Get some little boys, that is. A trip was made to Pets at Home in Lincoln and the three little dumbo lads that were there were inspected, cuddled and brought home. One is a white and beige boy and is the new Tony (but BIGGER and with RATTITUDE), another is a little brown boy like the new Woollie and is the new Ross, and the final one (yes, I know we only went for two but you can’t leave one left in his cage all on his own in a shop can you?? It just isn’t cricket to do that) is a really dark grey boy who looks very similar to Shovel and is called Munch – or more often than not, Fake Shovel.
They’re still in the nursery cage so that they get friendly and to appreciate human company but that doesn’t seem to be an issue with this batch since they’re extremely people-friendly little boys. They also seem to like other rats too and are doing their level best to get out of the nursery and into Rat Towers to be with the Big Boys. The Big Boys themselves regularly visit the babies – some even deign to enter the nursery cage to have a look round to see if there’s anything there they want, like a particularly appealing receipt or maybe even a pizza menu – so all will be well when the babies make the transition to Rat Towers.
Speaking of receipts and menus, it is the wont in our household to put any junk mail or unwanted bits of paper into Rat Towers, posting it through the bars so that it can be spirited off into the back and checked for codes and any other information that may be of use to the collective. The other day there was a pub menu posted in, along with a pizza home delivery menu – the latter was grabbed and duly consulted. Simon did his best to get access to my mobile phone so that they could order a deep pan 12 inch four cheese pizza with extra cheese and then even more cheese but sadly the plan backfired when he realised that the credit card he’s stolen a few weeks ago no longer held good. He tried haggling, offering the pizza company Fitzgerald and Shovel in exchange for the delivery but sadly that didn’t work either. They had to settle for rat nuggets, as usual.,,
Sunday, 7 June 2009
Tuesday, 26 May 2009
Do we, don’t we? Will we, won’t we?
The jury is still out on this vital and life-changing decision; life-changing for a pair of little rodents, that is. Since we lost Tony and Ross – he was one of our Friends batch of boys and was brother to the resident Raffles, Simon – we have a pair of vacancies for some new boys. It just so happened that on my way home from work today I called at Pets at Home to get our monthly three sacks of Rat Nuggets, and of course had a look at the rats they have in the shop there… sadly, two girls. When I brought this news home to DaddyRat he showed considerably less enthusiasm than the boys of Rat Towers – Simon had pinched my car keys and four of them had just reversed the car out of the garage and were piggy-backing me out into the driving seat before the sentence was fully out of my mouth – clearly THEY thought the installation of a pair of ladies in with them was a Very Good Idea. Clearly as a mother No Girl is Ever Going to be Good Enough for my boys, not even the two little black and white beauties they had in the shop, so I’m afraid I’m going to have to disappoint them on this occasion.
I’m sat on my little computer with Shovel giving me a hand – he said he’d like to browse Rat Porn when I’ve finished writing my post – admiring the criss-crossing of scratches currently adorning my chest, all complements of a very determined and enthusiastic climber – climber into ladies’ clothes, that is – who goes by the name of Shovel. On Monday he was out for his cuddles, fun and frolics and was showing what I considered to be far too close an interest in my cleavage; for some reason it became completely imperative to Shovel’s well-being that he gain access to the insides of my undergarments. I have no explanation of this; neither, apparently, does Shovel, although I believe he’s been coached rather too enthusiastically by DaddyRat. I believe they may be in cahoots on this matter, although I have no proof. Despite much wrestling and considerable jockeying for position Shovel managed to get himself inside my underwear – it’s amazing, give how tight said underwear is, how much squirming one small rodent can accomplish despite his eyes popping due to the nature of the industrial-strength elastic I sport on a daily basis…
I’m sat on my little computer with Shovel giving me a hand – he said he’d like to browse Rat Porn when I’ve finished writing my post – admiring the criss-crossing of scratches currently adorning my chest, all complements of a very determined and enthusiastic climber – climber into ladies’ clothes, that is – who goes by the name of Shovel. On Monday he was out for his cuddles, fun and frolics and was showing what I considered to be far too close an interest in my cleavage; for some reason it became completely imperative to Shovel’s well-being that he gain access to the insides of my undergarments. I have no explanation of this; neither, apparently, does Shovel, although I believe he’s been coached rather too enthusiastically by DaddyRat. I believe they may be in cahoots on this matter, although I have no proof. Despite much wrestling and considerable jockeying for position Shovel managed to get himself inside my underwear – it’s amazing, give how tight said underwear is, how much squirming one small rodent can accomplish despite his eyes popping due to the nature of the industrial-strength elastic I sport on a daily basis…
Wednesday, 29 April 2009
Little Tony
Poor little boy - he tried to live, but finally his tiny body couldn't carry on and he lost his battle yesterday at 10:20pm, dying in MummyRat's hands. Another sad funeral and heartbreak for loving "parents". The one good thing was that it was very peaceful - he curled up and went to sleep, and that was it. We only had his company for three weeks, but it was enough to ensure the tears.
His brothers are lively and healthy, however, as are New Woolie and New Grissom - the day before Tony died he was playing with his brother Splinter, with his nursery-cage-mates Shovel, Gibbs, Horatio and Malone, New Woolie and Grissom, and big boys Simon, Taylor and Joey and generally running riot and causing chaos and leaving mayhem in his wake.
This is the memory we'll hold of him - playing happily and enjoying his tiny life.
His brothers are lively and healthy, however, as are New Woolie and New Grissom - the day before Tony died he was playing with his brother Splinter, with his nursery-cage-mates Shovel, Gibbs, Horatio and Malone, New Woolie and Grissom, and big boys Simon, Taylor and Joey and generally running riot and causing chaos and leaving mayhem in his wake.
This is the memory we'll hold of him - playing happily and enjoying his tiny life.
Sunday, 26 April 2009
Nightmare on Roman Street (well, the A46, anyway)
Last week was a loving MummyRat’s week from hell; first of all there was a bug going around Rat Towers that appeared to affect most of the older rats in residence, and second there were sadly two fatalities as a result – first of all my lovely Nurse Grissom, and then the big, strong Woolie who went from being nearly 600g in weight to 350g in less than a week. Grissom left us on Friday 17th April, after Mummy and DaddyRat had taken a coach-full of students to the Gadget Show in Birmingham. Upon returning home, there was the sad little body of the loveliest rat in the world waiting to have his little funeral, with Woolie dying in MummyRat’s arms the day after. Two little bodies, two funerals. So sad. The good news is that the other boys appear to be recovered from the bugs they were host to; Delko spent Sunday curled up being a Poor Sick Rat on MummyRat’s knee, but perked up after a bit of spoiling.
The new batch of six boys are still in their little cage awaiting their transference into Rat Towers; all appear to be really friendly and extremely intelligent people, with Shovel (Spade is his Sunday name) consistently outsmarting both devoted parents with ease. Little Tony (beautiful white rat with pink eyes) isn’t doing too well, sadly – he’s still tiny and isn’t putting on any weight – but he seems happy enough. If he doesn’t improve within the week, he’s going for a Trip To See The Vet. He’ll love that.
Well…. It had to happen. After the loss of Grissom and Woolie we had two vacancies in Rat Towers to fill. A trip to Pets at Home was made yesterday… and two more boys were selected to join the throng. First of all a little brown and white boy was appointed to replace Grissom (a very hard job of work to do) but in this case he’s a dumbo and Nurse Grissom wasn’t. Second, a comparatively big boy was interviewed – he’s a big round brown dumbo and is the new Woolie. He spent an hour this morning on MummyRat’s knee, and managed to charm the entire household by being loving, friendly and extremely TIRED requiring a nap at frequent intervals. He is probably one of the sweetest natured little rodents to employ Mummy and DaddyRat as owners.
On consideration, probably the reason that Woolie was so Tired was due to the journey home from Lincoln to Grantham – thirty hectic miles in which Woolie managed to eat his way out of the box in which he was inserted with considerable lack of dignity in the Lincoln store, and after incorporation into Grissom’s box was a good way through snicking his way out of that too. MummyRat had to blow into his nostrils in order to get him to behave in an orderly fashion – that gave him cause to think for a nano-second before normal service was resumed and chewing recommenced. By the end of the journey both new boys were sitting on a piece of box the size of a postage stamp surrounded by chewed pap and MummyRat was blue through lack of oxygen.
Interestingly, when we were introducing the new boys to some of the older boys, New Woolie and Simon went shuffling off into a corner and were whispering together, clearly hatching some devious plot. Five minutes later, Simon – who is the Rat Towers Raffles in that anything that is shiny is INSTANTLY desirable to Simon and therefore must become his property (there was an unsavoury occurrence where Simon and DaddyRat had a tug of war over an empty crisp packet that Simon was determined to own and DaddyRat was equally determined that he himself would keep) and the cunning Simon had clearly made a snap assessment in that New Woolie would be a worthy ally in his quest to denude MummyRat of all her jewellery; New Woolie is the Ideal Straight-Man to Simon’s Stand-Up. Ten minutes later, MummyRat noticed that she’d lost two bracelets, three earrings, one ring and a necklace and Simon was peering through his magnifying glass at the hallmarks on his plunder.
MummyRat has the feeling that she’s going to be shopping at Accessorize rather than Goldsmiths in future…
The new batch of six boys are still in their little cage awaiting their transference into Rat Towers; all appear to be really friendly and extremely intelligent people, with Shovel (Spade is his Sunday name) consistently outsmarting both devoted parents with ease. Little Tony (beautiful white rat with pink eyes) isn’t doing too well, sadly – he’s still tiny and isn’t putting on any weight – but he seems happy enough. If he doesn’t improve within the week, he’s going for a Trip To See The Vet. He’ll love that.
Well…. It had to happen. After the loss of Grissom and Woolie we had two vacancies in Rat Towers to fill. A trip to Pets at Home was made yesterday… and two more boys were selected to join the throng. First of all a little brown and white boy was appointed to replace Grissom (a very hard job of work to do) but in this case he’s a dumbo and Nurse Grissom wasn’t. Second, a comparatively big boy was interviewed – he’s a big round brown dumbo and is the new Woolie. He spent an hour this morning on MummyRat’s knee, and managed to charm the entire household by being loving, friendly and extremely TIRED requiring a nap at frequent intervals. He is probably one of the sweetest natured little rodents to employ Mummy and DaddyRat as owners.
On consideration, probably the reason that Woolie was so Tired was due to the journey home from Lincoln to Grantham – thirty hectic miles in which Woolie managed to eat his way out of the box in which he was inserted with considerable lack of dignity in the Lincoln store, and after incorporation into Grissom’s box was a good way through snicking his way out of that too. MummyRat had to blow into his nostrils in order to get him to behave in an orderly fashion – that gave him cause to think for a nano-second before normal service was resumed and chewing recommenced. By the end of the journey both new boys were sitting on a piece of box the size of a postage stamp surrounded by chewed pap and MummyRat was blue through lack of oxygen.
Interestingly, when we were introducing the new boys to some of the older boys, New Woolie and Simon went shuffling off into a corner and were whispering together, clearly hatching some devious plot. Five minutes later, Simon – who is the Rat Towers Raffles in that anything that is shiny is INSTANTLY desirable to Simon and therefore must become his property (there was an unsavoury occurrence where Simon and DaddyRat had a tug of war over an empty crisp packet that Simon was determined to own and DaddyRat was equally determined that he himself would keep) and the cunning Simon had clearly made a snap assessment in that New Woolie would be a worthy ally in his quest to denude MummyRat of all her jewellery; New Woolie is the Ideal Straight-Man to Simon’s Stand-Up. Ten minutes later, MummyRat noticed that she’d lost two bracelets, three earrings, one ring and a necklace and Simon was peering through his magnifying glass at the hallmarks on his plunder.
MummyRat has the feeling that she’s going to be shopping at Accessorize rather than Goldsmiths in future…
Friday, 10 April 2009
Toothpick, anyone?
I'd forgotten how lively baby rats are..... Not that I should since I appear to be nanny to a new clutch of chicks every three months or so, but each time we get new boys they seem smaller and livelier than the last lot. DaddyRat and myself will marvel at how tiny and how perfect the babies are, and each time we say "these must be the smallest yet!" whilst being aware that this can't realistically be the case because if it were we'd be nurturing baby rats the size of microbes by now.
The new six are EXTREMELY lively - I've just been refereeing a bout of fisticuffs between Splinter and Gibbs II, then between Splinter and Shovel (Spade - poor little boy was destined never to be known by his given name) and then between Splinter and Horatio III. Spot the common denominator? Splinter is a bundle of laughs without a shy bone in his body. We should have realised what he was like when he arrived and unpacked his "Rocky" dressing gown.
Speaking of Not Shy... there was an unsavoury incident two nights ago involving Simon and DaddyRat. DaddyRat had been eating some really potent-smelling Pringles with some disgustingly red dip and had stunk out the living room with it - and remember that the living room plays house to three cages of rats so MummyRat's tolerance of smells in the living room is pretty high - to the extent that the rat population were sending texts and emails asking for goodness' sake PLEASE open a window Before We All Die From the Noxious Odours. Simon started doing his usual trick of running his metal cup along the bars of his cell to alert the warders' attention to the fact that he was Ready To Come Out NOW. DaddyRat rushed to open the door for Sir Simon, allowing him to effect his egress. All fine, one would think. However, when DaddyRat and Sir Simon sat down there was a determined progress on the part of Sir Simon towards DaddyRat's mouth, followed by insistent and exceptionally strong little pink fingers prising open said mouth. Next thing was Sir Simon vanishing up to his shoulders into DaddyRat's mouth, picking out the bits of dead Pringle from between DaddyRat's teeth - as MummyRat said at the time, she didn't know what was the most disgusting - Sir Simon for wanting to actually DO that or for DaddyRat to LET him. Whichever, the net result was one MummyRat lying on the floor in the shape of a disgusted swastika pleading for them to Stop That NOW and Sir Simon having a free second-hand meal. Rat Towers' inhabitants didn't seem to see a problem.... They suggested that the next time DaddyRat feels the need for a scale and polish then he should Let One Of Them Do It because it would be Cheaper. Especially if he'd been eating something particularly savoury, since rats love a savoury snack... they don't seem to mind if it is a pre-chewed snack....
The new six are EXTREMELY lively - I've just been refereeing a bout of fisticuffs between Splinter and Gibbs II, then between Splinter and Shovel (Spade - poor little boy was destined never to be known by his given name) and then between Splinter and Horatio III. Spot the common denominator? Splinter is a bundle of laughs without a shy bone in his body. We should have realised what he was like when he arrived and unpacked his "Rocky" dressing gown.
Speaking of Not Shy... there was an unsavoury incident two nights ago involving Simon and DaddyRat. DaddyRat had been eating some really potent-smelling Pringles with some disgustingly red dip and had stunk out the living room with it - and remember that the living room plays house to three cages of rats so MummyRat's tolerance of smells in the living room is pretty high - to the extent that the rat population were sending texts and emails asking for goodness' sake PLEASE open a window Before We All Die From the Noxious Odours. Simon started doing his usual trick of running his metal cup along the bars of his cell to alert the warders' attention to the fact that he was Ready To Come Out NOW. DaddyRat rushed to open the door for Sir Simon, allowing him to effect his egress. All fine, one would think. However, when DaddyRat and Sir Simon sat down there was a determined progress on the part of Sir Simon towards DaddyRat's mouth, followed by insistent and exceptionally strong little pink fingers prising open said mouth. Next thing was Sir Simon vanishing up to his shoulders into DaddyRat's mouth, picking out the bits of dead Pringle from between DaddyRat's teeth - as MummyRat said at the time, she didn't know what was the most disgusting - Sir Simon for wanting to actually DO that or for DaddyRat to LET him. Whichever, the net result was one MummyRat lying on the floor in the shape of a disgusted swastika pleading for them to Stop That NOW and Sir Simon having a free second-hand meal. Rat Towers' inhabitants didn't seem to see a problem.... They suggested that the next time DaddyRat feels the need for a scale and polish then he should Let One Of Them Do It because it would be Cheaper. Especially if he'd been eating something particularly savoury, since rats love a savoury snack... they don't seem to mind if it is a pre-chewed snack....
Tuesday, 7 April 2009
Malone and his posse
Prior to his death he made some new babies feel welcome and tried to keep some form of order.
New babies video
Well 2 out of 6 anyway as I think Mummy Rat would have a nervous breakdown if all 6 came out at once. And now we don't have Malone to baby sit we are having to interview for a replacement.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
