The Weekly Dormouse. (aka Bike, est. 2007) Part 3429 by Angharad Copyright© 2024 Angharad

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This is a work of fiction any mention of real people, places or institutions is purely coincidental and does not imply that they are as suggested in the story.
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I knew it was Easter even though I had wished Diane a happy Christmas, I had been distracted by my phone call from Jackson, besides being anti religion, neither meant much to me except a few days off work, and at my level you are only off work if you go abroad and look what happened then.

The holiday weekend went quite well and David did us proud with a roast chicken that simply melted in the mouth. It was good to see Simon again and he more or less demanded his conjugals. I decided to accept his demands and we went to bed early on the Friday evening, again after a sumptuous meal of salmon, cooked again by David. I'm no slouch in the kitchen but that man is a genius, no wonder Henry is always trying to poach him from us for one of his hotels, but David doesn't want that level of responsibility again, it made him ill last time, which was how I recruited him in the first place. He likes us as family, thinks we are all mad, but nice mad, and he enjoys what he does for us.

Apart from my uxorial duties to my lord and master, he wishes, with Emily doing the bulk of the housework and David doing the cooking, I actually spent some time with my family and believe it or not, they all remembered who I was.

We watched Danni play at Bournemouth and get sliced down in the first half, the referee held up a red card to her assailant but that was little comfort to my daughter who was stretchered off. Simon and Trish were very angry over the whole thing and almost demanded a public execution as a consequence. It was a blatant foul which was why the ref had sent her off, but the punishment fits the crime, this is big girl's footie and professional fouls do occur like they do in the men's game.

Trish drove Danni's car home with its incommoded owner as company, while Simon and I drove back in his Jaguar, with the hood up because it turned out to be as wet an Easter-tide as I could remember and I think the met office suggested it was the wettest winter on record in recent years, with 2023 being the warmest year. Climate change is happening and what are governments doing? Sweet FA. People are drowning in floods or through mud slides and volcanoes, the latter not being due to climate change as far as I know, but most everything else is and the politicians who thump the table and promise all sorts of changes to prevent it, when the time comes for them to act, backpedal because they know it costs money, and we are all green until it comes to paying for it or making changes to our lifestyles, then the fact that thousands of people died across the globe will only result in something being done when the climate actually starts killing their neighbours or their family.

There was an article in the Guardian alleging that 80% or more of the damage to the environment is caused by just 57 companies, I didn't get around to reading it because we were going out, the pollution of our waterways and coastal areas continues and biodiversity remains at an all time low, butterflies being the latest order to be badly affected.

Sometimes I feel like writing a book entitled, 'You Are All Going to Die,' then a subtitle of, 'Thanks to Climate Change.'. Such a direct title may just cause one or two to think 'but probably not' and there are better qualified authors than yours truly.

For the rest of the holiday Danni limped and moped about the house, she had a ligamentous injury in the ankle and it meant she'd be out of action for up to a couple of months, and may require an operation to sort it. I had a ligament injury of my ankle when I fell off my bike, which has happened a few times, and my foot was still attached to the pedal by my shoe and cleat. The wrench to my ankle caused a sprain which is a ligament injury and the ligament stretches and because it's non elastic leaves a weakness thereafter. I have to watch wearing very high heels as my ankle will just give way when it gets tired.

The trans row in Scotland continues to rumble and I suspect that both sides are using emotive arguments rather than biological ones; certainly it seems J.K. Rowling has no idea of the biological arguments because I doubt she is bright enough to understand them. If she did she might shut up and let the whole thing calm down. Gender is a minefield, and sex is much more complicated, and by continuing to misgender people quite deliberately, J.K. Rowling is committing a potential hate crime, but she thinks she is above the law because of an emotional view of a legal fact. The people she is calling men, including the Scottish judge, who is ten times the intellect of our favourite hack, who are legally female, is a deliberate slander and unless she stops she will be guilty of breaking the law. Unfortunately her business interests are still creaming off millions of pounds, which just goes to show that most people are pretty stupid so maybe we need a global catastrophe to deal with it.

The various wars continue and Russia seems to be gaining the upper hand in Ukraine and Israel continues its genocide in Gaza. Trump seems to be surging on regardless of the fact that every other word that comes out of his mouth is a lie. The right is on the rise everywhere and history shows when they triumph most of us suffer and wars break out. Sometimes I wonder what will happen to the human race, the poor ordinary people will pay the price and the Trumps and Rowlings of this world will likely be protected by their money and the last to pay the price of situations they have provoked or created. It depresses me, as I still fear a major war in Europe possibly spilling over from the Middle East; perhaps it will be the prophesised Armageddon of the Book of Revelations, which was written by a completely mad person who suffered from mental issues including hallucinations and so called visions.

All religions are built on bull-shit or sand, none are able to stand up to scientific scrutiny but they have an escape clause, showing that they really are nonsense always claiming they are an exception, but only to rational thought, a bit like Trump and Rowling.

Back to Easter, it didn't rain on Easter Monday until later on, so we did go out and about a little. Simon drove the people carrier and we visited the hotel in Southsea complete with our resident invalid, who hopped on crutches and moaned to anyone who listened to her gripes. It was good to see Henry and Monica who made a fuss of the children and I was a little worried about him telling Trish that he had options on a house in Cambridge if she was still interested in going to the university there. It seems she is and with a PhD in the bag, will attend as a post grad student while her sisters will only be finishing their bachelor's degree in the summer.

Trish is certainly superbright, but then we have known that for years and it was inevitable that she would end up either at Cambridge or a top university either in Canada or the States. She still might after a couple of years in Cambridge, go to Harvard or Princeton. She is technically nearly an adult now and will be able to decide things for herself. Whether they will be the right decisions, I don't know because she lacks maturity but then that applies to many very clever people.

There was no more talk of my sabbatical either by Simon or the children and we all know Daddy doesn't want to lose me at the uni, so he kept quiet too. Looks like I'm here a bit longer, but without the long term commitment I once had. Perhaps I've just taken on board that nothing lasts forever, including university dynasties. It shook me up a little and made me think just a little about what I want to do in my later life and being still here isn't one of them. Simon could retire tomorrow and still be as rich as Croesus, but he actually loves the bank. Me, as I said am not sure what I want to do and I'm comfortably off in my own right. I could buy somewhere with a house and a bit of land and turn it into a nature reserve or wait for a nuclear warhead courtesy of that bastard in Russia.

Am I having a midlife crisis? Possibly; the only one who seems to understand me is Sammi who continues to flirt with the intelligence services and is equally undecided about what she wants to do. Conan-Doyle allowed Sherlock Holmes to retire to the south coast in Sussex to raise bees. It's used in the lovely 2015 film, 'Mister Holmes' starring Ian McKellen, which is one of my favourites to watch when I need to unwind, because McKellen is a wonderful actor and the supporting cast are good too, but watching him supposedly dealing with the onset of dementia, is truly brilliant acting, with just enough of a mystery to keep you interested and enough emotional pulls to have most women with tearful eyes if not actually weeping. I must watch it again sometime, Danni likes it and so does Sarah, so maybe we'll get some chocolate in and watch my video of it.

Sometimes even those of us who want to bring about change for the good of everybody as well as the planet, need a night off and a good weepie and some chocolate achieve that. Simon doesn't seem to understand, but then most men don't. I wonder if a certain Scottish writer does, but she wouldn't accept that transwomen are really very much like biological females, if we are allowed to be by the Taliban that she seems to invoke, stupid idiot.

I'm back to work on Monday where I'll have Diane harassing me to write an autobiography or a book of some sort, perhaps we'll have to invite to one of our girlie movie and chocolate evenings and get her to calm down, who knows. I looked out the window and noticed it was raining again, which means the water companies will be dumping yet more sewage in our rivers or out to sea polluting the coastal waters. A friend of mine used to suggest that you didn't swim at Bournemouth, you just went though the motions and finally a poor joke about ships. A cruise liner was having a life boat drill and one of the women passengers asked a junior officer if it was really necessary. He told her it was and could save her life as ships do sink. The lady looked at him and asked does this happen often, and he replied, "No madam, not often, just once."(Thanks to Karin Bishop for the old joke).