OUR VIEW

Thought I'd stop the mad writer for a moment to order him to take a picture of the view of the Fish Tank with Kip and Soot, just for you. It's not as sharp as it could be because we rodents have delicate eyes and he's banned from using the flash.


Look carefully and you can just about make out Sooty on the top right hand corner. He's still staring at the mad writer.

KIPPER'S UP

Across the room from our cage is a massive fish tank. It is the home of Kipper, a sandy-coloured gerbil, and Sooty, who, as you might imagine, is a black-coloured gerbil. Sooty's watching the mad writer at his desk. You'd think he had something important to put down on his computer screen by the way Sooty staring at him. We can't be bothered with all this writing business. The sound of him tap-tapping away at the keys all day and all night can get on our nerves. Kipper though is in a world of his own. Their cage is packed with toys. It's so big that it's even got a spaceship at one end. There's a wooden bridge that could come out of some adventure film and loads of bedding. They have different bedding to us because we need something more substantial. We also don't like dust so the stuff comes by special delivery.

BLUEBELL AND THE CUSHION

Bluebell lurked under the cushion this morning while we three played on top. Great trick, great game. She's managed to turn it upside down which is some achievement considering it's five times the length of her body. Well done, Bluebell. I've not mentioned my sister before by name. She's got black stripes and is a little bit bigger than me. However, she's very shy but is now starting to come out of her shell.

TOILET ROLLS

WE ARE SURPRISED. Our human's just come back with some more chewy things. These are the rolls that hold toilet paper, or should that be lavatory paper? Our human's friend was shocked to see her enter the building. These rolls are from GIANTS! THEY'RE MASSIVE. How big a backside have these people got? I'm going to wake up the rest of the girls. We'll be chewing from now until Xmas. These rolls are twice the length of a long human laid upon the ground. Guess we ought to share with the gerbils.

EARLY ACTIVITY

We're all up early this First of the Month Sunday since our human has a long day today at her place of work. Jaz has been munching away in the top tube. I've been washing my face in the water bowl. Our human's had a second brew. Now we're moving the tissues and bedding back up to the top. We love doing this.

Harry's Awake

An early morning for our human. We've decided to store loads of food on the bunk bed. She's off to work for more than twelve hours and we're left with the useless writer boy. Ah, Sooty the gerbil's woken up again and is sharpening his teeth on the metal link holding his top platform in place. Why do gerbils do this? It doesn't half make a noise, especially during the daylight hours when we rats are all trying to get a bit of shut-eye.

Sleepy.

The bedding's come out of the tube and we're all sleeping. It's sitting on the top tray. You can see that further down the posts. We're not really sleeping, just having a nice relax in the yellow sputnik. Our human's friend is watching the television news about some rats in Westminster. Apparently they've all changed jobs. Can't say we give a damn. I suppose he'll get bored and turn the stuff off. Hope so.

TIDY AGAIN

Five hours later and we've tidied everything up. The human's friend has been trying to find where it's all gone. Look in the TUBE.

COMFY

We've put all the comfy stuff at the top again. Massive operation at about four in the morning. All four of us were needed to drag the tissue paper up to the top. Now there's just me sleeping soundly on it, having flattened the paper so that it's really comfortable.

TOPSY TURVY

Our human was shocked this morning at the state of our cage. The lid of the blue sputnik was on the floor. The rest of the sputnik was where she put it, on the top platform. The bedding, a substantial amount of the bedding, was on the top platform. We had to carry it all the way up to the top. That was some job. The floor outside the cage was splattered with more pieces of bedding. Now we're all together in the tube sleeping on top of each other, our favourite pastime. All is quiet.

JOKE

Our human's just cracked a joke. What do you get if you cross a gerbil with a rat? Answer: a gerat or a rabil. Oh, she's just rebuked the boy. Apparently it's NOT a joke.

NEW WEEK

The start of a brand new week with the cage properly cleaned out. Our human took the whole lot to bits and scrubbed up in the bath. We were temporarily housed in our other cage, the one the human wants to stick on top of the one we're already in. It's a skyscraper, or will be when it's erected. She's sawed her way through the bars and put a door on the top in readiness for the day when we get our double cage. We could take the piss by doing what Harry has done with his double cage -- gnaw the bars all day and night! Only kidding. We're far more intelligent and do appreciate the effort she goes to in order to keep us amused, not to mention well watered and well fed.

Who needs toys?

Harry has now got, one for one, the largest selection of toys in this animal kingdom. So, what, you might ask, does he play with most? Answer: the bars of his upper cage. Why? We rats use the bars to clamber up to the heights to find the top toys. Gerbils don't have this ability. Everyday we get bigger and bigger. I can see why gerbils are snacks for us rats. Wouldn't take long to munch one down. We'd never hear the end of it from our human. Forget eating rocket, we'd get a rocket. The human was working late last night and we woke up to have fun with her. Now we're all taking it easy. SURPRISE. Harry must have a special sense allowing him to read my thoughts. He's gone all quiet.

Our Human and Her Camera

If you don't like the picture of me, both of them, that are on this website, don't despair. It turns out that our human has taken quite a few of us with her expensive camera and most of them are not blurred. Our human's friend is blushing, since he thought he was ace with a camera. Although, to be fair, he's not used the flash to freeze our movements since our eyes are extremely sensitive to light. Watch this space.

THE MONSTER ARRIVES

What's that BIG MONSTER doing in the cage? We rats have a fear of new things and now we've got something to be scared about. It's a massive wheel that our human has bought specially for us. None of us know what to do with it. So we're filling it with bedding to make it smell like it's been here for ages. This morning, our human put some food inside it. Only Bluebell dared enter, and then only for seconds.

SPOKE TOO SOON

Published that post and Harry hit the wheel. Is it something to do with the connection between the computer keyboard keys? That'll be him for the next few hours.

SILENCE

We're taking over the noise area at the moment. The human's friend went to bed in a huff last night, exhausted and without eating his meal of home-cooked hot chilli. He got up two hours later and wolfed down two plates worth of the stuff. We're happy he's a bit more relaxed this morning and also happy that Harry seems to be sleeping. We didn't think he did sleep.

Quiet Night

A very-dark-just-before-new moon night in which we played a little and Harry played a lot. Quelle surprise. He's gonna wake the neighbours. Either that, or they gonna think they've got mice. A lovely sunny day despite the red sky at 4 this morning. I thought Red Sky in the Morning meant Shepherds' Warning - lot of rain. Or was 4 in the morning still part of Red Sky at Night? I've looked at my pictures but can't make much of them. We rats don't have very good eyesight. Not that our human's partner is overly bothered. He has fiddled about with the facts in his writing of The Dark Kingdom in which a rat plays a major part, giving one of our number excellent sight and the ability to see the colour Red rather than the colour Green. Is this what writers' do? Make up stuff.

WE ALL GO MAD FOR TEA

Poppy here again, folks. We all went mad for tea today since it was our favourite, rocket. Our human had to chop up some more since I grabbed the lot and took it off to my tea-towel to eat in peace.


Then, for afters, we had some cheese. It was lovely. Then our human's friend took a picture of me. Actually, he took a hundred since I kept moving around. Tee hee.

PINE - WE'RE PINING FOR IT

The human says it's got PINE in it so we rats can't have them. Go Harry, enjoy!

WRONG, WRONG, WRONG

How WRONG can you be? That lovely wooden hut lying on the floor in front of our cage is NOT OURS!!! It's bleedin' 'Arry's. Can you believe it! What's Harry got that we four girls have not? I'm also starting to worry about what she's feeding him. We're all fast asleep, or at least pretending to be, while Harry's munching away like a mad dog.

NEW CAGE

Harry is well happy. His new cage has certainly quietened him down. Maybe he's exhausted from all that climbing up into the top layer and running around with his new toys. I spy with my little eye some toys upon the floor. If they're not in Harry's cage and they're not in Sooty and Kip's cage and they're not in Nutmeg's cage then they've got to be for us. Our cage is well full of toys. Did I mention that? Our human's really good to us. She came in really late last night after a long shift, but despite all that, managed to go to Tesco to get us more fresh food. Pity all rats don't have such a caring human.

QUIET NIGHT!

Judging by the state the human was in last night she wouldn't have woken if a nuclear bomb had gone off. I suppose none of us would, come to think of that. We're happy with Harry. He's been a very quiet little gerbil and it's rather touching that he's gone from being either unwanted and unloved, or too much of a handful, to being cared for by a loving human. His new cage is really quite spectacular. Nutmeg, the third older gerbil, is now further away from Harry. That's good for both of them.

TOYS!!!

She's just come into our room and pointed out to the useless boy that they get a Sputnik, which, for those of you who know nothing about rats, is a dome that hangs from the ceiling that all of us can get inside. How many Sputniks does a baby gerbil need?

CRISIS

CRISIS. It's got two clingy bits that can't grip 'cos of a massive piece of glass in the fish tank it's going onto. That'll learn her. Oh now, the stupid boy's been called to help. And he's taken off the clingy bits. Now she's reattached them elsewhere. A moment of pleasure sadly ruined. What's the world coming to? And guess what? Sooty and Kipper - TWO OTHER GERBILS - are fixated. They are gnashing their teeth. So am I. Nothing for it. I'm off to join my sisters in bed.

Oi - HANG ON, HUMAN

What on earth's going on? Much as we welcomed Harry the Rescue Gerbil into our home there is a limit, you know. Our human, and I stress the word OUR, came home with a cage. Not just any old cage but a massive cage - 12 inches by 30 inches and about 15 inches high. All for HARRY! One night of disturbed sleep, he gets a new wheel. Actually, he gets OUR old wheel. A week of banging his toys into the cage and thus into the thin wall beside her bedroom and he gets a NEW CAGE. I think it's time to have a conference with my sister, Bluebell, and the twins, Jaz and Gipsy. Anything you can do, Harry, we can do better. She's got the nerve to put the whole thing together in our room. OUR ROOM. The other three have gone to bed in disgust. I'm monitoring the goings on from the bottom of the cage. She even rang the boy to get his permission to spend £50 on it. She asked HIM for money advice. Has the world gone mad? As the Derbyshire fancy rats say at times like these: R We Reet, or What? She's just told the boy, in our presence, that it's suitable for 4 to 5 gerbils. The cheek of it. Best get some sleep. I think we all ought to go into action at five am. I know she also hates being woken up. Let's see if we can get the useless boy to blame her. Tee Hee.

SO CLEAN

Our human blitzed the cages last night. I think she felt a bit guilty. Sooty and Kipper's log had been left out all day. Not that her man would have noticed. He's dead dim in rat and gerbil areas. The couple of gerbils didn't seem to mind. We all rather like the sound of him typing away like mad during the day. With the curtains closed it could be night, but since it wasn't, we weren't up for any running around. She filled two bags of dirty bedding. Soot and Kip are watching the writer. They've got a ledge on which they sit and stare. Our human's opened our cage and is dishing out treats and talking to us. Wonder if there's time to get into her sleeve and be walked around? Might even escape for a couple of hours. Oh heck, can't be bothered and I don't want her pissed off when she has to rush to work. I think that's the case today since the bath's already been run.

FED AND WATERED

We are all fed and watered early today as our human has an early start. She watched a film yesterday and there was a trailer about an upcoming film starring a cartoon rat. Later she was concerned about the effect such a film might have on our friends. We don't want to end up like the turtles did after the Ninja stuff nor the Dalmatians. We need proper looking after not being swept up and used for a few weeks as though we were all Big Brother contestants.

FAST ASLEEP, AGAIN

Only Sooty the gerbil is up at the moment. He's cleaning his teeth on the metal wire holding his upper ledge in place. The rest of us are quiet, including, believe it or not, young newcomer Harry. Peace, blessed peace.

Curly Kale

We love Curly Kale. Guess we had better do. Since this is the only staple food the human provides us with, although she makes sure it is not off and is properly cleaned. She's been round several supermarkets and they sell the stuff when it's turning yellow, and not in the cheapo section, either. Ain't that a shame. By the way, that's a great song, done brilliantly by The Beatles, before they became famous.