The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike, est. 2007) Part 3072 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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Episode 256 dozen; the larch, the larch.

“I’ve been thinking,” said Danielle which prompted a quip from Trish about it being a novelty, “how did they know where to write; you know, where to find me?”

“The letter was sent by the adoptions agency. They have records of who went where, though perhaps not of your change of gender, which might not be a bad thing.”

“You mean if she’d known I’d changed over, she’d have done her crunch?”

“Something like that and it might have caused unnecessary problems, life’s tough enough when it’s going smoothly.”

“Least you’ve got plenty of money, or Daddy has,” observed Trish.

“Yes but that doesn’t mean we can simply splash it around, there are quite a lot of us here and banking is a somewhat precarious occupation.”

“You sounded like the Prime Minister then,” said Livvie smirking.

“Goodness, I hope not. Brexit means Brexit,” I said in a pompous voice and they all fell about laughing.

“What does that actually mean, Mum?” asked Danni.

“I don’t think anyone actually knows.” Mainly because it’s total gobbledygook but then politicians specialise in such things and are even trained not to say anything during interviews—a bit like intelligence operatives who are captured by the enemy. The only difference being the operatives are intelligent, politicians aren’t necessarily, our Foreign Secretary being a case in point either that or he is particularly gifted in saying the dumbest, most crass thing at the least opportune time. If it wasn’t so serious it could be ridiculous, like something out of, ‘Yes Minister.’

Today the sun shone much of the day and we hung out the washing before I took them all off to school. Jacquie wasn’t about, staying overnight because of her course but she deserves a day or two off from the chores she does for us. We give her some pocket money and pay for her course but Simon has also been putting away a little nest egg so if she needs to move to find a job, it’ll provide the deposit for a modest house or flat. She’s looking to teach eventually, but that means another year after her degree to qualify as a teacher.

So what happens to the younger children? Well, Cate and Pudding go to junior school which Stella organises the transport for as she sends both of hers. Lizzie is cared for by Amanda assisted by David and whoever else is home, which may be Jacquie or even Stella—she has changed so much in the past year or so and helps significantly more than she used to. It’s almost back to the Stella I first knew after she knocked me off my bike, or actually better than that because she’s grown up quite a lot and Simon has done so too—most of the time at any rate, for instance when he’s home he does spend time with the girls who all love him to bits, as he does them. It also means they wrap him around their little fingers but he’s well aware they’re doing it and calls a halt when he thinks they’re over demanding.

Thankfully, the same doesn’t apply to his scheming wife and he lets her get away with little short of murder. Talking of which I was reading about the murder of the Labour MP, Jo Cox who was killed by that madman, Thomas Mair and it was horrific, he stabbed her several times then shot her three or four times from point blank range with a sawn off hunting rifle. His neighbours were horrified but it seems a possible reason has arisen as a potential motive, his politics were extreme right wing and he believed that the council were going to remove him from his parent’s council house where he’d lived for forty years to give the house to migrants, as she was a great advocate of helping people around the world, it seemed to focus his hatred and fears as she probably personified all he despised. The rest we know, an unemployed gardener who was a loner. One wonders if he was also misogynistic and was the fact that she was younger and more dynamic than he’d ever be, with a university education and a huge sense of compassion for people in need of help. He’s been locked up for the rest of his life.

Another lifetime sentence was handed out to Port who murdered four young gay men with a date rape drug and attempted to do so to several more and might actually have killed more but poor policing meant he was allowed to kill repeatedly even though it was obvious, even to the coroner, that the deaths had not been investigated properly. There’s now an enquiry to determine if it was laziness or some form of institutional homophobia within Scotland Yard. Neither would surprise me, although I thought the police had taken a lot of trouble to educate their officers to be more sympathetic to LGBTQ people; perhaps not.

There’s probably still some racism there as young black men are stopped on the street more than white ones, though it’s not on the sort of scale that happens in America where there appear to have been ambushes of police by shooters, who feel they have an axe to grind. I suspect that those who are killed are probably not the officers causing the problems but then life has a habit of showing us new forms of irony most days.

I was horrified to learn that two police officers had been attacked and assaulted by a gang of school kids in Lewisham, in London after one of them attempted to arrest a boy thought to be carrying a knife. What is the world coming to?

Glancing at my own children I couldn’t see any of them setting upon a policeman but then I thought back to some of my own encounters which were less than friendly and probably inspired by transphobia. Thankfully, I survived and lived to fight again which took place in court and cost my local force more than a few pounds. I don’t know if that caused any change in policy, if not then I hope their insurance is paid up because I would certainly sue again and seek damages which they wouldn’t be able to ignore. Hopefully, that won’t happen.

Finally, I see Eddie Izzard the transgender comedian has been in court giving evidence against someone who apparently threatened and verbally abused him near his home. Seems like he won the case and the perpetrators will be sentenced next week. Izzard said that he was fed up with being harassed because he was transgender and in standing up for his rights he was also making a stand against all those historical abuses that transgender people had suffered over the generations. He’s pretty fit having run so many marathons in the same number of days, so not the sort a sane person would pick an argument with.