Moppet is settling in quite nicely.  She's sooo adorable and fairly friendly.  Mice tend not to be as friendly as rats in my experience - they'd much rather play on you than with you, but I think this one will be nice.  Effie is bossing her about a lot though - she won't let her out of the nest for very long but at least she's stopped duffing her up now.

Tinker has become quite a friendly little mouse.  Until about 2 weeks ago we never saw him - he'd refuse to come out of his nest which is such a shame as he's soo cute.  But now he's learned that in the mornings I feed him sunflower seeds through his cage bars, so now as soon as e sees me he leaps up to the bars in readiness for his treat.  It's so nice that he's becoming friendly - quite the little character.

Stitch (or Snitch, if you've read my story) is becoming older and older in her habits.  It's funny - in my books she's portrayed as a mean, nasty, greedy evil genius with a foul temper...and she is!  She always has been.  But at the same time she loves me and Si so much.  She's not a rat that likes to be cuddled though.  Nowadays she's even plumper than before, her fur is very patchy and scabby, she's a little bit...well, barmier and she's gone grey around her mouth (bizarre that black rats go grey - my hooded black rat Columbia did too when she got old).  And she's grumpy.  Stitch has always been so naughty (hence the name) but god help us, we can't help but love her.  She's got an incredibly strong character.

Baldrick's turned into a lovely little rat, you know.  He looks just like a wild rat, but very healthy.  He's got a lovely ginger sheen to his grey-brown fur, and he's very rugged and broad looking.  He's so playful too, but loves Si.  he really worships Si, it's so sweet.  All he wants to do is sit on Si's shoulder.  And he's so gentle.  He gently takes food from us whereas with the others, particularly Stitch, there's always a slight possibility that we'll lose a finger.

Hobbes is getting very lazy.  He's getting very plump too (too many yoggies!)  I've never had such a lazy rat - funny really as he was such an energetic baby.  He drags himself around, stopping for a rest every twenty seconds, like walking is just too much effort.  He's not overweight - just very lazy.  Why walk, when mum will carry you, eh?

Knacked again this morning.  Decided last night not to torture myself with rewriting The Plague Girl (a monumental task, I now realise - tho I will do it) and instead took Si to bed for an early night.  Bless him.  Then the foxes came back - haven't seen them for over a week and was quite worried about them.  They were making a terrible bloody racket - the two adults were screaming so loudly I thought maybe one of them had been run over or badly injured.  But then I could hear a very loud whimpering, which is obviously the babies -the first time I've heard them (still haven't seen them yet) and I thought maybe they were in trouble.  So I looked out of my bedroom window and there they were - the two adults sitting outside in the moonlight without a care in the world while the cubs played in the undergrowth.  It was so nice to see them again, I was getting worried.

We're getting another mouse on Sunday.  Effie is very lonely without Tinker (he's still alive, don't worry, but we had to seperate them, remember).  Anyhow, I found a mouse breeder in Orpington and gave him a ring last night, and we're going to pick up a mouse this weekend.  A dove-tan, hopefully.  We might show her, he's a proper breeder.  I don't talk about the mice so much I know - they're so different to rats.  They are a lot shyer and whilst rats will slavishly follow your every move and shower you with love, mice are more unconcerned.  Like cats, if rats were dogs.  Effie is a real character.  She's so shiney and pretty, with silly great big over-sized ears and such a cute cute face.  She's quite friendly too, and quite naughty.  She's a mouse in her prime.  Tinker...hmmm, Tinker is fat.  I mean fat.  He was a runt and he's made up for it now - my God is he fat.  He's like lard covered in skin.  I get the idea that if I were to throw him at a wall he'd splat like loose dough.  But he's adorable too, and getting a little friendlier now - he does a bit of a shark impression when I go to give him crunchy-nut cornflakes, bares his little teeth.  So sweet.

Ooooh, just won my first item on ebay, a book I adored when I was a teenager - I always wanted my very own copy. I'm paying by cheque and I'm all nervous - the amount is only £6.49 in total, but I'm scared that it won't be received and i'll get bad feedback, or that I've done the final process wrong...all nervous, making a mountain out of a really simple molehill I think.

Am a bit pissed off with the plague girl book - last night decided to get it together, still have a bit of re-writing to do, but end of last year I re-wrote the first three chapters really well, but now I can't make head nor-tail of my notes and I've lost a bit of writing I was so proud of.

Apparantly, I am one - I'm number 69 in the hot blogs list.  I don't know whether that makes me feel very very chuffed, or whether I should come to the conclusion that people are deserting tblog in their droves!

Having fun seeing how people come to my blog, so for the sake of ratings:

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Teeheehee

...to feel down today, after my depressing week (for no reason).  My grandad died yesterday, aged 90-odd.  He'd had a heart attack.  He'd been in hospital for a week, but that bitch Nonni didn't see fit to tell the family that, although it didn't stop her having a go at my mum when she came 'round to see her yesterday.

I didn't know my grandad very well, because...well, my nan was his mistress - he was already married with children, but he had 7 with my nan!  There's a bit of bad blood between our families - my nan hasn't been with him for decades now though, so I get on with my cousins.  My grandad never much bothered with any of his kids or grandkids though.

Nonni is grandad's girlfriend - an old lady and the most vicious, mean-spirited old bitch that ever lived.  She's a waste of perfectly good skin that woman.  She's always treated my mum like dirt, and is now about to through up huge problems with the will.  None of us care that much.  She can chew it all over with satan one day.

Grandad and Nonni were as tight as arse-holes (nice Devonshire expression for you there) - i.e. they were incredible misers.  My grandad made me laugh though.  We lived away from my mum's childhood village most of our lives, but I went there to go to university and worked in the supermarket.  One day my grandad comes in.  "Hello Grandad," I said. Now I had poppy-red hair at the time, and my grandad didn't recognise me even slightly, gave me a dirty look and walked away - no doubt he thought I was being very rude to him.  Silly old sod.

Oh the shame of it!  Si got a police caution this morning for fare-dodging.  He left his train ticket at home and got caught, despite our best efforts to sneak him out of the station.  It's a proper police caution and everything; they took down all of his details.  Haven't laughed so hard in ages.  He's such a badass!

I tried heroically last night to e-mail you guys my story, but my pc was being awful and wouldn't even let me log into my yahoo account.  I wonder if it's to do with the problems I've had lately with the phoneline.  It was fine last time I used it, so I'm not too worried yet; just frustrated.  Will try again tonight.  Instead, last night me and Hobbes went to bed early and watched Tenko.  He was very well behaved and we're friends again now.  He fell asleep after a while and I stroked him behind his ears - god he was purring!

So, how long exactly have I been wandering around my office/library today with my flies undone?  Wouldn't have been so bad, but I'm wearing my big stomach-compressing white granny pants (which are actually my mums).

Feeling a bit low in myself - definitely a legacy of teaching.  Such a lack of confidence it's scarey.  I feel so jumpy and nervy on days like these, like a frightened bunny - I just want to keep my head down and not speak to anyone (which is very lonely too).  On these days I feel empty inside, yet scared also - of doing things wrong, of my boss shouting at me.  I dunno.  I'm sure it's a result of being a teacher.

I'm in a grump again today because I didn't get much sleep last night - the foxes woke me and Si up at 4.30am, singing outside our bedroom.  So we got up and I went to the kitchen to have a cigarette (Si came with me 'cause I'd had a nightmare) and we watched them playing outside.  I think there might be three of them - there seems to be a young fox there who's probably from last year's litter.  The dog fox kept trying to get into his den, then the female would chase him out again - this happened easily about ten times, so she must be close to giving birth, if she hasn't already.  It's so magical.  Less magical this morning, when I woke up feeling like I hadn't even been to bed and felt like re-writing my book to include a scene where a manic red-head chases Willow and Redblaze around Furrel's wood with knives.

Also, had some twats leaving some very arrogant comments on my poems, so I updated my author page to include this snooty little rant:

Also, and I'm really sorry about putting this here but lately I've had some really dumb comments and I'm feeling a bit pissy, so don't take this the wrong way but...if you are going to critise my poetry, then think really really carefully. Whilst I do confess to making mistakes from time to time, and I'm not suggesting every single one of my poems is perfect, the fact is I have a top-level degree in English literature, the highest grades in my school for years for both sets of exams in English language and English lit, I've written a children's novel and I used to be an English teacher, analysing poems at high levels.  So...if you think you've found a mistake in one of my poems which your gleefully straining to point out (and I'm not including people here like ativan who are really nice and thoughtful with their critiques, and do so out of genuine kindness) then chances are you're wrong.  If my meter seems a bit off in one line, then chances are I've done it becuase I wanted to pick up the pace or slow it down.  Rhymes don't have to be full rhymes you know - there are things called 'half-rhymes' and 'internal rhymes.'  If you think I've used a word wrongly, make sure you understand all of the meanings of that word in all contexts, as this is a favourite device of mine - playing on word-meanings.  Therefore I use homonyms and homophones quite a lot too, so maybe that 'spelling mistake' isn't a spelling mistake after all.  If your heart's in the right place then don't fret - I can tell when someone is being nice.  If you're an arrogant tosspot who wants to make yourself look smart at someone else's expense - congratulations, you've just been made to look an ignorant fool.
Ok, rant over.

Basically: 'I'm smart, you are dumb' lol

Got a phone call at about 9.25am from BT, saying "We're outside your flat."  Hmm, I thought, that's nice.  Maybe Hobbes will let you in...

I mean really!  9.30 on a Monday morning, without prior warning.  Dickheads.

The foxes were out and about again last night - they live in my back garden.  A dog and a vixen - I suspect cubs will be along soon.  I can't tell you how happy this makes me.  I was obsessed with foxes throughout my teenage years, replaced only by my obsession with rats.  Even though I lived in the countryside, I hardly ever saw any.  Now I hear the foxes most nights and see them approx 3 times a week outside my bedroom or kitchen window.  Noisy buggers they are.  I think their den is by a pile of old wood near the wall.  I've been putting food out for them because the dog looks like he's got an injured paw.  They're so lovely and healthy looking.  I call them Bold and Whisper, after Colin Dann's book 'The Fox Cub Bold.'