The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike, est. 2007) Part 3060 by Angharad Copyright© 2016 Angharad

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This is a work of fiction any mention of real people, places or institutions is purely coincidental and does not imply that they are as suggested in the story.
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It didn’t take long for Liz to gel with the girls and after a few, I thought rather rude, comments from the girls which she just ignored they settled down and opened up to her. She learned that we had a castle up in Scotland and that Mummy and Daddy were really a Lord and Lady — “I’m not surprised,” was her counter, “after all anyone with a cook must be pretty special.”

This rather deflated some of the juvenile egos which were used to shocking people. I won’t say she was unshockable, but it would take a bit more than possibly applies to the average thirty something.

She had a degree in history, not the run of the mill kings and queens or even battles or politics, but the history of women in British life from the industrial revolution onwards. Technology had changed both our lives and the environment and I explained how they had soot from the industrialisation of Europe and its chimneys in Arctic ice samples. In fact they can trace the amount of soot in the ice back for at least a thousand years, so they can tell all sorts of things from that. They also have things like pollen dust which obviously was wind carried from the nearest land, so they know what was growing there — the land not the Arctic. My guess would be birch, which tolerates wet and cold climates, or some sort of conifer.

“I think the role of women is very important,” stated Livvie, a protofeminist perhaps?

“Yeah, course it is,” agreed Danielle and Trish, “without women, nothing would get done.”

“Ahem, as the minority sex here, I would like to suggest that men can and do do things from time to time,” interrupted Simon, blushing a little as he said it.

“Aye,” agreed Tom who then excused himself as he had an appointment with a single malt and the Observer which he’d managed to find despite my efforts to hide it so I could do the crossword.

“Are you Scottish, then?” asked Liz of all of us.”

“Tom, obviously,” said Simon, “Cathy, Stella and I are all Scots.”

“But only Tom has any sort of accent,” she posited.

“He can talk Sassenach when the mood takes him,” I muttered then went off to make tea.

“We were born up at Stanebury as is required of the family, Cathy was born in Dumfries but lived most of her life in Bristol.”

“Really? I did my masters at Bristol, at UWE.”

“Sorry?” said Simon and I snorted, hopefully out of his hearing.

“University of the West of England.”

“Of course, I think Cathy’s secretary used to work there.”

“Diane?”

“Yes.”

“Yes she did, which is how I know her. I moved down here about five years ago with the man of my dreams, but he managed to turn them into a nightmare and he suddenly announced he had another woman who was expecting his first child, so I told him he’d better go to her and got the locks changed the next day. I’ve struggled with the mortgage ever since.”

“Who’s it with?” asked Simon.

“TSB now, it was with Cheltenham and Gloucester before they got taken over.”

“If you’re struggling, we may be able to offer you a better deal.”

“Who’s we?” she fired back.

“High Street.”

“Thanks, but I don’t know whether it’s better to stay with the devil I know. If you’re a lord with a castle and estate up in Scotland, I suspect you must be quite high up in the bank?”

Simon chuckled.

“He’s head of the retail bank.”

“Wow, a director?”

“Yes, my father is the chairman and Cathy and I are directors.”

“She’s a director and a professor?”

“Yes — is that a problem?” asked Simon sounding as if he wondered if she’d spotted some reason why I shouldn’t be one.

“No of course not, but I don’t know many ecologists who are also very into materialism.”

“Oh Cathy isn’t, but my father sweet-talked her into acting as ecological advisor for us, she’s since become a director. We probably have the most ecologically aware bank in the whole western world.”

“Wow, that’s really different.”

“Cathy is sweet and really good with people but she also gets things done, usually by persuasion.”

“I can believe that,” agreed Liz.

“So she’s now a sort of a super professor, she went from being the professor of biological sciences to professor of the faculty of science. Tom is vice chancellor and wants to set up three or four super departments.”

“That’s a bit different, I was used to having deans for that.”

“Cathy has replaced the dean but retains her professorship because she still does the odd bit of teaching and supervision.”

“I’ll bet she’s good.”

“She is, she has larger classes than anyone else and a waiting list. Usually young women who want to wrestle dormice.”

“Want to what?”

“Cathy is an expert on dormice, one of the leading in Europe and certainly the best in England — did you see her films?”

“Films?”

“She made one on dormice and another on harvest mice.”

“That was Cathy?”

“What was Cathy?” I asked returning to the table with a tray of tea — well not literally, I had a teapot with cups and saucers and milk.

“Just telling Liz about your films.”

“Oh,” I nodded.

“I saw one on dormice a year or two ago, was that you?”

“I’m not aware of another one recently, though Chris Packham does all sorts of stuff with Springwatch and so on.”

“No this was a woman presenting it.”

I blushed, “Probably me then.”

“I quite enjoyed it, I think—yeah, I did. I remember thinking that I wish I had the nerve to walk about woodlands at night, I expect they’re very different to day time, an’ I don’t suppose you see dormice in daylight?”

“You do,” said Trish, “Me an’ Danni are helping Mummy with a dormouse check during half term, aren’t we, Mummy?”

“If you want to, sweetheart.”

I wondered why she’d returned to the dining room, she and the other girls had gone off to do something several minutes before.

“Um, Liz, we wondered if you wanted to come and have a go on Livvie’s Wii tennis game?”

“Liz is having a cuppa at the moment, perhaps a bit later.”

She shrugged and went off again. They must be playing in the lounge, which is the biggest room.

“Hannah doesn’t say very much, does she?” observed Liz.

“She does when she has something to say, but she’s certainly quieter than Trish and Livvie. Meems has her moments and Cate can be quite vocal, little Lizzie is quiet too and tends to follow Mima around, usually with a dolly tucked under her arm. Meems is the dolly and childcare expert.”

“How long has she had the speech impediment?”

“All her life, we’ve had her to all sorts of experts but no one seems able to resolve it, it’s not quite as bad as it was and she’s had a few scans and X-rays but there appears to be nothing to see.”

“I think they’re all really nice and I look forward to working with them, you want me all week, don’t you?”

“Yes, Jacquie will be around at different times, she’s doing a degree but has the week off, although I think she has an assignment to hand in.”

“Right, well I suppose I’d better go and let them humiliate me with the tennis game...”