We've been trying to figure out how little Thisbe keeps ending up on the top of my Ratty Corner shelves when I leave her on the table, and couldn't see how on earth she did it. So I sat there this morning with the camera. Here's the evidence.
I made a stupid mistake yesterday. I took the video of Tizzy climbing up to the top of the shelves, then left her there while I popped the file onto the computer. Of course, when I went back, she had completely disappeared. I took down all the boxes - no Thisbe. Called her name. No Thisbe. Listened for movement. No Thisbe. Searched around the room. No Thisbe. Not a sign of her until we were eating our evening meal, eleven hours later. Then there she was, on top of her cage, waiting to go home. Little minx! I have no idea what she did all day - I suspect I'll find the damage later.
Well, having tried to amputate my right thumb in the hinge of a door, I find myself needing to clean out two cages this evening. I'll let you know later if my thumb and bandage survive the experience. I can just imagine what the ratty reaction to it will be.
I've had a big ratty weigh-in. I managed to weigh everyone except Pyramus, who refused to stay still on the scales long enough. It's interesting- Babbage is following the same curve as Darwin, but where Darwin looks muscular, Babbage just looks fat.
Here are the boys:
Here are the girls
I still have all my digits. I managed to clean the cages last night entirely left handed, with my thumb tucked away whenever it got near the rats. What is it that's so fascinating about sticking plasters?
Theo's tumour seems to have returned, but instead of being a round lump, this time it's spread all along his side. I can't see the vet wanting to take this one off. We didn't expect the wheezy old lad to survive the last operation and I think this lump is really well attached.
No, I didn't know what it meant either, but this is fascinating. A study which shows that rats know if they don't know something. Confusing? Well, yes. Here's the article. Aren't you proud of our little friends? A great story for World Rat Day.
I've just taken my beautiful, gentle little girl up to the vets to be put to sleep. I realised that it was probably time just after lunch when I watched her struggling to move around the cage, phoned the vet and they had an appointment for us this afternoon. Vixen and I had a lovely long cuddle, with her snuggled down in her rat pouch. She had a snack of cucumber, and a little drink. Then we walked up to the vets in the lovely spring sunshine, past the daffodils blooming in the front gardens, and we said goodbye.
Well, YouTube continues to educate me. Now I know where graffiti comes from!
It's a total laugh trying to keep Thisbe on the table. If I'm not standing between her and the shelves, she leaps across. If I am standing there, she climbs up me and uses me as a vantage point to leap from. I wasn't so worried before she pulled her disappearing trick, because I always knew where she would be if she wasn't on the table. I can just see her managing to get to the boys, though. She's such a little hussy. This is why I wasn't going to have any more girls! Yeah, right.
I'm trying to think where I could let them play, but struggling. I've used the kitchen before, but that only works when there's no-one else home. The stairs and landing, but that causes problems if someone comes to the front door, and I can't rely on the family to remember the rats are out and not come thundering down the stairs. The front room has lots of wires, and the older boys' cage; too much temptation. The bathroom is tricky because we don't have another loo. My bed is no good, because it's very low and with a wooden rim round the edge, giving a nice step down to the floor. Besides, I could just imagine Mark's reaction to finding rat poo in his bed.
The only solution at the moment seems to be to take Thisbe away from the table for most of play time so the others can have some exercise, and keep her on me. I put her on the stairs for a second last night, and she set off up them at such a pace that I had difficulty catching her again. I do love my little Tizzy-rat.
It's a 10 year old story, but such a good example of how strong the ratty maternal instinct is. The tale of a rat mum adopting some baby bunnies. Easter Bunnies
Of course, it sounds as if they were wild babies, so their real mum quite probably knew exactly where she'd left them. But let's not spoil a nicely pro-rat story with speculation.
Wonder if I'll get to see this one?
I am so proud of Pyramus. After two months he's finally decided he can trust me. He climbed up onto my arm all of his own accord, let me cuddle and stroke him, just like any other ratty.
Tizzy, on the other hand, is still being a pickle. But she did come back to me when I called her. She was on the top of the bookshelf. But she did come home. I've solved my playtime problem for now. We have switched sockets in that room, so I've turned them all off so they're safe. I've blocked off the doorway. So if when she goes awol at least I know she's still in that room.
Almost forgot, Brunel nailed me this evening while I was putting him home. Obviously holding him whilst putting him into the cage constitutes an invasion of territory. Have I got to get yet another boy neutered? Sigh.
Great day yesterday. We took the three younger boys off to the MRC show in Brum. Brunel was fine. No aggression at all. Didn't take much money from my stand, but probably covered our lunch and petrol, so it wasn't a loss. Then the AGM. I'm now Treasurer rather than Membership Sec. All the money! Heh heh!
I let the girls out in the evening, and Tiz went a wandering as usual. But when I went to put them all home, she was back on the table, in the cage! She really does make me laugh! I guess she is just as capable of jumping back to the table as jumping to the shelves.
What a laugh. First of all I lost Tiz on my file shelves. Put her back on the table, so she jumped over to the shelves next to the boys' cage. The next time I saw her was in the litter bag, but she disappeared when I started taking litter out. I left her to it for a while, then found her at bedtime, headsleeping on the top of my stock shelves.
I think we may have mites in the big cage - I have some scabby rats in there. I've got to find a way to get some more Ivermectin without paying a lot. There's some 'spot on' stuff in the pet shop, but it costs silly money for 20 rats.
Just getting my head around being treasurer for the rat club. That's why I've been quiet lately. I'm going to miss doing memberships and getting to say hi to all the newbies first.
I'm getting to see MacBeth tomorrow. Got to pick up Kim and Cass and friend from Derby, take them down to Stratford, then take them all home again. Lots of driving.
A really great evening yesterday. As I said before, I drove up to Derby to pick up Kim, Cass and their friend Claire, then took them down to Stratford to see Macbeth. The drive down was only slightly stressful, that due to my roundabout phobia. I hate those roundabouts with loads of lanes where you're supposed to know where you are and which lane is the right one!
We parked up and went to a little 'Bella Italia' restaurant that K&C found last time they were there, and got ourselves nice and full of panini with peppers, mushrooms and creamy cheese, with a really garlicky sauce on the salad.
Next stop was to visit the swans on the Avon. There are always so many of them there, but it surprises me how many of them are youngsters. It makes you wonder just how long they survive. We were watching the flotilla of swans sailing round, when along came a lovely white goose, neck held high, looking for all the world as if he were trying to be a swan too. Sooo silly. Maybe he heard us laughing, because he came up out of the water and began patrolling the path and the grassy park behind us to see if anyone had any food to spare.
There were a great number of ducks and Canada geese too, but the swans were so elegant that the others all paled into the background.
We saw an amorous pigeon desperately trying to impress the lady pigeons, but alas, his advances were spurned. Poor chap, he looked so self important, but no-one was interested.
After a while, the swan-goose found himself some visitors with a paper full of chips, and helped them with their meal until it was finished. The advancing crowd of water birds arrived just too late, as the satisfied chap waddled away. Shortly afterwards he found a young girl whom he allowed to feed him chunks of bread by hand.
When the evening began to get chilly we walked around to the Swan Theatre. There was the usual crush in the shop, but when we got up to our seats it was very impressive. I hadn't been in that theatre before; hadn't realised just how small it is. The stage is in the centre, with seating around the three sides and two galleries stacked one above the other around the edges. Each gallery has two rows of seating and some standing room behind. At the stage end a fire-escape type ladder runs the full height of the galleries, allowing the actors to climb from level to level during the play, and above the stage the top gallery extends allowing scenes to be played from right up in the roof above the stage.
We were in the front row of the lowest gallery. The seats were of the fold-down variety. Plenty of knee room, but not a lot of room to move your feet around so it got a little cramping after a while. To begin with I sat with my elbows on the front ledge, looking over the edge, then realised that I'd set my tennis elbow off again. Ack!
Bang! Bang! Bang!
The play began with hammering on a door, no actors on stage. Designed to make you jump and really get your attention. It continued in the violent and gory way that you would expect of Macbeth. The cast was international, with a variety of accents that jarred at first, but as you were drawn into the story this was all forgotten. The actor playing Macbeth was so intense that I wonder he survives his own performance. The weird sisters were driven by revenge, driving the downfall of Macbeth by feeding his ambition, constantly appearing un-noticed as servants and messengers. I loved it all, and can only recommend that you visit for yourself.
Ten thirty five and we were back out in the night, hurrying back to the car for the trip home. I was surprised at how awake I felt, having sat in near darkness for three hours. We always seem to come out of the theatre on a Shakespeare high though. I remember Ginnie dancing around the trees when we came out of Midsummer Night's Dream.
The trip back to Derby seemed to pass quickly, arriving back at K&C's around half past midnight for a sound night's sleep before returning home to Rugby.
We arrived home today to find Hubble looking extremely sorry for himself, hunched up on the cage balcony, laboured breathing and slightly blue feet. I phoned the vet and got him in straight away, where he was given antibiotics and steroids which perked him up a bit. He's lost around 50 grams since we weighed him 11 days ago! The vet said he wasn't dehydrated, but his stomach felt completely empty. We've since got some banana and some baby food into him, but he's still not right. Follow up appointment in the morning.
Why do they wait until you go away to do something like this?
I've just realised that I blogged about my poorly Hubble, and didn't blog about my poorly hubby. Oops. It seems he probably has angina. Hospital appointment coming up shortly.
We noticed last night that little Lucy has an exceedingly rounded tum. If I didn't know better I'd think she was pregnant. But there is NO WAY she has been in contact with the boys. I didn't manage to pick her up to have a look, jumpy as she is, so I suppose we have to hope that it's a phantom pregnancy like Shorty had a couple of years ago. Rats! Who'd 'av 'em!
Hubble had his third injection this morning. I peeped at the appointment book and we were the only appointment - it's usually emergencies only on Sunday. Back for another jab tomorrow. At least the weather is nice and warm for the walk up. In fact, it's worryingly warm. April is supposed to be soggy, April showers, Spring flowers and all that, but I can't remember when it last rained.
This is why I thought Lucy might be preggers:
Presumably she's just fat. It feels like flab, but I'm going to keep a close eye on her.
It looks like I have a few days of temping coming up, so I'll be quiet for a while.
I finished cleaning out the big boys' cage last night. I almost got it done on Sunday, but I ran out of steam. You know, it's incredibly difficult to clean out a level of the cage which has seven ratties on it either helping you, stealing the cloth or trying to escape. Difficult, but extremely amusing. My funny little men.
Hubble's due back up to the vet for another jab this morning. Then I'm going to have to switch over to evening appointments while this temp job lasts. They've asked me to go back to the same place I was before. So either they're very desperate or they liked me there. Hmm. S'funny, because I actually told them that the whole point of temping is that you're long gone by the time they find all your mistakes. And they STILL want me back again! Am I rambling? Yep, I am. And talking to myself. Yes, I suppose I am. But I don't worry about that do I? No, of course not. It's normal. I agree. Good.
I came up with a way to keep Brunel occupied while I cleaned the cage, giving them pea fishing - a bowl of water and peas. It worked well at first, but I still got nipped twice before they were finished.
Then the girls came out to play. Loads of fun! Here's the result:
On 2nd May for a part time school library assistant job. I really want this one. It sounds like something I could do well and enjoy. And it's part time so the house wouldn't get in the awful mess that it does when I'm full timing.
I can't quite believe this. I only took the video of them pea fishing on Thursday night. Then I went to clean out the cage this morning and found Lucy dead in the rat pile. I thought she was asleep, took a photo of the funny position she was in, then realised she wasn't breathing. She's only a year old! I should have taken her to the vet when she looked so fat, but I thought it was just middle-age spread. Now I'm guessing she had a womb infection. I feel so stupid! She must have been hurting and I didn't even notice. :-(
I've been trying to work out why losing Lucy has upset me so much. Is it because I could have prevented it? I'm not sure I could have, without being psychic. Her only hope really was being spayed, and the vet wouldn't be likely to do that just from a weight gain.
It's not because she was a favourite. She'd been here for about six months, and I was told she was seven months when she came. She didn't like being touched, wasn't happy with being held. So we weren't best buddies.
I guess it's because it was so completely unexpected. She'd been fine on Thursday night. Friday I'm not so sure. They didn't come out to play because we went to get the week's shopping and took too long, so I just fed them and went to bed in the knowledge that they'd get extra playtime today while I cleaned them out. She was about thirteen months. Far too young. I failed her because I didn't even realise she was so ill. Even if it wouldn't have made a difference, I should have noticed.
Ack. I'll get over it. RIP Lucy. I'm going to miss you.
Yep, I've been shopping. Got 32 new clothes hangers this morning. Will that be enough? Probably not. Maybe it's something to do with teenagers and ever increasing wardrobes? Maybe the rumours are true and coathangers metamorphose into odd socks. Or was that the other way round, and the missing socks turn into clothes hangers? Whatever the answer, we never seem to have enough, so I bought four packs of eight. I forgot to get some long bootlaces for Joe though. I always forget something!
Back to ratness. Hubble is eating much better now, though he still looks like a little bag of bones. Brunel is pushing his luck. He bit me four times over the weekend, and he's started to draw blood. It's not as if I had my hand in his cage - just on his table most times. I'm starting to think decushioning. I just wish I knew what went on in those little brains of theirs.
The cages are all nice and clean now. Well, clean-ish. Babbage, Brunel and Otis have a thing about pooing on their shelf. Little bRats. It's disgusting, and hard to clean up because Brunel won't let my hand in the cage. I replaced their other shelf with a hammock to stop the mess, but this one has their wheel standing on it. Maybe if I hung the wheel from their ceiling and put another hammock in instead of that shelf?
Isn't he such a hunk, my Darwin?
Why does she do it to me? I got up at half six to make sure my daughter was getting up for college, and found she wasn't in her bed. Went downstairs and checked all over down there. Went back upstairs and put my glasses on in case she'd huddled down to sleep somewhere and I'd missed her (she went through a stage of sleeping under her desk). Nowhere. Not in her bed. Not in her sister's bed. Not in the living room. Not in the dining room. Not in the kitchen. I even disturbed my son checking that she wasn't in his room.
Her phone is here. Her favourite boots are here. Her bag is here. Depressing music showing on her computer. She's been depressed and suicidal before, but she seemed happy with her life right now.
I had a horrible feeling in the pit of my stomach. My throat felt as if I had a tennis ball stuck in there.
What do I do now?
Wake my husband, of course. He really doesn't need this. He's just started some new heart pills and they're making him feel sick and dizzy. So he stumbles around checking the same places I did. We were upstairs again wondering what to do next when the front door opens.
She'd been out jogging! Jogging!? AT SIX THIRTY IN THE MORNING?
Why me?
Of course, this is the child who ran ahead to the toilets in the shopping centre and disappeared for half an hour. We had all the security men looking for her and me in the CCTV office trying to spot her on camera.
This is the child who disappeared on the top floor of the sports centre and was found nearly an hour later making a den behind the trees in the park. After the whole building had been searching for her and the police had been called.
This is the child who went off on a borrowed bike in Germany and got lost. She didn't know her cousins' surname; didn't know which village they lived in; didn't know the way back. Thankfully a little girl took her home to mum. Three hours, that time.
I had this idea that now she is sixteen she might not do things like this any more. But of course she hadn't. She knew where she was. She was safe. It's just my brain doing it to me.
Deep breath. No wonder I'm grey!
We're back up to 21 rats, but only because we're looking after Milton and Dante while KJim and Cass go to Whitby Gothic Weekend. Have fun, kids! Milton and Dante seemed to remember their holiday cage - they've settled straight in.
Brunel met me this morning with hair raised. He seems none the worse for his operation, so hopefully in a few weeks he'll let me handle him again. It seems it's only my hands he objects to. He'll happily come out onto my arm, sit on my neck, climb up and down me, he just attacks my hands if he meets them. The kids think it's because it's my hands that steal the poo from their cage just when they've got it smelling right. Which reminds me, it's their cleaning out day today. Tra-la!
Thisbe and Sophie are really not getting on well now that Lucy has gone. Sophie has a nasty bite on her leg, and has moved into the corner pocket along with a large stock of food. It must be very lumpy to sleep on. Thisbe hasn't gone adventuring lately either. They're all so unsettled; I hope they sort themselves out soon. Going by this article http://www.rathealth.co.uk/articles/pyo.html it was probably a womb infection that killed Lucy. I will not miss the signs again!
Theo's lump is growing steadily. He seems fairly chipper at the moment. He struggles to get in and out of the cage, but seems to be managing to move around inside it OK. I wish there were a way to tell if lumps were hurting them.
Not very ratty, this post.
We got a phone call from my mum last night. She'd gone out to put something down the drain and saw my dad's feet sticking out of the side door from the garage. He'd fallen over. Now since they're both in their seventies, he's six foot something and around 16 stone, and she's five foot three, there was no way she could get him back on his feet. Dad says it's his arthritis that makes him unsteady on his feet. We think it might be something to do with the quantities of scotch he consumes.
Usually Dad has a long nap in the afternoon, which gives him the chance to sober up for the beginning of the evening. Yesterday he'd been busy unblocking the kitchen sink, so had been imbibing all afternoon. Oops.
Anyway, Mum gave us a call. We're about three or four miles away, so by the time we got there he'd been on the floor for about half an hour. Mum had got him up into a sitting position in the doorway, wrapped him in a blanket, but couldn't move him any further. "OK", we said, "we'll take an arm each and lift you up". No good. He'd bashed his shoulder.
I called an ambulance.
Nice young chap turned up in a paramedic car. He had a nifty strap with handles on to put round Dad and lift him up with, so we got him onto a step stool and paramedic chappie put his arm in a sling and said he'd have to take him to Walsgrave. That was a pain, as it's ten miles away. The local hospital would have been better for us.
We managed to weave Dad along to the paramedic car, and off he went while Mum locked up the house. Got to the hospital just as Dad was checking in. 8.37pm. He was well settled in a wheelchair. After half an hour or so we were called to wheel him in to see a young nurse, who said he needed an x-ray. We waited until she found a doctor to approve that, then went down to x-ray.
X-ray department. A loooonnng queue. One old boy made the mistake of asking Dad if he'd been playing football, and ended up on the receiving end of a long monologue about falling off trucks in Egypt. When we were finally called the radiographer managed to bash Dad's shoulder on the doorframe. Levitation, I'd call it! Then the palaver of trying to take an x-ray while Dad was still in the wheelchair. Thankfully the back folded down, but Dad kept dozing off and I was scared he was going to fall out of the chair. His shoulder was swollen up like Popeye by this stage.
Back to reception. An even longer wait there. Got chatting to people - one chap with what looked like a well-broken arm had it figured out exactly where everyone was in the queue, but we heard that the air ambulance had turned up so the doctors were busy with that.
Just before eleven we got to see a doctor who looked at the x-ray and showed us where dad had broken his shoulder and possibly his shoulder bone. Go and see the nurse to get it strapped up, and then an appointment for the fracture clinic the next day.
Another wait in a side room waiting for the nurse. Then back to reception again to wait. Eventually we were told we could make an appointment with the receptionist for the clinic, which we managed to get at Rugby hospital after a little negotiation, so Mum would be able to take him in.
We had a little panic finding the money to get the car out of the car park. £4 in loose change isn't easy to find when you hadn't expected to go out in the first place, and it doesn't help when the machine doesn't like some of your coins! Good money maker, that. The longer they take in A&E, the more money they make on the car park. We should have been able to get free parking with Dad's disabled badge, but you needed to see a parking attendant for that and there were none to be seen.
We got Dad home and settled into a chair at around midnight. They hadn't had anything to eat since lunchtime, and Dad hadn't had the pills he should have taken at six, so heaven knows what time they got to bed. We arrived home to find the children waiting up to find out what had happened, and four cages of starving rats.
What a night!
First of all, my Dad's fine. The fracture clinic yesterday morning fixed him up with a neck and shoulder brace, and he's feeling a bit fragile, but other than that he's fine. He's worrying because he's supposed to be organising the local RAFA Wings Appeal this year, but I reckon he'll collect more money if he's wounded.
We've got KJim and Cass's ratties here for the weekend, so I took some video of them. Not a lot of excitement, but you can see how gorgeous they are.
I also got a lovely video of Brunel foofing at my hands. He really has a thing about them. It will probably take several weeks before his hormone levels drop enough to calm him down.
Do rats grieve? Do they get depressed?
I'm worried about Thisbe. Since Lucy died Tizzy hasn't left the table at playtime. No more flying Thisbe. She's barely left the cage. I don't know if she's ill, upset, or what. It's so odd to find her still in the cage when I go back into the room. Is it possible that Lucy's death can still be affecting her a week later, or am I anthropomorphising?
I got my tax return done online today. It actually decided that they owe me 63 quid! The agency has been taking tax off my wages but I haven't reached the tax threshold.
Last modified: Wednesday, 26-Mar-2008 08:12:40 GMT
