The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike, est. 2007) Part 2212 by Angharad Copyright © 2013 Angharad All Rights Reserved.

“At last,” I declared loudly and felt like dancing round the room.

“Whit?” asked Tom as he tucked into a boiled egg.

“They’re stopping the badger cull, Natural England have revoked the licence. ’Bout bloody time.”

“Aye, t’wis a mistake frae thae beginnin’, an’ we telt them sae.”

“I certainly did.”

“Aye weel ’am pleased tae see something’ pleases ye.”

“Lots of things please me.”

Aye, sure they dae. Whit happened tae thon dug?”

“What dog?”

“At thae hoose.”

“Oh, that dog, RSPCA have it I suppose. The old biddy’s in the local loony bin.”

“Are ye pressin’ charges?”

“No and after talking to Jacquie she isn’t either, she just wants to forget the whole thing.”

“Ye takked her oot o’ it ye mean?”

“No, I didn’t talk her out of anything. Remember she has long experience of being incarcerated herself and given the woman’s age and mental condition, it wouldn’t be the right thing to do.”

“Even though she abducted twa o’ yer bairns?”

“Yes. I spoke to both of them and they weren’t in favour of prosecuting her either.”

Tom shook his head, “Ye’re as mad as a hatter.”

“All I know you taught me.”

“Ach, I shud hae ken’d when I said that it wud come back tae haunt me.”

I smiled, “I still haven’t done any Christmas shopping.”

“Sae, I suppose ye want me tae babysit?”

“Oh, Daddy, that is so sweet of you to offer–they’ve all been fed. Meems will help if you need to change Lizzie and Stella’s upstairs too.”

“I’ve been had,” he said and I smirked and kissed him on the cheek.

“But in the nicest possible way.”

“Och, ye scunner.”

Jacquie and I traipsed round the hard pavements of Gun Wharf Quay and the only money I spent was on a sandwich and a cuppa for each of us. I saw nothing I just had to buy. It was looking increasingly like a difficult Christmas.

It’s my own fault, we’ve spoilt the kids. How many eight or nine year olds have their own iPads? See what I mean? Having said that, they seem to have more idea of how to use them than I do.

They had electronic gadgets, bicycles, dolls, board games, clothes–in short they had pretty well everything. I was tempted to buy one of those gift aid things from Oxfam, your prezzie is a goat in an African village. They’d demand to go and see it and who could blame them.

Simon and I agreed not to buy each other anything this year. Neither of us needs anything and we have the money to buy it even if we do. But the children, I have no idea what to get them.

Jacquie did point out a Kindle thing in Waterston’s; but they have the apps on their iPads, so hardly need another piece of gadgetry just so I can spend money on them. The unfortunate thing is, while they are all pretty bright, they’re only kids so will be upset if I don’t get them something.

Trish has been using the microscope I got for her which is encouraging. I showed her how to culture Paramecia from pond water and cut grass. It takes a few days but they are fascinating to watch. I make her respect that they are living things and we wash the slides off in the garden pond when we finish.

Paramecia are called slipper animalcules because early microscopists thought they looked like slippers swimming about in the water using microscopic hairs called cilia. They’re fascinating to use and I was brought up on looking at these under microscopes when a school kid. It was seeing things under microscopes or through telescopes which encouraged my curiosity about the natural world.

Probably too squeamish to make a laboratory based biologist–I’m bad enough chopping carrots for dinner let alone live animals, just to see how they work, I studied biology which didn't require such things. I remember in a talk on Alfred Russel Wallace, the speaker described Wallace’s wonder at seeing all these birds and mammals in the tropics, ‘and what did he do? Shot ’em.’ He was a collector after all and he got paid for it. But it struck me as sad that this still happens. A photo isn’t enough, science requires specimens, especially rare ones. Too bad if it’s the last one alive.

So now everyone knows why I took up ecology, got sick of chopping up white rats or other animals. Instead of the gruesome stuff, I count dormice–much more fun, though I still have a large collection of microscope slides I made during the time I did have to dissect things and stain them after slicing them with a microtome. I might have mentioned I used to do them for other kids because I was quite good at it–made a bit of pin money at it too.

I don’t know if students have to draw things anymore because digital cameras and equipment are so reliable. Trish has a microscope she can attach to her computer which displays on screen what is being looked at. Stills or videos can be made of them and presumably the former can be printed off. Easy peasy–until you’re out in the field sans computer and camera and you need to make some sort of representation of the wonderful thing you’ve found which will get you your first Nobel prize–you just have to draw it very carefully.

My drawing is not good, but at least I can make some effort to show what I saw using a pencil and pad. The downside is that a drawing is an interpretation and those can be wrong, whereas the camera, assuming no messing with the image, is an objective illustration from which queries can be more easily explored than in a drawing.

Jacquie seemed to cope quite well after her unfortunate experiences in the cellar, she was more concerned for the two little ones than for herself, which demonstrates my unequivocal support that she was innocent of the murder of which she was convicted and later the conviction was ruled unsafe and quashed by the appeal court. Sadly, she spent years in institutions before she was released on parole–which we had quashed as well as the original conviction, finding the police officer who investigated the case was the victim’s father which was not declared at the time of the original investigation and trial.

Cate being so young was unaware of the danger they were in seeing it as a game rather than a serious situation. I won’t disabuse her of this until she’s significantly older.

The police excavated under the old apple tree and found human remains which were consistent with the body of a small boy. The crime was too far back for anyone related to the victim to be contacted. Simon and I agreed to act as family for the unfortunate child and help to organise a funeral for him when the body was released by the authorities. They were unable to identify a cause of death, but burying anyone in a domestic garden requires special permission and there is no record of it being granted at that property.

Returning home I wondered about the children’s or child’s voice that called me to the house–could it have been the unfortunate Geoffrey Cummings, or was the old lady so haunted with memories of past sins at that house, she unconsciously arranged for me to go there by kidnapping my kids?

Who knows?