Wednesday 25 August 2010

We have a guest....

TLH and I have been quite excited over the last 24 hours or so, ever since we had a phone call yesterday afternoon requesting last minute bed space for an unexpected visitor.

Her current hosts were going away for a few days and didn't think it would be suitable for her to join them.  Everyone else who could've taken her in were either busy or away themselves but TLH and I don't go away much and were only too happy to help.

"She'll be no trouble," we were told, "in fact she'll bring her own food and bedding so you won't have to do anything.  Oh, and don't worry about entertaining her at all, she's used to her own company".

We've told the cats that they have to be on their best behaviour but I don't think they were paying attention.

Anyway, she arrived a couple of hours ago and has been busy settling in, so, everyone, say hello to:


FAT DORIS!!!


Yes, our friends have gone to brave the frankly appalling weather we're having at the moment in a tent on the Dorset coast and couldn't find anyone else to feed their guinea pig, Fat Doris, so we said we'd look after her.

At the moment she sitting in her cage on our dining table, minding her own business while the cats are being bemused:


They've not clambered up there to investigate properly yet, but they're old and getting a bit rickety so it depends on whether their sense of curiosity can overcome their arthriticky joints.  At the moment Pepper has expressed some interest (see above) while Sylvester has just run away.

When she was dropped off we asked Carol, her keeper, what she liked to eat.  We were told she liked carrots and especially dandelion leaves 'and she's a fat pig and will eat it all'.  'Ooh, we've plenty of dandelions!' we thought - this is a guinea pig that won't starve on our watch. 

So, she's been with us a couple of hours now and TLH has already been outside and picked a handful of leaves for her, washed them carefully and put them between the bars, just so he could watch them disappear into her fat, little, oh-so-serious face.  It will be sad to see her go home next weekend....

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I had a classroom guinea pig many years ago. We called him Bonbon, and he was fantastic with the kids (5 and 6-year-olds). He was extremely cuddly, even with those kids who wanted to "love" him pretty much to death. Oh - and yes, we all loved to watch him eat.

peevish said...

Fat Doris trumps Turnip for a perfect pet name.

My daughters want a guinea pig very, very much, so I won't show them your post. She is too sweet.