatting to Cindy or one of her class mates. I’ve never spoken to any of them but I have seen her walk out of school talking to them and I know they meet up in town at weekends. She never invites them here because they wouldn’t come, being titled puts them off and me being a professor frightens them. Meee—frightening? Ha that’s a laugh.

The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike, est. 2007) Part 3126 by Angharad Copyright© 2017 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.

The soup was well received, in all fairness, my lot usually enjoy it probably because it gives them an excuse to eat loads of bread to soak it up in their tummies and thus minimise poisoning risks, or so Trish informed me a few weeks ago. Much to my delight even David had some and complimented me on it. At least I think he meant the soup, but it could have been the bread, right.

David explained that he was writing a cook book and the sauce he was making was an experiment, it was apparently a celery sauce which we were going to have on salmon fish cakes. I mentioned watercress and he said everyone does watercress sauce, he was trying celery to be different. I like celery and I also like salmon, so I don’t have a problem as I assume the two will go together quite well. If not, I can always sack him tomorrow.

I left him in charge of the kitchen going back to my study with a cuppa and my Guardian. I leafed through it feeling well fed and thus in postprandial contentment when I came across an article which suggested that when most children leave junior school their reading age is above their physical age but within a year or two at high school it begins to drop and by the time they leave, their reading age is two or three years lower than their physical age. Some of it appeared to be through laziness, they prefer to read easy things rather than have to use their brains. If true, it might explain how some of our first year students are so thick. We set them a relatively simple report to analyse and critique and some of the results look like they were done by junior school kids—the good reports, that is, arguably the use of crayons identifies the bad ones.

To maintain this ability we have to keep them reading challenging things. Trish and Livvie already do this, and the others are quite good too. But if they need a challenge I’ll print off one or two of the episodes of that long running soap thing by the Welsh woman with the unpronounceable name and ask the kids to find anything that resembles a plot—I’ll give them a couple of days, though I doubt they’d find one in a hundred years, unless it’s to conquer the world by sending it to sleep first. If they’d threatened to read it to ISIS, they’d have surrendered after the first paragraph. How to fall off a dormouse or something totally nonsensical.

I sent Si a text saying that Pickerskill had been in touch and was going to offer us some dates for next weekend. I got one back a while later saying he’d be there, in fact he hoped to be home this weekend.

On Friday, while in my office at the university I had a phone call from Sister Maria, apparently someone had been mooching round the school seemingly oblivious to the fact it was half term for Hampshire schools and thus indicating to us both he had no children of school age or he’d know already.

When challenged he showed them his ID and it was John Jackson, yeah, him from the Echo, who rarely makes me feel good. He was asked to write a feature on sport in schools in the area of Portsmouth and that would include any special sportswomen or girls that the schools had produced. Because I’d warned her that this could happen, she said she’d think about it but none came to mind immediately. I’m sure she’ll be forgiven in confession for telling fibs, but I thanked her for her covering for my children and for telling me. She reminded me that speech day would coming soon and she had requests from the governors and several parents for me to present the prizes again. Apparently the priest I met last time, Father O’Reilly, had confided to her that he’d reduce his input to give me more time to entertain them.

Apart from the fact that I am so busy, I’m running out of out-takes to use to make them smile and we all know that if you try to invent them, they go wrong or look like they’re faked. Comedy is all in the timing which is why unconscious comedy is so funny, because the timing is right but the players in it can’t see that or the consequences/circumstances in which they’re going to act. The obstacle isn’t seen by the victim who falls over it or down it and they blithely continue until the crunch.

I suppose I could download some from the web but then that’s cheating. I do have the one of the deaf badger. Oh I haven’t told you about that, have I? We were doing the filming in the early evening for the dormouse film, showing the woodland as dusk fell and I was talking to camera with a nightingale singing in the background when this badger just trundled through the scene as only badgers can. I immediately froze and shut up and the thing came and sniffed at my leg making me jump and squeal and there’s some camera shake because Alan laughed. Normally any of those would have frightened a normal badger to run off, but this one continued trundling along and then found the bag with Alan’s sandwich in and tore it apart and ate his cheese sandwich while he continued to film and swear at it.

The whole thing lasted about ten minutes so I’ve never shown it before. We decided it must be deaf as it paid no heed to our voices and seemed unperturbed by our scent. Possibly it was just habituated to humans, there were some houses about quarter of a mile away so they might have fed it there and thus it lost its fear of us. I have grave concerns about this in wild animals, it makes it too easy to abuse them and it also can make them reliant on us for their meals and lose their skills in foraging or hunting. No, healthy wild life is wise to remain very suspicious of humans, who can be more perverse than a wolverine with its tail caught in a gin trap.

As I was about to leave for the weekend, my phone rang again. “Prof, there’s a John Jackson on the phone asking if you were in, are you?” My sense of anticipation dropped to a feeling of just having sat in a dish of cold custard. Do I speak with him or not? If I don’t he’ll pester me at home. He’ll almost certainly know that Danielle is my daughter, the football club will show that and if he looks at the reports of schoolgirl soccer, he’ll see both Trish’s and Danni’s name in them and know they’re mine. Let’s face it, since the political demise of my namesake prime minister, the only Cameron’s who feature in anything, seem to be my family or the in-laws. Oh bugger, what to do?

The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike, est. 2007) Part 3127 by Angharad Copyright© 2017 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.

“Professor Watts,” I offered into the phone when Diane connected the journalist.

“Oh,” he hesitated and I felt much better. “Of course, your working name,” he said rounding up the few wits he actually possessed. Still I mustn’t be too catty, he may have more than I do functioning at any one second.

“What do want, Mr Jackson?” I asked directly. If it was dissection, I’d do it personally for him.

“Direct, yes I like that, Mrs Cameron.”

“Get on with it, Mr Jackson, I have a meeting to attend.”

“On a Friday afternoon, you are conscientious.”

“Mr Jackson stop beating about the bush.”

“Was I, I do apologise...um...it’s like this.”

“What is and like what?” This could take all day and I smiled gratefully when Diane brought me in a mug of tea.

“Your girl, the soccer player.”

“Which one, three of them play football.”

“Do they? Uh, the one who plays for England.”

“What about her?”

“Could we do a feature on her?”

“Why?”

“Why? Jeez, she scored three goals against Russia for god’s sake, one was an amazing curling free kick that Beckham would have been proud of and the other was an overhead bicycle kick that any striker would be impressed with. It was sensational. She’s a local hero—um—ine, I mean heroine.”

“What of it?”

“People want to know more about her.”

“Why?” I wasn’t playing soft ball as our American cousins are wont to say.

“Because she’s something special, that’s why.”

“All my children are special—to me and the rest of the family.”

“Did you see the game?”

“The football match, you mean?”

“Yes, the soccer game.”

“I did.”

“So what did you think of her goals.”

“I feel very proud of her whatever she achieves, as I do with all my children.”

“Yeah, but I mean how many of them score, like three goals, against Russia.”

“Only one as far as I know, why?”

“Jeez, Mrs Cameron, I think you might have noticed if you’d had more than one playing.”

“Quite right, Mr Jackson, my arithmetic is good enough to count up to eleven.”

I heard him sigh and had to cover the mouthpiece as I sniggered. I suspect I was enjoying it more than he was.

“So can I interview her?”

“You mean, may you interview her? I’d expect a journalist to have some idea of grammar and semantics.”

“I got English at A-level, that good enough?”

“I suppose it will have to be.”

“So can I, I mean may I?”

“May you what?” This was great fun.

“You know bloody well what, can I interview your daughter, Danielle, isn’t it?”

“She’s only a school girl, you realise that?”

“I wasn’t sure, does that make a difference?”

“It could insofar as you’re not entitled to ask her any personal questions, assuming that she agrees to submit to your interview, which isn’t a given.”

“Okay, okay, I can see my life passing before me, look I agree no personal questions just asking her what it’s like being the youngest England player and how she managed to score those goals.”

“If you leave me your number, Mr Jackson, I shall ask her if she’d like to speak with you, but I won’t guarantee it and if she says no, I’ll have to ask you to honour her decision.”

“Look, she’s a national heroine and lives here in Portsmouth, you’ve got to get her to do an interview with us, we’re her local paper.”

“Indeed.” I said that as sarcastically as I could though I suspect his skin is thicker than the vulcanised rubber on my car tyres. I’m sure he’d make the average pachyderm seem sensitive.

He gave me his mobile number and I finished my tea, took the cup out to wash and glowered at Diane as she snorted at me. Walking back I glowered some more before saying, “I’ve just thought of who you remind me.”

“Oh,” she said taken aback, “not Julianne Moore?”

“No, Muttley.” I turned and went into my office before laughing myself silly.

“Who is Muttley?” she asked completely ignorant of the Whacky Races in which Dick Dastardly’s dog appears.

“Google it, see you on Monday,” I smiled sweetly and left chortling as I went. You have to take your pleasures where you can.

The sense of fun was lost before I got home, being delayed for twenty minutes at road works to repair a broken gas main. The stink of gas was awful though the piece of the Mendelssohn violin concerto they played on the radio did help reduce some of the stress, The Lark Ascending would have been even better but there you go, one can’t have everything—why not?

“Mummmmmeeee,” squealed Lizzie and she was then nearly crushed in the stampede to hug me.

I gave each one a hug and a kiss back and noticed Danielle wasn’t amongst them. “Where’s Danni?” I asked.

“Gone over Cindy’s, her mum will bring her back later,” answered Hannah.

“Okay, I’m going up to change, somebody put the kettle on, please.”

“Won’t fit,” called Trish and made the little ones snigger.

“It will if I use the hand blender—don’t tempt me.”

“Violence isn’t becoming in a gentlewoman,” she shouted back.

“I’m no gentlewoman, I’m good ol’ middleclass, not one of yer actual nobs.”

“And just what’s wrong with being an actual nob?” sneered Stella as I got to the top of the stairs.

“Think about what you just asked, Stella,” I said before closing the bedroom door and nearly wetting myself laughing. See all that breeding and education—total waste of time.

If laughing liberates endorphins I should be as high as a kite, but I wasn’t and still had to talk to Danielle about the Echo. At least if she does it with them they could syndicate it and stop any others looking for her. The decision is entirely hers but if asked I will give an opinion and that would be to do one, at the Pompey ground so any photos they take won’t encourage anyone else to come looking for her. This house is quite unusual if not unique, so wouldn’t take too much effort to find, especially with Google Earth.

I gave into temptation and had a quick shower to wash away the contact with Jackson, even though we’d only spoken on the phone, it still made my flesh creep. I dried, dressed and did my hair. A quick squirt of smellies and I felt ready to face—a cuppa and discover what David had made for dinner, it certainly smelt rather good as I descended the stairs.

The smells were emanating from a large pie he’d made. We have some of the catering size baking tins and trays, so if he’s done steak pie, it will take half a cow—yeah like Desperate Dan and his cow pie, only the tray is rectangular not round and there aren’t any horns sticking out. Apart from the appearance upsetting the children, since BSE or Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy, you can’t use the brains or spinal columns of cows for human consumption—and except oxtail, for making soup, I don’t think I’d want to anyway.

The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike, est. 2007) Part 3128 by Angharad Copyright© 2017 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.

Danni came in with a face like thunder and hair that looked like she’d been caught in a storm. Brenda’s car wouldn’t start so she went to catch the bus only it didn’t run but the rain did and she was soaked, puir wee soul.

I sent her up to shower her temper not being improved by Trish asking why she needed a shower, she looked wet enough already. I scolded Trish who went off in a huff probably firing the cruise missile she’s been building in the woodshed.

While Danielle was in the shower I collected up her wet clothing and threw it in the washing machine. With so many bodies, there’s always enough laundry about to make up a load, and I shoved the machine on. After this, I went up to speak with the nearly dressed, Danni.

“I’ve had John Jackson from the echo on the phone.”

“What did he want?” she continued drying her hair and brushing it—she’d certainly got the basics very well.

“He wants to talk with the latest England ladies’ star.”

“Oh yeah, who’s that then?”

“How would I know? Probably some snotty little tart from the council estate at Leigh Park.”

“Yeah, probbly, so why’d he ring you?”

“I think he wants to set up a one night stand with her.”

She snorted and then pretended to vomit.

“I get the impression that doesn’t excite you?”

“Excite me—yuck—I’d rather do a hard training session than go anywhere with him—gross.”

“What about the interview?”

“What about it? I thought you always said never talk to the press.” Hoist by my own petard again, sometimes I think life would be easier if I went into a Trappist monastery. Nah, I’d fail the medical, but it would be much quieter.

“There are times when it’s expedient to speak to them.”

“President Trump said they’re all liars.”

“Pot calling the kettle black, I’m afraid. The advantage of talking to them is that you do get a chance to influence the interview, the risk is they’ll twist what you do say. In all honesty, it’s probably safer to speak with a local hack than a more experienced one from the London press.”

“So you’re saying I should talk to him?”

“I might be a good idea, naturally because you’re underage either Daddy or I will sit in with you. I thought down at the football club might be a good idea. You playing this weekend?”

“Yeah, Sunday at home.”

“So we could do it before the game and your coach would be on hand as well.”

“They’ll want pictures I s’pose?”

“Inevitably.”

“What if someone recognises me from before—you know—my old life.”

“It’s a risk we have to run every day until it becomes old news.”

“But it could cause problems with my career and in school—I don’t want my friends finding out I’m not really a girl.” Her bottom lip quivered and the tears began. I held out my arms and she flew into them, sobbing against my chest. “It’s not fair, Mummy, life just starts to get good and some fucking bastard has to spoil it.”

I rubbed her back and neck as she sobbed and sniffed. “Life isn’t fair I’m afraid, or only that horrible people would have bad things happen. I’m afraid unless we come out with bells and whistles, there will always be those who feel they have a right to challenge us or condemn us because it causes wrinkles in their nice little map of the universe. In reality, it’s none of their business unless you were having a relationship with them, or possibly receiving medical care when it might be appropriate for them to know. Otherwise, as far as I’m concerned it’s a need to know only basis, and he certainly doesn’t need to know.”

“What if he brings it up?”

“We tell him we agreed not to discuss personal information.”

“Did you?”

“I did quite categorically.”

“I’m still scared.”

“I am too, sweetheart, for all of us. Each time this happens I feel a little bit of me dies. It shouldn’t happen, we’re not doing anything wrong and we have statutory rights to live as we wish. It’s no one’s business but our own.”

It annoys me that people if they find out seem to feel a right to ask embarrassing questions, like have you had the op? Do you prefer sex with boys or girls? Are those your own breasts? If they said that to a biological female they’d deserve and get a slap.

I suppose they’re trying to orient themselves—she looks female but is she? How much is real and how much plastic surgery? The problem is, with so much plastic surgery being used by people, even by everyday folk, we all tend to wonder about anyone we see who seems just too perfect or seems to have a tight face and scrawny neck, or boobs on an eighty-year old that look as perky as a twenty something’s.

“What do we do, Mummy?” asked Danni drawing me back to the matter in hand.

“We give him his interview and if he asks that question, we terminate the interview and refer him to Jason who will eat him for breakfast and come back for the editor as elevenses.”

She snorted and I handed her a tissue. “The FA know your history, the club knows it and so do your school. Your doctor knows and no one else, for the moment, needs to. So he can debate the finer points of domestic and European sports law with Jason who has just the right information to shut him up, plus because you’re a minor, I don’t think he can publish your name anyway.”

“No, but fourteen years old, England ladies soccer player from Portsmouth, does tend to give the game away.” She had a point.

“We’ll deal with it.”

“But what do I tell my friends?”

“You need their support and remind them they were lucky enough to be born female, you had to work for it.”

“Yeah, I’m sure you’re right.”

“There’s a saying, that fortune favours the brave. It does biologically because risk-takers tend to do better than over-cautious people. Occasionally it goes wrong, but on the whole, statistically, it tends to be true.”

“What?” she blinked at me, bemused.

“Carpe diem.”

“What?”

“Seize the day.”

“What?”

“Look, sweetheart, you either sit here and wait for life to come to you or you can go out and take it by the scruff...”

“Okay, okay enough of the clichés.”

Hmm, I’d have thought platitudes was more correct, but what do I know?

“And you’ll be there with me?”

“I will.”

“What about Dad, will he be there?”

“I’m sure he will if he can, especially if you ask him.” Once she starts batting her long eyelashes, he’s putty.

“Hmmm, okay. We’ll do it.”

I hugged her tightly and kissed the top of her head, the scent of her shampoo filled my nostrils as I did so. She is so beautiful, how could anyone doubt her?.

The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike, est. 2007) Part 3129 by Angharad Copyright© 2017 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.

I felt tired on the Friday night and left Simon drooling over some scantily clad teenager in the film he was watching as I went up to bed. I looked in on the children and in ‘the dormitory’, the youngsters were all asleep, when I checked Danielle, she was lying there staring back at me.

“Why aren’t you asleep?” I asked gently.

“I can’t,” she sighed.

“Wait there a few minutes,” I said before dashing off to the bathroom, cleaning my teeth and changing into my pyjamas. “Shift over a bit,” I said squeezing in beside her. My plan was just to cwtch with her until she dropped off, hopefully half an hour or so but my plans went awry as I fell asleep as well.

It was about three o’clock when my bladder woke me up—will I never learn not to drink tea late at night?—possibly not. I went for a wee and then back to my own bed where Simon was doing his world famous impression of a beached whale that’s just swallowed a chainsaw. Climbing into bed, I let him cuddle me, which he does unconsciously, because it helped me warm up again. In minutes I was asleep and stayed that way until Cate and Lizzie invaded our bed just after seven.

As Lizzie wears training pants at night, she sometimes smells less than fresh so I decamped and went downstairs leaving the two little ones to cuddle with their dad. Tom was already up and went off with the dog as the dawn was breaking. For an old chap, he does really well.

I’d enjoyed a second cuppa as he returned and poured himself some coffee—fresh silt variety—and seated himself at the table with me. “Whit are ye daein’ up sae early?”

“The little ones clambered into bed with us and I couldn’t bear the smell. Does that make me a failure as a mother?”

He chuckled. “Cathy if ye’re a failure sae are mair than hef the women o’ this country. Ye’re daein’ jest fine.”

His reassurance was heartening even though it was expected. He rarely says anything negative to me although at times I do suspect I deserve it. He’s just a lovely old man who I’m privileged to call my father, even though he isn’t (biologically, that is).

“Thank you, Daddy,” I said and saw him puff out his chest a little and blush.

“Ye’re welcome.”

Julie burst into the kitchen, “Shit I overslept,” she said and switched on the kettle. Phoebe was down two minutes later.

“Why are you going in early?” I asked.

“Got a few things to do including setting up for a wedding party from midmorning.”

“Morning, Mummy,” offered Phoebe, pecking me on the cheek.

“Morning, my darling,” I said back.

“Oh yeah, sorry. Hi Mummy.”

“Goodness, you’re awake, Julie.”

“Very funny—make us a bit of toast will you, Pheebs?” she asked her sister before dashing back up the stairs.

“What did her last servant die of?” Phoebe asked everyone and no one.

“Go on, make your cereal I’ll do her toast.”

“Thanks, Mummy,” she said and went to the fridge to collect some milk. I pulled several slices of bread from the bag and shoved them in the toaster. If Phoebe didn’t want them, I’d have them with some more tea and a banana.

Phoebe didn’t want the toast so after buttering all of it, half of which Julie took, I mashed up my banana and spread it over the toast. I made three cups of tea and handed them around. Tom excused himself and taking my Guardian went off to his study. I might get a glimpse of it later.

Trish and Hannah were next down, Livvie having apparently gone to cuddle with Simon. Julie and Phoebe left for work and the two younger girls were puzzled by my amused face which became a smirk when she tramped downstairs in high dudgeon.

“Bloody Lizzie stinks like a school bog,” she announced and Trish nearly choked on her cereal.

“Less of the swearing, Missy,” I cautioned her.

“Well she does.”

“Why d’you think I’m down here?”

“Oh, hadn’t thought of that. Has Daddy no sense of smell?”

“I suspect women have a better one.”

“Yeah, p’raps.”

I didn’t know if it were true or not but it satisfied her question.

“What we doin’ today, then?” asked Trish.

“Have you done your homework, all of you?” They claimed they had. I’ll have to check if Danni has because she won’t want to do it tomorrow. The wind was freshening and it looked as if the sunshine was now quite rapidly shifting cloud. It didn’t feel too warm either despite the heating being on until nine o’clock.

“I have some shopping to do besides that I hadn’t thought of anything else.”

“Shoppin’—can I get some more tights for school, those ones have a hole in the knee and the ’lastic’s goin’ in the waistband.”

“What the green ones?”

“Please, Mummy.”

“Are you coming or what?”

“Yeah—oh I can’t, we’re playing soccer, aren’t we Liv?”

“Oh poo, so we are.”

“Where’s that the convent or elsewhere?”

“Nah, our place.”

“Right go and get dressed and I’ll come and watch you. We can go shopping afterwards.” They both dashed upstairs with Hannah running off after them. I hadn’t appreciated she was playing football too and doing well enough to get into the under fifteens with the other two. It now became imperative that I went to watch their football game.

Simon agreed to watch the other children, he’d supervise Mima supervising the rest of them, with the exception of Danielle, who was going down to the salon to help with the wedding party preparations. I went up to wash and dress and called her. In the end she agreed to stay with Simon to help supervise the two little ’uns and their father. A short time later I departed with the Cameron sisters—who they told me very nearly made up a third of the team. I suppose that was very true.

In terms of excitement levels, the England game was far better, but once our team scored, they began to dominate and the second half saw Trish score twice and Livvie netted the ball once. Hannah played well in defence.

Off to the shops and I bought each of them a new pair of school tights, there were three in a pack, so they got one each—a pair not a pack: they have loads at home already.

I also bought some new trainer pants for Lizzie and perhaps she wouldn’t smell quite so much like a newly flushed sewer. I got Cate some new panties, and Danielle got the new bra she wanted. I think everyone but Simon and I got something, even Julie and Phoebe.

When we got home I discovered that the reason Simon had stayed downstairs last night well after I went to bed was because the flat over the salon had become available to buy and Julie and Phoebe wanted Simon’s advice about applying for a mortgage and so on. In some ways I was glad to be up in bed, the thought of them with a mortgage was scary, with them leaving home too, it was doubly scary although I’m sure they were doing well enough to cover their debts.

That was Saturday morning, and we had an afternoon to get through yet.

The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike, est. 2007) Part 3130 by Angharad Copyright© 2017 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.

“I suppose I could just give them the money,” I said as I was clearing up the dishes from lunch, referring to the matter of the mortgage, of which they’d spoken to Simon, last night.

“I didn’t know you had that much disposable income?”

“I don’t, I might have to sell some shares.”

“Not bank shares, I hope.”

“Why not?”

“The capital gains tax you’d pay is enormous.”

“Oh.”

“Also wouldn’t you be setting an unwise precedent? What if one of the others wanted buy somewhere, would you pay for that too?”

“Okay, so it wasn’t the greatest idea.”

“You’d also be depriving them of the joys of working for their first self owned home.”

“All right, I said it was a bad idea, what did you have to offer?”

“A well priced mortgage and something towards the deposit they’d need.”

“How much is the flat?

“I think she said about fifty thousand.”

“Is that one or two beds?”

“Two bedrooms, bathroom, kitchenette and lounge. There’s a covered parking space and a small garden which has a wooden shed.”

“What no library?”

“Not every woman is as academic as you, Catherine Cameron, nor do they have a bike repair shed nor indeed, a garage in which to deposit the bat mobile.”

“Now that I don’t believe, especially as Julie now sports a Jaguar of her own.”

“Of whose own?” he challenged.

“So you helped her with that.”

“Just a bit.”

“Now who’s setting precedents?”

“Bloody women will be the ruin of me.”

“No, dearest, it only takes one of us.” I smiled falsely at him.

“I suppose that is your role?”

I smiled again.

“Et tu, wifey.”

“No et anything, I can do it all by myself, darling.”

“ET phone home,” he said which made us both burst out laughing.

“Can I go to town, Mummy?” asked Danielle who’d come into the kitchen.

“What for?”

“Just to hang out with the girls from school, two or three of them will be there.” Given the advice I’d offered last night about getting support from friends if her story broke.

“Okay, but be back for dinner.”

“What time is that?”

“Six o’clock.”

We all glanced at the clock which was showing just about two in the afternoon.

Simon held out his hand, palm down and she put hers under it only to receive twenty pounds. “Wow, thanks, Daddy,” she hugged him and pecked him on the cheek. It was all theatrics for his benefit.

“Don’t tell the others or I may just find I have a previous engagement tomorrow.”

“I won’t, Daddy.” She pecked him again and ran off before I could say anything.

“Can I go to town, Daddy?” I asked holding out my hand.

“No, but we could go to bed, wee wifey.”

“Feeling tired are you, well you go for a lie down I have some marking to do.” I didn’t but he didn’t know that, it was just not feasible to keep the others away for a couple of hours and besides I didn’t fancy it on top of a meal, from which I still felt rather full and was likely to fall asleep myself.

“Okay, I’ll give her a lift into town.”

“While you’re out can you get another thick sliced wholemeal loaf and a six pinter of milk?”

“Just a glorified messenger boy,” he muttered as he went to call Danielle from upstairs.

“She’s applying another ten coats of mascara,” I said to no one in particular.

“She’s what?” he barked from the kitchen door.

“Doing her makeup, you ought to know that no girl her age would be seen dead without it.”

“Were you like that?” he asked turning away before I could answer as Danielle appeared.

“Bye, Mummy,” she shouted and they both went off to get in his car. Cate came into the kitchen and my mind went back to the day her father and sister went away from here and never returned. I’d told her the story several times and shown her the pictures, I decided to do so again.

I took her with me into my study and shut the door getting the photo album I’d made of pictures of her original family. “Who’s this?” I pointed to a photo of her as a baby, quite a new born with her real mum.

“Me,” she said smiling.

“And who’s the lady holding you?”

“You,” she shrieked.

“That lady looks nothing like me. That’s your real mummy.”

“The one who asked you to adopt me?”

“Yes, you were only a baby then.” I recalled the day we found them, Maria Drummond dead in her wedding dress and Cate lying in her cot in the other room. It was one of the saddest moments of my life and gave Trish nightmares for weeks. I still had the original letter in Maria’s hand in a special envelope in my drawer.

“Lady died.”

“Your mother died, yes. She was a very lovely lady.”

“You my mother now, doan wanna see no more photos, you’re my Mummy.” She burst into tears and ran off. Obviously not the best time to remind her of her origins but at least she knew the outline and she would never be able to claim she didn’t know her history if ever we had a serious row when she’s a teenager.

I sat down at my desk and booted up my laptop, then decided I’d go and make myself some tea in the hope it would help me concentrate on some work.

“Mummy, come quick,” called a voice I think was Hannah’s. I raced up the stairs to be pointed into the second children’s room which Cate and Lizzie shared. Trish was in there trying to stop Cate from trashing the room. This was a new reaction to being told she was adopted.

I told Trish that I’d sort it and thanked them all for their vigilance. I saw the broken porcelain vase that came from her mother’s house. She’d regret that when she was older. Five is too young to be able to cope with such huge issues which was why I wanted her to have grown up with them, so they didn’t hold any fear for her. Seems I got it wrong.

Picking up all the pieces of the vase I could find I placed them safely on a chest of drawers. There was a place somewhere that could do repairs, I’d look later and if I could get it fixed, would put it away safe until she was old enough to understand its true value.

“What am I going to do with you, missy?”

“Nothin’, you not my mummy no more.”

The afternoon was going to get somewhat more interesting if exhausting.

It took me an hour to repeat what she already knew, that all my children were adopted because either their mothers had asked me to look after them, Meems, Livvie and Cate herself, or had needed someone to look after them as their mother.

She did lots of crying and shouting at me while I just held her and apologised for upsetting her, telling her I loved her as much as I could my own baby and that I had actually breast fed her myself, the finer points were lost on her but I tried to show her she was special to me.

When I went down to the kitchen having calmed her down, Simon said, “Oh there you are, sloping off while I’ve been bringing home the bacon.” I didn’t hit him but it was very close.

The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike, est. 2007) Part 3131 by Angharad Copyright© 2017 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.

“What bacon? I didn’t ask you to buy any bacon.”

“Oh, can’t you stick it in the freezer?”

“How much did you buy?”

“Two kilos.”

“Seriously?”

“Yes, it’s in the fridge.”

I checked and he was telling the truth. We also had a tray of eggs a catering size tin of tomatoes and in the freezer I had some frozen mashed potato. I knew what we were having for dinner. It was David’s day off so guess who was cooking?

I could do the bacon in a meat tin in the oven, the eggs and potato I’d fry. I had some sausages in the fridge, so they could cook with the bacon, there’d only be one each but with potato and bacon and egg should be enough. A quick flit in the pantry saw a punnet of mushrooms, so they’d get cooked as well. I love bacon and egg, preferably with chips when it isn’t a breakfast meal, but mash would do just as well, especially as I was going to fry it—better than those revolting hash brown things. I found some burgers in the freezer but decided we have enough protein without them. I didn’t remember buying them, so probably David had.

After a cuppa, I told Si we were having bacon and egg for dinner and he smiled and asked if he’d done the right thing in buying it. I told him he’d done really well as I’d forgotten I was doing dinner.

“You could always shove it in the freezer and I’ll order some pizzas.”

“Thanks for the thought but I’ll cook, I quite fancy bacon and egg.”

“I rather fancy you, wifey.”

“Si, thanks for the compliment, but I need to get on and do the dinner, as it’s five o’clock already.”

“Want a hand?”

“Yes could you check out the girls and keep the littlies out of here.”

“Okay,” he took his tea and went off to supervise any he could find.

It was hectic but I had everything ready to eat at six. I think everyone was home so began dishing up. It really was a good fry up—except I’d baked the bacon and the sausages, and I’d made some toast as well. I like my eggs on a bed of toast, so I made ten rounds with commercially made and sliced wholemeal bread. Toast is one of those things which either goes cold while you make the next batch, or if you keep it warm, it goes as dry as a biscuit. In fact I’ve met people who used to make their own dog biscuits by drying bread in the oven. I don’t know if it’s better than the various commercial brands and unfortunately Kiki doesn’t distinguish between much at all, unless it absolutely has to be chewed it’s shovelled down as quickly as possible. If Bramble does the same ie eat as fast as possible, she’s sometimes sick, so I chop her stuff up quite small and spread it round her dish and it slows her down.

Wrapping the toast in a tea cloth helps to keep it slightly warmer but it still took three goes with the toaster to make ten slices.

Eventually, everything was ready and I called in the troops, Julie and Phoebe came in chatting with their dad presumably about their potential purchase. The younger lot appeared and I placed the plates out in front of them, Simon’s being twice as much as anyone else’s. Lizzie was put in her high chair. I would feed her as I tried to eat my own—no wonder it’s always cool or cold.

“Where’s Danielle?” I asked holding up her plate. They all shrugged and said they hadn’t seen her. I put her plate in the cool oven of the Aga. Simon insisted I eat before I worried about calling her mobile.

My appetite dropped a little and I spent more time feeding Lizzie than eating myself. She’s probably just missed her bus rather than been kidnapped by aliens who are puzzled by her lack of internal breeding equipment, when they dissected her—that reminds me, I’m showing some first years how to dissect owl pellets on Monday. I’m half tempted to get a technician to do it but I quite enjoy some hands on work, the identification of the bones, especially skulls are the best bit.

I have an agreement with the Mammal Society that we can use their key for identifying the skulls, which are usually broken but the teeth, or even the tooth sockets can be indicative of the original owner before it met Tyto alba otherwise known as the barn owl, which is what produced the pellets we have. We have a farmer who’s sympathetic to wildlife and farms similarly. He has two barn owl nests and regularly collects pellets for me—in return, he gets a bottle of single malt whisky at Christmas to reward his assistance.

On the ecology course, I take them to Graham’s farm and we wander round taking measurements, and searching for things like dormouse nests in hedgerows or harvest mice in his corn or hay. He keeps some old fashioned methods, despite being only in his forties as well as the odd field of monoculture for silage. We also set mammal traps for live trapping to record small furry things, usually voles but sometimes shrews or even mice.

They all have to learn how to handle small animals if they want to become ecologists but some of the girls and the odd boy seem frightened of mice or even voles. I mean the most they can get is bubonic plague or typhus and provided they submit a medical certificate they can have a few days sick leave to die—we’re not unsympathetic. We did try to set up a contract with the anatomy school at Southampton but for some reasons the families like to bury their own dead. Anyway, we don’t have too many bitten by adders or drowned while collecting pond specimens, so maybe it was always going to be a non-starter. Besides medical schools get offered too many corpses by people trying to avoid funeral expenses.

Dinner was over and while Julie took Lizzie out of her chair and washed her face and hands—she likes to play with her food—I tried calling Danielle on her phone. It was taking voicemail so I left a message asking where she was and to ring as soon as possible to let me know she was all right.

I cleared away the dishes into the machine and fretting about Danni switched it on without putting a tablet in it. That means I’ll have to do them again, blow. At seven I called Cindy to see if Danielle was with her—she wasn’t but Cindy thought she mayh have gone off with a couple of other girls who were either seeing boys or going to watch a film.

“Look, babes, she’s a teenager, she forgets the time when she’s enjoying herself.”

“But I left a message on her phone.”

“That only works if she looks at it.”

“They constantly monitor their phones.”

“Until you want them to.”

He was probably right but I was too agitated to do the work I should have been doing and instead sat myself down with some mending under the colour corrected light I have in my study.

The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike, est. 2007) Part 3132 by Angharad Copyright© 2017 Angharad

261 dozen in case anyone is counting

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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.

They say boys are harder on their clothes than girls—I think I’d like to examine the evidence because this lot of vagabonds are always damaging their school uniforms. I keep telling them that they’re supposed to be young ladies and all they do is laugh. I know two of them had different starts but the biggest clothes damager is Livvie, closely followed by Meems and then Hannah. Danni and Trish are relatively light on their school togs, possibly because I threatened to make them do the repairs themselves.

I re-sewed the lining back into Hannah’s blazer, how it got torn I have no idea but I had to oversew it and then attach some bias binding before sewing back into the seam. The last bit had to done by hand and took me nearly two hours.

It was now ten o’clock and I tried Danielle’s phone again. I left another message saying I was calling the police and for her to let me know immediately she got the message. I also said I was very worried about her.

Unbeknownst to me, Simon and Julie had both gone to town and wandered around the areas the youngsters tend to gather and had shown photos of her to any they saw. No one had apparently seen her. They drove back just after I finished sewing. I stopped because I’d finished the biggest job and quite frankly could no longer ignore through distraction, the tide of anxiety which was surging into my mind.

When they reported what they’d done, I thanked them and said I’d try and see if the blue light worked and if not I was going to call the police. I made us all a cuppa and then went to sit in my study in near darkness to try and tune into her, first of all to see if I could tell if she was alive, or hurt and possibly which direction.

Ten minutes later I was convinced she was alive and as far as I could tell, she was unhurt. I hoped I was correct. I asked Simon to come out with me to see if I could link to her regarding her whereabouts. He wasn’t exactly pleased but after going for a wee, he acquiesced.

We took my car in the hope that we may need another seat for the return journey. He drove quietly towards the town centre and I asked him to stop. I closed my eyes and imagined being attached to Danni by a rope of blue light. All I was getting was she was alive and unhurt. To my mind it was obvious that she wasn’t in the main part of the town centre because people are walking about all day and half the night, so she’d be seen but she was unlikely to be anywhere else wasn’t she? Or was she?

I asked him to drive in a large circle around the centre and suddenly I felt some connection. Don’t ask me how I knew, but I did and Simon, bless him, did exactly as I asked. He stopped and I got out of the car. This was more commercial but downtown sort of commercial, with lots of storage facilities and garages. Not quite warehouses but certainly heading that way. Offices that were staffed but rarely had visitors. What was she doing down here, if she actually was here?

My sense of her being near felt stronger and Simon asked me to wait while he parked my car. I glanced up at the sky and clouds were gathering, we weren’t too far from a shower by the way wind was freshening. I waited shivering despite my thick hooded jacket and pulled it tightly around me.

We were half a mile from the town centre but it was a very different environment, that of quiet dereliction compared to the bright lights and bustle of the town centre. It gave me mixed feelings, it was quieter so I could possibly pick up her signal but also darker and more lonely. As a woman on my own I wouldn’t be down here on my own after dark if I could help it.

“Hello, darlin’, got lost have we?” I didn’t see him approach and nearly jumped out of my skin.

“No, I’m just waiting for my husband, thank you,” so just piss off and we’ll get along fine.

“A likely story,” he said and stepped closer. Just then I saw Simon trotting up towards me and my unwanted company slunk off presumably back under the stone from whence he emerged.

“Who was that?” asked Simon, puffing a bit from his exertions.

“Just some creep who fancied himself.”

“Want me to sort him out?” asked Si puffing his chest out, or perhaps he was just puffing still.

“No, we have more important things to do. Where did you park my car?”

“About two hundred yards down the road by some lorries.” He pointed in the direction I’d seen him come from.

I closed my eyes and nodded, “This way,” I said and he walked along beside me.

We walked down an alleyway which gave into another, even more full the detritus of commerce, bins, bales of cardboard and piles of litter and discarded food. I was half sure if we waited quietly we’d see a fox eventually, but I had other things on my mind.

I stopped half way down the alley and turned in a full circle. It was dark here and I was glad I had the physical presence of a big chap like Simon. What the hell was she doing down here or had I got it all wrong?

In my mind’s eye I could see her squeezing through a half closed door and hiding because she thought she was being pursued. But where? The image in my head was too vague and it was too dark to see much anyway.

I began walking down the alley banging on doors and shouting her name. Simon called her phone and to our astonishment the ringtone came from close by under some litter. We stopped and picked it up. It was hers all right. It would explain why she hadn’t answered it. I now began to feel scared at the same time knew were in the right area.

After pocketing the phone, he copied my banging on doors and shouting her name. Five minutes later, we got a banging back from one of the doors. We’d found her. Now all we had to do was get her out.

I shone my torch as the building, it was non-descript, brick built, probably close to a hundred years old, with shutters on windows and a steel door. Short of some semtex or a bulldozer, we weren’t going to obtain access without help.

Speaking to her through a steel door was difficult but at least she knew we were there and I thought I heard her crying. Simon took my torch and walked around the building to see if he could find another way in. He returned a few moments later shaking his head.

“I’m going to call the police,” he said and walked a few yards away. I hear him talking but not what he was saying and then the peep of his phone as he ended the call. “They’re on their way. All we have to do now is learn why she ended up in there.”

“I’m quite looking forward to that myself,” I said as the shower cloud which had been threatening began to deliver its load.

The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike, est. 2007) Part 3133 by Angharad Copyright© 2017 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.

I was pressed against the doorway trying to shelter from the deluge which only lasted ten minutes but dampened my clothing if not my spirits, arresting just as the police arrived with blue lights but no sirens.

Two coppers, one a grizzled sergeant and a young constable emerged from the car which pulled up alongside the building on the yellow lines. “Mr Cameron?” asked the senior copper addressing his remark to Simon. “You called about your daughter being stuck in this building?”

“I did.” He beckoned the sergeant to the door and bid him listen. “Are you okay, Danni?”

“Yeah but I need a wee, Daddy.”

“How did she come to be in there?”

“We don’t know but couldn’t that wait until we have her out when I’m sure she’ll answer all your questions.”

“How did you know she was in there?”

“Another story which can wait until she’s been released and which we’ll explain to you in explicit detail.”

“Has she been falsely imprisoned or abducted?”

“I have no idea but I don’t think so, we think she got herself shut in there but how, we don’t know. However, I don’t think conducting an interview through a steel shuttered door will conducive to clarity and I also think she’s becoming anxious.”

Over the next ten minutes they spent time on their radios ascertaining the key holder of the building and trying to contact him. “This can take a little while, sir, madam.” It did but it was probably quicker than we could have done it and half an hour later a disgruntled middle aged man arrived with a white van.

His language matched his air of disgruntlement until Simon suggested a case of his favourite booze would be delivered if he could share his address with us. Naturally, her with the handbag and pen and paper became taker of such address.

With much squeaking and rattling the shutters were opened and Danni flung herself at us and sobbed. “I was frightened, Mummy.”

“I’m sure you were but you’re going to have to explain to this nice police sergeant how you came to get stuck inside.”

She hopped from leg to leg, “Can I have a wee somewhere quickly?” she squeaked and my pleading expression and the prospect of a case of drink thawed the stony heart of the liberator who showed her where the loo was.

After she was relieved from the siege of Bladderstrain, white van man went home and I suggested we all decamp to the house and statements could be made and tea drunk with biscuits if it wasn’t seen as bribery. The copper actually smiled and his colleague nodded—vigorously.

It took about twenty minutes for Simon to get my car and drive us home, I sat in the back cuddling a shivering and sobbing teen hoping her mascara was waterproof or washable. When we got there the police car was waiting for us and its two occupants followed us in. There were lots of hugs and tears then I sent Danielle up to the bathroom to wash her face with instructions to come straight down and explain what had happened. Meanwhile I boiled a kettle and made umpteen cups of tea and coffee and broke open the biscuit tin.

Like an idiot, I asked the coppers if they’d like a sandwich and ended up making one each for them and of course Danielle had one too, her fry up was dried up and would go to a good home inside a spaniel in the morning.

Basically, the story we’d all waited for wasn’t one of nasty men and kidnappings but a nervous teen who mistook someone for John Jackson and ran off when she thought he was following her, dropping her phone as she dived through an open door to hide, only to find the person whose door it was slammed it shut and pulled down the shutters before she could yell out. She found herself trapped in a small entrance hall between the outer door and an inner and equally robust one.

She then simply sat tight because she knew I would find her. The police gave me a very old fashioned look when I managed to shut Danielle up by saying how we found her.

“One of my older daughters is a computer expert and she managed to locate Danni’s phone through the GPS tracker they all have. All we had to do then was use the coordinates she gave us and start looking about for her in that area.”

“What if someone else had picked up the phone?” asked the younger copper.

“We knew it was stationary so we assumed no one had picked it up, if they had we’d have asked them to tell us where they found it and paid them for their trouble.”

“I still find it a bit slick, Mrs Cameron.”

“It’s what happened and from now on I’m going to get Samantha to put the tracking system on all our phones, so we know where everyone else is.”

“Can they do that?”

“I believe so, I shall find out tomorrow when I speak to her.”

“How many children have you got then?” asked younger cop.

“Eleven.”

“You look far too young to have eleven kids.”

“They’re adopted.”

“Did you get a bulk discount or something?”

“No, we just got lucky. They are some of the nicest children anyone could wish to have and they have all bonded as siblings.”

“So why did you think this journalist guy was after you?”

“For an interview.”

“What does he want to talk to you for?”

“I play soccer.”

“Yeah, so does my daughter, plays for the school.” Sergeant Plod was about tto have his smugness removed.

“I play for my school too,” offered Danni.

“Who else d’you play for?” I encouraged.

She blushed as she said, “Pompey ladies...”

“And?” I said firmly.

“Okay, England.”

“Oh, we got ourselves a school girl international, well done, kiddo.”

“Uh, she plays for the senior side.”

“At fourteen, I doubt it,” he scoffed.

“Show him your caps.” I said to Danielle but Si returned with his scrapbook—he keeps one with newspaper articles on her games and any photos he’s taken. He handed it to the sergeant who flicked through it.

“Jeez, this is her, isn’t it?” the series of photos from the Daily Mirror showed her doing the over head bicycle kick and the ball going into the goal. “Bloody nora, we’re in the presence of football royalty, Smith. My daughter thinks you are the main woman—I don’t suppose there’s any chance of an autograph is there?”

I went off and printed a picture of her in her England kit on proper photo paper and she signed it and handed it to the sergeant. He went off looking very satisfied and said not to worry about the incident, he’d down play it and as no one had been harmed, there was no reason for any further action.

Oh well it made a change from them recognising me and that bloody youtube clip.

The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike, est. 2007) Part 3134 by Angharad Copyright© 2017 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.

“Does that mean I’m more famous than you, Mummy?” asked a smirking Danielle as the police drove off.

“Probably, I’ve never managed to get locked into someone’s office and lose my phone at the same time.”

“Is that what they call multitasking?” asked Simon pinching a lump of cheese from the piece on the table. I smacked his hand and he grinned but ate his stolen bounty. “Nice bit of Cheddar, that.”

I wrapped it up and placed it in the fridge and collected up the other makings for the sandwiches they’d all eaten.

“Aren’t you hungry?” he addressed to me, “You hardly touched your tea?”

“I wasn’t hungry then and I’m not now,” I lied. I wasn’t then because I was anxious for Danielle and now, it’ll do me good to fast a little before bed and I could do with losing a pound or two.

“I’m astonished the glass in your phone didn’t break, seeing as they seem to do it for a pastime.” Simon picked up his daughter’s iPhone in its bright pink case. “Case must be better than I thought.”

I couldn’t remember how much it cost but it was outrageous, Trsh had one as well but the rest had Samsung and I was sticking with my BlackBerry as was Simon. It did all I needed and probably more, though GPS might be useful as we’re looking to use it to map the nest boxes we have for the dormice. Goodness, I mentioned dormice and haven’t gone into withdrawal symptoms. I just hope we don’t have any bones of them in the owl pellets for next week.

There are a few films about them on youtube, showing how different people dissect them. The two main ways are wet and dry. Either you soak them and hope you don’t throw away insect remains or even bits of bird. Mind you doing them dry can do the same thing. They’ll each have a cardboard tray and a pair of nitrile gloves. After that we switch to using the microscopes—what they call stereoscopic microscopes nowadays. They used to be called dissecting microscopes originally because that was what people used them for. They have two eyepieces and view things at relatively low magnification but in three dimensions, so they have a good depth of field compared to most magnifiers and the higher you go in magnification the less the depth of field. Mind you, you won’t see an amoeba with a stereo microscope except as a tiny white speck because they usually only magnify up to about thirty or forty times, compared to hundreds with a compound microscope. But then we’ll be hoping to examine mandibles or jaws to you. They mostly break in the owls’ gut but occasionally you get a complete upper or lower one. Then it’s a case of using dental formulae to identify the species and the length of the jaw helps with estimating size too.

We’ll do it the Mammal Society way, or at least the way that the late, great Derek Yalden, suggested in his book on the subject. Sadly he died in 2013 but was one of the best loved and admired zoologists in this country and president of the Mammal Society from 1997 until his death. He had a huge influence on the way mammals are studied and recorded setting up one of the first surveys of mammals in Britain and Ireland. So what I’ve done really follows on from his work.

I went to check if I still had my chart from the diagrams in his book—I managed to copy and laminate so that I could easily access them with dirty fingers instead of damaging the book, which I must admit in the beginning did get a bit of a used look about it.

Back to my owl pellets. Barn owls feed mostly on small mammals and birds but also eat insects and earthworms. I suppose if you’re hungry enough, you know when they’ve been on the annelids, the pellets have a sort of sandy or earthy feel to them. Seeing as earthworms are usually full of soil, or their guts are, this unsurprising and it’s not only owls which eat them, I frequently see buzzards wandering up and down ploughed fields hunting worms as well.

Good old Lumbricus terrestris is one of the main components of badger diets and also feature in the diets of hedgehogs as well as one or two lizards. Just think what would happen without earthworms aerating the soil for us, apart from the fact moles would go hungry, archaeologists wouldn’t have anything to dig up and Darwin may not have become the scientist he was. The fact that ancient remains become sunken into the ground is partly due to the action of earthworms causing the soil to rise very slightly—it takes a long time.

I yawned. It had been a long day made longer by Danielle’s disappearance. I’d have one last cuppa and then go to bed—we still had to deal with that slime fungus, Jackson, tomorrow. I hope Simon isn’t feeling amorous because he’s going to be disappointed.

The tea hit the spot and Simon had a cuppa as well. “What d’you think really happened with Danni?”

“What d’you mean?”

“Well that cock and bull story she spun, total nonsense. I mean why would she run away from a reporter? He can’t chase her he’d get arrested for harassing a minor if not for stalking.”

“I thought it sounded quite plausible though I did wonder about her phone getting detached from her—I thought that would almost need a surgeon.”

He chuckled and it was good to see him in a good mood. He wasn’t a bad looking man and it reminded me that I didn’t fall just in love with him but also to some extent, in lust as well. I went and sat on his lap.

“What are you after?” he said quietly before kissing me, his hand slipping up under my bra where his fingers found my nipple—oh that was soooo nice.

“Get a room you two,” said Julie rather too loudly and the spell was broken. I stood up and readjusted my dishevelled clothing. Why I was blushing I had no idea, we’re married and entitled to show some affection in our own home. I decided she was just jealous, so perhaps it was just as well she was looking to get her own place.

I rinsed the cups and went up to bed, Simon was still downstairs as I cleaned my teeth and had a wee. It was quite possible that I’d have to get up for another in the night but since being modified I don’t seem to be able to go all night if I drink before going to bed and tea being a diuretic by virtue of caffeine acting as a bladder irritant, it probably isn’t the best nightcap.

I snuggled into bed and was asleep before Simon came up.

The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike, est. 2007) Part 3135 by Angharad Copyright© 2017 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.

I slept better than I expected and woke up, if not quite raring to go, at least I woke up before the radio came on to the religious programme that follows the news headlines at seven. Simon was still asleep as I crept out of bed and into the bathroom. I showered quickly and combed my hair—I examined the brush and considered that if I lost that many hairs every day, I was surprised I wasn’t as bald as a billiard ball—I’d dress first and put what was left of my hair into a ponytail once I’d dried it.

Simon stirred as I pulled on some jeans—almost my uniform at weekends or evenings—“What ya doing?” he asked sleepily.

“Getting dressed, why?”

“It’s Sunday for god’s sake, why so early?”

“I have lots to do before we take Danielle to the football ground if you recall.”

“I hadn’t forgotten, but that’s hours away yet.”

“Who’s going to feed the little ones?”

“Get Julie or Phoebe to do it, make ’em earn their mortgage.”

“You got them one then?”

“I’m the chief executive of the retail division, was it ever in doubt?”

“I don’t know do I? I don’t think in a bankerly way.”

“You practise economic measures at home and at the university, controlling expenditure, making sure you stay in the black, don’t you?”

“Yes, but that’s housekeeping not high flying finance.”

“What sort of budget d’you hold?”

“Altogether?”

He nodded.

“About ten million.”

“Just housekeeping, eh?”

“Yes, the same principles apply, as Micawber demonstrated when expenditure exceeds income you’re in trouble.”

“That’s all the basics of banking is, plus how to screw blood out of stones or babies or old people.”

“So I’d heard.”

“You work for a bank too, remember.”

“I work in the environmental element, that just involves screwing money out of the bank.”

“True,” he sighed.

“Come back to bed, let’s sh—um, make love,” he changed his tune at my expression of disdainfulness.

“Nope, got some work to do for the university and also two littlies to feed and some not so little anymore, as well.”

“Come and feed my littlie,” he said smirking.

“Feed it?”

“Yeah it’s designed to absorb nourishment from females, from their honeypots.” It was certainly a better chat up line than he’d used for some little while.

“Too late, I’m up and dressed...”

“Both of those could be easily reversed.”

“I’ve just showered, I don’t want your body fluids dripping out of me.”

“Doesn’t usually worry you?”

“I’m going to feed Lizzie.”

“See, you don’t always win an argument.”

“What argument?”

That gave him the opportunity to break into the argument sketch, which he started from the beginning.

“I don’t suppose Monty Python ever did a come and feed the children breakfast sketch, did they?”

“No they didn’t.”

“Yes they did.”

“They didn’t.”

“Did.” Two can play at this game.

“Did not.”

“Oh well too bad,” I said and went towards the door.

“You’re a funny woman,” he said.

“You knew that before we were married so it’s too late to get a divorce.”

“What?” he gasped.

I smiled sweetly and went downstairs where either Kiki had switched the coffee machine on or Tom was about somewhere. He was, damn, just as thought I had a winning combination to submit to youtube, a spaniel making coffee.

I switched on the kettle and made myself some tea. I was about to drink it when Simon came downstairs. “What was all that about upstairs?”

“Tea or coffee?” I asked.

“Coffee please.” I poured him a coffee from Tom’s freshly distilled brew. “Thanks. Now what was that about upstairs?”

“What was what about?”

“The funny business stuff.”

“What funny business, all you did was recite Monty Python sketches so I decided to come down.”

“After indulging me by participating.”

I shrugged, “So?”

“If I didn’t know better, I’d swear you were on.”

“Not going to happen.”

“So where are all these children you were going to feed?”

“After a cup of tea, anything can happen and I’ll cope.”

“That makes about as much sense as a Monty Python sketch.”

“Is that a compliment?” I beamed back at him. He simply glowered in response. Tom returned and he spoke to Simon about something in the garden he needed his help to do. I quickly finished my tea and went to rouse the little ones. I came down expecting to point to Simon and then explain to them who he was, except he wasn’t there. Typical bloody man.

I made them breakfast—not quite a full English—more a partial Scots—they had porridge while I made myself some toast. Amazing what you can do in a microwave these days, even porridge. I chopped up a banana and shared it between them in their cereal and mashed up another on my toast and sat and ate while they played with their breakfasts.

Trish came down followed by Hannah, “Woss Daddy doing up the garden?”

“I have no idea, he was talking to Gramps a minute ago about the garden, didn’t realise he was out there,” but it did explain his current absence.

“You taking Danni to see that weasel, Jackson, today?” asked Trish.

“Yes but don’t say that, it maligns a perfectly innocent mustelid.”

Hannah looked at me in astonishment. Trish however fired back, “All the villains in Wind in the Willows were mustelids except Badger.”

“Quite right, have you read it again recently?”

“Yes,” she sighed. “Can I read your book about Darwin?”

“Which one, I have several?”

“The big one—you know with his piccie on the back.”

“The biography?”

“Yeah whatever.”

“If you want to, I suppose so.”

“Thanks.”

“She only wants to borrow it to have it on her desk in RI., she’s hoping it’ll give Sister Virginia palpitations,” was Hannah’s take on it.

“Is this true Tricia Cameron?” I asked.

“No, course not, I just wanna read it.”

“So if I say it’s not to leave the house, you’ll abide by that, will you?”

“Er um, what if I wanna read in my lunch break?”

“It’s bigger than her Bible,” offered Hannah.

“What is?”

“Your Darwin book, it’s thicker than Sister Vagina’s Bible.”

“Yeah but not as thick as her—nothing is.”

“Trish if you were planning to take my book just to upset your teacher in religious studies, I don’t think that’s very clever, do you?”

“I thought it was brilliant,” smirked Trish. I did sometimes wonder if she was slightly deranged, in which case she did take after me.

“In which case, you can’t borrow it until you’re old enough to realise how unpleasant some the things you say and do can be.”

“Spoilsport,” she said poking Hannah.

“You’da got into big trouble.”

“Nah, I’d have talked my way out of it, I’m cleverer than all those old bags.”

“I don’t like the way this conversation is going, young lady.”

“Well it’s true, I am cleverer than them.”

“You may well be but you’re far less aware of other people’s feelings than they are.”

“Ha,” she almost spat, “they don’t care how we feel when they’re prattling about telling their fairy tales.”

“If that’s how you feel, I’ll withdraw you from religious studies.”

“Who’s going to challenge them then?”

“That isn’t my problem and shouldn’t be your mission.”

“Yeah, I’m a missionary,” she said and swaggered off through the door. I looked at the other girls sitting there and wondered if I’d fallen through some portal into a parallel universe where everything was like a very bad version of ‘Friends’.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQFKtI6gn9Y (Argument Sketch).

The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike, est. 2007) Part 3136 by Angharad Copyright© 2017 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.

We arrived at Fratton Park, home of Portsmouth FC and nowadays of the ladies team as well. We were early, they wouldn’t be playing for over an hour and Danielle trotted off to the changing rooms to put on her England kit. Holding her bag, I stood and chatted with the coach awaiting the arrival of Jackson and his photographer.

She appeared ten minutes later wearing her England outfit and a fresh coat of mascara—she had on so much makeup, I had difficulty recognising her—so hopefully no one else would. If they did, they did, we’d deal with it as it happened but it’s no big deal and the FA and the club are both supportive of her position.

Jackson did eventually appear but sans photographer, so he had to take the photos as well. The interview went quite well no personal questions except those related to soccer. The obligatory quote from her coach saying how uncommonly gifted she was in playing with the mental skills in reading he game of someone ten years older.

I stayed in the background and wasn’t required for either a quote or a photo. If I kept out of it, there was less chance of anyone recognising her by association with me. Eventually it was all over and Jackson had his interview and his photos so he didn’t require us for anything else for some time.

Leaving Danni in the capable hands of her coach, I drove home and did some chores plus gave the other children some of my time. David was busy making us a traditional roast beef dinner and trying to get half a side of beef into the slow oven on the Aga where he discovered Danni’s from the day before—he just binned it with looks of daggers from a certain spaniel.

She’d be in the news again, she scored five goals against Arsenal women, two of who are in her England squad, but claimed to be carrying injuries. She certainly had a few and I recall seeing an article about George Best—he was some Irish guy who played for Manchester United and was one of the greatest players of his day until he actually began to believe the hype and ended up becoming an alcoholic and died with liver failure having had a transplant as well. He gave a the booze for a while then succumbed again and that destroyed the transplant.

So seeing the way that David Beckham copes with the celebrity compared to his predecessor in the number 7 shirt (Best), I have even more regard for him. I only hope I can keep Danielle grounded if she really does hit the big time. So far she’s been remarkably unimpressed by the hype and her own skills—I don’t think she fully recognises how gifted she is. She still wants to go on to university and train as a teacher, so I try to keep that ambition focused because it’s the one which will keep food on her table when her soccer days are over.

She called me to collect her and I sent Simon to get her in his F-type. He was supposed to have gone with us but cancelled at the last moment because he fell asleep. That made me smile given that he snored all night and I listened to it most of the night. It’s like listening to someone racing a large truck up Mt Ventoux. So he slept and I didn’t and he was the one who couldn’t stay awake in the day time.

Oh I hear there’s a fuss with the Sunday Times and Jenni Murray—her from Woman’s Hour on Radio 4—apparently transgender women aren’t proper women. Pity because I thought she was more understanding than that. Apparently, because we haven’t grown up as girls but come from a position of male superiority we can't be real women. I think five minutes in my company would give her something else to think about as most of us are uncomfortable in our own bodies, some of us have been victimised more than most ordinary women, have higher levels of sexual abuse and suicide than most women and also find it harder to acquire jobs and secure accommodation. So I suspect her argument is either pathetic or ill-considered.

I also consider myself a proper feminist who desires equality for everyone regardless of age, sex, gender, race, religion, marital status and anything else which others use to define us. So I’m afraid Dame Jenni may not pass my test to be considered a true feminist.

The kids are back in school, so it was checking uniforms and so on. I made each of them check their satchels/backpacks to sharpen pencils and so on and to check if they needed games or gym kit. By the time morning comes I might have finished sorting stuff. It’s my own fault, no one made me take in a dozen children and young adults, but as they say, it seemed like a good idea at the time and really I don’t regret it. It also looks like some of the older children may be ready to fly the nest. Sammi spends more time up in London than she does at home and I think she’s thinking of buying something up there. She’ll get a preferential mortgage if she does, Si will see to that and as she’s saved the bank’s bacon a few times, she’s worthy of it.

Julie and Phoebe could be gone anytime soon. They’ve arranged to buy the flat above their salon and have someone in there decorating and refurbishing it. It’s a bit grotty but mainly because it hasn’t been decorated for years. I think they’re going to have a new kitchen as well. Having said that one of the things they’ll miss is David’s cooking and once they move out I’ll happily have them come over for dinner as long as they tell David beforehand so he can sort the amounts of food required. You never know, one day I might even get an invite to dinner at their place—fish and chips as long as I bring it with me.

Those with elephantine memories may remember I did try to teach Julie how to cook and the same with Phoebe but neither really took to it, unlike Danielle who does enjoy it and so do Trish and Hannah, though Livvie isn’t terribly so and Meems is better with childcare. So as long as she has children who don’t need feeding, she’ll be fine. Having said that I recall her trying to force-feed her dollies after they apparently went on hunger strike. Had they been real babies I’d have had to call ambulances and the police—she went totally ape, and unusual state for her and I never did find out who’d put her up to it, though I do have suspicions.

Tom put the girls to bed and read them a story—he’s like gold, so precious to us all and a real help with the kids, who love him to bits though they also know how far he’ll let them go before he lays down the law. I love him dearly too, possibly more than biological dad because he’s just so caring and experienced.

I’ve just got Danielle up to bed, Simon is chatting with the three older girls, Jacquie is home now as well. So while he’s busy, I’m off to bed and I hope a good night’s rest.

The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike, est. 2007) Part 3137 by Angharad Copyright© 2017 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.
*****

I didn’t have time for anything the next morning. It was shower dress and breakfast, check girls in their uniforms and drop them at school using the VW. At my own office I was presented with an article from the Echo featuring our very own Danielle Cameron, footballer extraordinaire. I ignored my usual urge to ask how an evening paper is published in time for breakfast and dived into the story while my main minion made the tea.

To my astonishment, Jackson had treated her reasonably and there were no mentions of anything except football with a lovely photo of her in her England shirt. It was too early to say that it was okay because someone might recognise her and cause a stink, but we’d have to deal with that on an if and when basis.

The problem is that, not too many soccer players can do an overhead bicycle kick and her previous incarnation was one such player. So the photos of that goal, courtesy of the Daily Mirror, could possibly prompt memories; we’d simply have to wait and see.

After a tea induced recovery, I made my way to the labs again and did a rerun of owl pellet dissection and analysis. It was quite good fun. Barn owls again, their pellets are the easiest to find and usually contain a reasonable mix of prey items, which they had to identify from the chart we gave them.

Barn owls tend to hunt over fields and hedgerows so are less likely to catch dormice, which tawny owls, a woodland and garden species, do quite frequently. In the early days of trying to repair damage to corridors between colonies of dormice, such as a path through a wood or a new road, conservationists hollered for some sort of bridge to span the gap. Initially ropes were used and dormice used them, so did the owls—like a sort of dormouse take-away. We eventually learnt from it and built bridges with covers on them.

As the session wore on, and I was asked to help identify bits of bone, we found the usual victims in the pellets: field mice, field voles, bank voles, two bits of mole, quite a few beetles—or their wing cases, some bird bones of unknown species and the bristles that find their way into the pellet from the earthworms that are eaten, probably in their thousands. Worms provide a food source for many species of hunter, from badgers and foxes to buzzards and owls.

In terms of the food chain or trophic levels as we tend to call it these days, the worms come down as pretty well the bottom or resource unless they’re feeding on plants, in which case then the item they feed on becomes the resource and then each step up is a primary, secondary and so on until you get to the apex feeder. Usually that’s a carnivore or omnivore. So the chain could be something like, grass (resource) is eaten by bunnies (primary level) which are eaten by weasels (secondary) which may be hunted by buzzards (tertiary).

If the buzzard is subsequently shot by a man, apart from it being illegal, it doesn’t make the man a quaternary level feeder as he is very unlikely to eat the buzzard. It could be taken by a larger or stronger raptor like an eagle or even a peregrine which would be quaternary level feeders, as they do tend to eat what they catch.

As we dissected the pellets I was trying to explain how this all works and how the food interactions can also be considered a food web, but those tend to be more complex so I won’t labour the point here.

Returning to my office, the sun was shining and I felt quite good. It was also ridiculously warm, the outdoor sensor reading 15°C according to the mini weather station sitting on my desk. Not much wind either, wished I’d come on my bike except I’d not be able to collect the girls with it.

Eating my roll at lunchtime, I spotted another of these supposed supporters of trans people suggesting we aren’t real and more or less regurgitating the male privilege argument that Jenni Murray had used the week before. This time it was in a TV interview with Nigerian writer, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. Why these people have to air their views I don’t know, unless it’s a way of courting publicity and primarily it upsets the activists who tend to say things equally stupid. The second wave, are the more balanced responses from the more eloquent in the community and are often well worth reading.

I would also reiterate that my kind of feminism doesn’t use labels but tries to be inclusive, seeing everyone as worthy of being equal regardless of age, sex, gender, sex preference, religion or colour. It does appreciate that others have different ideas and opinions but tries not to condemn them because of it, seeing it possibly as either the result of a bad experience or ignorance of the actual facts. Sadly, experiences with some of the more vociferous protestors might be seen as bad ones, but then we don’t know what the protestors experiences are either.

My own have been mixed but I can honestly say that I wasn’t aware of any sense of male privilege for my first twenty years of life, but certainly had lots of experiences which I suspect were quite as threatening as any female contemporary.

Diana who reads the ‘i’ a tabloid format paper which used to be produced by the Independent and is still a reputable newspaper, showed me a photo of Hazte Oir conservative association in Spain, protesting in Madrid against the promotion of gender identity, believing that birth gender is all that should be recognised. It appears that the rise of intolerance fuelled by right wing politics is becoming increasingly worldwide. I’m never quite sure whether I feel pity or disgust for such groups who seem to need to hate minorities in order to feel good about themselves. Actually, ultimately they can’t because sooner or later they discover they belong in some smaller group themselves and as they already possibly hate themselves anyway, it would probably blow them away altogether.

My afternoon was more mundane as I dealt with paperwork and chairing a committee I set up to go through all the policies of the department and decide if they needed updating, rewriting or scrapping. Then we need to see if any areas require policies which haven’t had them before. It is totally mind numbing and very hard work but I was rather glad we had one of support for transgender students when I transitioned and then came to teach at this venerable institution—well I like it.

At the convent, I was asked by the headmistress if I would consider doing an address for the school leavers, as they have a farewell ceremony which precedes a dance in the evening for the older girls. I told her I’d think about it, even when she told me, as a professor, I could encourage them to make the best of their university years as they were great fun. She didn’t elaborate but the faraway look in her eye tended to suggest I didn’t get the whole story.

The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike, est. 2007) Part 3138 by Angharad Copyright© 2017 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.
*****

It must be morning again, here I am in the office sorting out the world again while sipping tea and looking at the Guardian online. I wondered when that would happen. The happening is some idiot from Wales calling for a secession from the union as is being called for by the one track zombie dwarf in Scotland. Seeing as both countries are running at large fiscal deficits, I don’t see how either is viable—not that evidence appears to be a factor in political decision making these days, especially by the electorate—who prefer to believe lies if they get to blame all their ills on another, preferably ethnically different and smaller, group.

Wasn’t it Dr Johnson who suggested that, ‘Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel?’ It certainly wasn’t Nigel Farage, who when he isn’t brown nosing DJT appears to be something of a scoundrel. I don’t doubt that he sees himself as a patriot, especially if that means xenophia, unfortunately, what he sees as being patriotic is different to my own view, which is far less didactic and more liberal.

I finished my tea and picked up the pile of paper in my in-tray. Oh boy did I feel like going home and staying there. I don’t know about dead tree, but there seems to be half a bloody forest on my desk—I’m sure it’s breeding—the paperwork, that is. It wasn’t quite nine o’clock when I started and it was twelve when I was summoned to lunch with Tom. He had something he needed to talk about. Immediately I felt like a guilty schoolgirl waiting outside the headmistress’ study, unsure of the criminal charges against her, but pretty sure they had something.

At quarter past, he appeared and we walked out to my car and then drove to his usual location for the stimulation of his gustatory senses and alimentary system, in other words we went to his usual restaurant and we ordered the usual, him—a chicken curry with rice and poppadoms, me—a jacket spud with tuna in mayonnaise. On the way over he didn’t say why he wanted to speak to me and I didn’t ask. I’d take my timing from him and while that could be risky, insofar as he may not say anything at all, I didn’t want to sound too eager to know what he wanted to talk about. It reminded me that Henry had wanted to speak to me in private a little while ago and never actually got round to doing it. When I asked him he’d forgotten what it was about. As I never actually knew, I couldn’t help him very much.

I’d nearly finished eating my meal when he suddenly said, “I’m thinking o’ retiring.”

“Oh, what brought that on?” I wasn’t sure I wanted to know but he was going to tell me anyway.

“Jest feelin’ it’s a’ tae much.” He suddenly looked old and tired.

“What brought this on?” as far as I knew he hadn’t felt like that a few days ago.

“Och ye ken, tae much tae dae all thae time an’ I’m no gettin’ ony younger.”

“How long have you felt like it?”

“Och f’ a wee while.”

“Who else have you spoken to about it?”

“Only ye, ye’re ma dochter efter a’,” he looked somewhat disdainfully at me.

“I appreciate that, Daddy, but I was just trying to establish a few things. I’m a scientist, remember?”

“Are ye, och sae ye are—sort of.”

“Same sort as you, biologist, remember—I know it’s a wee while since you were one, but...”

“Ye cheeky wee monkey.”

“I’m a primate, Daddy, but as I don’t have a tail or hairy face and body and am hopeless at climbing trees, I not a monkey; but then it is a while since you thought about biology...”

He glowered at me and all I wanted to do was smirk. Instead I blushed and felt pretty stupid.

“I may be auld, but it’s a’ workin’ under ma sporran and beret.”

For a moment I had to think what he was on about. Sporran—a cross between a handbag and codpiece—okay, pretty sure that refers more to the latter than somewhere to keep his wallet. Beret—right, underneath that is a head—that one’s pretty obvious too. If he shoved his beret in his sporran, would that make him a d...head? No he’s my dad.

“Let’s concentrate on your dilemma, shall we?”

“Whit dilemma is that?”

“That of retirement.”

“I’m no going tae retire but they might try tae make me.”

“Who are, they?”

He rolled his eyes, “Thae university, wha else?”

“Can they do that—I didn’t think they could.”

“Aye they can o’er seventy.”

Despite having looked at so many policies recently, that wasn’t one I could recall. “D’you want me to check—the policy, that is?”

“Whit fa, I ken whit’s in it, I wrote it.”

“So what d’you want me to do, unwrite it?”

He beamed at me, “Exactly that—see I ken ye’d be a scientist one day, jest no today.”

“Ha bloody ha, remember you need my help, buster.”

“Why d’ye think I bought ye lunch?”

“Bribery and corruption, eh?”

“Aye, works every time.”

“Shouldn’t I declare a conflict of interest?”

“If ye like, but they’ll no tak any notice of ye.”

“Is that because I’m a woman?”

“No, it’s because ye’re daft as a brush.”

“Thanks for building up my self esteem and dashing it to pieces moments later.”

“Dinnae be sae thin skint.”

Is this the pot calling the kettle black or vice versa?

“I wasn’t aware I was.”

“Ye’re ma dochter, sae they’ll accuse ye o’ conflict o’ interest, which wid be true except, ye value ma advice an’ guidance sae much as Vice Chancellor, that ye’d be reluctant to support thae calls f’ ma retirement.”

Only because you’d be under my feet all day when I was home, unlike now. “That’s pretty much how I feel about things, anyway.”

“Aye, I ken that, it’s why I said it.” He smirked and I simply wanted to accuse him of being a patronising old fart.

“However, I could avoid the mention of conflict of interests by not saying anything at all.”

“Whit?” he gasped and I managed to restrain the smirk which was in danger of spreading across my face. “Ye’d betray yer own faither?”

“Is that any worse than lying?”

“Ye’d no be lying—exactly.”

“What would I be doing then?”

“Jest bein’ guarded wit thae truth.”

“Isn’t that simply a euphemism for lying?”

He shrugged. “I hef tae gang back tae ma office.”

I drove him back to the campus and left him to it while I tried to mull my own thoughts into some cohesive order. I needed another cuppa...

The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike, est. 2007) Part 3139 by Angharad Copyright© 2017 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.
*****

I wasn’t sure what I felt about Tom retiring. He’d indicated that he wasn’t yet ready for it and I was quite happy for him to continue in his job despite its demands upon him as an older man. But he was aware of all of those and it was after all his decision.

The troubling bit was, did I want to jack it all in? Part of me was quite certain I did. I thought about how I’d lapsed into becoming first a reader, then a temporary professor and now a super professor or dean of the faculty of science. It wasn’t a career choice, nor one I’d anticipated. It was rather an opportunity that had occurred and I’d been sort of pushed into it or grabbed it because it was necessary at the time, not because I was thinking long term.

The problem was, beyond being a mum and a wife and perhaps a dutiful daughter as well, I hadn’t really considered my career beyond watching dormice and being paid for doing so, if possible. But then all the things I could have wished for doesn’t mean I expected them. The idea that I could be a mother is preposterous, but it happened, if not biologically, then otherwise. That I should marry a millionaire banker would seem equally absurd considering my origins. What sort of odds would there have been against me becoming a titled woman, albeit courtesy of my husband. It’s not just bizarre, it’s completely bonkers and part of me expects to come to either in a hedge with a cussing Stella looking down at my broken body still clad in cycling kit, or in an intensive care unit where they tell me I’ve been unconscious for weeks. In some ways it’s too much to believe in one hit but it seems to be what has happened.

I realise that I’m such a lucky bunny, that I seem to have been in the right place at the right time too often to feel it’s just randomised good luck and that it appears to have a pattern of sorts. What else could it be? It makes no sense and stories of gods and goddesses are just primitive peoples’ ways of explaining phenomena they couldn’t understand—aren’t they? Before science happened and showed what really happened. The problem is that I’m a scientist as well as a mother and so forth, and will probably be so as long as I live. It isn’t just a career, it’s a way of being—accept nothing at face value and question everything. If it makes sense, you probably missed something.

There again, motherhood isn’t just for as long as the apple pie lasts, it tends to be a lifetime commitment. Even when the children you have aren’t your own biological brood, once they become yours, unless they choose to leave your life, you care about them as long as you have a breath in your body—or at least I will. I made a commitment to them for as long as I live. In return I can expect nothing but their trust and love—and dirty washing.

I went to collect the girls and we went home. I’d managed to avoid Sister Maria but she’d outflanked me again and sent a note via Danielle. “Oh can I play for the school on Saturday?” She asked handing me the note.

“You know better than I do,” I replied shoving the envelope on top of my bag.

“It’s more fun than just training—we don’t have a match this week.”

“What if you got yourself injured?”

“Can happen in training.”

“Is this fair on the other teams?”

“Yeah, we’re all the same age.”

“Except your team has Wonderwoman playing for them.”

“Nah, she’s my mum, I’m only Supergirl.” The laughter from the back seat tended to suggest they’d enjoyed it. I see Readers Digest has caught up with the laughing at dark jokes indicates higher intelligence and apparently less aggression than people who find them offensive. Mind you, I suppose we all have certain subjects that could offend us.

I read several in the article and laughed at them all—but I’m a professor, so I’m allowed to—only one stuck in my mind. A nurse leading some people past a technician poking about a dead body is heard to say, “Oh the post mortem is over, he’s just looking for his wrist watch.”’ At least I thought it was better than, ‘Why don’t cannibals eat clowns? They taste funny.’

Even that caused a snigger, possibly because I don’t like clowns. I decided to share that one with my captive audience. Danni chuckled immediately, the others gave a half second pause before laughing uproariously, which was far more than the joke deserved—but hey, it’s better than them all crying or complaining at it.

We arrived at home only to hear that David had gone home feeling unwell—something he ate, perhaps? So guess who had to do the dinner? Goodness, you must be psychic—yeah, it was yours truly.

I went and changed while Danni made me a cuppa and after drinking it, decided to have a quick squint in the fridge. Two pounds of lean minced beef transformed itself into a large bowl of bolognaise sauce in my mind or even cottage pie. I decided to be democratic about it. “Who wants spaghetti bolognaise and who wants cottage pie?”

“Can we have ice cream?” came back the reply—no wonder Brexit won, democracy is a myth and only works while the people in real power allow it.

“Afterwards, now what are we having for dinner?”

“Can’t we have mince and tatties?” asked Trish, who’s about as Scots as Yorkshire pud.

“We could, anyone else fancy that?” It was unanimous—like I said, no wonder Brexit won.

So I spent the next hour or so washing spuds and setting them to boil and then boiled up an equally large pan of mince, onions and carrots with garlic, in gravy and a smaller pan of garden peas. I don’t bother measuring amounts of them, just slice open the packet of frozen peas and drop them all in.

Tom was delighted with Trish’s menu choice. I sent one of the girls over to see if David wanted some dinner and he had a plateful as well. Simon said it reminded him of holidays up in Stanebury as well as the odd meal in school. Stella looked disdainfully at it then tucked in and cleared her plate in minutes, even the little ones wolfed it down. I hadn’t made it for ages, probably because I don’t cook that often these days.

David brought his empty plate back over—he’d washed it—and said he’d enjoyed it, declaring that sometimes simple meals are the nicest ones. I took it as a compliment rather than a criticism. I leave him to do the difficult stuff, I do the easy variety and so far haven’t poisoned anyone yet—at times it’s tempting.

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The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike, est. 2007) Part 3140 by Angharad Copyright© 2017 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.
*****

I was asleep before Simon came up to bed, he was chatting with Julie and Phoebe about their new flat—I think they’re planning to move within the next two weeks. I haven’t had a chance to view it yet and apparently Simon told the girls to speak to me about organising the soft furnishings because I was a whiz at it. Like he’d know—duh. I’ll be delighted to help them if they ask me, but if they don’t that’s their affair. I’m not going to push myself into the girls flat and take over, if they want my help they must ask. I feel quite strongly about that, allowing independence to develop and it’s good for them to work out their own decorating plans and what curtains and carpets they want to go with them. Sure, I have ideas and some experience but I got it mostly the hard way, though my mum did give me a few lessons when I was younger.

I think Dad thought I was being taught the basics of housekeeping for when I went away to uni, but choosing carpets and curtains and altering the latter? I mean, you either stay at the university halls of residence or find your own accommodation outside the campus. Dad helped me towards the rent but I was left entirely on my own to find somewhere to stay.

The first place was very disappointing and the landlord kept wanting to up the rent for somewhere they should have condemned years before. Then I was invited to share a house with three girls I knew from my course. I think they thought I was gay because I didn’t go out with girls—I didn’t go out much with anyone—and as they all had steady boyfriends, I wasn’t seen as much of a threat to anyone.

What may be described as blowing my cover, was when one of the girls had her boyfriend stay over and they had a scrap and he wrecked her room including ripping down her curtains. We all helped tidy it up but she was distraught about the torn curtains—well how was I to know I was the only one who could sew? Thankfully the material had torn along one of the seams and when one of the others borrowed a sewing machine from another girl on our course, I got volunteered to repair the curtains. Fortunately, it went better than I expected but ever after they told me they considered me as one of the girls. I wasn’t sure if I felt it as a compliment or the ultimate put down.

So whenever something went wrong I got the job of sorting it. It was where I learned to expand my repertoire of cooking from the basics my mum had shown me. As cooking simple fare is mostly a matter of common sense, it didn’t prove to be rocket science.

Despite their integration of me, I didn’t feel confident enough to tell them the truth, so my little bag of female clothing didn’t get used unless I was in the house alone, which wasn’t often. Looking back, perhaps I should have told them, but with a further year to go, they could have made my life more difficult. The house became unavailable for the final year so I had to sign up for a room in a hall of residence and as it was a single, I did change there occasionally and consequently went out even less, but I did get a get a first, so I can’t really complain.

One of the girls, Heidi, I think it was, did write to me while I was newly transitioning at Portsmouth—apparently the word got out, like it does in a small world. She was quite sympathetic and said that on reflection she wasn’t really surprised and wished that I had told them as they may have been able to help me transition. In a way I’m glad I didn’t because I wouldn’t have coped with any pressure to transition while at Sussex and I certainly wouldn’t have wanted to be one of their projects—it was bad enough having Stella do it and I felt more comfortable with her direction than I should have done with my three housemates.

The next morning I was getting breakfasts for the girls prior to the school run when Julie asked me if I was busy that evening. “What did you have in mind?” I asked.

“We could do with some advice about soft furnishings, if you don’t mind?”

“What about lunch time, the light will be better?” I suggested and she said they could probably sneak three quarters of an hour. At least that way I could get a feel for the place and let my unconscious ferment some ideas. I made sure I had my iPad with me and I could take photos of each room they wanted me to help with.

The morning was mundanity exemplified and so bloody boring when I said I had to dash off for a meeting at lunchtime, Diana was very suspicious as she generally keeps my diary. Without saying anything more to enlighten her, I rushed off and grabbed some rolls at a Tesco metro en route to the salon. The girls were delighted with my choice of snack and Phoebe ran off to boil the kettle while Julie showed me around. They had already had a new bathroom and the kitchen had also been revamped. Both were, I think the word is, compact or bijou depending upon whether you read the Guardian or the Telegraph. However, they had a lovely sized lounge diner and two fair sized bedrooms. The latter were on the back of the house and would thus be quieter and overlooked an enclosed yard, which nowadays they’d call a courtyard. I suggested if they had it paved and some pot plants it would be okay to sit out in, in the summer like an enclosed patio—they seemed to like that idea.

It had potential and I took photos of every room from every angle I could. I already had some ideas. I also took measurements using Tom’s laser measure of each room and noted them. They looked at me as if I was from another planet. I wasn’t, I was simply going to draw a plan of the apartment and use it to help me show them some colour schemes. We ate our rolls and washed them down with a cuppa and then I had to dash back to hear a student’s defence in a case of apparent plagiarism. It’s something universities take very seriously and suggest in our student handbook that you should never show any coursework to a fellow student. You can discuss the ideas you have but not show them. Alas I’ve known some bright sparks who weren’t very street wise who were accused of the crime and only when they showed us their computers and the draft of the work, we were able to uncover the friend who’d asked them about the assignment, was the real culprit and they were sent down for attempting to misinform and mislead the university by deception and in claiming someone else’s work to be their own. I see it as a form of parasitism and tend to treat it quite severely. Oh the joys of office.

The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike, est. 2007) Part 3141 by Angharad Copyright© 2017 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.
*****

The afternoon was tedium in excelsis as I tried to remain interested in the case the student was putting for their defence. My colleague was prosecuting and I was there as sentencing judge with my black cap in my bag. All I wanted to do was to leave this place of misery and go and play with colours and fabrics and my plan of the girls’ flat. It had to be more fun than this.

I interrupted the proceedings: “I’m sorry but nothing you’ve said leads me to believe that any of the work in question is yours, Mr Wilson.” I addressed the unfortunate undergraduate. “In fact, it appears you have three assignments which appear to have been copied directly from pieces on the internet and one from an essay written by a previous student at this university.” I knew the essay, I’d marked it the first time it appeared.

“I have therefore, no option but to ask you to leave your course and this university. You have a right of appeal and we need to receive notice of that within one month from today. However, unless you have either some further evidence that your work is your own or that we haven’t adhered to the protocol concerning accusations of plagiarism, you could be wasting your money. You could also apply to a court of law to overturn my decision but that could cost you a great deal of money and could only decide on if we followed the law correctly. I think you’ll find we have.”

He threw his papers down on the table and shouted at me, “Fucking tranny bitch.”

I stopped and looked him straight in the eye. “I might be, but at least all my work is my own, unlike yours. Good day, Mr Wilson.” I left before he could utter anything at my riposte.

“That was a bit uncalled for,” said Mike Burton, my colleague from biology department, “you know...”

I shrugged. “It was the only thing he could say he thought could hurt me. He was not only wrong he showed his inability to say anything original, which demonstrates why he copied other people’s work—he’s not up to scratch and has been found out.”

“I hate doing these things,” he said putting the shoulder strap of his courier bag over his shoulder.

“You think I like them?”

“No, of course not.”

“My job is to facilitate a place where those who want to learn can do so from people who supposedly know a bit more about their subject. Sometimes I wonder.”

“I hope you’re not including me in that, Cathy.”

“Which bit?” I said and my smirk gave it away.

He frowned then smiled, “What he said.” He jerked his thumb back towards the room we’d used.

“Ah ah, that’s plagiarism, Mike.”

He blushed as red as any tomato and nodded. “Okay, I surrender to your superior mind.”

“My position is all that’s superior, I’m just quicker on my feet. Right,” I glanced at my watch, “I’m going to have a cuppa then collect my offspring from school.”

“Is that one of your girls who plays for England ladies?”

“Yes, we are so proud of her.”

“She is something special, isn’t she?”

“Very, she knows it but is very grounded about it all. She even wants to do her A-levels and go to uni because she realises a sports career is very short lived.”

“Good for her, what does she want to study?”

“She thinks she might want to teach.”

“Not the best occupation at present. I hear more and more part time posts are going zero hours contracts.”

“Not here they aren’t.”

“No I know that, but in places not too far away.”

“Once universities become just education businesses it all becomes pointless. If we care more about the money than the student, what is the point?”

“Without the money there is no point, no university, Cathy. We still need to be paid and the buildings need upkeep. The money has to come from somewhere.”

“As I spend half my life trying to locate new sources of income so we don’t have to raise teaching fees, I suspect I appreciate that even more than you do, Mike. At times I feel like a fund raiser cum mendicant, going round with my little begging bowl.”

“How much did you raise?”

“Last week, about half a million. They need a new spectrometer.”

“Well done.”

“Sod the tea, I’m going home, byeee.” I waved to him and called by my office handed the forms to Diane who checked them over.

“Do these today?”

“Please, recorded delivery.”

“You look tired.”

“I always am after I’ve ended someone’s career before it started.”

She glanced through the forms, “Looks pretty open and shut to me.”

“I’ll bet his parents won’t think so. I just hope they don’t decide to test it in a law court, then it gets messy and personal; not to mention expensive.”

“Do they ever appeal?”

“A few do, most are usually quite pleased we’ve rumbled them and they can stop the pretence of studying, because they that’s all they’re usually doing, pretending.”

“But why? Don’t they realise what they’re doing?”

“I don’t think they do a lot of the time. It’s often the first time away from home where they have freedom to do whatever they want. Providing it doesn’t affect their studies, I really don’t care. They’re supposed to be autonomous adults...” I paused because she nearly fell of her seat laughing. She’ll have to go.

“You coming to watch us play tomorrow?” asked Trish.

“What time is it?”

“Ten o’clock, isn’t it Danielle?”

“Usually.”

“I shall certainly try.” I said thinking I have better things to do than watch soccer matches I’ll have to see if any of the others wish to come. Having such a large family, we create our own cheer club.

Knowing Trish was also playing always makes me concerned because she is so much younger than some of the opposition players and consequently quite a bit smaller. But like Danni, she is selected on merit and is also a useful footballer if not quite as good as our resident international. However, I fear for both of them as some of the opposition players seem so big these days. Still, I can’t wrap them up in cotton wool however much I’d like to, they have to learn how to take care of themselves as much as possible because we live in a very predatory world and those with no skills of recognition of risk or how to deal with it, could find short and hazardous.

We all decanted from the VW and strolling back to the house Danielle said, “You don’t have to come, if you don’t want to. I realise how precious your time is.”

“I shall be there because I want to be and I want to be there because my girls are playing.”

“Oh, Sister Maria asked if you got the note.”

Damn, she’ll be there tomorrow—I’d better check my diary—what was it she wanted? Oh yeah, an address to the school leavers. Why me? Let’s get a cuppa before I expire from lack thereof.

The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike, est. 2007) Part 3142 by Angharad Copyright© 2017 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.
*****

It was half past nine on a Saturday morning and we’d dropped off our answer to Beckham and Rooney at the school and the cheer squad were sitting in the car waiting for it all to start. It was fairly bright but very blowy and although not cold, we wrapped up like Christmas presents in jiffy bags, with thermal socks and wellingtons. We also had a flask of coffee for Simon and me, orange juice for the rest plus quartered oranges as well, probably enough for the whole team. After being reminded of the event, I sent Si and Danni down to Tesco to get some oranges for the team—they came back with a box of the things. Apparently, Si did a deal with the duty manager. He asked what discount he could get for buying a whole box and when he was asked why he wanted a whole box, he said for a school football game and the manager sold it to him at cost. We’ll be eating oranges all week.

About quarter to ten we emerged into the sunlight and unloaded our supplies from the boot of the car. Walking down to the football pitch we must have looked like an expedition by the amount of stuff we were carrying, including a couple of folding seats—well I’m used to the grandstands at Wembley, which are all-seater things.

We were nicely ensconced, that is Simon and I on the seats with Livvie, Hannah and Meems, standing around us and Cate sitting on my lap. They all had their school scarves and were waving them about like mad and the teams were just lining up to start. They won the toss, but I hoped that would be all they got, especially with the dynamic duo playing.

Once it settled down say, after ten or so minutes, Danni opened the scoring from the halfway line. She could see the goalie having difficulty with the sun, so she lobbed the ball high so that the goal keeper lost it against the sun, then it bounced in front of her and went over her astonished head and into the goal. Simon thought it was brilliant, I thought it was a bit unfair—but the object is to win and it broke no rules.

A few minutes later Trish was hacked down in the penalty area and she took her own kick and they were two nil up. By the end of the first half, St Claire’s were five nil up, three of which had been penalties or direct free kicks. Danni scored them all, the most spectacular being a free-kick which curled round the wall of players and went into the corner of the net without the goalkeeper moving. She was apparently unsighted by her own wall.

Livvie was busy with her camera and had used some of her inheritance to buy a camcorder which was powerful enough to catch the action on both sides of the pitch including the sounds—grunts, squeals and thuds.

We had our coffee at half time, sharing a cup with the headmistress who was in awe of Cameron field skills, mine in the woods and the two girls on a soccer pitch. The players and our supporters club shared the oranges and the juice, including taking some over to the other team, who waved their thanks.

The second half was proceeding along similar lines to the first, with two goals in ten minutes when Trish got pole axed by a large defender, who judging by her size and hairy legs, might have been a near relative of King Kong. She shrugged and walked away as Trish lay flat out on the grass. I rushed to see how she was and shouted at the referee for not penalising the defender who made little if any effort to play the ball and just body checked the smaller girl.

Thankfully, she was just winded and after a couple of minutes was able to continue, though at a much more subdued level. It was what happened next between Conan the barbarian and Danielle that was amazing.

Danni was racing up the field when a pass found her, up popped Shrek who attempted to do similar damage to Danielle as she had to Trish, however, Danielle just stopped and trapped the ball and the Incredible Hulk overshot and went arse over tip into one of her own players. Then Danni passed the ball across the goal and another St Claire’s forward got on the score sheet.

Trish did eventually recover and upon being challenged by the big defender, ran straight at her and dropped her shoulder at the last moment and laid out the bigger girl crashing into her formidable chest. This time the injured player took no further part in the match. I think Trish was also a bit hurt but she soldiered on and helped create another goal. St Claire’s won by eleven goals to nil, with my two scoring eight between them.

It was as the whistle was blown one of the parents of the losing side recognised Danielle and began haranguing the headmistress and sports teacher for playing an England international who was obviously older than the rest of the girls. I entered the fray—you know me, no one knocks my girls and survives—and put her right, saying she was only fourteen and therefore eligible to play but how old was the grizzly bear who tried to bash Trish? Apparently, all her family were big—yeah, so are Gorillas.

They had showers in school and changed back into Clark Kent mode afterwards. Trish was in a little pain but otherwise well enough to go out for lunch—Stella was watching the others—which Simon was treating us to at a local pub.

We got home mid-afternoon and I did some healing on Trish who had some nasty bruising on her shoulder. She said it felt better when I’d finished and gone off to watch Livvie’s version of the game.

With a cuppa on my desk and some clever software Sammi had recommended, I finally got to play with my plan to decorate and furnish Julie and Phoebe’s flat. Two hours seemed to fly by like it does when you’re engrossed in what you’re doing, but I had a reasonable scheme by the time David said dinner was ready.

I showed it to the two would-be flat mates and they seemed to like most of it, which I’d managed to combine mainly soft pastel colours with a couple of primary reds and blues in thin stripes on some wall paper and in abstract designs on the curtains. The carpet I’d kept relatively plain in a soft red.

Neither of these curtains or wallpaper actually existed and the cost of having them custom made is crazy. So I offered to go shopping with them next week to look at curtains, carpets and wallpaper, to see what we could get to match my colour scheme as best we could. I did say, if they went for striped walls, they could always be painted on but they didn’t seem to like that idea.

The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike, est. 2007) Part 3143 by Angharad Copyright© 2017 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.
*****

Sunday morning arrived and started off fairly bright—the problem is now with the equinox fast arriving it gets light just after six—and I did contemplate getting up early and going out on the bike. However, a trip to the loo meant I heard the wind whistling round the house and I went back to bed.

Simon, as usual, was snoring his head off and I decided I’d be better off getting up and making some tea—when in doubt, put the kettle on. It was just coming to the boil when Tom came in. “Whit’re ye daein’ up?”

“Simon is snoring reveille, or some such thing.”

He chuckled, “Aye, I heard him.” He drank a cup of coffee as soon as his machine had warmed up and we sat talking for a short while.

“Something on yer mind?” he said sipping his caffeine fix.

“I wonder if I’m really cut out to be a professor.”

“Whit for d’ye say that?”

“First off; I don’t think I’m very good at it; second, I’m not sure how much I’m enjoying it and wonder if I’d be happier counting dormice again instead of contracts.”

“Ye’re daein’ okay, an’ I’m no the only one tae think sae.”

“Who’s the other, Kiki?”

“She’s one o’ them,” he replied laughing and the dog as if recognising her name shoved her wet nose into my hand. I patted her on the head as much to dry my hand as a gesture of affection. Then the feline demon appeared and jumped onto my lap bouncing off the dog’s head en route. Kiki yelped in surprise and ran under the table, while her attacker sat on my lap and purred, rubbing her head against my boob.

“All right, I’ll feed you in a moment,” I said which got my other boob head butted by the purring pestilence. She usually sleeps on Trish’s bed—the two Napoleons of crime together—but she must have heard me coming downstairs and she loves her tum even more than she does Trish; which in my experience makes her a typical cat.

Tom went off to walk the dog while I fed the anorexic ailuros before going to my study with a fresh cuppa and a digestive biscuit. Bramble followed me and as soon as I sat down she hopped up onto my lap and began her ablutions. I pushed her off twice but she just hopped back up and eventually ran out of places to lick. After a convulsion involving her entire alimentary canal, emerging as a burp, she looked up at me, sneezed and curled up still purring.

“Would you believe I’m doing all right as a professor, kiddle,” I said to her. In reply she purred even louder and stuck her claws in my leg, in a gesture of affection—or so she’d say if asked. I said, “Ouch,” and she closed her other toes up before opening them again. She was full of food, warm and I presume comfortable. My computer eventually booted up and instead of checking emails, I went to the Guardian website and started the Everyman cryptic crossword puzzle. The only noises I could hear were the cat purring and the wind blowing a hooley so I was able to concentrate the few active brain cells I had and get stuck into the clues.

Trish came down about twenty minutes later and spotting the cat on my lap declared she was a floozy. I smirked but tried not to let her see it. She should know as well as I do by now, that cats are loyal to their own needs before anyone else’s and never to expect gratitude from one or you’ll be sadly disappointed. However, they do show affection, even if it’s probably designed to do enough to keep you on side. Having said that, if anyone is ill, she tends to come and sit with them. The question is whether she’s doing so to make them feel better or waiting for them to die and then she’d have several days of fresh meat.

While Trish stood alongside me stroking her unfaithful feline, I finished the crossword and after disturbing said moggie, we all three went into the kitchen and had breakfast, the cat cadging a drop of lactose free milk, for which she’ll sell her soul.

“Why are you up so early, Mummy?” she asked snaffling a piece of my toast and banana.

“I couldn’t sleep with Daddy’s snoring.”

“Oh, he does make a noise, can’t you stuff your ears with something?”

“What, like ear plugs?”

“Yeah, that sorta thing.”

“All I can hear then is my own heart beat, which is as bad as the snoring.”

“Oh. You could always come in with me.”

“That would disturb you.”

“I don’t mind, Mummy.”

“No, but I do and you need your sleep at your age,” I said yawning.

“Looks like you do too, Mummy.”

“Right, go up and wash and dress and you can help me do the laundry.”

“Do I have to?” she whined.

“No you don’t have to, but I thought you liked helping me?”

“All right,” she huffed, “I’ll help you,” and was gone before I could say she didn’t need to if she didn’t want to. Some days I can’t do right for doing wrong.

As she washed and dressed I collected the dirty linen and took it down to the utility room and began to sort it into whites and coloureds. She arrived in the middle of this and seeing what I was doing dug in and helped me. I Ieft her to it and went off to set up the ironing board to do some of the mound of ironing that had apparently been breeding in the basket by the door of the utility room.

“Can I do some of that?” asked Trish, ironing for her was still a novelty.

“Let me do Daddy’s shirts first and you can do some of the bedding.”

“Okay, want some more tea?”

“That would be very nice, sweetheart.”

“Okay,” she said going into the kitchen to refill the kettle and boil it.

On her own she’s as good as gold and seems to enjoy doing things with me, probably because she gets all my attention. If any of the others are about, she become competitive and tempers fray rather quickly—especially mine.

I finished the last shirt and put it on a coat hanger to go up to Simon’s wardrobe later. Then I sorted out some pillow cases and handed them to her. “There ya go, just be careful and not burn yourself or the clothing.”

“I won’t, Mummy. If I can score goals for the school, I’m sure I can do a bit of ironing without burning either myself or the pillow case. I’m not stupid you know.”

“I know that very well, young lady.”

“Did you hear that thing on the radio earlier?”

“Which thing was that, sweetheart?”

“Bristol is the happiest place to live in Britain.”

“No wonder I feel miserable down here, let’s all move back to Bristol,” I joked and she thought I was serious—took me some while to convince her it was just a jest.

The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike, est. 2007) Part 3144 by Angharad Copyright© 2017 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.
**262 dozen**

As we finished ironing so David arrived to make our Sunday lunch, he was doing a whole salmon, which have gone up in price somewhat in recent months, something to do with fish lice or other pest. Most of the fish we eat that are produced in Europe, red salmon, are farmed and when it’s all as intensive as it appears to be, it’s not surprising they get problems. But then I’m ecologist and know better than anyone about these things, the sad thing is no one ever listens when we do tell them the risks involved, then when the proverbial hits the wotsit, they complain like mad that no one advised them that whatever could happen.

Conservationists have been trying to get the use of pesticides reduced for years but the farmers ignore them as the manufacturers tell them it’s safe to continue poisoning everything in sight. Recently even the UN published a report that suggested pesticides were more trouble than good and of questionable value. It looks as if the European Commission are going to ban neonicotinoids or neonics as they tend to call them because they’re killing large numbers of bees. If they do it will be a very good day all round although farmers will complain, because that’s what farmers do. Remember everything was the fault of badgers so they instigated a cull of poor brock, it’ll probably be the fault of badgers that they can’t spray everything in sight—no wonder we see very few butterflies or other insects, they’ve all been annihilated by vandals in tractors.

When I was a kid, and had the chore of washing Dad’s car to get my pocket money, it used to take ages in the summer to clean all the insects off the front of it, nowadays there are very few by comparison and with global climate change, there should be more as the world warms up. I wonder if we’ll ever have swarms of locusts here in Britain—that’s an interesting phenomenon in itself, the migratory form, which is the form that eats everything in sight, only happens when population pressures force the new generation to migrate, which they do in their millions and they’re also larger. Then I forget, once Brexit happens, no one will be allowed into the UK so that will preclude migratory locusts as well, I presume.

I left the kitchen to David after making us both some more tea and as I did so the others arrived for their breakfasts. I wasn’t too sorry to miss the chimps tea party and went and hid in my study, only to be once again joined by Trish who settled down with her computer and finished her homework, which she then printed out on my printer. Don’t they write in exercise books anymore? We had ours inspected regularly and if the cover was manky we had to cover it in brown paper, like we had to do with our textbooks. Being more of a goat than a sheep, I covered my text books in a plastic film which was more protective than brown paper but still got told off about it because the instructions said brown paper.

When we actually checked, it said they had to be covered in a suitable material such as brown paper, so I had great enjoyment telling them to read the rules more carefully. I never could understand why I didn’t make any friends in school, though I accept I could be a bit arrogant, but just a tiny bit—well some of the others were so bloody thick, it wasn’t hard to appear as an elitist poof, which was what they called me. They were wrong then and still are.

I was far away reliving some of my minor victories in the prison camp they called a boys’ grammar school, that when Trish tapped my arm I jumped quite violently and nearly wet myself. I also gasped audibly.

“Wassamatter, Mummy?” she asked sounding quite concerned.

“Sorry, sweetheart, I was miles away and didn’t hear you approach me.”

“I did speak loudly, Mummy, you just had your ear ’oles switched off.”

“Sorry, sweetheart.” My heart was still racing.

“I wanted to ask you about this...” she showed me some geography homework she had to do and I was able to help her understand the question. They had to show how the River Nile was used and abused in Egypt. She was suitably disgusted by the thought of someone downstream drinking water containing effluent from places upstream. I found her a paper on pollution in the Nile which showed that untreated sewage was a major hazard but so were the heavy metals like cadmium which tended to stay in the mud for many years and were very poisonous. It also mentioned dioxin, one of the most poisonous substances on earth.

When I explained the paper to her she was disgusted and astonished the Egyptians weren’t all dead from drinking contaminated water. I then showed her a thing about the Nubian Sandstone Aquifer System, which is where most of the drinking water originated, at least for Cairo.

“They didn’t tell us about that in geography.”

“I had to do something on it when I was at uni, that’s how I know.”

“Yeah, but you’re not a geography—er.”

“Geographer, I think you mean.”

“Yeah, one of them. You’re a biologist, so how come you know and they don’t?”

“Perhaps they thought it was too complicated to explain all of that or just wanted to make you think about the pollution, it is a real problem and does cause problems to people in Egypt, especially the heavy metals, if the mud gets spread on the farmland.”

“Didn’t we have some potatoes from Egypt?”

“A long time ago, I think we might have.”

“I hope I haven’t heavy metal contamination.”

“Let me see.” I pretended to examine her ears and throat, “Nah, no sign of Deep Purple or Guns an’ Roses.”

“What?” she said looking mystified.

“Can’t see any sign of heavy metal.”

She still looked as mystified as before.

“It’s a joke.”

“What is, Mummy?”

It’s at times like this I remember she is only twelve and in some ways a very young twelve, not that I was any better, preferring Brahms and Beethoven to Black Sabbath and much pop music. It didn’t help me make many friends just once again made me seem elitist or a snob. I explained the joke and she didn’t find it very funny—they never are if you have to explain them.

Then to make her chuckle, I retold her the one about the photon who checked into a hotel and when asked if he had any luggage said, ‘No, I’m travelling light.’ That went over her head as well. Once I asked her what a photon was, she began to see what the joke was and laughed loudly, rushing off to tell the others. I suspect only Sammi would get it and she was up in town. Sometimes you can feel quite lonely in a big family.

The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike, est. 2007) Part 3145 by Angharad Copyright© 2017 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.
*****

The rest of the day went by much as every other, everyone looking at me to start, finish or do bits in between practically everything that gets done, except Danni, Julie and Phoebe. Danni went off to see Cindy and meet up with some other girls. It seems Cindy is more accepted than she once was by the pupils at St Claire’s. If you remember Trish rescued her at their first meeting. I have to admit that Danielle for all her football is far prettier than Cindy, who, while she doesn’t look like a boy, the hormones have helped with that, isn’t exactly very girl looking either.

Julie and Phoebe were at their flat apparently cleaning walls ready for them being painted next week. They decided they’d have plain emulsioned walls and then they could hang pictures and other wall decorations. I actually agreed with them and we were going looking for carpets next week and hopefully suitable curtains as well.

The walls will be magnolia—a bit institutional but light and just about a match for anything. I told Simon while they were out as soon as they chose the soft furnishings, we’d buy them a suite for their sitting room.

He swallowed hard, muttered something incomprehensible but agreed. I was happy to pay half of it and if he hadn’t agreed, the whole lot. Tom overheard me and offered to buy them a bed each. They were very lucky young women compared to many who hardly have anything when they move into a home.

When I told them the good news, they hugged me and squealed with pleasure, the two girls that is and asked if we could look next week with the carpets and curtains. I could hardly refuse but suggested they might like to look online to get some ideas of what they wanted and how much they were. They decided they wanted leather and rushed off to a computer to start looking. They both had come in looking tired and dirty after their wall washing activities. However, their good news had reinvigorated them more than a little.

Danielle cadged a lift back from Brenda and arrived just before the girls got back. She had homework to finish. Had I known that, I’d have insisted she did it before she went out. She shrugged and said it was only reading.

“How much reading and what sort?”

“History, a chapter.” Teenagers are either neurotic about things or so disinterested they don’t even make an apathy score. I suspect she was in the latter category and I nearly fell into the trap of asking her about it, the history they were doing, when I realised I needed to let her take a few more responsibilities for herself. When I checked on her an hour later, the book was open in her lap but her eyes were closed. She was sitting upright in bed but was fast asleep. Taking the book off her I helped her lie flat and tidied the bed around her putting the book on the chair by her bed. I’d glanced at the title and it was about political history in the Tudor period. Riveting if you’re a historian but to the average teenage girl, BORING.

I’d enjoyed history in school and the Tudor period was fascinating with Henry VII taking the throne off Richard III at Bosworth Field, near Leicester. They found the body of the loser in Leicester last year, under a car park. Henry was a paranoid psycho with a secret service to rival the Stasi, if I recall it correctly. Then his successor, Henry VIII, who shouldn’t have been king at all but his elder brother died soon after marrying Catherine of Aragon, who Henry then married only to divorce a while later.

The intrigues with Henry’s six marriages, his dissolution of the monasteries and creation of the Church of England made his reign quite eventful. His son Edward VI died young and was replaced with Mary Tudor who was Roman Catholic and the troubles that caused was awful, burning protestants who refused to recant.

Then along came Elizabeth, who was protestant and the boot was on the other foot and she terminated quite a few Catholics which led up to the Armada, an attempted invasion by Spain which failed thanks to the likes of Drake and Raleigh and the North Sea. The invasion was wrecked by a storm and those Spanish sailors who were washed up alive on the coasts of Scotland and Ireland, both still Catholic countries, were murdered by the natives and robbed.

Mind you, it’s said that the English sailors, for the most part didn’t do much better. Most of them were left to starve aboard their ships at Tilbury, because there wasn’t enough money in the exchequer to feed them. Drake and Sir Walter Raleigh are believed to have paid for food for their men out of their own pockets. The gratitude of the crown to its subjects is at times underwhelming.

Elizabeth was the last of the Tudors dying in 1603 and her crown going to the son of her cousin and rival Mary Queen of Scots, who as James VI of Scotland became, James I of England and thus began the dynasty of the Stuarts. James was described as the wisest fool in Christendom, but it was under his rule that the Authorised version of the Bible was commissioned and published, though much of it apparently was written by William Tyndale some years before. Much of the magical poetry in the King James’ version is due to Tyndale, who is regarded as second only to Shakespeare in his contribution to the English language. He was martyred in 1536 being burnt at the stake as a protestant after being captured at Antwerp.

I enjoyed my history and still do and unlike many school kids, did when I was in school. We had one teacher who used to make us read aloud from the text book and for some reason he asked me to read most weeks—perhaps he liked my girly voice. For some reason I was also asked to read the lesson in school a few times and in junior school, I went to a church school, we went to church on Ascension day and in my final year at junior school, was asked to read the lesson in church, which mean ascending the pulpit and then trying not to fall while descending the steps. Had i done so, it would have made a number of the riff-raff’s day. Yeah, I was bullied there as well for being girly, although that was a mixed school, but many of the girls were more butch than I was.

I kissed Danielle on the cheek and bid her sleep well, closing her door gently as I left. While I was upstairs I checked on the girls’ dormitory and they were all fast asleep, Bramble, tucked into Trish’s side as they both zzzzed away together—the four legged psychopath and her protector.

“Everything okay?” asked Simon coming up the stairs. I nodded my response. “I’m off to bed, completely shattered.” He had done a little bit of gardening with Tom, I’d done a couple of hours housework and been up since it got light and he was shattered—duh.

By the time I’d cleaned my teeth and slipped into my nightdress he was in the land of nod. I sighed in relief and snuggled in behind him and was soon asleep myself.

The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike, est. 2007) Part 3146 by Angharad Copyright© 2017 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.
*****

“You are an enemy of the king, Mistress Boleyn,” said the man in the fancy dress standing before me and waving his finger at me. I was very scared. “You have been found guilty of treason, and there is only one answer to treason.

I felt sick and was in danger of collapse. “You will be taken to a place of execution, one week hence and face the axe.”

“My Lord,” I heard myself say, “if I am to die, then I would ask, as a noblewoman, to meet my maker by the sword, which I believe is the custom.” Somewhere in the back of my mind I’d read that being decapitated by a sword is quicker and thus less painful than an axe.

One of the tortures they used was to place someone under a slab of stone and gradually load it with more weights gradually crushing them and death would eventually be by asphyxiation. Once it became obvious you could talk no more they’d let your family in to jump on the slab and thus hasten the end. Charming people our ancestors.

I was led from the courtroom, where the king sat aloof and ignored me, even though I’d given him a daughter who’d be far greater than him and who would reign for forty five years. So I’d had a few dalliances, or actually Anne Boleyn had, I’d never done anything to any of these people as they were all dead long before I’d been born. If he was expecting me to plead for my life, he’d be disappointed and as I knew the outcome from my history studies, I at least conducted myself with dignity.

Led back to my imprisonment, in the body of that poor woman who was a lot younger than Henry and perhaps naïve when she married, him enjoying the life she had for the thousand days before her death by execution. Was it worth it, to be the queen consort to an absolutist monarch? Or would she have been better off being courted by someone with less status and fewer demands? In hindsight probably, but we know she didn’t and she was accused of bewitching the king—she suffered from polydactylism—an extra finger on her one hand, the sign of a witch. Essentially in those days, almost any minor anatomical difference could be seen as a sign of being a witch and that tended to have a very limiting effect upon one’s life expectancy once spotted by someone looking for it or any other sign.

We should know better these days but in some African countries, people have been accused of witchcraft and killed by a mob, sometimes with what they term a necklace of fire, where a tyre is cut in half and the hollow inside filled with petrol and placed around the victim’s neck before being set alight. I really horrible way to kill someone and I suspect is probably as motivated by much more mundane motives than a genuine belief in witchcraft, such as jealousy or revenge.

We know all too well what having some anatomical discrepancy can feel like, when your mind and body seem out of synch and others then pass judgement on your appearance which in some cases may not conform very much to their stereotypical views on sex or gender. Having been bullied and abused because of this in my younger days, where I was in a position in which I couldn’t win, I had some sympathies for Anne Boleyn. I was abused because I was a feminine looking and to some degree acting boy who obviously upset some of the primitives. Then when I was made to wear female clothing for the Lady Macbeth period, I was abused by different ones for looking too female. Had I looked like a pantomime dame, then they could all have abused me for looking ridiculous. Instead some actually had the gall to ask me out—I ran away from them immediately.

Simon woke me up, I was crying in my sleep—apparently still in Anne Boleyn mode and it took me several minutes to realise what was happening and where I was. I felt relieved when I knew I wasn’t about to die but hoped for those few moments when we seemed to switch places, that she had enjoyed lying beside a decent man who wouldn’t hurt a fly unless it threatened me or the children.

He went back to sleep, he always does but I couldn’t settle and went down to drown my sorrows with a mug of tea. Sitting drinking it in the kitchen I was aware of the temperature dropping, rather it plummeted and I could feel goose-pimples forming in various places. I assumed something was paying me a visitation and hoped it was benign.

I ball of light formed before me and gradually distorted until it became the shape of a person and I immediately recognised it as that of Anne Boleyn. Was I still asleep or what?

“My lady, Catherine, I have come to give my thanks to you for your sympathy with me, might I ask you to pray for my immortal soul, so I might rest in peace?”

“Your majesty, if I may call you that, because you were a queen until your death, I don’t believe in a god so am unable to grant your request, but I offer you love and light, so that you may reach your desire and rest in peace.”

“But Madam, I was told you were an agent of the Lord God and could help me with my journey.”

“Your majesty, I’m afraid you were misinformed, but please take the love and light I offer you as they will no doubt enable you to complete your journey.” I imagined love being carried from me to her in the form of light, a rainbow of the stuff seemed to flow from me and surround her.

“Madam, you are indeed an angel and I thank you for your aid, might I do something for you before I go to my rest?”

“Please tell my daughter Billie that I love her.”

“Madam, she is here beside me, tell her yourself.”

“Hello, Mummy,” said a familiar voice.

“I love you, sweetheart.”

“I love you too, Mummy. Now I have to escort this lady to her resting place. Byeee.”

“Goodbye, sweetheart,” I said to a rapidly fading light.

I awoke some hours later, stiff and my face felt numb where I had been lying on my arm or the table. My tea was untouched. Daddy woke me up when he came to feed the dog and make his coffee.

“Whit’re ye daein’ here?”

“I fell asleep.”

“Sae I see, why no in yer ain bed?”

“I had a bad dream and came down for a cuppa and nodded off.”

That was all I was prepared to tell him. Did I actually talk to Queen Anne Boleyn and my daughter, or did I just dream it? Almost certainly the latter, except when I went to my study a little later looking for a book I wanted, the Book of Common Prayer was open at the page for the committal of a body and I knew I hadn’t used it, not for many years, it was only there because I couldn’t bear to throw it out, my father had given it to me many years ago. I gave a silent prayer for his soul too and that of my mother. Then it was up to shower and the start of another week.

The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike, est. 2007) Part 3147 by Angharad Copyright© 2017 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.
*****

Monday morning dawned and I felt tired unsurprisingly. The thought that we lose an hour’s sleep next weekend made me feel even more tired. I decided I would go to bed earlier that night, that is Saturday, and probably won’t sleep knowing my luck.

“Are you going away for Easter?” asked Diane bringing in my first dose of caffeine in a mug, albeit from tea—if I took anything stronger I’d be twitching by lunchtime.

“Hadn’t really thought about it. Danielle could be playing football, so I’ll have to keep that in mind, but there’s also the fact that we start on exams as soon as we come back and I’m not sure going off somewhere would make it any better.”

“Oh, I thought you said you had some holiday homes.”

“The thought of trying to get a flight to Menorca over Easter and then one back—no thanks.”

“You have one on Menorca? Never been there, done Ibiza long time ago.”

“Yeah, not far from Mao, the capital.”

“I thought it was Mahon?”

“In Castilian Spanish, it probably is, in local Catalonian, it’s Mao, like the chairman.”

“They have a chairman in Menorca?”

“No you dopy dick, never heard of Chairman Mao?”

“He’s Chinese not Menorcan.”

Sometimes I wondered how she managed to find her way to the office—perhaps she has a ball of wool she unravels, or does crumbs like Hansel and Gretel.

“I know that; I didn’t say he was Menorcan.”

“You implied it.”

“No I didn’t. You were so absorbed in your normal day dream world you weren’t concentrating on what I said.”

“But I cling to every word you say, bossy professor lady thing.”

“Thing?” I squawked.

“Yeah, you know what I meant, you know boss of the world type thing.”

“I don’t know about me needing a holiday but it sounds like you need one.”

“You’re right there, this place is getting me down a bit.”

“Well use my place in Menorca, we’re not going to, unless you’d rather go to Scotland. I’m sure they could find room for you at Stanebury.”

“You’d let us use your house in Menorca?”

“Diane, are you listening to what I say at all. I just stated you could if you wanted to, but you’ll have to let me know so I can contact the woman who looks after it for us, so the pool is clean and so on.”

“That would be amazing.”

“What, getting the pool cleaned?”

“No, spending Easter there.”

“In the pool?”

“Yes—no, you know what I mean. Your villa, I presume it’s a villa?”

“Yes, with four bedrooms, so you could sleep in a different bed every three days if you like.”

“Wow.”

“Before you go completely crazy, you’d better see if you can get some flights and pray that they airlines don’t go on strike like they promised.”

“Yes, generous and nice boss lady professor thingy.” She left me in peace at last. I suppose I could go there but it’s lovely when you get there, the trip to airports and waiting around at them for hours is a pain. Bloody terrorists. If Danielle isn’t playing too much we could zip up to Scotland for a few days, that would be easier, though with the little ones and no help, I could end up busier than staying at home. I could go to Bristol, happy city, according to Trish and some useless questionnaire thing they did. Most of the people I knew who lived there were grumpy buggers at the best of times. I switched on my computer and was soon answering emails when in sailed Diane.

“Got some.”

“Got some what?”

“Flights, from Gatwick.”

“The parking will cost more than the fares.”

“Ah, we have a cousin who lives about five miles away, we can leave the car there.”

“Have you booked them?”

“Why have you changed your mind?” she looked ready to collapse into tears.

“No, I just have to tell my agent in Es Cau.”

“Agent?”

“Yes, the lady who looks after things.”

“Oh yes. I’ll leave you then.”

“Yeah, go and do some work but don’t bring me anymore,” I shouted as she disappeared through the door.

I clicked into my private emails and sent one to the Balearics. Ten minutes later I received a response that she’d provide milk and bread for our visitors if they told her which they liked. I thanked her and said I’d find out.

Diane was in a daze the rest of the day, which meant she didn’t do much more than fawn over me making cups of tea and providing a hot cross bun with one of them. Oh well, it seemed to make her day so that was good and I wasn’t using it, so why shouldn’t she?

It makes me smile when I consider that you can get hot cross buns all year round in England. They aren’t hot and most I’ve eaten seemed to be of reasonable temperament so I assume the cross must relate to the bit of dough they put on the top of the glazed bit. My point is, if you can avail yourself of HCBs all year, why not mince pies which only appear a few weeks before Christmas and disappear soon after? As I’m fat enough, I shouldn’t really eat either but we all deserve little treats don’t we.

At home I mentioned to Simon that I’d offered the house on Menorca to Diane. He looked at me aghast and said he’d offered it to a colleague as well. I felt sick. “But Diane has bought her tickets and she’s so excited, I can’t pop her balloon.”

“You’ll have to,” he said, “I told Mike he could have it last week.”

“You should have told me, it’s nominally my house after all.”

“Yeah, sorry about that.”

“Could we arrange for this Mike to go to a hotel instead?”

“You want to pay for it?”

“If I have to.” Having felt so good earlier, I now felt like poo. “In future, you must tell me if you’re planning on letting someone use it. Plus I want to go there some time this spring or summer.”

“Fine, but you must stick to the rules too.”

“I will, I’ll organise a diary which we’ll need to put any dates in.”

“Okay,” he said then added, “but it’s your house, so you’ll be the only one using it.”

“What about this Mike bloke from the bank?”

“What about him?”

“You told him he could use the house.”

“Uh not quite,” he said blushing, “I told him he could take two weeks off and he said he’d book a place in the Balearics and I happened to mention we had a place out there. Then quickly added, but it’s my wife’s and she goes there to fight crime and watch dormice.”

“Garden dormice, Eliomys, there’s an article in the Mammal Review about them.”

“Oh good,” he said sneaking out of the room.

“The next time you wind me up like that, Simon darling, it will cost you.”

“I did say sorry,” he called back quietly.

“Oh no you didn’t.”

“I’m sure I did, anyway have to make a call a moment,” he said and I heard a door shutting. Bloody coward.

The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike, est. 2007) Part 3148 by Angharad Copyright© 2017 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.
*****

Another day another dollar, as they say. It also meant Diane fawning over me like she was pleading for her life, I was only loaning her my holiday home for goodness sake, not going to execute her daughter—and if I had been the way she was acting, I probably would have done the deed just to stop her.

“Diane, please, I’ve agreed you can use my villa, please stop acting so grateful and go and do some work—oh and a cuppa would be nice.”

“Huh, I’ve got better things to do than make lazy professors cups of tea,” she smirked as she went out of my room, I’m sure she did. At least she left me in peace for an hour so I could continue my plans for world domination without anyone finding out—actually, I was reading through a new health and safety policy for laboratory use by both students and staff. At times like this I wonder if they pay me enough.

My ungrateful secretary brought me in not a cuppa, but a pile more papers to read and put them on the table across the room from my desk noisily, then turned aloofly, by that I mean her nose was almost parallel to the ceiling, and off she went.

“What’s that?” I asked.

“Dunno, but it was addressed to you,” she shot back, “too busy doing my own stuff to read yours.”

“Reading mine is part of your job,” I yelled.

“No, dealing with your post is on my job description, I’ve dealt with it—it’s over there. I’m going to lunch.”

“Would you get me a tuna roll, please?”
“I’m not allowed to work in my lunch period.”

“That isn’t work,” I sighed wishing I had the old Diane back, then resolved to ignore her games, I wondered if she was on because she was acting so bizarrely. After finishing the stuff I was doing, I got up and collected my mail. She had already sorted it and I worked my way through it for the next half an hour.

I was just finishing that when the door was knocked and I called for whoever to enter. In she walked and placed a mug of tea and a wholemeal tuna and cucumber roll on my desk, with a bag of crisps.

“Thank you so much, how much do I owe you?”

“If you stop telling me off, nothing—my treat to you.”

“Telling you off—you were overwhelming me.”

“Okay, I’m sorry, but I wanted you to know how important borrowing your house is. This will be the first two week holiday I’ve had since my honeymoon, and that’s a few years ago.”

“I’m delighted to help and glad you’re going to have a good holiday. Have we got a temp in to cover you?”

“Yes, I don’t know who, but she’s coming in for the day before I go away.”

“Good idea, as long as it doesn’t put her off.”

“Why should it do that?”

“Well all the abuse you get from your irascible boss, especially about cups of tea.”

“The plan is to spend half an hour describing what she has to do and the rest of the day with her practising making your tea—not everyone likes it like dishwater.”

“They should,” I said my tongue firmly in my cheek.

“What so a tea bag lasts a whole month?”

“Exactly so, we’re very environmentally conscious here, you know.”

“That’s why we all drive round in gas guzzling Jaguars...”

I blushed as I answered, “Actually I’m using the orphanage minibus at the moment.”

“Orphanage?” she gasped.

“Yes the Cameron foundation for homeless waifs, strays and England football hopefuls.”

It took her a moment to process what I said. “Ha ha,” she said turning to the door.

“Oh and, Diane...”

“Yes, boss lady?”

“Thank you for my lunch, I do appreciate it.”

She smiled and nodded. After that we returned to a normal working relationship and got through quite a bit more work.

“Have you put in a holiday application?”

“Oh bugger, no,” she gasped clasping her hand over her mouth. “To whom do I do that?”

“Me, when you’re ready pop it in.”

“Thanks, got a bid carried away—sorry.”

“No problem, but you’re supposed to give a month’s notice, so backdate it last week.”

“Sorry—thanks, Cathy.”

I winked and went back to my room. She appeared ten minutes later with it and another cuppa, this time with two, plain chocolate hobnobs—paradise on earth. I accepted her bribery and corruption destroying the evidence in moments. I left it on her desk as I went off to collect the orphans.

“When’s Easter, Mummy?” asked Trish.

“Usually the Sunday following Good Friday, why?”

“No, what day is it?”

“Sunday,” they all said loudly before falling about laughing.

“No, what date is it?”

“Sixteenth, I think.”

“Gosh, that’s only three weeks away.”

“Yeah, so...”

“Are we going away somewhere?”

“Not at Easter.”

“What about the summer?”

“Nah too many school kids about.”

“Are we not having a holiday this year?”

“What for?”

“To relax, see the world, recharge our batteries—you know the stuff.”

“How can I recharge my batteries if you lot are with me?”

“But we’re your children...” she said her face contorting in my rear view mirror.

“Exactly,” I said desperately trying not to let my mouth betray my tease.

“Told you to leave it to me, din I?” chided Hannah.

“Where d’you wanna go?” asked Danielle.

“Dunno, Menorca?”

“Not possible, my secretary has borrowed it for two weeks.”

“What, you let her have our house?”

“Whose house?” I snapped.

“Ou—I mean yours, Mummy.”

“Right, let’s get it straight, it’s my house and I’ll loan it to whoever I want to. Got that?”

“Yes, Mummy.”

When we got home Trish apologised and I accepted it graciously. “I need to tag some more dormice.”

“Why, Mummy?”

“They’ll take my permit off me if I don’t—didn’t do any last year.”

“Have you got to do some every year, then?”

“I don’t know, sweetheart, but I’d hate to find out the hard way.”

“Can we come and help you?”

“If you want.”

“Okay, is that all we’re going to do?”

“Well if we got some of that done the first week, we could pop up to Scotland for a few days.”

“What to the castle?”

“Uh huh,” I said nodding.

“Oh,” she said and went to leave.

“What’s wrong with the castle?”

She shrugged, “Every time we go there something bad happens.”

I suppose based on her experiences that was true. We had the attack by the Russian mafia then Alice hanged herself and I was ill after that. Perhaps we’d be better going somewhere else.

“I’m sure that’s just coincidence.”

“Yeah, you’re probably right, Mummy,” she said sounding anything but convinced.

“Don’t you want to go?”

She shrugged and went off.

Oh boy, I’d sent an email to John Dunstan at Stanebury asking him to get things ready for a visit over the Easter holiday and he’d confirmed he would, could I firm up the dates?

Was it a place of sadness and bad memories? I wasn’t sure anymore about anything, I was spending too much time in my ivory tower I needed to touch base by doing some dormousing and I also needed a holiday. Oh boy.

The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike, est. 2007) Part 3149 by Angharad Copyright© 2017 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.
*****

What’s gone wrong? We’re heading towards a weekend and it might stay fine and be warmer—oh and the clocks go forward. Great, I lose an hour in bed. Just what I need.

Saturday morning loomed and I rose from bed needing a wee. It was six o’clock and nearly light, tomorrow this will be seven o’clock. I yawned and went to the loo. I slipped back into bed but worrying about losing sleep tomorrow meant I lost sleep today as well. How come it never rains but it pours?

At seven I gave up the struggle with insomnia and got up. Tom was feeding Kiki and Bramble, who decided she couldn’t wait for Trish to wake up. I made myself some tea and sat with Daddy while he poured his coffee and drank it. He’s twice my age but seems to have far more energy than I do.

“Why can’t ye sleep?”

“I dunno, got my knickers twisted about losing an hour tomorrow and lost another one just now.”

“Weel gang tae bed earlier.”

“It never works out like that does it?”

“That’s up tae ye.”

“Don’t rub it in, I feel stressed enough already.”

“Why?”

“I’ve booked Stanebury for a holiday over Easter.”

“Aye, weel there’ll be nae midges then.”

“No I’m having some specially imported so we feel at home.”

He looked at me for a moment before the corners of his mouth went up and he chuckled, “Ye’re mad.”

“I know, I was sane until I came to live here.”

“Aye weel, sae wis I, till ye cam here.”

“Oh thanks, Daddy, stick the boot in, why don’t you?”

He chuckled and the cat came along to see what was going on, settling down on my lap after looking me in the eye and sneezing in my face. That made him laugh even more. It reminded me that marine iguanas sneeze salt. If ever I go to the Galapagos Islands I’ll bring one back for our local chip shop, they’ll only have to buy vinegar then.

He eventually went off to walk the dog and I sat still while a little baggage on my lap kept me warm and purred, at least she wasn’t puddling this time, where they stick their claws in you as they pummel you to death—it does take quite a few years to die, so I believe and old age is likely to get your first, well second, it gets the cat first.

My tummy rumbled and I decided to make some breakfast before the rest of them notice I’m missing. I dropped the cat off my lap and she immediately jumped back up. The same happened three more times before she decided it was too tiring trying to keep me seated and sat on the empty chair watching me as I made more tea and then toast to which I added some mashed banana. One of these days I’ll have scrambled egg or something, but not today.

It was nearly an hour later that the first descendents descended, so to speak, accompanied by their other parent and his sister. I’d checked my emails and was busy replying to about the fourth enquiry regarding the mammal survey. Officially it was over but I still regularly got enquiries or records. Another possible sighting of a pine marten in the New Forest—at least this one gave a map reference. Might get one of our post grad students to check it out and possibly put up some trail cams.

Apparently, they’re doing this in Queensland because they keep getting reports of thylacenes, this is the so-called Tasmanian tiger, so the local university is setting out dozens of trail cams to see if they can record one. They’ve also been using them to look for snow leopards and that apparently has been quite successful.

(image courtesy of wikipedia)

“Oh there you are?” declared my husband.

“Yes, I never was very good at hide and seek.”

“What?”

“It was a joke.”

“Not a very good one.”

“You should know.”

“What?”

“I said looks like snow.”

“What?”

“Shall I get you a hearing aid for your birthday?”

“Nothing wrong with my ears,” he asserted leaving himself open to...

“No, just the bit between them.”

“Very funny.”

“Glad you thought so, would you make me another cuppa while you supervise the chimps breakfast party, I’ve another email to do.”

“It’s Saturday for god’s sake...”

“I know, which is why you’re doing their breakfast instead of me.” I smiled sweetly and he went off muttering. Mind you with Trump doing away with half of Obama’s environmental controls, I’m not sure anyone had much to smile about and Theresa May is triggering Brexit next week—life is such fun isn’t it. Just watch the EU out manoeuvre her and her team of zombies, if we’re not careful they’ll get Gibralta back or something equally stupid. As you can see I have little or no confidence in the governments of the US or UK. How long the latter will apply to us as the orange pixie, aka Nicola Sturgeon—she’s no relation to Trump is she?—is determined to break up the United Kingdom, even though they have a fifty billion pound budget deficit and rely on the rest of the UK to bail them out.

She’ll be cock-a-hoop that they’ve discovered some more oil off the Shetlands, so she’ll be able to increase her borrowing even more. I’d laugh my socks off if the Shetlands declared independence from Sturgeon—serve the one track pixie right.

I don’t know how I’d feel if Scotland did go for independence. Years ago, it wouldn’t have worried me, I lived in England, but since having visited there and knowing I come from there, has made a difference, especially as I’m a supposed Scottish noblewoman these days and I take that fairly seriously, trying to behave myself and comport myself as I should—while anyone is watching.

Wonder how we’d get on with Stanebury? Would they put a tax on absentee landlords? If it weren’t for a few things, I might even consider living there, such as the weather—it rains even more than here; it’s colder; the afore mentioned midges; no dormice and it’s run by the orange pixie, Nicola, Queen of Scots.

A horrible thought assailed me—Trump is bright orange, nutty Nicola is bright orange—both have presumably Scottish ancestry, as have I. I quickly checked in my compact mirror—phew, I wisnae gang orange.

“What are you doing?” asked husband mine as he caught me checking myself in the mirror. I looked at him carefully, he wasn’t going orange either—maybe it’s just a symptom of political lunacy—nah, can’t be that, or Mrs May would also be so as would dear Jeremy—the leader of her Majesty’s opposition, though I’m not sure if he realises this, which might explain his ineptitude and the worries that we could be stuck with a Tory government until the next millennium.

“Look at this,” I said calling up the picture of the two women politicians, May and Sturgeon sitting together.

“What am I looking for?”

“Does one of them resemble President Trump?”

“No, theoretically they’re professional politicians.”

“I meant in terms of appearance.”

“Can’t say I’ve ever seen him in a skirt.”

“I was referring to skin colour.”

“Ah, I see what you mean, the orange pixie.”

“The same.”

The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike, est. 2007) Part 3150 by Angharad Copyright© 2017 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.
*****

“I’ve spoken with Mr Dunstan.” I said to Simon as we cuddled together in bed.

“Who’s he?”

“At Stanebury.”

“What, Dunstan, you mean?”

“That’s what I just said.”

“Ah, the problem is I’ve only ever known him as Dunstan, without any form of title.”

“Well not being a silver spooner, I’m quite happy to call anyone older than me politely.”

“I’ll bet he told you to call him Dunstan.”

“When we first met he did, but I told him I was uncomfortable doing so. He understood.”

Simon chuckled quietly, “You are just too nice for this world.”

“I don’t think so—did you know hedgehogs need ninety hectares to roam over to breed successfully?”

“What’s that got to do with Dunstan? And why did you speak to him?”

“I’m planning on taking the brood up there for a few days at Easter.”

“Menorca would have been warmer,” he gently chided. Then ‘ooffed’ as my elbow met his ribs.

“You’re mistress of Stanebury now, so you may go there whenever you wish.”

“Occasionally, I think I might like to live there.”

“If that’s to escape me, I’d suggest I’m infinitely more pleasant than the midges in high summer and the cold and wet in winter. Besides with modern communication systems, you could hardly be a hermit up there these days.”

How did he know that if I did live there I’d be an eccentric recluse? “Worse—there’s no dormice up there.”

“You could always study haggis.”

“Or orange pixies,” I said quietly and he roared with laughter.

“I think they’re only ever found in Edinburgh.”

“Probably, I suspect they’re a very endangered species because if they don’t get their own way they make threats and throw tantrums.”

“I’ve seen that behaviour somewhere else,” he said almost in a whisper and I felt myself grow hotter.

“I’ve haven’t done that for ages,” I said blushing even hotter.

“It wasn’t you I was thinking of.”

“Oh, one of the kids?”

“My sister.”

“Stella?”

“She’s the only one I have to date.”

“She hasn’t thrown a wobbly for ages.”

“Oh well, one is overdue then.”

“Perhaps she’s out grown them?”

“That would imply some form of maturation?”

“Yes I know.”

“This is Stella we’re discussing.”

“Yes.”

“Leopards and spots.”

“Ah except the human brain has enormous capacity to change in terms of behavioural plasticity, setting up new pathways and all sorts of things.”

“If I knew what you were talking about, I might agree,” he said gently rubbing my nipple.

“That’s nice,” I said feeling my tummy doing somersaults.

“It is,” he said.

Half an hour later I was standing in the bathroom wiping up his goo and having a little wash and he was fast asleep. I’d probably be sore tomorrow—we haven’t done it for a while; but there was no blood so it might just settle down—it was jumping like mad.

Once you admit to feeling something physical like an itch or a pain, your body does an all over check and finds varying degrees of similar things in all sorts of places, which allow you to almost fall asleep before itching or hurting and you’re back to full wakefulness. This happened for nearly an hour according to the bedside clock before tiredness took over and I zonked.

Two hours later I was whimpering as I felt my left calf cramp and the ridiculous pain that it causes. I almost fell out of bed as I scrambled to straighten my leg, which refused to comply and with a squeal, I fell into my wardrobe with a muffled clunk. Now I was stuck as my leg was still paining and I couldn’t get myself upright and out of the pile of clothes that had come off the hangers and landed on top of me.

A light came on and a sleepy voice said, “What the hell are you doing?”

“Help me up will you, I’ve got cramp.”

“I’ve heard of corks in the bed as a prevention but never lying in a wardrobe,” he said as he pulled me vertical again. I still couldn’t straighten my leg so he hoiked me up in his arms and unceremoniously dumped me on the bed before grabbing the offending leg and massaging the painful muscles. “Relax, dammit,” he said as I whimpered in pain. Finally, his effort worked and the pain stopped and I could straighten my leg normally.

“Thank you, darling,” I said as I got up from the bed.

“How did you get that?”

I shrugged.

He yawned and got back onto bed while I went for a wee—it had nearly scared something more solid out of me and sleep was about as close as Neptune ever gets. I pulled on a dressing gown and went downstairs, the snores from the bed suggested Simon had recovered from his interruption in somnolence.

Sitting quietly with my leg still quite tender from being treated as a tough steak, I sipped my tea. He hadn’t actually said he would come up to Stanebury with us which was a slight concern. It’s his ancestral home not mine and I wondered in my sleep-deprived state if the house actually didn’t like me because of my background—lower middle class and transgender.

Then I almost laughed at my nonsense, how can a house be an entity other than in terms of being a collection of stone and mortar? However, I remembered the two visits I’d had from the grey lady or whatever they called the ghost and I apparently passed muster on both occasions. Oh this was getting silly—there are no such things as ghosts, full stop—and houses are merely constructions of various materials all of which are inanimate, so a house cannot be a living entity, any atmosphere comes from the people living there or possibly from electromagnetic energies in the environment around or under it. Convinced I’d resolved the issue and it was my husband’s house, so it was my house as well and I was going to stay there for a week or so and it had better behave or I’ll have it knocked down and a block of flats built there.

“I dinna think sae, milady,” whispered a female voice as I climbed the stairs and I went all goosebumps. To say I fled back to bed would be an exaggeration, but I didn’t hang about and Simon’s body felt warm and comforting.

The next morning I had quite a rainbow of bruising on my left calf and it was quite tender. I certainly wouldn’t be riding my bike today, being sore in the leg and somewhere a bit higher. I wondered if anyone ever got cramp there as I sprayed the shower on my still tender naughty bits.

I stepped carefully back into the bedroom after drying myself and once clad in lingerie, blow-dried my hair and finished dressing. Simon had been gone an hour or so as the radio alarm came on and all that was on the news was bloody Brexit or that bloke in the White House. I could be glad to get to work back in my ivory tower.

The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike, est. 2007) Part 3151 by Angharad Copyright© 2017 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.
*****

Despite the rigors of cramp and toppling into my wardrobe, I didn’t feel too bad when I arrived at my office. Diane was there as usual providing a cuppa within minutes of my arrival—no wonder I’m letting her borrow my villa on Menorca. Next we ran over my schedule for the week. I asked her to speak with the dormouse team and tell them I want to do some surveys with them to keep my hand in and also validate my licences—the second one being to pit tag them—the electronic devices we usually pop under the skin of dogs or cats.

I checked down the list of other licences I have, newts, water voles, bats and shrews. I’d need to remind myself of the requirements to maintain them—usually to supervise students doing small animal studies. It’s one of life’s little paradoxes that if you’re live trapping small mammals, if you catch any shrews by chance, you don’t need a licence. If however, you set out to trap shrews, you do need one, especially if you intend to take or mark them. As with dormice if any die while being examined, you have to record and report it.

For those not familiar with shrews, they’re small insectivorous animals which need to eat their own bodyweight every day. They are restless and forage practically all day and night. There are even smaller shrews, pygmy shrews, which are like the common shrews but much smaller and we also have water shrews, which are larger than the other two and as their name suggests they are found in or near water, where they dive or swim to feed. Again like the other two, they eat invertebrates like insects and worms.

Water shrews are the rarest of the three and surveys in 2003 by the Mammal Society found that they were found in all sorts of fresh-watery habitats from canals and lakes to rivers and streams. I can’t say I’ve been involved in doing anything with them but I have with water voles, which are very different as they’re a different animal entirely, a rodent which feeds on mainly vegetable matter.

Coming back to shrews, one interesting fact about them is they have red teeth, or red tips to their teeth which isn’t blood or something growing there but deposits of an iron compound which helps to harden the edges of the teeth where the most wear takes place, and chomping on worms, insects, slugs and so forth obviously takes its toll on their teeth. So if you find a small animal the cat has brought in and it has red teeth, don’t be alarmed it isn’t a vampire of some sort but a shrew.

Some shrews have the ability to produce venom, the water shrew does, which apparently can affect bank voles, but doesn’t affect humans. The venom isn’t like snake poison injected by fangs but runs through the teeth from glands under the jaw.

Interestingly, a venomous European snake, the Montpellier, carries venom in its back teeth, they occur mostly in Spain, where I’ve seen them and France. Nature is wonderful in its diversity and adaptability to new opportunities. Those species which are most adaptable tend to survive longest, those which are too specialised or least adaptable tend to perish first.

It is scientific fact that all species have one destiny—extinction. Some will continue for thousands of years possibly even millions, especially those which adapt to changing environments or which mutate into something more suited to new situations, which is how evolution occurs. Sadly those which don’t adapt or make the wrong mutation won’t last very long depending upon how permanent the changes to the environment are.

One of the best examples which every biology student in the UK knows is that of the Peppered moth Biston betularia, which is a black white spotted moth hence its common name. It has a natural variant carbonaria which is practically black. In clean air, the dark form would be seen more easily by predators, mainly birds but during the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries at the height of the Industrial Revolution in Britain, the air pollution was so bad with soot and dust in the atmosphere and laying on plants and buildings, the dark form actually stood out less than the normal form, which was then decimated by predators. However, after Clean Air Act in the 1950s the air pollution in Britain was reduced dramatically in terms of soot from coal fires, so the dark form was once again more visible to predacious birds and things had gone full circle in showing natural selection in progress.

I’m tempted to ask if an example of this might be shown in the current ascendancy of apparently orange skinned humans in some places of political power in the Western democracies. Perhaps in a hundred years or two some anthropological researcher will demonstrate whether the orange colouration had some biological advantage or disadvantage, if the former it would increase if not then a decrease would be expected.

One of the advantages of biological sciences is how they be applied to any living or once living thing, even fossilised politicians such as the UK House of Lords or the US Senate. I’m not sure I’d want to do a study of either place, the smell of mothballs or other preservatives would irritate my nose.

A mound of paperwork was dealt with in between cups of tea and the afternoon was filled with a meeting of my examinations committee, a process I found tedious but necessary. Each subject obviously has to devise a paper of questions for their examinees to take. They each have their own committee to agree the subjects and the questions they will ask. Once drafts are created, a second is done, just in case something happens to the first such as a leakage. It does happen and it could invalidate any of the papers which were leaked. So we adopt a level of security which I like to think we use right through the examination process, including the marking and awarding of marks or in the case of final exams, degrees.

To listen to the media, people with degrees are two a penny or the degrees aren’t worth the paper they’re printed on. Don’t you believe it, to our students, who have worked diligently for them, they are extremely valuable—they’ll have paid somewhere in excess of twenty seven thousand pounds for a three year course. To us as the examining and awarding body, we take it all very seriously as well. We’ve invested lots of time teaching and testing each of our students. Some will fall by the wayside en route, it happens. For some you feel very sorry, occasionally enough to give them another chance if extenuating circumstances can be identified. They can resit exams if they fail them, but if they did really badly, it may just indicate they were on the wrong course or not interested. We’ll help anyone who brings difficulties to our attention, sadly some don’t and fail but who might have scraped through if only they’d told us about their problems.

At quarter past three, I was grateful that I had to collect my offspring from school, as I suspect the rest of the committee were. We meet again after the exam results are known to evaluate the outcomes. I suppose it keeps us in jobs.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peppered_moth

The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike, est. 2007) Part 3152 by Angharad Copyright© 2017 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.
*****

“You look tired, Mummy,” observed Danielle.

“If you’d sat through two hours of an examiners’ meeting, you would too.” I said back to her. Am I really doing the right job? I thought to myself. Then people say how good I am at it or how nice it is to work with me and I wonder if they’re telling the truth, or are they just being polite?

“Isn’t that better than sitting the exams, Mummy?” asked Livvie, ever the pragmatist.

“My staff and I work harder than any of our students throughout the year,” I declared believing every word of it as true.

“Yeah but you’re getting paid for it.”

“Remember, in order to be on my side of the exam paper, I had to pass exams too, which involved three years of my initial degree plus three more of the second and several more for my doctoral one. I’ve paid my dues, too you know.”

“But you know the answers to the questions, so sitting the exams would be easy-peasy.”

“Liv, we have to construct the question so it gives our students a chance to show what they know and how they interpret it. Then we have to devise a marking plan for scoring the answers. That’s all agreed by a committee. Then we have to invigilate the exams, mark them, second mark any unusual marks or answers. Notify the students of their marks and meet again to discuss and evaluate the results. The students sit the papers and clear off pretty well as soon as they finish them, usually to a week or two of parties.”

“Don’t you go to any of the parties?” asked Hannah.

“Bet they don’t have jelly and ice cream,” said Trish dismissively.

“I don’t particularly like parties,” I told them.

“I do,” said Danielle and the others agreed.

“What’s wong with parties, Mummy, don’t you wike pwaying games?”

“They don’t have games, you dummy, they sit around getting sozzled.” Trish rounded on her sister.

“I’m not a dummy, you a dummy.”

“Hey, no fighting,” I instructed, “there are games but not the sort you play, except unconsciously. There is sometimes dancing, sometimes food and sometimes people sit around and talk.”

“Don’t you wike dancing, Mummy, I wuv it.”

“I’m not very good at it, Daddy is. I don’t drink much alcohol, so not interested in that either, and unless it’s a good dinner party with excellent guests, I’d rather stay at home.”

“What’ so special about the guests, Mummy?”

“If they’re not very interesting, it would be like any ordinary party, full of boring morons that I wouldn’t normally speak to, and after a few drinks they’re even more moronic. So I’d rather stay home.”

They all laughed, probably the word, ‘moron’. It does tend to invite ridicule of the person it’s used to describe. That took me back to a sketch I saw years ago, probably from, Not the Nine O’Clock News. In it President Reagan had given a speech and the crowd was calling for more. More, Ron,’ they were calling and as the speed of it picked up... It tickled my funny bone. I suppose it could have been the cartoonist in the Guardian. I can’t remember.

“You’re a snob, Mummy,” said Danielle, hitting the nail squarely on the head. “We’ve been looking at ‘Desiderata’.”

“Oh Max wassisname’s poem.” I replied thinking it was years since I had read it and at first reading it seems amazing, then on further consideration is full of platitudes and contradictions. Suggesting you avoid the noisy but listen to the ignorant because they have a right to their opinion—then kill ’em. That last bit might be mine.

Danielle bored us all the way home telling her younger audience that Max Ehrmann was such a wonderful writer. I preferred the writings of his contemporary, Robert Frost who I learned recently was a good friend of the English poet Edward Thomas, and in fact Frost’s poem ‘The Road Not Taken,’ was inspired by a series of walks Frost took with Thomas, where Thomas agonised and dithered about his future. There was a programme on Radio 4* about it, or about Thomas and his nature writing—he was very fond of the English countryside and wrote extensively about it. Naturally I enjoyed it (no pun intended).
Thomas is often classified as a War Poet because he was killed during the First World War. Quite why he joined up, I don’t know, because he was aged thirty six and with wife and family and could have avoided it. Instead he was shot during the battle of Arras in 1917. In fact Thomas began life as a critic and book reviewer and it was suggested that it was Frost who told Thomas his prose was like poetry and he should try writing poetry with the same rhythm. It’s also suggested, Frost’s poem caused Thomas to enlist as he took the meaning personally and stopped dithering.

Life is cruel at times, the news is filled with stories of hate and malice from the use of poison gas in Syria on civilians, including children, twenty eight of whom died, to a lorry being driven into a crowd in Sweden. How people can even consider these actions let alone carry them out, sickens me. It’s designed to outrage me and promote anti-Muslim feelings apparently strengthening the resolve of those who wish to support various terrorist groups including ISIS, presumably by some sort of reverse psychology. Mind you, the radicalisation of mainly loners by these terror organisations is at time seemingly, quite clever and being lone wolf killers are very hard to predict or intercept. The sad thing is they are usually people who were either born in the country they attack, but to foreign parents; or had lived there for many years.

I suspect they are very sad individuals who have a chip on their shoulders about the size of a house and who blame their own inadequacies on everyone else. This is seized upon by the terrorist recruiters and they groom them, encouraging the hate presumably with the opportunity to hit back at their enemies.

I accept that sometimes individuals have received racist or religious abuse from the natives in their locality, probably as children, which probably shows why racism is a crime and the effects it can have on, especially, young minds. It’s so easy to insert a negative into someone’s life and very difficult to remove it. My one to one tutorials sometimes brought up negative feelings which prevented, especially female students, from succeeding because some significant adult, usually a parent, had told them they were wasting their time at university and they were too dumb to succeed. Occasionally, I was able to help them see the falseness of the statement and to overcome it; in others, I suspect a significant minority, they went on to see the negativity as a self-fulfilling prophecy and left the university without a degree, probably to go anddo something else and fail at that, too.

* ‘In search of Edward Thomas.’ http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08kxyks

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Thomas_(poet)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Frost

The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike, est. 2007) Part 3153 by Angharad Copyright© 2017 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.
*****

“Mummy, doesn’t do parties,” announced Trish at dinner, swishing her hair back in an affected style. “Unless it’s a dinner party with interesting guests.”

“Don’t blame her,” said Stella before consuming a small new potato.

“Ha,” exclaimed Simon, “you were always out at parties.”

“So were you,” she shot back, showing some cabbage stuck to her front teeth.

“Yeah,” he said dreamily, “I suppose I was.”

I immediately felt guilty though at the same time knew I was protecting his liver. His way to enjoy a party is to not remember any of it. Hardly useful behaviour and certainly not one I’d like the children to copy because their dad does it.

“You look like you miss them,” observed Stella while I continued to sit and blush.

“Me? Nah, that was when I was young and beautiful...” at this the girls fell about laughing. “Hoy, I was young once, ya know.” That led to a second bout of amused convulsions. “I’m far happier now with Cathy and the girls.”

As he said that he looked at me and beamed, I blushed and smiled back—no wonder I love this man—when he isn’t acting like a total prat. While I cleared the dishes, helped by Hannah and Trish—Livvie doesn’t do domestic chores—her dad’s a lord; I spoke to Trish about her disclosure of me not liking parties.

“Well, that’s what you said. You didn’t say it was confi-whatever.”

That was true, I hadn’t. “Confidential.”

“Dat’s da one,” she said doing a very poor impression of a gangsta before disappearing saying something about homework. I had some of that myself; mind you, I always seem to these days.
It was Saturday at last and Russia has condemned the US for bombing Syria. Pots and kettles, but it ups the ante somewhat and according to the news, Russia has sent a cruise missile carrying frigate to the coast of Syria. I hope this is posturing on both sides rather than hostilities. Putin and his crew, a right bunch of pirates, are a wily lot so Trump, a tyro at this sort of exercise will have to watch what he says or does. As one of his retired generals said this morning, ‘bombarding somewhere with cruise missiles is not something you should do when you’re angry.’

I got out of bed after switching off the radio alarm. There was some reading I had to do and now while it’s quiet, helped by a cuppa, was as good a time as any to do it. Sitting at the table with my little pile of paperwork, I was making good progress, when Daddy walked in with the dumbest spaniel in England. She had the canine equivalent of a black eye—she ran into a tree—even I usually see those, except when I’m dormousing. I usually wear a hat to help the occasional collision between scalp and trees. The only problem with that is you can’t always see branches which are obscured by the brim of the hat.

It also means I don’t need sunglasses when I’m out and about in woods and which can be a real nuisance when birding. You have to remove them to see through binoculars or telescopes. However, on one occasion I didn’t see the branch coming at me at a rate of knots and I knocked myself out. Talk about seeing stars, I think I had more going round my head than one of Brian Cox’s estimates for their numbers. Still as a particle physicist, he knows his stuff and usually leaves us non-mathematicians well behind.

I bathed the dog’s eye and she went off to lie down—she is getting on a bit. I know the feeling some mornings. “Whit fa, er’ ye up?” Sometimes it’s like talking to Yoda—about the same age, too, though haven’t seen Tom lift up a space craft by will power, not yet anyway.

“I’ve work to do.”

“Whit sort o’ work?”

“Usual stuff,” I pointed to the pile on the table.

“Put it awa’ and spend some time wi’ yer children.”

I blushed, “I will when I’ve read this lot.”

“Dae it when ye’re back in work.”

I don’t like being told what to do, even by people as nice as Daddy. “I will as soon as I’ve finished reading it.”

He went to take it off me but I swept it up and away from him. “Catherine, dae as I telt ye.”

I blushed furiously. I’m not a child and therefore no one speaks to me like that. “Daddy, I don’t wish to fall out with you, but I’m a big girl now and make my own decisions. If I need help, I’ll call you.” I rose from the table and went to my study and shut the door. I don’t know if he said anything, if he did I didn’t hear it, mind you I was running on anger. It was only when I got to my study I realised how angry I was. He was treating me like a little girl. I’m thirty three years old, I have a dozen children and I’m a professor of biological and other sciences—I do not need someone to tell me how to behave or what to do, whatever their motive. I am an autonomous unit, to wit, an adult.

In the end he got his way, I was too angry to concentrate to read and put the papers back in my bag. I sat and fumed. Was it time to find our own place leave him to stew in his own juices? With Julie and Phoebe moving into their new flat at Easter and Sammi, spending more time in London than at home, it could be a good time as we wouldn’t need such a big place.

Then I thought about the last time he thought I was going and it devastated him. I don’t know how much longer we’ll have him, but I suppose I should be grateful, he has been steadying influence in my life, more so than my natural father ever was.

I calmed down and when I returned to the kitchen, Simon was supervising the Mongol hordes over their breakfast. If he’d only known about microwaveable porridge, Genghis Khan would have conquered the entire world. Instead, we had Simon, who did know about it—but not very much about microwaves and Livvie had to show him what to do. There are instructions on the box, on each sachet and common sense tends to explain many things quite adequately, however for anything else, there’s mastercard. See, advertising has no effect on me whatsoever.

Tom avoided me for the rest of the morning but had to socialise with me at the meal. This was roast chicken with all the trimmings and David had just arrived to sort it out, which is better than leaving everything to one person, usually me.

He spoke to me as if nothing had happened and I played along but I hadn’t forgotten and the next time it happens, he’ll regret it.

The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike, est. 2007) Part 3154 by Angharad Copyright© 2017 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.
*****

I talked with Simon in bed that night saying that I resented Tom trying to control me.

“That’s a bit exaggerated isn’t it, control you?”

“Well that’s what it felt like.”

“He cares about you, that’s all.”

“It felt more like just because I’m a woman, I’m there to do what he wants.” I played the feminist card expecting Simon to shoot me down, he didn’t quite.

“No that’s my job.”

“What to do his bidding?” I played thick—my natural state.

“No, you to do mine, little wifey.”

“Dream on you sporran basher, just because you can now make instant porridge doesn’t give you claims over me, you know.”

“Damn, I thought it did—it’s the only reason I fed those awful brats of ours.”

“If you hadn’t they’d have eaten you instead.”

“Hadn’t thought of that, come to think of it, they were giving me funny looks as if deciding how long I’d take to cook at regulo 5 or whatever.”

“No they’d have fallen on you and eaten you alive.”

“What like mosquitoes?”

“Mosky toes? No they’d have eaten all of you, except the bones and probably the fat—so actually they might have left quite a bit of you—enough to bury or run an oil lamp for a few months.”

“Gee thanks, now I know you only want me for my blubber.”

“I’m not Japanese, besides I’m not into cannibalism, especially with someone from the upper classes, they’re so interbred it could only lead to either indigestion or Creutzfeld Jakob disease.”

“Interbreeding—huh! I’ll have you know my grandparents were from different families.”

“What different clans?”

“No, different families. My grandmother was my grandfather’s sister’s sister.”

“He married his sister?” I gasped.

“Or that might have been Tutankhamen, I frequently confuse the two.”

“How could you confuse the two?”

“He sailed a boat around the pharaohs or so he said.”

“You don’t perchance mean the Faroe Islands, do you?”

“Ah—good point. I never quite recovered from learning of camels as ships of the desert and used to think of Grandad sailing round Akhenaten on his camel.”

“In his kilt no doubt?”

“Did Akhenaten wear kilts then?”

“Doubt it, unless he was a Campbell.”

“Oh Glencoe and all that?”

“Aye, lassie, oor memories go back frae centuries.”

Wondering if the porridge had finally had an effect I simply said, “What?”

“What were we talking about, can’t remember.”

At this point I decided I would either laugh or kill him, the latter would probably be messier, so I laughed and so did he and then he...but you don’t need the graphic details.

“I see Boris has cancelled Russia,” said Simon, the next morning, reading my Observer.

“How can you cancel Russia—great idea but not without some personal risk, especially with, half naked Putin wrestling bears or perhaps they were large jelly babies, you know those things the kids like that they make in Germany.”

“What Haribo or whatever?”

“That’s the one, see you can remember.” I certainly could, the slight soreness somewhere would remind me all day.

“Remember what?”

“No it’s Cameron these days unless I’m working.”

“You lied to me, you said your name was Catherine.”

What d’you say to a statement like that? I ignored it, I’ve had plenty of practice. We were still at breakfast when David came in.

“Tea anyone?” he asked filling the kettle, so we sat talking for another half an hour—I could have done the crossword in that time except Simon had his elbow on the newspaper the whole time.

“Have you organised any dormouse surveys, Mummy?” asked Danielle.

“I asked Diane to send an email round to all my survey leaders on Friday, so won’t have any answers yet.”

“Can I come, I quite enjoy doing them.”

“Of course you can, sweetheart. Has Trish said anything?” She usually comes.

“Only about ticks and Lyme disease.”

“Trust her. The risks are very small especially if you wear long trousers and tuck them into your socks.”

“Well I was hardly going to wear a mini skirt was I?”

“I wouldn’t recommend it in woods with thick undergrowth, if your knickers caught on the brambles it could get very draughty.” Simon spluttered tea everywhere as I dropped this pearl of wisdom, or was it Wisden?

Simon went off to shower—again—and guess who got the job of washing his soiled clothing. Now if only he’d done what I asked, which was to wash the cars, it wouldn’t have happened. He brought the dirty stuff down and I chucked it all in the washing machine along with a few other bits and pieces. It was warm and sunny and would dry on the line in no time. Had I not been sore I’d have considered a bike ride. I just hoped Danni or one of the others didn’t think of it, especially Simon, he loves to tease me, though I do get my own back, usually.

Stella had taken her two out for a walk, which was as rare an event as a sunny bank holiday—they’d taken Kiki, who although she’d been for one walk with Tom already, didn’t turn down a chance of another. I did offer to walk the cat, but Bramble wasn’t interested.

Simon went off with the newspaper and I did some housework and then some more emails when no one was looking. I noticed Tom was skulking into his study, so he was still working, but that and a bit of gardening is all he does. He does less in the way of putting the girls to bed because he said they were too old for bedtime stories or for him to supervise them getting changed into their pyjamas. He was probably correct on both counts but I hate to think they’re getting older and moving towards independence.

Next weekend, Julie and Phoebe are moving into their new flat. We did manage to find some new curtains and carpets and Danielle and I helped them hang the curtains—they looked really good with the new carpets. No wonder I’m behind with everything, I’ve hardly had any time to myself. After dinner, I was going to pop out for a walk on my own. I’d sneak out through the orchard and have a wander through the fields that Tom also owns—he’s an astute purchaser and while I know he bought them to stop building, even if they were compulsorily purchased he’d make quite bundle. A local farmer rents them and when I went for my walk, there were sheep in the field.

I love this time of year, everything in bud or just starting to leaf, with the early flowers under the trees sucking up the sunlight as quickly as they could to get their life cycle over before the oak trees come into full leaf and shade them out. The bluebells were just starting as well, another week or so and the place will be full of their perfume and buzzing bumble bees. Goodness it’s Easter next weekend, so that means today is Palm Sunday. See education is never lost—sadly neither is the conditioning by religion.

The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike, est. 2007) Part 3155 by Angharad Copyright© 2017 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.
*****

“Where have you been?” demanded Simon, “we’ve been looking all over for you.”

“I went for a walk, why?”

“You should have told someone.”

“Why should I? I’m a fully grown adult, I don’t need permission to go out.”

“Lizzie doesn’t look very well, and Dunstan phoned, asked to call him back.”

“Why couldn’t you deal with Mr Dunstan?”

“He said he wanted to speak with you, so I told him I’d get you to call him back.”

I went and saw to Lizzie, who was teething and after a dose of calpol, she calmed down and went back to playing with her dollies. I left her in the care of Mima, who was teaching her how to design dresses or something.

I made some teas and snuck off with mine to the study and called John Dunstan. He warned me that the weather over the Easter holiday was going to be mixed and cooler than down here—I began to wonder if I’d made a mistake in opting to go to Scotland. Diane had already left to go to Menorca and I had to get things organised here.

Speaking to the girls, I enquired who wanted to come with me to Scotland. Danielle immediately said yes, so did Hannah, who’s never been there before. Trish shook her head, ‘Not gonna get myself killed,’ she muttered and walked away.

Mima wasn’t that interested and Simon said he wasn’t coming, too bloody cold. It was going to be a degree or two cooler than down here—so much for ancestral home. Much to my astonishment when I thought I was going to have to cancel, Stella said she’d keep an eye on Trish and Livvie and the others. She knew of someone who was looking for work and could help her. I asked who it was and it was Janet, one of the nurses at the unit who’d discovered a major problem with her car and needed two or three hundred in a hurry to pay for it. As I’d met the woman, and she seemed reasonably friendly, I told the remainers what was happening and they had a last chance to come with me. They stood firm, so I’d be travelling to Scotland with just the two girls. I sent them up to list what they wanted to take and to remember we’d be going up by plane so they’d have to travel fairly light—I didn’t fancy driving all the way from the south coast to the middle of Scotland—it would be a very long drive both ways.

I then went on the net to book the flights only to find there weren’t any. Oh there were plenty of flights but none to Perth, the links from Glasgow weren’t operating over the holiday. Oh just bloody wonderful. I now had to make a decision and called the two girls to my room. Hannah was really excited about staying in the castle and Danni was winding her up.

“There are no flights.”

“What?” gasped Hannah, “So we’re not going then?”

“I didn’t say that, what I said was there are no flights, so we either have to drive up or not bother.”

“Let’s drive,” she said.

“It’s a really long drive, and will take all day to get there and another to get back.”

“You okay with that, Mum?” asked Danielle, who is becoming a really thoughtful young woman.

“I’m prepared to do it if you both still want to go.”

“Take my iPad, watch the DVD in the car, I’ll manage—I mean, we’ll stop on the way, won’t we, for toilets and food?”

“Yes, even Daddy couldn’t hold his bladder that long.” They both laughed and said they wanted to go.

I’d take my Jaguar. Now that was sorted I advised them to pack a couple of sweaters or cardigans because it was going to be cooler up in Scotland and to also pack their walking boots and a waterproofs. They all have waterproof anoraks and over trousers. I also told them to pack their backpacks and water bottles. Hannah was now buzzing, “It’s like going on a hexpidishun,” she declared.

Danni went off to charge all the electronics she’d be taking, camera, iPad, iPhone, iPod along with a case full of mascara and other makeup. I went and checked my camera, my binoculars, telescope and phone and looked out some clothes to pack including my own waterproofs, which are all Gortex, plus my Barbour jacket, which I always took everywhere in this country. I’m not much into designer labels, but they do make some good stuff even if it’s expensive—it lasts for years, though it with my matching hat does tend to make me look like one of the horsey-set or the squire’s wife—which up there, I suppose I am.

Simon came up while I was laying stuff on the bed. “You must be bonkers going up there this time of year.”

“I need a break.”

“So go to the hotel for a week, get yourself pampered.”

“The girls want to go to the castle, Hannah’s never seen it before.”

“You won’t get all that in your case on that little plane.”

“It’s not operating over Easter.”

“You’re not driving?”

“Got it in one, husband dear. Now shift over, I need the space.”

“You’re driving? It’s five hundred miles.”

“My Jag could do with a good run.”

“Good run, you’d be quicker doing the 24 hours at Le Mans.”

“Rubbish, I can do it in about eight hours, even with two or three stops.”

“Sooner you than me—oh, Jacquie just phoned, she’ll be home over the holiday and will help with the others.”

“Good, buy her a nice Easter egg.”

“Isn’t she a bit old for chocolate?”

“Not if it’s made by VW.”

“I didn’t know they made chocolate.”

“They don’t.”

“So what are you on about?”

“She needs a new car.”

“Oh, I suppose I could get her a cheap loan.”

“Simon Cameron, you cheapskate—Julie wanted a new car and you got her a Jaguar and all she does is cut your bloody hair. Jacquie is an unrecognised workhorse here and has to make do with a beat up old Focus.”

“All right, I’ll see what I can do—what sort of VW does she want?”

“A Golf or something a bit better to get her back and fore to Bournemouth.”

“I thought she was going to Winchester?”

“She’s been accepted to do forensic anthropology at Bournemouth.”

“Why can’t she do it here at Portsmouth?”

“We don’t do it for starters and besides would you want to attend the same university that your family effectively run?”

“Who’s paying for that—her course, I mean?”

I rolled my eyes. “How much is that going to cost?”

“Does it matter?”

“Yeah, it does.”

“About 30k.”

“Same as a new Golf. Okay, I’ll get one sorted for her.”

I stopped my packing and kissed him, “Thank you, darling.” A moment later he pushed me down on top of my clothes on the bed.

“Mum, which of these should I...oops, uh sorry,” the door closed again and Simon and I collapsed laughing in each others arms.

“Every bloody time...” he sighed and shook his head. Poor Danielle, she’s probably still blushing.

The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike, est. 2007) Part 3156 by Angharad Copyright© 2017 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.
*****

263 dozen for our dodecaphiles (or a dozen 263s).

Despite Danielle nearly dying from acute embarrassment at her parents kissing and cuddling on the bed—on top of my clothes, and their subsequent ironing—we managed to leave the next morning almost on time. The amount the two girls packed into the boot made me wonder if the front wheels would actually touch the road, but they did and I managed to shut the hatch back. Before we packed I borrowed the dog guard to put across the back seat in case we were involved in an accident, things flying from the back seat have been known to kill or injure people in the front ones. So everything was stowed safely, the tank was full of fuel—Simon, bless him, had filled it for me while I started ironing the clothes he’d helped me crease by lying on them. Sometimes we have genuine teamwork.

David had come over early and made us a packed lunch and also made us eat a cooked breakfast. After stuffing bacon and egg, fried bread, mushrooms, sausages, tomatoes and toast I almost felt like going back to bed to sleep it off. Instead I finished packing the car and loaded the flask of boiling water, teabags and milk into a plastic box secured to the floor behind Danielle’s seat. There were tears as two or three others now perhaps regretted their decisions to stay behind, but we held firm and hugged and kissed them before departing at seven o’clock.

We missed some of the local rush hour but caught up with it further on as we worked our way towards the M25 and then the M1. The M25 was heavy with traffic and we at times crawled along with another four lanes, heading clockwise in our search for the M1. It was about ninety minutes later that we found it and we stopped at some services between St Albans and Luton for a wee, a walk and some refreshment. I topped up the fuel tank with diesel and we set off again. This time Hannah snoozed in the back of the car while Danni and I chatted and she programmed the sat nav, which I normally ignore but on such a long drive decided I’d use but just in case I had a map and compass as well.

Like many luxury cars, Jaguars have their own built in sat nav system but I left Danielle to play with it which essentially was putting in our own post code and that of Stanebury. A route emerged and I agreed it was probably the shortest, so up the A3 we went to the M25 thence to the M1 and here we were at the services eating a sandwich and drinking coffee at nine o’clock in the morning.

Motorway driving is said to be the safest, except when accidents do happen, they’re often serious as my own experience would testify. It was Wednesday and tomorrow was deemed to be the most busy day on the roads when everyone who owns a car in the whole universe tries to get into Devon and Cornwall at the same time, with tailbacks out past Saturn—I suppose they could check out Enceladus and see if there is anything living there or if it’s still waiting for it all to happen.

To be honest, we still don’t know how life began on earth, well except those who believe in creationism—they have certainty, it’s total hogwash, so I suppose I have certainty as well, but not in how life started. The two main ideas are that it began spontaneously somewhere in the sea, possibly near a geothermal vent. The second is that it was seeded from outside by something like a comet—many of them crashed into earth in the early years of the universe, which started about two billion years before earth formed, the latter being about 4.6 billion years ago at most recent estimates. They also think life might have started earlier than originally thought, possibly as soon as a billion years after formation.

Lunch was taken near Leicester and Danni sent David a text to say his packed lunch was delicious. She got one back saying he was glad. Next stop was at Leeds and then we crossed to the M6 and headed towards the Lake District and finally the M74 in Scotland.

At our stop for fuel and a snack near Glasgow, I called Mr Dunstan and told him where we were, he told me all was ready and he looked forward to seeing Danielle and me again—he’s a lovely chap and so helpful. After visiting the loos, we were off again and it was now early evening. I admit I stopped more often than I would have done on my own, so it has taken longer, but we were on the last quarter of the journey now—thank goodness.

Up the M9 towards Stirling, where James I (VI of Scotland) lived for a while, then across to the M90 and Perth, from there we had about half an hour to go to Stanebury. Hannah was moaning before we got to Perth, wishing she’d stayed at home, Danielle just looked across at me and smiled knowingly. I had told them it was a long drive.

Once the castle was sighted, Hannah’s whingeing turned to wonder and she couldn’t wait to see inside. I couldn’t wait to get a fresh cuppa and get out of this, albeit luxurious, tin box on wheels.

Mr Dunstan made a real fuss of us and while I sat and chatted with him over a delicious cup of Twinings, Danielle showed her sister over the castle, she came back suitably impressed and was glad she’d come and couldn’t understand why Trish and Livvie hadn’t. Danielle did try to explain that the first time Trish had come, they’d nearly been killed and the second time a young lady named Alice had killed herself because of bullying by her father. Hannah had some experience of that from her father, who if you recall got flattened by Simon and I in fact had also knocked him down when he attacked me in a lay-by as I helped Hannah and Ingrid escape his control.

Hannah seemed unmoved by Danielle’s stories and said she thought the castle was ‘awesome’. Trish might differ and call it awful. For a week or so, I’m going to call it home and trust it and our host, Mr Dunstan, to look after us for the period.

“It’s not haunted is it?” asked Hannah at bed time.

“Not as far as I know,” replied John Dunstan. She looked at me for reassurance and I nodded my agreement with Mr Dunstan. Danielle went off to bed an hour later and I sat by the log fire in the study and finished my wine. I would sleep like a top, I was very tired and the alcohol had already made me feel sleepy. I put the fireguard in front of the hearth and went to bed, slipping into the arms of Morpheus within a few minutes.

The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike, est. 2007) Part 3157 by Angharad Copyright© 2017 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.
*****

I’m not sure what woke me up but for a moment I was completely disoriented. I lay there in pretty well total darkness wondering why I woke as my bladder wasn’t uncomfortable, which is usually the cause of nocturnal arousal.

Looking at my little digital alarm clock, which has its own light, I saw it was two o’clock and as dark as a black coffee. I lay down again and was snuggling under my duvet when I heard a noise. A scratching noise. I sat bolt upright. My first thoughts were rats or mice but it was coming from the area by the bedroom door. Switching on the bedside light I crept out of bed and popped my slippers on, then arming myself with a wooden coat hanger—okay, so not the best of weapons but it was short notice and the best available.

I crept to the door and yanked it open raising the coat hanger as I did so...a large tabby cat with tail raised high, purped and walked into the bedroom, rubbing itself against me as it did. I simply stood there in astonishment as the thing purred its way to the bed and hopped up onto it and began washing itself.

Feeling a bit of a wally, I quietly closed the door and replaced the hanger in the open wardrobe before making my way to the bed. The cat made another fuss of me and settled down at the foot of the bed. I cautiously got in pulled up the bedclothes and snuggled myself down after turning off the light. Apart from a gentle purring and slight movement on the bed from the self laundering feline, it was quiet and before long I was asleep again.

I awoke properly about six and found the cat tucked into the back of my legs, so when I stretched it purped again and began walking all over me. It reminded me of Trish with Bramble, usually the cat doesn’t move until Trish wakes up and they often come down together. When I turned over and tried to go back to sleep, it sat on my hip purring loudly. I wasn’t going to sleep anymore in any case, so I lay there refusing to allow a cat to outwit me. It was a lost cause, ten minutes later after it did a clog dance up and down my body I had to get up, either to kill it or simply stop the terpsichorean assault with purring accompaniment.

At six thirty I was sitting in the kitchen waiting for the kettle to boil while my furry companion feasted on the pouch of cat food I’d discovered in the pantry. The Aga kept the kitchen warmish—okay, it took the chill off the room—and I sat there watching the cat swallow down the food while purring. How can they do that, swallow and purr without choking themselves? But it did, then it went to the door pulled it open and disappeared through the cat flap, mission accomplished.

I went and showered and dressed and it was still only quarter past seven, so after drying my hair I went for a walk outside binoculars in hand. It was a fine but cloudy morning and I bumped into Mr Dunstan as he came back from walking his two dogs, a springer spaniel and jack Russell. He seemed surprised I was up and about and immediately offered to make me some breakfast. I told him I like a little walk first so he said, ‘half an hour then?’. I nodded and he went in while I walked around the upstairs gallery looking out over the walls especially up towards the direction of the Cairngorm National Park.

Stanebury is situated between Dunkeld and Pitlochry, just off the A9 and you can see the mountains in the distance. I looked out towards them with binoculars and was pretty sure I could see an eagle, probably a golden one and if so the crow after it could be a raven. I watched the interaction for a few minutes until they both flew too far away and then returned to the kitchen where a sleepy Danielle was talking to a yawning Hannah.

“There you are, Mummy, where’ve you been?”

“I just went for a little walk.”

Mr Dunstan appeared with a tray laden with plates of bacon and eggs and rack of toast. The girls tucked in, scoffing everything in sight as ate mine more sedately and Mr Dunstan asked if he might dine with us.

“Please do, this is an informal visit and I’d hate to think of you eating outside in the butler’s pantry alone.”

“You’re very gracious, your ladyship.”

I glared at him and he winked. “I take it it was you who fed the cat, ma’am?”

“Yes, he turned up in the middle of the night and hopped up on the bed, made himself comfortable and stayed there until he wanted his breakfast.”

“I’ll make sure he’s kept out tonight, ma’am.”

“Don’t worry, he was no problem and kept my feet warm. What’s his name?”

“Albert, ma’am.”

The two girls thought that was hilarious.

John Dunstan explained, “He was one of two kittens found in the grounds and we called them Victoria and Albert. Sadly, the female was killed on the road a year or so back, so he’s got the run of the place to himself. He’s a very good mouser.”

“Obviously the allure of a soft bed was greater than his need to decimate the local rodent population last night.”

“So it would appear, ma’am, I’ll make sure he stays out tonight.”

“Don’t worry about it, he was no problem and I was glad of the company.”

“Very well, ma’am but if he becomes a problem...”

“I’m quite capable of telling a cat where to go, Mr Dunstan.”

“I’m sure, ma’am,” he said unconvincingly.

“Don’t believe it, Mr Dunstan, Bramble, which is Trish’s cat, runs rings around her.” Hannah betrayed me.

“What did you have planned for today, ma’am?”

“Just to relax and mooch about, eh, girls?”

“Sure, Mum,” answered Danielle.

“Well be aware there could be snow up in the mountains.”

“Cool,” declared both of my two.

“It’ll be more than cool, young ladies, more like very cold and it can turn into blizzard conditions in a very short time.”

“Wow,” they agreed.

“That means it can get very dangerous.”

“Indeed it can, Lady Cameron, last year we had a young couple nearly frozen to death during one such episode of weather. It may be April, but it can be very capricious in the mountains.”

“Isn’t that where Ben Nevis is?” asked Hannah, obviously having done some geography or research.

“Ah not quite, young lady, Ben Nevis is a bit further west near Fort William, the mountain in the Cairngorms is Ben Macdui, the second highest in Britain after Ben Nevis. It’s about 1309 metres compared to 1345 for Ben Nevis, or there about.”

“Can we go and see them, Mummy, we were doing mountains in geography and I’d love to get a picture of one of them to show Sister Rose.”

“Mr Dunstan just said he didn’t think it would be such a good idea with possible snow around.”

“We don’t have to go right up to them, do we for a photo?”

I left Mr Dunstan to clean up as he gently eased us out of his kitchen.

The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike, est. 2007) Part 3158 by Angharad Copyright© 2017 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.
*****

“If we had a four wheel drive, we’d be okay in the snow,” declared Danielle.

“That wasn’t my experience of driving one in snow and ice, in fact I had to dig it out which was very hard work.”

“Oh,” she said looking somewhat crestfallen. “That wasn’t a proper Landrover was it?”

“No it was a Porsche.”

“That explains it, Mum, I saw this thing about Landrovers on Youtube they have so much torque they can deal with things every other four wheel drive can’t. They showed a Landrover pulling a big American Jeep thingy backwards. The Jeep had a much bigger engine but no pull. Dad said it was all wind and piss.”

“That’s enough of that sort of language, missy.”

“It’s what he said.” She blushed.

“I don’t care if the Pope said it, I don’t want to hear you saying it, understood?”

Hannah smirked and Danielle went a fiery red but it was diffused when I asked them where should we go. “How about into Perth?”

“Nothing much there is, there?”

“It’s a city with a cathedral and so on.”

“We can go shopping in Portsmouth any day,” replied Danielle sounding more like a boy than she had for a long time.

“Yeah, let’s go see the mountain, MacDougal or whatever it was called,” agitated Hannah.
“D’rather do that than shoppin’, can do that tomorrow,” agreed Danielle. In the end I succumbed to the majority view, even though I had the authority to overrule it. However, we were well lagged with boots and gaiters, waterproofs, shovels, food, hot drinks, mobile phones and blankets. We also had the sat nav with us, plus GPS on the smart phones and if all else failed, I had an Ordnance survey map and a compass.

We didn’t bother with a camera because of the phones all having reasonable ones, but I did have my binoculars, not the expensive Swarovski but a nice pair of nitrogen filled Opticron ones. I shoved my gloves in the pockets of my coat and got in the car, Mr Dunstan was annoyed that I’d disregarded his advice and I told him that we’d turn around at the first sign of snow. We left him muttering and drove off.

Anyone who has been to Scotland will notice the light is different here, especially in summer. This was spring time but already, the higher latitudes from those on the south coast which we normally encountered daily, made a difference to the light. It was cloudy but, at the moment not heavy cloud and there appeared to be a sort of glare coming from the sky. I simply hoped it wouldn’t snow because finding a white car in a snow drift may be a small problem, it would also be a risk of being damaged by snowploughs if we had to abandon it.

My plan was very basic, drive up the A9 around the edge of the national park, up through Killiecrankie, a village made famous by a very short battle won by the Jacobites—the supporters of James II—against the Red Coats, the supporters of William of Orange.

The whole area is full of places that were involved in skirmishes and battles, including Dunkeld where the Cameronians held off the attacks of the Jacobites for eleven hours, until the latter had exhausted their ammunition and withdrew, three hundred men lighter. According to the history books, the Cameronians were originally drawn from supporters of a Richard Cameron, who was preacher who was a covenanter. Interestingly, because Lord Dundee had been killed at Killiekrankie, the Jacobites appointed an Irish Colonel Cannon to lead them instead of the leader of the Clan Cameron from Lochiel, so Cameron left and took many of his men with him. I wondered if he was one of Simon’s ancestors, I suppose Mr Dunstan would
know. It confused me a little when I read of all these Camerons on both sides of the argument.

As we drove through Killiecrankie the sky seemed to become more ominous and developed a look which to me always suggests some of the white stuff is on its way. I pulled over and told the girls we were going back as I thought snow was on its way. They grumbled took a few photos of the hills and mountains they could see and as I turned the car around so some flakes of the white stuff began falling. I drove as quickly as I could because I knew it would soon arrive in heavier quantities which it did, and by the time we came past Pitlochry, it was coming thick and fast and our progress was much slowed.

It was near Balnaguard that things became interesting, as a truck carrying logs took a bend rather too quickly and turned over spilling his load across the whole carriageway on both sides of the narrow road. Thankfully we were behind him and managed to stop, I immediately switched on the hazard lights and also my rear foglights, hoping the car would be seen by anything coming behind. I instructed the children to get out of the car, my experience on the motorway had taught me the value of that one, and while they moaned and groaned in safety, I went to check on the driver of the lorry.

The car behind us took care of the traffic coming behind, stopping it and I left it to him to call the police. A driver from the opposite direction also approached the upturned lorry and between us we assessed the driver’s condition. He was breathing but not responsive at what was now the bottom of the cab. We obtained access to him through the missing windscreen. He was still strapped into his seat and we decided for the moment to leave him as he was.

The traffic wasn’t heavy but it was backing up in both directions and it was obvious we needed some heavy lifting gear to shift the large logs, as in trees, from the road. Two or three other drivers managed to move one or two a few feet and then tried to drive through the space they’d created. It didn’t really work and they got stuck amidst the debris—stupid men.

The police arrived an hour later by which time we’d wrapped the injured driver in one of my blankets to try and keep him warm. They called up a small crane to shift the logs and two hours later, damp and getting cold, we were able to proceed as the fire brigade released the man from the truck and carried him to the awaiting ambulance.

The snow had stopped about an hour before we left the scene and had warned Mr Dunstan that we were held up at an accident but were quite safe. Once the police were there I allowed the girls to re-enter our car and sit in the relative warm while they waited to go home.

Their account of the accident was different to how I remembered it, but they painted me as driving very well and saving the truck driver’s life, which was a bit of an exaggeration so I didn’t disagree too much. Mr Dunstan nodded at various points in their narrative and looking at me said, “Aye, ye’re a Cameron a’richt,” then he smiled at me and went back to speaking ordinary English.

The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike, est. 2007) Part 3159 by Angharad Copyright© 2017 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.
*****

I had quite a surprise the next morning, I read about my own university and a project they were involved in about repopulating the Solent with oysters. The Solent is the stretch of water between the south coast and the Isle of Wight; once famous as the most expensive ferry crossings in the world and can be crossed using hydrofoil, conventional boat or hovercraft.

Oysters used to thrive around the coast of the British Isles and in Charles Dickens’ days, they were seen as a cheap form of protein and used by poorer families to feed their children, to eke out any meat they were having. A combination of overfishing, pollution and climate change contributed to oysters being a non viable crop in many places. The problem with modern commercial fishing is the scale and destruction it does, bottom-trawling or dredging destroys the sea bed as an ecosystem which can take decades to recover if it ever does, but we seem to allow it happen. It should be banned.

Anyway, back to Portsmouth Uni and the oysters: this was all arranged before I became responsible for everything scientific there, so I’m pleased to see it getting some kudos. There is another problem, it’s called Crepidula fornicate, otherwise known as the American slipper limpet which is an invasive species, which has taken over most of the area that once were oyster beds. Still that’s not for me to worry about although apparently you can eat them. Seems like the plan is to seed the beds with young oysters, then they will also release loads of the oyster larvae, from adults which will be kept in cages in various places such as harbours, along the south coast.

Oysters filter quite large amounts of water so it’s hoped they’ll assist in keeping the water cleaner by filtering out pollutants. Not sure I’ll be eating them in that case, not that I like them anyway. However, most of the ones eaten in the UK are farmed Pacific oysters which are different to the native ones, the latter being the ones they’ll use in the project and which they hope to restore to sustainable populations and which may then be fished in a controlled manner.

It concerns me as a conservationist that people who produce or harvest food seem to think bigger is better and look to maximise profits at the expense of everything else, even to the point of despoiling places then moving on to spoil somewhere else. All of these resources need to be harvested sympathetically or we’ll never be able to feed the future human populations—which similarly need to be controlled, though no one publically seems to talk about it. I suspect our own adaptability, which has led to overpopulation, will one day lead to our demise, dying from our own cleverness. I just hope it doesn’t affect other species, the ones we haven’t already driven to extinction, too much. We are the most invasive and destructive species the planet has ever known, sadly we’re also the most wilfully ignorant, selfish and aggressive. We seem to have lost the capacity to live in harmony with the planet, preferring to actively control everything as if we have a god given right to do so, which some people actually believe—but I did say we were wilfully ignorant.

I sent an email to our marine biologist helping to run the project then went downstairs to have breakfast. Mr Dunstan had done us a full English again plus a bowl of porridge. If I stay here much longer I’ll be too fat to fit behind the wheel of my car, he’s looking after us so well.

The girls were bemoaning the fact that the snow had disappeared. I didn’t share their feelings, yesterday had given me more than enough of it. They’d seen it as exciting, I saw it as dangerous and inconvenient, but accept at their age I’d probably have shared their view. Hopefully, they don’t see the danger because they trust me to protect them. I might be a bit delusional there, but hopefully that’s what my role is and so far I’ve managed to fulfil it.

“What’re we doing today, Mummy, seeing as the snow’s all gone?” asked Hannah.

“I’ll need to check the weather forecast.” I said looking towards Mr Dunstan who was still scoffing his own breakfast.

“Better today, should stay dry,” he said enlightening my ignorance.

“We could try and get you a picture of a mountain or two,” I said, hoping we’d see a few more eagles if we did.

“Nah, my boots are still wet and it wasn’t that good was it? What’re the shops like?”

Danielle who’d been busy alternately applying mascara and eating her breakfast smirked at her sister’s comment.

“What about you, Danni? Shopping or something else?”

“Shopping’s okay with me,” she added also adding more mascara to her heavily coated lashes. She’ll probably need to steam clean them to get it off again.

“Okay, we’ll take a wander round Perth then.”

En route, Danni spotted Huntingtower Castle on the map, so we had a quick look at it. I found it hard to believe that someone actually lived here until 2002, but they did.

(picture by Brian D Osborne courtesy of Wikipedia)

It’s originally fifteenth century though bits were added afterwards. Apparently, it had two towers and the story goes that the daughter of the first Earl of Gowrie fell in love with one of the servants and they used to meet in the servants part of the castle. Her mother got to hear of these clandestine meetings and went to surprise the lovers, only Dorothea, the daughter, heard her coming and ran up to the roof then managed to leap across to the other tower and scramble inside and back to her room. They apparently eloped the next day, though we know nothing of what happened to them.

There are however, sightings of a tall young woman in a green dress, who is associated with disasters for those who see her. I was listening to the guide telling us all about this when Danielle went very quiet and looked very pale. I walked her over to a seat and asked if she was all right.

“I saw her.”

“Who?”

“Lady Greensleeves—am I going to die?”

“You saw the ghost?”

“Yes, they say people die after seeing her, don’t they?”

“I expect it’s pure coincidence, now did she say anything to you?”

“I dunno, she smiled at me and I was so shocked I didn’t hear if she said anything.”

“She didn’t ask you for help or anything?”

“No—she’s dead, how could I help her?”

“Okay, now, first things first, you are not going to die as a result of seeing her, okay?”

She nodded at me but still looked quite pale.

“If she appeared it was for a reason or you imagined it after hearing the guide telling the story.” I tried to bluff her worries away.

“No, Mummy, she went pale as the guide started the story.” Hannah wasn’t helping my efforts.

“Here hold my hand, Han, you stand guard.” I said as I tried to imagine myself in the castle meeting with so called Lady Greensleeves to see what I needed to do to save my daughter. Why do these things always happen to me?

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/apr/20/millions...

The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike, est. 2007) Part 3160 by Angharad Copyright© 2017 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.
*****

I sat quietly holding onto Danielle’s hand with its long fingers and painted nails, however could she have been seen as a boy? I excluded everything from my mind except the atmosphere in the castle and tried to latch on to the entity which had just visited us—I’d felt it rather than seen it—but was it still there?

It felt like months, not just minutes when I found myself standing outside my body dressed in a formal dress from a much earlier age. “Who are you?” asked a young woman who was standing opposite me in the great hall.

“I am the Lady Catherine, countess of Pitlochry and Stanebury and who might you be?”

“Dorothea, Lady Gowrie, this is my home, why are you here?”

“I come from a time in the future.”

“You talk nonsense.”

“Do I? You know that you are no longer alive.”

She laughed at me. “If that is so how come I can talk to you?”

“Because I have followed your spirit which wanders your former home, because you seek peace but seem unable to find it.”

“You followed my spirit—what poppycock. What are you, some sort of witch or sorceress? I’ll summon my father and have you cast into prison.”

“You know that he was executed for treason.”

“No, it’s not true, he was a good man.”

“That’s for history to decide. Now tell me, why are you here, you died two hundred years ago?”

She sat at the table and put her hands up over her face. “My mother, she disapproved of my marriage to Rab, she destroyed him just as certainly as if she had stabbed him.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Why do you pity me?”

“Because I know how you died. It wasn’t the river which killed you was it?”

“I was already dead, my heart was broken and I couldn’t let her drag me back here, not after my father was gone. Yet here I am, doomed to walk these rooms for all eternity.”

I didn’t bother trying to point out that eternity on earth will only last three or four billion years as the sun will become a red giant and finally a white dwarf and earth will have long ceased to exist, which was a shame because it’s so interesting. I believe education is never wasted and every opportunity should be taken to share it, but I held my tongue.

“How can I help you find peace, there has to be a way?”

“No one can help me,” she cried.

“I can, Lady Dorothea. The well can help, can it not?”

“You believe in fairy tales and legends, do you, Lady Catherine?”

I was going to say that i could believe a dozen impossible things before breakfast but it would be wasted on someone who died in the sixteenth century. “The goddess whom I serve and who sent me here today, leads me to believe that the well has healing qualities which will ease your torment.”

“Goddess—what blasphemy is that?”

“A worship that long preceded your Christian kirk and which is part of the very land on which we stand and the rivers and seas that surround it.”

“Very well, fetch me a drink of the water from the well, but you must speak to no one either on the way to it or back. You must also pay the well for its gift.”

I nodded and told her I would do it. It seemed easy enough, take a glass or bottle with me, hop down to the well and trot back, give her the water and hey ho job done.

Danielle was still holding my hand as I sort of awoke back in real time. “You okay, Mummy?”

“Fine, I need you to stay here and wait for me—both of you.”

“Where are you going?”

“To lift your curse. As soon as I stand up I cannot speak to you, neither can I, when I return until I complete something.”

They looked at me as if I was talking double Dutch. “Do you trust me?”

They both nodded. I got up and ran out to the car where I had a bottle of water. Strathspey, so it said, but I needed some from St Gorval’s well. I emptied the bottle and rushed down to the well. There were a group of Chinese tourists standing around taking selfies of themselves, one grabbed me and I very nearly told him where to go. Instead I pushed him away and continued my task.

Collecting the water was the easy bit, tossing in the pound coin from my pocket to pay for the water, the hard bit was the two Chinese who tried to block my escape. I couldn’t reason with them given my temporary vow of silence. “Why you push my friend?” demanded one of them. So I pushed him and dodged between them, fleeing back to the castle and through the entryway, pursued by three Chinese and the woman from the desk.

I threw myself down on the bench next to Danielle and tried to will myself back into the sixteenth century. As I drifted away I could hear the fracas going on behind me and my two daughters telling people to leave me alone, I’d be okay in a moment.

Amazingly, I found my way back to Lady Dorothea who was sitting at the table with red eyes from crying. “You have returned, Lady Catherine, many have said they would but you have come.”

I put a finger to my lips uncorked the bottle, which somehow had come with me transforming into glass en route. Well polythene in the sixteenth century would be a step too far, wouldn’t it? I handed her the bottle of water.

“Pray for me, Lady Catherine, let me find everlasting peace,” she took a drink from the bottle and her body began to shine as if she had a light inside her. “Sweet Jesu, I am free, pray for me, Lady Catherine...”

As I watched she faded from my view and Shekinah appeared briefly. “I am impressed, Catherine, you can follow instructions—so why do you ignore mine?”

Unsure as to whether I could talk or not, I shrugged and she smiled then laughed loudly. As I woke in the present time, they thought they were having an earth tremor as the building started to shake. “You okay, Mummy?” asked Danielle.

It took a moment to focus myself but I said I was. The woman from the desk asked if I’d had a petite mal or something?

“No, she was releasing your ghost,” snapped Hannah.

“You can’t do that, she’s part of the legend here...”

“You can take her place if you like, she did four hundred years, what would you like to....”

“Never mind, it’s only a fairy tale after all.”

“It wasn’t was it, Mummy?” asked Hannah as we exited the castle.

I smiled back at her and squeezed her hand. A group of Chinese tourists were getting very exercised as they saw me coming out, pointing at me and jabbering in Mandarin. Of which I can’t even say orange in reply. Instead as they pointed their cameras and iPhones at me, I blew them a kiss—well actually a ball of energy and while they jabbered even louder and shook various electronic devices, we escaped in my Jaguar.

“What was that flash back there, Mummy?” asked Hannah as Danielle chuckled to herself.

The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike, est. 2007) Part 3161 by Angharad Copyright© 2017 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.
*****

We did visit Perth eventually and the girls spent their pocket money but that was about the sum of it. The forecast looked ominous for the following week, so on the Tuesday after Easter we loaded the car and began the long trek homewards. We stopped at a small bakers shop at Dunkeld and I bought us some filled rolls and bottled water, though I did have a flask of hot water and a small amount of milk together with a few teabags and a teaspoon, so we wouldn’t starve on our journey. I also bought some cakes, some bags of crisps and some chocolate bars.

We’d filled up the car with diesel at a supermarket while we were at Perth a day or two before and I’d had to do one or two formal things on the estate being the Laird’s wifey. It wasn’t too arduous just not what I’d have chosen to do on a holiday, but sometimes privilege has a cost to those who have it. Thankfully, none of the other landowning families were occupying their estates, so I didn’t have to fraternise with any of them.

It was cloudy when we set off and the rain started just south of Perth where we joined the M90 and the spray slowed us down a little. We had all day to travel, the girls had their iPads plus a DVD player in the back and even the odd book. Danielle does read the occasional book but prefers teen magazines, Hannah likes graphic novels which we used to call comic strip books not many years ago.

Near Kinross we passed a substantial body of water which Danni announced was Loch Leven. A while later we crossed the Forth road bridge, which isn’t quite as famous as its railway sister, where painting the Forth Bridge was seen as a never ending job. Apparently now it’s been painted with some type of specially developed coating which doesn’t need replacing for years. It used to be a toll bridge but they abolished the charges in 2008 on it and the Tay bridge.

You can’t see much while you’re driving and these days the safety barriers make it difficult to see much anyway unless you’re in a coach. The intermittent rain made it even worse to see anything except the accident on the other carriageway. There’d been a multiple shunt and I hoped no one was injured, the girls grumbled because they couldn’t see anything because police and ambulances were in the way. I asked them how they’d like if it were us who were in the accident being rubber necked by travellers going the other way but it rolled off them like water off a duck’s back.

We stopped at Edinburgh for lunch and the girls insisted they visit the castle. As we hadn’t done much, I indulged them but also pointed out it would add two hours to our journey.

Edinburgh is a lovely city but a traffic nightmare and we used the park and ride, which I’m not sure was much better. However, the girls got to see over the castle and take photos of each other by Mons Meg a huge old cannon. A snack break later we were back at the car and heading down the M8 to Glasgow and then the M74 back towards England passing Lockerbie where that passenger jet was blown up by Libyan terrorists killing all on board and several more in the village.

The next stop was near Carlisle, back now in England where I bought some more fuel and we had a wee and a snack. It seems going home makes them hungrier than on the way up, despite another of Mr Dunstan’s full English breakfasts. It was now mid afternoon and it became obvious to me that we wouldn’t get home that early.

Traffic on the M6 became very heavy and we came to complete standstills more than once. More traffic means more opportunity for people to crash into each other or vehicles to break down. Both were encountered, both in the outer lane and both caused chaos as people tried to squeeze through gaps that weren’t there. I was quite surprised we didn’t see two drivers slogging it out as well. Thankfully we didn’t, and it didn’t look as if anyone was injured in the accident, thought it closed a lane and slowed everything down. Of course there are people who ignore speed limits, including the temporary sort approaching road works or accidents and we saw at least one impatient driver stuck behind a police car receiving a ticket—served them right. I don’t have a problem with people hammering along empty roads but when the rush hour is in full force, only fools go fast.

Being the British road system, there were delays and tailbacks at road works and I suspect it added between half and an hour to our travel time. I’ve never seen the M1 free of road works and I kept my record, there were plenty. We passed Northampton which used to be famous for shoemaking, Milton Keynes which is famous for concrete cows and the Open University campus which is I believe small compared to a conventional university but they do some good work there and only recently I watched a programme by Jim Al-khalili, who’s actually a professor of Quantum Mechanics at Surrey University, which was made in conjunction with the Open University. It specialises in distance learning courses.

We almost crawled past Luton then on to the M25 and it was stop go for ages. Once beyond that we were home in an hour but it was eight o’clock and I was totally knackered. Simon gave me a huge hug and the girls made a fuss of me as well, Trish even conceded that she’d missed me. We’d been away six days, two of which we’d spent travelling—I didn’t think I’d bother doing it by road again, even if it was nice to have a car with us and also not bother too much about the amount of luggage we took, which is a concern on aircraft.

It was good to get home, I was tired and hungry and the dinner David had left for us was wonderful: roast lamb, my favourite. My two passengers wolfed theirs down as well despite the fact we seemed to have spent much of the day eating, or they did. It cost me twenty odd pounds for drinks and bun at Edinburgh castle, which was a total rip off, but then those places always are.

I was also glad to be back in my own bed and retired early, I was shattered after all that driving—it’s not so much the distance, but the traffic and the other hazards. Sadly when Simon came up to bed I was already fast asleep and stayed that way. I didn’t even hear him come to bed I was so soundly asleep, so any ideas he had about showing me how pleased he was, or a small part of him was, pleased to see me were abandoned and he told me he read a book for half an hour while I was zonked beside him. I’ll have to see how I feel tomorrow night once I’ve sorted out our washing and done something with the others including listening to their moans about what they could or couldn’t do. My response will be a shrug and tell them they could have come to Scotland with me.

The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike, est. 2007) Part 3162 by Angharad Copyright© 2017 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.
*****

“So Mummy helped the ghost lady, I didn’t see her but Danni did.” Hannah recounted our adventure regarding the Huntingtower Castle visit.

“I knew I shoulda come, she usually messes up with ghosts and things, I usually have to sort things out.”

That level of arrogance could only come from one source. I’d brought the youngsters back some Edinburgh rock, which is a sweet, actually make that very sweet, soft stick of floury candy. I hated it as a kid but always ate it usually regretting it a while later. I much preferred sticks of seaside rock from England or Wales, which is hard and crunchy and probably just as damaging to teeth, but less cheek suckingly sickly than Edinburgh rock.

I also brought them some clothing socks or scarves and the two men, some whisky in a set of small bottles of different blends. I noticed the smiles of appreciation.

Leaving the girls talking, I went to see what my other fellow traveller was up to. She was on the phone talking to Cindy. “Yeah, Mum like saved my life by zapping the ghost with holy water or something and then she zapped the cameras of all these Chinese tourists, shoulda seen their faces...Yeah, a chink in their armour, very good.”

I remembered reading about a diplomat who used the same expression at a formal dinner with some Chinese high ups, his career ended the next day, they weren’t aware of the expression and complained that he was insultingly racist. Still diplomacy is about communication so I suppose he should have known what he was doing.

After dealing with some emails from work, I asked the girls what they wanted to do. They didn’t know, so when I suggested a trip to the hotel swimming pool, it met with approval and a rush to find swimming costumes. Danielle showed me a letter from the FA, she’d been left out of the squad for some tournament thing to rest her. It rambled on about her youthfulness and not wanting to over work her.

“It’s because they complained that I used to be a boy.”

“But they said they supported your case and also that it complied to international sporting standards and guidelines concerning transgender athletes. I’m sorry sweetheart, do you want me to get Jason to write to them?”

“Nah, when they get beaten without me, they’ll realise how good I am. We going swimmin’ then?”

She acted almost indifferently to the letter, they had said for her to stay training because if they had any injuries, they might need to call on her. If it had been my decision, I’d have told them where they could stick their team and how far. But it wasn’t so I had to support whatever she seemed to want to do.

“Can Cindy come?” she asked going up to her room.

“If there’s room in the bus?”

“Bus?” she queried.

“The VW thingy.”

“The Sharran.”

“Yeah, Sharon,” I agreed knowing full well she’d said something different but it was what I called it anyway. It seats about eight, so with everyone including the littlies, we just managed to get everyone in.

I took my cossie and spent most of the time with Cate and Lizzie. Cate swims quite well and did a few widths with Danielle watching her as Cindy and she swam back and fore. Lizzie isn’t scared of the water despite ingesting half the pool when she fell off the side while getting ready to jump in. She was lucky she didn’t bash her head as she went down but she came up coughing and spluttering but also laughing.

One of the staff came over to me and asked if she could help Lizzie learn to swim if I wanted to a few lengths. Yeah, right—me swim lengths—well I can but very slowly and I’m all out of breath after the first one no matter what stroke I do or how gently I take it. I suppose improvement only comes with practice so I managed two lengths before deciding to stop or share my breakfast with the other swimmers. Certainly Lizzie was swimming better and seemed to be enjoying it.

I took over watching Cate leaving Danielle and Cindy to do some proper swimming. Danielle is a very good swimmer and has a certificate in life saving, though in the bikini she was wearing, she was likely to cause heart attacks to any males watching. Had I known she was going to wear something which was bought for sitting by the pool in Menorca, I’d have made her change, but she was changed and out in the water before I saw her. Cindy, who hasn’t had surgery, was much more circumspect although she’s developing quite a nice figure as well. It happens I suppose if you take the pills young enough.
On the way home, we stopped for ice creams. I could have got them at the hotel but I don’t like to take too much advantage of the place, even though Henry tells me that’s what it’s there for. I wasn’t brought up that way so I prefer to pay my way even to the rip off prices I paid for ices in the cafe at Southsea.

“Could we do some sewing, Aunty Cathy?” asked Cindy. As I couldn’t think of a reason to say no, I agreed. Danni and Trish nodded while Meems and Livvie shook their heads. So they had to amuse themselves later that day because it’s what we did, Cindy having brought a half finished dress she needed some help with.

“I wish my mum could sew like you Aunty Cathy.”

“My mother was very good and showed me quite a few tricks with a needle.” She did too and the more I thought about it, the more I’m sure she knew something more than she ever let on. I mean why would you teach your son how to do darts in a garment as they’re usually around the bust in women’s clothes? But she did, she said for completeness. She made me do most of the repairs to my dad’s clothing presumably so he would approve of me learning. He grumbled at first but as she said it freed her up to do other things and all boys should learn to sew, he could hardly disagree.

Then the day he really beat me up after she discovered me doing embroidery. On reflection I think she was cross with me for being cheeky rather than the fact I was embroidering—it was only cross stitch stuff. I paid quite a penalty that night and if you recall tried to finish the job when I got back to Portsmouth. I never told either of them about it afterwards as my father would likely have said something like, ‘you couldn’t even do that properly’. My mum would have been horrified, partly because suicide is a mortal sin—well it’s certainly mortal, but I won’t dwell on it here.

We nearly finished Cindy’s dress and Trish sewed her sampler to the leg of her jeans, took me ages to separate them without undoing all the work she’d done. I kept telling her to watch out for her clothing but she carried on in her own sweet way. We all laughed afterwards, especially Livvie when Trish told her. Then David did us a delicious dinner of salmon in watercress sauce—scrumptious.

The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike, est. 2007) Part 3163 by Angharad Copyright© 2017 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.
*****

I’ve been reading, Darwin’s Ghosts by Rebecca Stott. It’s sub title gives the game away, ‘In search of the first evolutionists,” which is what it’s all about. Apart from some of the wacky ideas some of these people had, the thing that surprised me was how powerful religion was—and to some extent still is in the world.

In the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries, those who were experimenting with ideas in natural sciences, called themselves natural philosophers because much of what they were hypothesising was pure speculation, sometimes backed with evidence (often wrongly interpreted), sometimes from observation of wild life and sometimes just speculation. These philosophers had to be very careful or have powerful friends because anything which opposed creationism and the bible was treated very harshly and it held back the cause of science quite significantly.

As with today, most science is based on evidence by observation or experimentation and the ideas are then written up and published in peer reviewed journals as a means of avoiding publishing matter which is wrong or off the wall. Sometimes the latter is later proven to be correct, as happened with Einstein and his rejection of the Big Bang theory as it came to be called, until Hubble proved Einstein was wrong and the universe was expanding.

In earlier times the consequence of indiscretion in what you published could cost you your freedom or your life. As Stott’s book suggested the idea of evolution was around for some time before Charles Darwin discovered the mechanism of Natural Selection as the force behind it and which was also discovered by Alfred Russel Wallace almost by chance.

Darwin who’d spent years working out his idea and the evidence he needed to support it only published because because Wallace wrote to him with his own version of it and thus forced his hand. This was in the late 1850s which we think of as pretty well modern times—but were they? Creationists and religion were very much in control and although their evidence was non-existent except by virtue of it in the scriptures and accepted by a largely god-fearing populace as the untrammelled word of god, it was all based upon moonshine.

Darwin lost his faith although his wife was a committed Christian whose biggest worry was at their deaths they would be separated, her in heaven with him consumed by the fires of hell. A situation we may find incredible today but for her was very real. Also Darwin was concerned that his book might cause offence to some of his teachers and peers who were of a religious persuasion, which it did.

Dr Adam Sedgewick was the canon of Norwich cathedral, professor of geology at Trinity college Cambridge and the vice master of that college who’d been upset by Robert Chambers ‘Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation,’ had preached against the book declaring it an abomination. Darwin had some issues with the book as well but that was based upon his own observations and evidence and he waited for a further ten years before he published his magnum opus, ‘Origin of Species by Natural Selection.’ Again Sedgewick condemned the book and urged Darwin to retract it. As we all know Darwin didn’t but the upset it caused to religiously minded people who believed that the bible was the word of god, still has repercussions today even though in Victorian times it was shown that the bible had undergone various alterations in ancient times and that most of it was unverified by historical evidence and certainly by scientific evidence.

Darwin’s theory of Natural Selection has been proven beyond any doubt through the fossil record and the emergence of the dating of rocks and organic remains using carbon. Science has shown us how old the universe is and also how old the earth is. We now have the evidence to prove these things, religion has only faith and no evidence. It is astonishing in a developed society in which people use the benefits of science all the time in the medicines they take or the technology they use, there are those who can still wilfully ignore the evidence of evolution and side with the biblical view of things, which according to Archbishop Ussher occurred at 6.00pm on 22nd of October 4004 BC. To be fair to Ussher, he was making his calculations in the early years of the Seventeenth Century, but even then French Natural Philosophers were suggesting the earth was thousands if not millions of years old and we’ve since learned that it is in fact about 4.6 billion years old and that life began between one and two billion years ago.

The fact that Darwin showed we shared a common ancestor with other primates, especially the great apes, is what seemed to upset people of a religious persuasion, that we diverged over four million years ago doesn’t seem to assuage that annoyance, possibly caused by the suggestion in the bible that species were placed fully formed on the earth and that included man, whereas DNA shows we have 98% the same as Chimpanzees and 94% of that of Gorillas. As Desmond Morris suggested in his provocative book, we are merely Naked Apes, who’ve lost our body hair and acquired large amounts of subcutaneous fat, especially in the female of the species, which the average male finds, shall we say, interesting. Again more evolution in action as we became bipedal and walked upright and grew extra sweat glands.

One thing which made me smile in my book was that Darwin decided to use barnacles as a target species suggesting he’d study them for a few weeks and ended up taking eight years as he corresponded with lots of people all over the world and received letters and specimens from equally far flung places. For those with an interest in anatomy, the barnacle probably has the largest penis to body size in the animal kingdom, not bad for an essentially hermaphrodite creature.

My reading was disturbed by squabbling siblings and I had to return from the Nineteenth Century and deal with issues in the Twenty First one. Trish and Livvie really are like natural sisters, they fight tooth and nail or are as close as conjoined twins, especially when a third party gets involved, usually another of their sisters mostly Mima but occasionally Danielle or Hannah. Today it was just the two warriors who were disputing ownership of a book.

I don’t encourage them to write their names in books but sometimes I consider it might be expedient to do so, especially in sorting ownership as in today’s spat. When I said I’d confiscate it until they could behave properly, they both started on me which had the consequence that the confiscation was ensured.

They both continued complaining until I suggested i could start confiscating electronic devices as well—then it suddenly went quiet and they both dashed off to squabble over something else. The joys of parenthood, which became even more delicate when Livvie came to see me on her own to say she was bleeding somewhere and could I take a look? She’d just become a young woman and how was I, someone who’d never had such an experience going to help her deal with it? I wasn’t sure except I’d do it with love.

The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike, est. 2007) Part 3164 by Angharad Copyright© 2017 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.
*****

She pulled up her clean knickers with a sanitary pad attached to the crotch. “God that feels weird,” she said as she redressed. “Did it feel weird the first time you wore one, Mummy?”

At last a question I could answer from experience, if it was a rather different one from hers. “Yes it did, it felt like I was wearing my cycling shorts inside my knickers.” Well it was true, it did feel like that except it the sannie pad didn’t cover my sit bones as well like a chamois in cycling shorts would.

“Weird,” she said and burst out laughing.

“You realise what’s happened?”

“Yeah, I’ve come on, haven’t I?”

“You have, darling.” I opened my arms and she leapt into them.

“This is going to happen all the time now, isn’t it?”

“For about the next forty years unless you’re pregnant.”

“Ugh to both of those, can’t they stop it, Mummy?”

“Why would you want to stop it?”

“Well it’s messy and my tummy has felt strange for days, it started hurting last night when I went to bed, like cramp sort of pain.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I got to sleep eventually and this morning it didn’t hurt—now I know why. Stupid body.” I’m sure if someone told her in a few years time she couldn’t have any more periods for whatever reason, she’d want one, or she’d want a baby which would require ova to be produced and wombs made ready. There was she condemning her young body in front of me, someone who’d give their eye teeth to have a period or better still a baby.

“Have they explained what happens in a period?”

“Yeah, ad nauseum and how I could get pregnant if I do anything silly with a boy. Like I’m going to do that, I’m twelve years old for God’s sake, and I’m not even sure I like boys let alone want to have sex—it hurts doesn’t it—shoving something up there?”

“It can do,” I smiled, but didn’t add, not half as much as a baby coming back down the same passage does.

“Thought so, my dad’s girlfriend used to scream when they had sex, so it must have hurt.”

“Could be,” I said non-committally. If she does ever get beyond her current barriers to intimacies with someone, she might discover other reasons why people sometimes yell during sex but for the moment I left that unsaid. I hoped there would be plenty of time to discuss such things.

Trish came to see where we were—in my en suite bathroom with the door locked. “You in there, Mummy?”

“Yes,why?”

“Just wondered, where’s Livvie?”

“I don’t know, why?” I indicated Livvie should stay quiet.

“Thought we could play chess or something.”

“Okay.”

“You gonna be in there all day?” she continued.

“Don’t be so nosy,” I rebuked her.

“Well you say that to me,” she said back to me in voice that sounded a little strained. Now what do I do?

“Go and find Livvie and I’ll see if I can find some chocolate for you all.”

“Okay, don’t be long.”

“She’s so rude, isn’t she?” said Livvie when we heard the hoof beats recede, this coming from someone who could be blunter than a wooden club.

“She doesn’t mean anything by it.”

“I suppose I’ll have to tell her—about, you know,” she pointed at her groin.

“It would probably be easier.”

“At least we’ll know what to do when she gets one,” she said seemingly forgetting Trish’s path to womanhood as she had mine.

“Indeed,” I said not sure what I was thinking, other than Hannah and Meems will be next then Cate and Lizzie. By that time I should have some experience of dealing with the mood swings and the mess. I gave Livvie my pack of sanitary towels. I’d bought them for after my operation, when the goo from dilation slides down your leg. It also padded it a little and that was good because it was quite tender in the beginning.

I let her out of the bathroom and Trish was sitting on my bed. “You lied to me,” she said, then jumped off the bed and ran out of my bedroom. I went to call after her and Livvie said she’d go and explain what we were doing.

I felt my heart drop. What do you do with children? You don’t want them to tell lies so you explain that honesty matters a great deal and that they shouldn’t lie, then you demonstrate that adults do it all the time and no one says anything. Double standards by anyone’s measure; but what do you do? There are times when telling the truth is more damaging than a wee white lie. Or so it seems at the time.

I went downstairs and saw Trish and Livvie talking, Trish spotted me and quite pointedly turned away from me, snubbing me. I let it go in the hope she’d understand after Livvie brought her up to date. Life was going to be different from now on and it may well be that we need to think about organising some separate bedrooms. My head was spinning. I’d thought about this happening then pushed it to the back of my mind assuming we had a long time to sort it. I was a bit out on my dates—but just a bit—a big bit. Oh bugger.

I was making tea in the kitchen when Hannah came out and asked, “Mummy, why does Trish say she hates you?”

“Does she? I must have done something to upset her. If she were to come and see me I’d try to put it right, but she has to come to me.”

“She said you lied to her.”

“We had a bit of a misunderstanding.”

“Was that over Livvie’s period?”

“I don’t think I wish to continue this conversation.”

“Suit yourself,” she said and went off.

“What was all that about?” asked Stella who had just come in with her two girls.

“Livvie has started her periods.”

“Ah, not the easiest subject for you to deal with.”

“I don’t think it is for anyone,” I said rather sharply.

She looked shamefaced at me and mimed, ‘Sorry’. Then she left to sort out her girls.

I honestly felt like getting my car and driving off into the sunset. Some days it seemed that no matter how hard I tried to keep everyone’s ball in the air, I’d drop several and they would all then round on me for something which wasn’t entirely my fault, but being the customer interface, so to speak, I got it in the neck whatever happened. Mostly I didn’t allow it to get to me, but today I had and I could feel a ton of resentment. I continued making a pot of tea hoping its curative powers would assist in finding resolution with Trish.

The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike, est. 2007) Part 3165 by Angharad Copyright© 2017 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.
*****

The tea didn’t help except to moderate my resentment. I kept telling myself that I was the adult and thus needed to lead by example and that didn’t include killing everybody and driving off into the sunset a la Thelma and Louise, tempting though it was. Besides we don’t have any deep canyons to drive over the edge into oblivion.

I got on with life and decided Trish could come to me. I wasn’t going to go crawling to her nor was I going to strangle her slowly despite that idea seeming to have some attraction especially at dinner when she refused to speak to me or even look at me. It must have been quite pointed because even Simon noticed it but didn’t say anything until we were alone.

“Okay, what’s up between you and Trish?”

“It’s a long story.”

He rose from the table made a pot of tea placed it in front of me and asked me to pour. I poured the tea then the trouble between me and Brains.

“So Livvie’s having her first period and you were worried not to upset Trish and decided not to tell her just yet. Wasn’t that always going to be a bit of a nonstarter?”

“Look, how would you feel dealing with a young woman with a situation you hadn’t experienced yourself?”

“I appreciate your feelings regarding that I was meaning more the fact that the grapevine would tell Trish before Livvie could change her panties, so you might just as well have told her in the first place.”

“She may or may not already know which I suppose could also increase her irritation and she’s just throwing it all at me.”

“Yeah because you’re the safe one to hate.”

“I beg your pardon?” I uttered almost in surprise.

“Well no matter what she says or does to you, you’ll continue to love her.”

“So do you, don’t you?” I was still surprised, Simon was thinking for himself, not a trend I should encourage, next he’ll be wanting equality.

“Not like you, mothers seem to have a great deal more patience than dads do.”

“That’s a cop out.”

“Possibly, but it’s true. I couldn’t cope with half the things you do from dirty nappies onwards.”

“We don’t have dirty nappies these days.”

“See, I didn’t even know that.” So his brain is working but his eyes aren’t, or is just the don’t see anything that doesn’t directly concern him in case he has to do something like clean up the mess. Perhaps I should try it, though nothing would get done.

I finished my tea pecked him on the cheek and rose from the table.

“Where are you going?” he asked quite assertively.

“Where I please, why, what’s it to you?” I answered not quite as assertively but I meant every word.

“I thought we could have some time together, like we used to before the population explosion.”

That usually meant sitting on the sofa together while he either sucked, poked prodded or kissed me if he was amorous, if not it meant me trying to stay awake while we watched sport or some naff film he wanted to see, usually either with loads of action and no plot or lots of naked young women populating it. Darwin was waiting in my study, I could finish another chapter if I went now.

“I was going to read my book.”

“What a whodunit?”

“No a book about the forerunners of Darwin in terms of evolution as a concept though they tended to call it transmutation of species, you know like his grandfather Erasmus, or Lamarck, Diderot, Geoffroy, even to some extent Grant...” I watched his eyes glaze over.

“Okay, I’ll have a read of the paper if Tom hasn’t snaffled it.” I remembered seeing it on the hall table so went and got it for him. “Thanks,” he said and began reading the headlines. I accepted his dismissal after shaking my head and went off to read more of my book.

I was well into the chapter about the Scottish doctor obsessed with sponges who taught Darwin how to dissect things, encouraged him to study littoral nature and then criticised and snubbed him after Darwin published a paper on it. It showed well the jealousy of scientists which still happens though I hope I don’t do it or encourage it amongst my colleagues or students. Musing on this I became aware I was being watched—usually it’s by the furry purry, who then either rushes in and wrecks the place or ends up sitting on my lap if Trish’s isn’t available.

The urge to turn around was difficult to control and it seemed unlikely it was the cat if it was actually anything more than just a sensation. I had my compact in my pocket, I’d been looking at the hairs up my nose—I know, I say the most romantic things—well they felt as if they’d been tickled by something—yeah, Simon got up my nose.

I pulled it out surreptitiously and held it in the centre of my book. It wasn’t just a fancy, Trish was standing by the partly open door. I popped the compact back in my pocket and said, “You can come in if you want to, I don’t bite, just tell lies apparently.”

Nothing happened for several seconds and I was irritated that she was messing around, playing mind games with me. I turned around and she hadn’t moved but tears were rolling down her cheeks.

I stood after marking the page in my book and held out my arms to her, “Whatever is troubling you, I’m sure I can help.”

She flew into my arms nearly knocking me over and started sobbing, “I’m sorry, Mummy.”

“Why, what have you done?”

She was too upset to tell me then while were embraced the cat did come in ran round the tops of the walls and disappeared back out the door. She is completely mad, one could almost say, barking mad, but she’s a cat.

I held Trish for several minutes aware that the tears were soaking though my top—least I hoped it was tears. “Now what’s the problem?” I asked as she took a deep breath and shuddered.

“I was nasty to you.”

“When?”

“Livvie told me what happened, about her coming on and how you tried to keep it from me in case it upset me.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it to seem that way, but it was a very personal moment for Livvie and I didn’t want us to be interrupted even by you.”

“I understand that, Mummy,” she sniffed, “and I’m glad you thought of my feelings, too; but it’s okay, I’m not going to get all upset because she can have periods and I can’t, listening to Auntie Stella and Phoebe talk, they seem more of a problem than anything, Auntie Stella calls them the curse.”

It’s crazy but most women of childbearing age and capability do think of them that way, it’s only much older women or ones like me who never had one who feel jealous. Perhaps if I’d transitioned the same age as Trish I might’ve learnt to accept I can’t have them without feeling that envy.

“So why all the tears?”

“I was nasty to you.”

“How about if I forgive you for being nasty you could forgive me for telling fibs?”

“Okay,” she sniffed. So that was what we did.

The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike, est. 2007) Part 3166 by Angharad Copyright© 2017 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.
*****

Despite the bank holiday for May Day, it felt like a busy weekend and true to custom, it peed down much of the bank holiday, though it did water in some of the plants I put in pots on the patio. Danielle helped me and we were assisted by Trish who it seemed wanted to make sure no after effects from our little upset the day before.

They had been back in school for nearly a week and I’d been back in my office an equally long period of time with a secretary who was tanned and gabbled about the wonders of Menorca whenever our paths crossed, including that of making me cups of tea.

I didn’t have the heart to tell her that I’d nearly been killed there twice, had seen a rare pine marten and a garden dormouse and had saved a dog caught up in some nasty barbed wire, whose owner in turn saved me. I suppose you could call it a quid pro quo, though to me it was worth several quid.

Oh she’d love to live in Ciutadella, it was beautiful and the yachts were amazing as was the old city and the stained glass windows in the cathedral and what about that windmill which was now a nightclub... Much more and I’ll get her deported.

Then in my lunch hour I had a call from Julie grumbling that Phoebe doesn’t do her share of the housework in their new flat, which was followed by Phoebe ringing me to ask if she could talk to me about Julie, who was becoming a total tyrant. If I have any more children, I shall make sure they’re boys and stay as boys. I’ve had enough of girls to last me a lifetime.

It was exam time and with sickness absences I had to do some invigilation. I hate doing it normally but it did mean four hours away from Diane, except when she brought me a cuppa and biscuit to the exam hall. It doubles as a gymnasium and every year we get grumbles from athletic sorts who want to pump iron but can’t because we need to keep the place locked up to stop cheats installing electronic equipment. Apparently, you can buy tiny ear pieces which are also transceivers and microphones which are smaller than a button and can be placed on clothing almost invisibly, or glasses which act as cameras and transmit images of exam papers. It is disgraceful and we have a policy of any student caught cheating in an exam will be sent down—in other words, thrown out, but that requires a formal enquiry and can take a week or two. We usually only get one or two, or shall I rephrase that, we only catch one or two, so maybe the smart ones aren’t detected but anyone who has lousy marks all year then gets a distinction in the exam is suspect.

At the start of the exam as they were getting comfortable in their stacking chairs, I read out the rules of exam candidacy and that included cheating, anyone caught will be failed on the spot and suspended pending discharge from the university. Then it was time and they turned over their papers and the clever ones relaxed themselves and read the papers several times making sure the adrenaline didn’t distort anything regarding the words of the questions.

I wandered about, dealt with one or two minor queries and then wandered back to my chair. Someone caught my eye, a boy with very long hair, dyed blond and styled like a girl’s but that wasn’t what got my attention, it was his gazing into the distance every so often and then writing frantically. He was wearing glasses too, and they looked girlish but I wondered if they contained something they shouldn’t. I have the right to ask to see them but I’d need more than a hunch to do it. Much of the glasses were hidden by his hair, was he up to something or was I being too suspicious.

I walked past him several times, it was certainly a boy, though his fingernails were a bit long for a boy and were they glistening? It’s not a crime to wear nail varnish or bleach your hair or even wear clothing of the opposite sex but you have to let us know if you want to do it full time so we can amend records and assist if we’re able. Since I changed over many years ago, we’ve had one a year on average in the university and I’m told there’s a transman on the computer department staff.

I watched our pretty boy again, something wasn’t right, I was almost sure he was cheating with some hi tech devices. I spoke with my colleague and he watched him as well and shrugged, ‘he could be,’ was the response.

Now if I was cheating as soon as an invigilator started to watch me, I’d stop and try and finish the paper on my own, or at least wait until someone else took their attention. This guy wasn’t, so he either isn’t or is sure he can’t be detected. Under normal circumstances he wouldn’t be, but then I have some assistance most will never have seen or will see. I wandered down to the end of the row he was in and was now about five desks behind him. I then rolled a large ball of energy down his row. Most of them weren’t aware of anything except perhaps a slight draught as it went through them. He didn’t, he jumped up pulling off his glasses which were smoking, and rubbing his girlish hair.

I of course rushed to his side and snatched the glasses from him, they had a tiny camera built in to them and speakers attached to the arms which could be fitted in the ears out of sight. I called my colleague to get an emergency replacement and I escorted the young man from the room. He was in tears and pleading his innocence, he’d been ill... It fell on deaf ears, we have protocols for students who’d been ill and needed help or extra time to deal with their exams—he hadn’t followed the guidelines, but I was.

I escorted him to the bursar’s office and I handed over the evidence and and made a statement. I then left and the bursar would call his parents and ask them to come and get him because he was in no position to travel alone, he was very upset. He wasn’t one of my students so my part would be to give my statement and the university would probably discharge him and if required to give a reference would state he was discharged for cheating in an exam and thus failed to achieve a degree.

He couldn’t understand how his equipment shorted out and I wasn’t going to tell him but it could be said I had some hypothesis about electronics and sweaty adolescents being a risk of electric shock by shorting out. I didn’t mention the static which must have been generated as I walked past—well why should I, it didn’t affect anyone else?

As they say, in exams, honesty is the best policy.

The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike, est. 2007) Part 3167 by Angharad Copyright© 2017 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.
*****

I related the incident in all its glory for Diane. Thankfully it wasn’t one of my students but that doesn’t mean some of them weren’t doing the same or similar. There’s a website which sells these things specifically for cheating in exams, though they don’t say that, they have other applications at the same time they don’t decline to sell them to students or presumably advise them against such purchases.

Sadly, it won’t stop it happening but it might prevent those who were thinking of it from doing so and instead using old fashioned but tried and tested methods like revision. As this is the second or third one I’ve caught, they’ll be less likely to try it while I’m invigilating. I wonder if they’ll ever work out how his equipment shorted out and singed his hair—the smell was disgusting.

I had a meeting in the afternoon. I cancelled it and went home, changed into my walking clothes and went off bird watching at Langstone Harbour or more precisely, Farlington Marshes, the place we went looking for harvest mouse nests. I managed two hours of peace and quiet before I had to go and collect the girls from school. I’d also pay for my indulgence, I’d instructed Diane to send on several documents I needed to check before the morning, when there was a meeting of the University council. I’d raised the matter of cheating and plagiarism before the incident this morning and was speaking to it. I’d left some notes for Diane to type up and send on to me. I’d check them after dinner and print them off ready for the morning.

University council meetings are worse than the board meetings of the bank, though we do usually get a good lunch. As one of the senior academic staff these days, I have to attend but I suppose I don’t have to enjoy it.

I collected the girls and we arrived home. They wanted to know why I was wearing jeans and a camouflage jacket. I told them I was training as a sniper to keep out immigrants after Brexit. Only Danielle really knew what a sniper was, the others made guesses which were all over the shop. Trish, who I thought would be familiar with the term, wasn’t. Her main understanding of sniping was to fire sharp comments at people not projectiles. Why I should have expected them to know is perhaps my failing. Of course I then had to explain what it was all about and how specialist soldiers, who were highly trained, could shoot someone from over a mile away using high powered rifles and telescopic sights.

“But why?” asked Livvie.

“To kill ’em,” said Hannah.

“I know that, but why d’you want to kill someone you’ve probably never met?” She had a fair point. Why would you?

I explained that I was joking earlier, and they all laughed saying that they knew that, as Danielle succinctly put it, “Mum, we know you were joking, you couldn’t hit a cow’s arse with a shovel.”

“She could with a bow an’ arrow,” defended Trish.

“You ever fired a gun?” asked Livvie.

“I fired a shotgun and nearly broke my shoulder, and I also fired a Kalashnikov or AK47, an assault rifle.”

“Assault rifle?” queried Trish.

“Yes, it’s used by troops in battle, so can operate at all sorts of distances from close up to about 500 yards.”

“That’s a long way, Mummy,” suggested Livvie.

“It is. But battles often range over miles, especially when they have tanks and things which can fire shells several miles, mainly at other tanks.”

“How can they see that far?”

“They might have satellites observing things or spotter planes or drones, they might be using radar or some other electronic device, so they’re seeing things on screens and targeting their enemies by computer. It gets more like computer games only with very expensive toys. Some of these cruise missile things that can be fired from submarines, or ships or elsewhere cost a million dollars each.”

“That’s ridiculous,” said Livvie, “That’s so expensive, can’t they buy them in Poundland or somewhere cheaper? I mean that’s more than Daddy’s car cost, the new one.”

“How much was that then?” asked Trish.

“About eighty grand he said.”

“Wossat?” asked Mima.

“Daddy’s car cost eighty thousand pounds,” Trish informed her. I knew it would be quite a lot as my own car was worth about forty five or fifty new. But to hear children talking about thousands of pounds like it was nothing was disturbing, especially when you consider that most people in the UK only earn about twenty six thousand and there are plenty who don’t get anywhere near that. Considering how much I earn it can be quite salutary. How much Simon gets with bonuses, I don’t wish to know, it would horrify me. It frightens me that he drives a car that accelerate to 62mph in under four seconds, it’s like a jet fighter compared to the average family saloon. Mind you mine can be pretty nippy when the need arises and I have driven it at over a hundred miles an hour, which considering the speed limit is seventy, is pushing my luck somewhat.

My mind went back to the day we drove to London in James’ Porsche Boxster. He gave me a go at driving it and we were attacked by those gangsters. I wonder if he knows he actually died that day, only my intercession with the universe kept his body and soul together, quite literally as it happened. The blue light fixed him up or at least stopped him shuffling off this mortal coil and I’m rather glad it did. Mind you he had about the same number of perforations as a tea bag, because they attacked us with that machine gun thingy and he fired back with his pocket cannon. The bang from that was deafening and he said it could fire through the engine block of the car they were driving. That’s like armour piercing bullets or whatever.

I remember reading about some of these firearms and they are truly awful with bullets that tumble as they hit you and travel up through your body ripping it to shreds as they go. There was a report I remember reading in one of our tabloid papers about a British special forces sniper in Iraq who was asked to do something about an ISIS machine gun post in a tower. He fired several armour piercing bullets through the walls of the building. Apparently there wasn’t enough left of the insurgents to bury as they were turned to mince meat by the bullets. He was only doing his job, but somehow he has to live with the fact that he took another person’s life.

Having done so myself, in self defence, it gives me bad dreams occasionally as I relive the incident of the car attacking us up in Scotland and I fired back with one of the mafia’s own guns which I’d obtained at the house where they were going to kill us. I regret having to do it rather than regret the act, such things should never be necessary in a civilised world.

The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike, est. 2007) Part 3168 by Angharad Copyright© 2017 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.
*****

One of our most recent sites for checking dormice is on a nature reserve run by the local wildlife trust. I helped with siting the nest boxes and tubes. I’ve mentioned before that they’re like back to front bird boxes, with the entry hole against the tree or nearly, there’s usually two strips of wood to hold it an inch or so away from the tree and enable dormice and other things to get in there. Sadly, that can mean things like wood mice, Britain’s most common mouse, some suggest the most numerous rodent, though that could be a toss-up between it and the two most common voles, the bank vole and the field vole.

We’d arranged a dormouse check the next morning after the exam cheat business, and as we were initiating some new checkers, I decided I’d like to be there, checking the way they were taught. We can all develop bad habits and I want no escapees if possible, which is very unlikely as some dormice could give lessons to Houdini, but if we all do the checks properly, it minimises the risk.

I set the meeting time for nine o’clock and there wasn’t any demur by the others, which I knew would give me just enough time to drop the girls off and get to the site. Of course there were questions about why I was wearing my fieldwork clothes, some cargo trousers, a checked long sleeved shirt and my old Barbour jacket (it’s pretty well thorn proof), and carrying my knapsack, which just happens to be in a camouflage material. It weighs quite a lot because inside is, a coil of wire in case any of the closing wires are broken, or any of those securing the boxes to trees or posts have bust—they do. I also had wire cutters and some pliers, in the form of a decent multi-tool thing, so the pen knife on it was good as well. Then I had a large clear plastic bag, which is sold for the purpose of exploring dormouse boxes and tubes; a small plastic bag which is used for weighing any mice we catch and which has already been pre-weighed and the value written on the bag—saves time when you actually have a dormouse either in the hand or the little bag. A notebook and a pencil. The notebook is one of the waterproof ones which Danielle gave me for mothering Sunday, so requires a pencil to write in it as pen doesn’t work.

I have some plasters and hand disinfectant gel to deal with minor cuts and scratches, an LED torch, some of the boxes can be dark inside, a bung—a cloth to shove in the entry hole if we take the box off a tree—some string, comes in handy for all sorts of things, some secateurs for pruning troublesome bits of shrub or hedge—usually brambles, my 50g spring balance in its little case, some tissues and some handwipes and finally, a bottle of water. I also have a flask of hot water and some milk and tea bags in the car. I take a hat with me, as well as my camera and binoculars and some sun screen and in my pocket my mobile phone and some money. Around my neck I have a x10 hand lens on a lanyard. In another bag I have my gore tex walking boots and gaiters.

Of course there were groans that they had to go to school while I was having fun—I didn’t mention that I was also being paid for it, it would have created a riot. I also didn’t mention that the day after I would suffer in a university council meeting, for which they didn’t pay me enough.

I dropped off the car full of dissenters, waved them all goodbye and drove off to Milligan’s Wood, a local nature reserve listening to the car radio which was tuned to Radio 4 as I caught up on the news.

I have probably only been to this reserve about three times. It’s about a hectare in size on the edge of fields and a woodland, with a bridle path separating the fields and the reserve. There’s a lay-by next to it which is useful for parking and I prepared myself to demonstrate my poor parking skills. There would be six of us, so a maximum of six cars probably more like three or four so I was somewhat shocked when I saw the lay-by full of cars and yet more parked along the hedges on the little grass verge—what on earth was going on?

It looked like I’d only be able to park about half a mile away. My temper was up near my eyeballs by the time I walked back to the reserve to meet up with three of my group by the lay-by. A car had just pulled up and they got in the new space. Mind you, I doubt I’d have been able to park the Sharan in such a small space—it was only about forty feet long and there were no landing lights.

“What on earth is going on?” I asked hearing lots of voices including several children emanating from the reserve.

“Ah, good question, Prof. It appears that they decided to have a dawn chorus day with a picnic breakfast afterwards. They’re still eating it, I think.”

“But dawn chorus should have been four hours ago if not earlier,” I muttered, my colleague shrugged his shoulders.

I went to the gateway and in the middle of the reserve were a group of probably thirty people with half a dozen children running about the place squealing. At about this time the others arrived and were as mystified as we were by the cars. I made a decision, we’d head to my woodland and do a survey there, it was too noisy here and the chances of finding any dormice quite poor. Then in my charitable way, I wondered why it hadn’t rained at dawn for an hour or so, but then I don’t believe in providence or any other sky fairies, so that was that.

The others waited for me to collect my car and followed me up to our own reserve and visitor centre—at least we’d be able to get some coffee or tea here afterwards and there were toilets as well.

Of the rest of my group only Tim had been here before, he’s my post grad student who mostly looks after the dormouse surveying for me. We got him a licence and he’s done a good job for the past year or so. He’s doing a PhD in small mammal ecology and is quite a competent fieldworker.

Dan welcomed us and grumbled that we should have let him know we were coming. I explained what happened at Milligan’s Wood and he shook his head. “Dawn chorus and picnic breakfast, what a good idea.”

“Yeah, do one in mid December, you won’t have to get up so early.” That got a chortle all round.

“Mind if I come with you?” asked Dan, "haven’t done a dormouse check for ages."

“I hope you have the map of the nest boxes,” I said quietly.

He waved a piece of laminated card and I sighed with relief, my own was in my office back at the uni.

The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike, est. 2007) Part 3169 by Angharad Copyright© 2017 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.
*****

I explained to Dan that we had some rookies amongst our checkers and that before we went much further, we’d need to run through the procedure for doing so. He was fine with that as was Tim.

It’s simple and designed to minimise the risk to the dormouse at the same time prevent escape of said muscardine. The hole is blocked, the lid loosened of its fixing wire and slid across slightly to enable the checker to see if there is any nesting material or a mouse in the box. If there is, the box is taken down and placed in a large clear bag on the ground and the lid removed. It has to be on the ground because dormice can come flying out of the box and babies can easily get crushed if they come out—think turbo charged cocktail sausages. The boxes can be quite heavy and could also hurt or even kill an adult mouse as well.

Next, the sleeve of the checker is rolled up, as dormice are nifty climbers and will run up clothing as easily as they do a tree branch. Then the nesting material is checked, this happens even if a dormouse has come out of the box as they sometimes occur in pairs or even more than that. The checking is done by feeling down the corners and then in the centre. If it’s a dormouse nest they usually have a central chamber and an entrance from the side.

If all inhabitants are out of the box, it is removed from the bag and the dormice are chased to a corner and caught individually, examined briefly, sexed and then weighed. They are then usually checked with a tag reader and if chipped the number recorded as well as the weight and box number. Non chipped ones may then be clipped or chipped if someone is licensed to do these procedures. Clipping is done with scissors and a patch of hair is removed and the site recorded. It was the way we marked dormice before pit tags were available, which are similar to the ones they put in dogs and cats to identify them. As the hair regrows, the tags are really the only permanent way of identifying individual animals over any period of time.

Once everything has been recorded, the dormice are replaced in the box after the lid has been replaced and the bung replaced. The box is then replaced on the tree and the bung removed. It usually only takes a few minutes and the dormice aren’t too traumatised by it. In the case of clipping or tagging, that takes longer and can cause some trauma to the animal but a good operator can do that as well as the other things in a few minutes.

We ran through the procedure for each of the newbies and then started the check, some fifty boxes. The first few I spent watching the checkers more than the boxes and it has to be admitted that even experienced checkers can drop the mouse or have it hop out of their hands at any stage. If that happens, everyone stands still until it runs up a tree and isn’t stepped on.

Apart from dormice, there are other things which can turn up in the boxes. Wood mice are regular squatters, sometimes taking over an old dormouse nest or making their own, if the mess of dead leaves and other debris can be considered a nest. Blue tits, great tits and wrens have all been known to use dormouse boxes for their nests and so have some of the hymenoptera—that’s bees and wasps to you. If one of these nests in the box, close the lid quickly and get away fast, then from a safe distance note the number of the box to warn future checkers. Actually you should make records of every box, even the empty ones, especially if doing a site on the National Dormouse Monitoring Programme. You also have to record times of the survey, dates and people participating and who was leading. The paperwork can take longer than the survey.

By box number thirty, we were well into the routine, even the new checkers were getting the hang of it and we’d found a couple of nests in boxes but no inhabitants. That was about to change. Connor, one of the new ones volunteered to check the next box which had nest material in it. We got the box off the tree and the lid was removed. Nothing came out of the box so he rolled up his sleeve and started to poke around the periphery of the nest then we all jumped but not as much as he did, pulling out his hand with a yellow necked mouse firmly embedded by its teeth in his finger, which was also bleeding. Dan videoed it so I expect it’s on You tube by now. Boy, did he swear, no not Dan, he was too busy laughing, but Connor certainly did.

I removed said yellow necked mouse from his finger by grabbing it at the scruff, which also protected my fingers from the bitey bit in the front of the mouse and showed the yellowish band around the front of the neck of the animal and from which they get their name. Once everyone had seen our little ‘carnivore’ including Connor, who now thought it was funny and had wrapped a clean tissue round his wound. The mouse was then shoved back in his nest and the box was re-secured to the tree and the bung taken out I then dressed Connor’s finger after washing it with clean water from my drinking bottle.

We eventually had two dormice but the new people declined to poke the nests after Connor’s injury—wimps. A mouse bite does hurt a bit but skin pricks or rips from bramble thorns or those on blackthorn are much more likely dangers or stings from nettles than man-eating rodents; especially when the hedges or under-storey grows from May onwards. Both the dormice had previously been chipped by me a year or two ago, so I didn’t need to do that and it gave evidence of the most basic sort that dormice live longer than a year—if they don’t die before hand. Two thirds die in hibernation either from insufficient fat stores or predation. During the active part of the year, tawny owls are possibly the biggest danger, being primarily a woodland bird.

Mission accomplished we returned to the visitor centre, the one named after Billie, and had coffees and chocolate biscuits. Connor now just laughed when he held up his damaged finger and said he was up for more. Of the other newbies, one decided it wasn’t for him and the other said she’d come out with us again. I did mention my daughters have helped me in the past aged ten and thirteen and they weren’t worried about mouse bites. Our dissenter blushed and said he’d made his mind up so that was that.