The Weekly Dormouse. (aka Bike, est. 2007) Part 3435 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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The report and subsequent directors' meeting came and went. The person who'd caused me such trouble at the last one was unavailable, so my building up to calling him a moron at this meeting was unnecessary and the meeting passed the ideas I'd made to further investigate how the bank could use them for the good of its customers and hopefully its own profits.

We hadn't had any direct interference from Russians although like many institutions in the West we had to deal with hackers which we knew were based in Russia and China, both evil regimes without a single aspect to redeem them. I suspect they will always be the same until their regimes fail possibly after a nuclear war in which there will be no winners. I don't think I want be one of those who survive, sitting in their bunkers waiting for the radiation to be low enough for them to emerge like woodlice from under stones, only to realise nothing they held dear exists anymore. It would be horrific, no dormice or wildlife, birds and many plants, like trees would be gone, just grass, flies and cockroaches. Ugh not for me.

Social evolution would suggest that totalitarian regimes ultimately fail, it doesn't however say when, and both have been there a long time which tends to suggest the common people in both countries must be either so strictly controlled they can't overthrow it, or they are so thick they don't realise there is a better way to run a country; just don't look at Britain or America because both of those are failing too.

I began to try and plan my holiday up at Stanebury and do some surveying of invertebrates in the stream. I'd spoken to various places like the Freshwater Biological Association to get a list of probable species as well as lists of books which may help me in identifying them. Then I had the dilemma of deciding whether I kept them at the castle for others to use or brought them back down here for our library. At least while I was contemplating this, I wasn't nuking China.

Diane broke my reverie, "You have a visitor," she announced.

"It's not in my diary." I knew this because I'd looked at it on her desk while she was doing the important stuff, like making the first cuppa. "Who is it?" I whispered but she just ignored me walking out of my door.

I waited anxiously to see who it was, also rather impatiently. Why I didn't know? If it was someone nice I could wait a couple more minutes, if it was someone nasty I could wait until going home time and tell them they were too late, come back next week.

The door opened and in walked Delia. Remember her? She was my temp secretary when I supposedly acted up when Tom went to cover for the dean. She had shown enormous enthusiasm for things biological and I had offered her a scholarship to do biology/ecology here. She had gone on to do a master's degree in ecological surveying at Bournemouth University and had come to say hello.

"How lovely to see you," I said meaning every word of it.

"I came to visit my mother and popped in on the off chance you were free, sorry I didn't phone first."

"No matter you're here now, Diane could you make us a cuppa and break out the chocolate hobnobs, let's celebrate." Diane went off to do my bidding while Delia gave me chapter and verse about her studies. She now had degrees in a subject she loved. She enquired if I could suggest some ecological firms I could recommend as she was looking to pay off her student loan.

"How about teaching?" I asked her but she didn't think her degrees were good enough. Diane came back with a tray of teas and biccies and we all settled down to eat and drink.

"This lady was my first ever secretary but was smitten by the dormice-bug and went over to the dark side and did a degree with us and then went off to do a master's at Bournemouth."

"Nice to meet you," offered Diane, "I take it you're not looking for your old job back?" That made me look at her sharply.

"No thanks, but I did enjoy myself working for Prof Watts, so much so that I wanted to learn more about the science I was dealing with."

"Di, do we still have that temporary vacancy with Melinda going on maternity leave?"

"We haven't advertised it yet, as we can't get her to give us a date for her to finish, HR have written us again about it."

"Fancy doing some maternity cover?" I asked Delia.

"Seriously?" she said to check I wasn't joking.

"I'm serious; by the time that runs out I'll try and kill off another one so we can give you a proper job."

She laughed and commented that my sense of humour hadn't improved. I told her that the offer was there and she would probably be better suited to teaching survey techniques than someone who was worried that everything in the natural world would affect her baby and who had got so large that she could no longer bend down to reach a Longworth trap if we were trapping small mammals.

Delia looked pensive. "I'd love to work with you again, but I don't know if I'd be good enough to teach."

"A maternity cover contract may give you a chance to find out."

"But I mean, working with the best, like yourself would show me up as a tyro. How could I deal with that?"

"You wouldn't likely be working with me."

"She's too high and mighty to get her hands dirty, these days." commented Diane.

"Not so much that I couldn't sack you," I said quietly.

"They'd miss me more than they would you," Di flung back at me.

"Bugger," I said she was probably right. "If they ever find out that you run this department, we're stuffed," I said pretending to be anxious. Diane and Delia both laughed at my pretend embarrassment.

"Well, the offer is there, let me know as soon as you can and you'll save us an advertiser's fee.

She thanked me for my generosity and left. Diane immediately asked about her. She'd heard rumours that I had given my secretary a degree. I told her I'd got her on a course because I knew she was interested and I thought she'd get the degree; she got a 2.1 which was good enough to get into Bournemouth. "She achieved it all on her own. I know she's a good worker and I'm sure she'd be fine in Melinda's job. Let's face it she's not exactly our most dependable lecturer and it's got worse since she's been pregnant."

"I'd have thought as a mother you'd be more supportive of Melinda?"

"I've raised two babies who were just a couple of weeks old, really young ones, so I do know about being the mother of an infant, I accept that pregnancy is a world I shall never experience but I think we have supported Melinda very well and she has played us for suckers as a consequence."

"You can't sack her for being pregnant."

"I know that Di and so does she, so she's giving us the run around. I'm going to ask HR to write to her and give us a date as we need to find a replacement while she's off on maternity leave. She owes us that much, if she decides that motherhood is more enjoyable than working for a living, I won't be sorry if she leaves us after she does the statutory return to work. She's something of a waste of space but getting rid of them is so difficult these days."

"You appointed her," said Diane accusatorily.

"I didn't, Tom did, she was the last one he appointed to the department, he's a sucker for a pretty girl and she is pretty."

"So what went wrong?"

"She was appointed to teach ecology, which she did in an average sort of way. When it came to running surveys she was woeful, I had to show her what to do several times, she was unprepared much of the time and had little idea what to do."

"Is that why you took her off surveys?"

"Yes, I taught those for her for a few months until I got Debbie to cover for me; she is very good as I suspect Delia would be."

"You're really fond of her, aren't you?"

"She's like a protégé and I watched how she worked as a student, who had done very little science. She worked harder than anyone else on the course. To see her succeed rewarded me tenfold and I'd like to see how good she is since she went from here. If it's as good as I suspect, she'll be very good for the department. I'm willing to take that risk."

"I hope you'll support me like that, professor."

"I have to, you know too much." I said this with a dead pan expression and it took a second for her to see the joke and to start laughing. As she went to leave I said, "Don't feel any sort of threat, she was a good secretary when I badly needed one but you are my secretary/pa now and I don't plan on changing that in the future, we are a team, I'm just trying to do the same with my teaching staff."

"Thank you prof, that means a lot to me."

"Right, wage slave, back to the grindstone and continue to make it look as if I know what I'm doing. Well, go on then..." She left me chuckling as she went. I say it as I find it, she's damned good and I don't want to lose her. Goodness, it's like appointing an ex-spouse, and having to pussyfoot around to avoid upsetting either of them.

The rest of the day went as expected and I brought home another load of work and I used to pity poor old Daddy with all he brought home, working far more hours than he was paid. I know the feeling now, not sure how long I shall continue doing it. I am committed to the department but not to the level that Tom was but then we didn't have a houseful of kids and teens in the original days. Seeing as I seem to do much of the domestic work except the cooking David does for me, I need some more help but it never seems to last though I don't know why, I try to be a good employer, I really do.

As I sat doing my work in my study with a tummy full of David's latest culinary delight, I decided I wasn't going to work every waking hour and that I sketched out a job description for a housekeeper. I was going to appoint some help or resign my job, this time I was deadly serious I don't want a stroke or a heart attack, so help or I go.