Took Derfel to the vets on Saturday, he appears to have had an allergic reaction to his sawdust.  I am complaining to the company- took pictures of Derf's manky skin yesterday and I plan to cause a stink (I don't think enough small pet owners do this).  It was a very bad day for Derf - he had to have three injections (with more to follow over the coming weeks) and the needle struck bone and bent in him, poor chap.  Then he had to have a bath in a special dip, and then I had to give him baytril orally for his snuffles.  God, he's furious with me.  Then I had to make the decision to keep him in with the boys, instead of putting him back with Stitch and Bronte, because Stitch keeps knocking 7 bells out of him.  Bronte I think is clinically depressed now she has to live in the smaller cage - she appeared to have a mini-stroke yesterday, black blood coming out of her nose and mouth, foaming at the mouth, hardly able to stand.  She perked up later though - she's such a big faker.  The good thing is that Derf, for the first time in his life, is now boss rat and he is so happy.  He loves his Hobbes and Baldrick.  But not a good day for rats.

Effie didn't have babies, disappointingly.  I am tempted to put her in with Tinker...but I won't.  And I've written up the rest of chapter two on my other site.

Poor little Derfel is currently covered in cuts across his back and shoulder.  Some look nasty - about 20 in totally, all scabbing thankfully.  I'm not sure how he did them.  He's always scrapping with Stitch, but this seems a little extreme, and lately they haven't been fighting much.  I can't see how he could have done them any other way though.  Poor little guy.

I'm glad people are still reading my book on-line - I've written some more up today and will write up another installment in a minute.  I would like to say, though, that it's gonna get crapper hehehe in an adorably naive way. Like I've said before, I wrote speech how I thought it should be spoken.  Please feel free to tease me.  And again, please comment on it if you do read it - I really need the encouragement x

Well, I am in a far better, more pragmatic mood today.  Had a lovely, loved-up weekend with Si, wrote some poems and am working on a few short-stories I found which I started 2-3 years ago.  If anyone wants to check out my poetry, IM me and I'll IM you the link; it contains my real name so will only be giving it to peeps I know.

Had oodles of fun yesterday feeding les ratties marmite.  Baldrick hated it, Hobbes was frightened of it, and the other three really hated it but ate it anyway because they sure as hell didn't want the others to get it!  Stitch got it all over her paws and was frantically trying to wipe them clean on the platform.  It honestly looked like she was moonwalking.  When that didn't work she tried wiping them on Derfel instead.  God it was funny.  They were pulling the most ridiculous of faces while they ate - I swear Stitch did a Chandler impression.

Can somebody come and fix my printer please!

I got sent this e-mail today.  It's not one of my rats, although it's a dead ringer for Baldrick.  I'm told, though, that the rat did manage to survive it's adventure, though I doubt it's going to be frequenting offices from now on...

Anyhow, the point I was getting at is that I have certain themes and motifs that are repeated in my dreams.  I tend to dream often that spiders are crawling over my face.  A frequent recurring dream I used to have while teaching is that I was trapped in the British museum and couldn't get out. I'd have to go and see a stuffed brown and white panda before I could attempt to escape.  But in trying to escape I'd have to walk down a long and twisted dark passageway, never-ending, filled with ghastly animatronic models (my worst fear).  They'd be everywhere and I'd freeze.  In my dreams I've even thrown myself out of a window to avoid them.  Nowadays I dream I'm in a Victorian museum or extremely sinister euro-disney style setting.  Dust, decay, gothic and Victorian are all themes, as is war time, dark and dingy museums filled with old decaying mannequins in period costumes.  Think of all the main museums in London (and Flambards in Cornwall) and age them a few centuries.  TAke away windows and most form of natural light, then take away the barriers seperating me from the exhibits.  Make sure I'm alone, or nearly alone, and if I have an element of panic then so much the better.  Lower the ceilings and narrow the corridors just to make sure.

Suffice to say, these dreams are nightmares for me and I wake up very upset when I have them.

Ratty's post has got me thinking about dreams. I am a very odd sleeper.  I talk weird shit in my sleep and I have very odd dreams.  The other night I had millions of dreams, some of which were;

-Being sacked after going to a work conference and spending the whole time chatting at the back of the hall with a head-hunter;

-Going on a family holiday with Si and my family and being told off for wearing indecent clothes, even though I was more covered up than everyone else, because my mum was worried I'd catch sunburn if I was in the sea,

-I was in a dusty old beach house and I went to blow the candles out but I didn't realise they were fake gas candles and I could see clouds of blue gas escaping from them after I had blown them out.

-Being trapped in an old museum with lots of frightening mannequins dressed in Victorian clothes;

-Going to by some baccy and being offered pot instead.  I wanted to buy some and I asked Si's permission.  he said no, but i bought some anyway (coincidentally, this dream made Si laugh a lot when I told him.)

Willow and Redblaze are just two of a 'cast of thousands'.  They have cubs - Bracken, Scamper, Hawthorn, Brightdawn, Moondancer and VelvetPaws, as well as adopting a badger cub called Grey after her family are slaughtered by badger-baiters.  Plus there's Moonfleet, Willow's eldest daughter from a previous litter, Chiffchaff, her best mate, and Goldendusk her sister.  Stalker is Goldendusk's mate and Redblaze's brother.  I could go on and on - there are loads of characters, but I won't.

All in all, my book has a higher death-count than any Tarantino movie.  I think by the end I was introducing characters with the express purpose of killing them off.  First we hear about how Willow's first family were brutally slaughtered by humans.  Then, as the cubs grow up, Bracken is caught in a snare and killed in a heart-wrenching chapter.  Then the whole fox population of Furrel's wood is gassed and the survivors all have to band together to protect themselves. 

Then, once the cubs have grown up, Redblaze takes Grey to a neighbouring wood where there's a badger sett but he's brutally attacked by another fox and has to stay there to recover.  meanwhile Willow, who is worried about him, goes to find him but ends up caught in a group of foxes who treat her like a prisoner and won't let her escape.  In the end there's a big storm and more foxes die and it all ends ok but I can't quite remember how because I haven't re-read that bit.

Then I wrote a sequel where I killed off another large section of the surviving cast, but I didn't finish that one.  All I can remember was it was about a plague and mysticism.

Most of the people I went to school with thought I was ripping off the Animals of Farthing Wood because I was obsessed with that series, even though the plot was not even remotely similar.  Now I can at last reveal that, basically, I was ripping off the plot of Watership Down.

Phew.  Feels good to get that off my chest.

Today I will tell you about my first book.  It was called: 'A Blaze in the Night' and I wrote it when I was 14.  I'm writing about it now because I discovered it in my 'Writing' box (where all my writing eventually ends up for posterity) and reread it for the first time in years.

It's a proper novel and is quite long.  It's about two foxes, Willow and Redblaze, and their lives in and around the fictional Furrels Wood on Exmoor.  Rereading it and, with my teaching knowledge now behind me, it's actually rather good.  I couldn't write speech realistically and don't seem to know how to use apostrophes, but the plot is well thought out and the description is at times very good.

Basically, Willow and Redblaze meet, have cubs then deal with the horrors life throws at them...(to be continued as I now have to start work)...

I seem to have feck all energy in the week anymore.  I never had much energy I guess, while I was teaching certainly, but now I want to go to bed 9.30pm every night.  I never seem to have the energy to write or read or do anything but slob in front of the telly and make a half-arsed attempt to do some housework or place with the critters.

I haven't mentioned before that I have a ghost in my flat.  I think it might be my own personal ghost actually as I had experience of it when I was in my parents house.  I feel it standing over me while I'm in the shower, it's grabbed my bum a few times and I heard it say my name a while ago in a really gravelly voice, like a heavy smoker.  My glasses also went flying across the bathroom.  It seems to like the bathroom and the hallway, bizarrely - these are the only places I ever experience paranormal activity.  When I went home the other week my mum felt someone grab her bum in the bathroom so she's convinced that I brought it with me.  My parents don't really believe in stuff like that but they do believe that I am experiencing it.  Apparantly when I was a kid I used to speak to an old lady called Rose that no-one else could see and an old wise woman told mum I'd always be receptive to the spiritual world.  My friend is a medium and she said, the first time I saw her in years, that when she looked at me she saw a brown and white rat sitting on my shoulder!  I think darling RiffRaff still looks out for me!

Well, that didn't friggin work now did it?

Had a horrible dream last night that Si jilted me at the alter...something to do with Kate Winslet being in love with Jack Black.  Woke up crying.

Well, I still have a bit of a snuffle today, which is annoying, but at least I have a hoptipal appointment next week to try and get to the bottom of it.

The meece seem relatively happy being seperated.  I felt a bit guilty as they were such close friends, they were always snuggled up with each other and giving each other love...although perhaps in ways I didn't want them to. Now Tinker is getting food he is growing at an alarming rate - Effie was the little pigling of the two.

Have sent off some more enquiries to agents.  One guy wanted me to e-mail my whole manuscript, which I have done, and he hopes to reply to me within two weeks.  The rest were just letters and, to be honest, I'm not all that hopeful about those.  I'm not fantastically great at selling my stories.  Am struggling a little bit at the mo to write my rat-book sequel; the rats are currently in Japan but it's turning into a lesson on Japanese cultural studies rather than a cool adventure. I suspect it will become funnier and tighter in the re-write.

Ugh, bread overdose.  I've been making my own home-made bread lately and it's so yummy I can't stop scoffing it.