The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike, est. 2007) Part 2277 by Angharad Copyright© 2014 Angharad All Rights Reserved.

“D’you think we’re doing the right thing encouraging Danni to be a girl?” I asked Si as we were getting ready for bed.

“She is a girl, isn’t she?”

“Technically yes, but I really don’t know about her commitment to it.”

“Christ, she’s agreed to go to school as a girl, what more can she do, get married?”

“She’s too young to consummate it, it would be annulled.”

“Babes, I was joking.”

“I don’t find it funny, this is one of our kids we’re talking about.”

“Well you did say she might have been involved in the planning stage.”

“Si, that’s like helping to plan a shoplifting spree and end up finding out it was the Great Train Robbery.”

“So you don’t think she put herself in the position to end up losing her nuts?”

“I don’t know what to think any more. We have to press ahead when it’s appropriate to change her name and status.”

“You can change her name any time can’t you?”

“I’d like to do it all at the same time.”

“Doesn’t the law apply to adults?”

“Probably, I don’t know what the procedure would be for minors.”

“Probably something to make sure they didn’t get coal in their fannies.”

“What?”

“You said about miners, I assumed you meant coal miners.”

“Min-ors, you know people who are under age to have sex or be prosecuted for certain things.”

“I thought that was ten.”

“Ten what?” he was confusing me.

“Ten, the age you’re supposed to know the difference between right and wrong.”

That would explain why he didn’t know the difference.

“A bit young isn’t it?”

“Well they don’t execute you in the US at that age, I think they wait until you’re eighteen and then do it.”

“Can we talk about something relevant other than the capital punishment of children.”

“Sure—how about the weather?”

“That’s even more depressing.”

“Back to Danni then?”

“Looks like.”

We talked for half an hour by which time I felt rather tired and decided to turn in. I pecked him on the cheek and lay down to go to sleep.

“What would you do if he said he wanted to be a boy again instead of going to the convent?”

“Lose three thousand quid for the term.”

“Is that how much it is?”

“Yes, can I go to sleep now?”

“He hasn’t said it.”

“I know, night night, Si.”

It was one of my nightmare scenarios but thankfully it didn’t give me nightmares—not that night at any rate. The morning came too soon and Simon had gone before I awoke. Sammi apparently also went back to work, she might have told me, she might not. I know she wore a pair of very tight trousers because she rang me half way through the morning to say they were becoming uncomfortable and what should she do about it?

This is another one with a brain like a small planet and can’t tie her own shoelaces. “Ask permission to pop out and buy a skirt.”

“I can’t, i’ve only socks on and these boots wouldn’t look good with a skirt.”

“Buy some tights and a new pair of shoes then.”

“That would work, I have a meeting in an hour that’s the only problem.”

“Use a sanitary towel to cushion things.”

“That’s an idea. I could get one of those from the loo.” Like many modern buildings they have a dispensing machine in the ladies, you can also get condoms.

David arrived and told me he was signed off the sick but hoped I’d not work him too hard for a few days he was still quite weak.

“That’s no good to me, I need my men to have boundless energy and staying power.” Thankfully he saw I was joking and Jacquie and I helped him as we could. I had some research I had to do and some records from the survey to vet. I needed to send out some sort of reminder that we were still taking records. The dormouse records looked as if they didn’t have a particularly good year, though our captive breeding for release was doing okay, and we released twenty dormice in five different sites to boost the populations. There was a protocol for doing this and we supplied food to help them survive for a month. They’d all been chipped and at the end of the summer, we discovered by surveys that half were still alive. With all this wet weather, it would take some new data to show how much effect that had on dormice and other small mammals. Badgers were washing up drowned in Somerset so what chance a little thing like a hibernating dormouse—remember they hibernate in the ground.

It showed the importance of the survey—would species like hedgehog be very depleted in these wet areas? Would some delay hibernation because it was still warm enough to feed? I certainly hadn’t seen any but it didn’t mean others hadn’t. One record was of a road kill hedgehog in December. That was in Dorchester and the same person sent in one of a road kill polecat—apparently there seems to be a population explosion of them from that area this being the third or fourth record in as many years.

I had a quick look at the Guardian website and discovered that Sir David Attenborough hadn’t seen all the supposedly common wildlife. I couldn’t find the list they referred to but I suspect I might have seen them all—then I’m a field biologist he’s the patron saint of conservationists.

The girls are on half term, so Danni asked if Cindy could come over for the afternoon. I told her that she could if we did the sewing bee. It wasn’t her favourite outcome but she agreed. Brenda brought her over after lunch and we let Trish and Livvie join us. Cindy brought a pattern to make a skirt and some material so we spent most of the afternoon marking it up and cutting out. I had some spare material and as Danni and she are roughly the same size, I helped her do the same, so we had the two teenagers making themselves a skirt and the two younger girls doing some embroidery. I didn’t get much done except check over the sewing machine and show the two teens how to use it. They got to practice with some scrap material. Cindy was better at the hand sewing bit—pinning and tacking things together while Danni sewed the better with the machine. I told her if ever she ended up in prison, she’d be okay making mailbags. The joke fell rather flat when she asked if Pia would be doing that.

Livvie is doing a very nice picture of a dormouse that I managed to find on the internet, it’s cross stitch but quite fiddly though her nimble fingers cope very well. Trish is doing the sampler she started months ago if not longer. She shoves it in her drawer and forgets about it until she sees me sewing—not a very common occurrence these days.

After much pressure I agreed Cindy could stay over but she had to sleep in the guest room. I laid down the law and told both the teens if there was any messing about, I’d send her home regardless of time of day or night.

Danni claimed I was picking on her but I soon put her straight and told her the same could happen to the older or younger girls if I caught them doing anything we’d agreed was not nice under their parent’s roof. I don’t think she believed me.