Monday 28th April 2008.
In less than twenty four hours I will be flying off to Belek on Holiday. I think everything is pretty much organised. I have been running around like a psychotic fool all day trying to get everything done.
We have our money. The animals are all cleaned out. Everything is on schedule and I'd be a fool to say that all bases are covered and nothing can go wrong.
This morning I called into Pets at Home to buy everything that the animals will need for the next month. This included humongous amounts of fresh substrate to deep clean all of the vivs in the few days that I have off when we come back from Turkey.
We were walking around minding our own business when I happened to glance to the left. In a display cabinette at the back of the shop were two of the biggest, most obese rats I've ever seen in my life. There was a sign beside them saying, 'We are available for adoption, can you give us a good home?' Well, talk about red rag to a bull or the animal buying equivalent. While Russ cringed uselessly and tried to talk me out of it I called over an assistant. He explained that while the rats looked to be in fairly good health they had actually been quite badly neglected. Their previous owners (people with kids) had bought them, lavished attention on them and very quickly tired of them. Because they felt guilty that they no longer had the time or inclination to stimulate or handle them they had assuaged their guilt by feeding them. These rats had never seen rat food, they had been given no exercise whatsoever and were merely fed vast amounts of table scraps for over a year. A rat only has a two and a half to four year life expectancy with few living into their third year. These two were already over a year old and had already cut their lifespan short with an overindulgence of pizza nd chips.
Russ asked me what's the point of taking them on when they aren't going to live long anyway. “I know you, Jane, you'll only get attached and then be heartbroken when they die.”
This was true. I knew that it was madness, but nobody else was going to want to take these two pathetic creatures on and while they were clean and properly fed in the shop, they still weren't much better off because they still weren't getting out and getting any exercise. I asked if we could hold them. I gave them a good check over and then played my ace card by putting them into Russ' hands. They were such tame little sweeties and obviously loved being handled. They'd make great pets for however long they lasted and would have a good and happy home with us. Russ explained that we were going on holiday the following day and asked if they could be kept for us until the following week. The man said that they wouldn't normally be prepared to do that. But he said that he could see that they'd have a good home with us and that we knew what we were talking about so agreed. In retrospect I'm so glad that we hadn't been able to take them that day, you will see why later. It all worked out for the best. We walked out of the shop the proud (and excited in my case) humans of two fat rats called Beano and Bobby.
I've been a bit annoyed with Russ recently, he's become increasingly lazy around the house and I'm feeling taken advantage of. He does very little and Marty does absolutely nothing and I feel as though all I ever do is cook and clean, go out to work and take care of the animals. This week especially I've been trying to do extra cleaning to carry us over when we go away, While I've washed down skirting boards and cleaned windows in between changing waters, cooking meals and force feeding iguanas, Russ has sat playing on his laptop and Marty has done his usual dormouse impression.
Tomorrow the taxi is picking us up at eleven. I have to get myself bathed and ready, do my full morning routine with the animals, which takes over two hours, pack my suitcase and change the bed for Nicki staying. No doubt by which point more pots will have accumulated in the sink and Marty will have filled his wash basket again. On an ordinary day it's a nightmare trying to keep on top of everything, never mind tomorrow when it's going to be chaos. Still two entire weeks away from the shop ...bliss.
We did weigh in yesterday. There were no unexpected surprises good or bad and everybody exept the usual suspects were pretty much playing ball with either reasonable raises or remaining static. The frilled lizards were one up a gram and one down a gram, I would have liked a bit more weight gain from them both but that's good and nothing to worry about.
Isa, my problem beardie had put on twenty grams, she is supposed to be losing weight, not putting it on.
The star of the show was Falcon the red iguana. He's up a fantastic twelve grams on last month. This puts him at a hundred and eighty seven which I'm very pleased with.
Shilma is now critical. She has dropped form her starting weight of sixty four grams to just forty five. She's going to my supplier, Mindy while we are away on holiday. She is going to continue with the force feeding. Hopefully Shilma will pick up while we are away but if not, she's probably going to have to be put to sleep when we come back from our holidays. I'm half expecting her to die while we are away and have instructed Mindy that Les, my vet, is fully aware of the situation and will treat on credit if there are any problems that need veterinary assistance. I have an awful feeling of dread. I don't think I'm ever going to see Shilma again.
The other big problem that is casting a bit of a cloud over our holiday is that familiar feeling of guilt. I feel guilty that Marty isn't coming with us. He says he isn't bothered and wouldn't want to go to a golf resort anyway, but despite the shameless bribe of a hundred pounds for staying at home and allowing us to go, he must be feeling it. As Russ says, in a couple of years he'll be off to Ibiza and to all the festivals with his mates and he won't give us a second thought. Guilt is such a horrible emotion.
Tuesday 29th April 2008.
Oh, my God, we are going on holiday today and you'll never guess what we did last night? Now, bear in mind That we are both completely knackered, that I've got a million and one things to do before the taxi comes and that we have a long day of travelling and flying ahead of us ... we went out last night.
This was madness and folly but it actually seemed quite a sensible thing to do at the time.
It got around to about seven thirty. I was sitting on the sofa yawning my head off and we decided that it would be a good idea to get a really early night and wake up fresh for today.
“Yes, but Russ, I'm so excited. You know that if we go to bed we aren't going to be able to sleep. I know for a fact I'm going to lie awake all night. We might as well go out.”
“What, out for a drink?”
“Why not, we're on holiday.” I got this little bubble of holiday madness and it seemed daft not to take full advantage of our time off work.
“But it's Monday.”
“So?”
“Well, there's nothing on anywhere on a Monday. Where are we going to find Karaoke on a Monday?”
I laughed, “Hell, Russ there is more to life than karaoke, you know, but if that's what you want, hit the Yellow Pages and ring around the pubs to find out if anybody's got any entertainment on at all tonight while I go and get bathed.”
I flew upstairs and got handbagged and gladragged in record breaking time. I had to keep stepping over my still empty suitcase and it did occur to me that rather than going out and drinking dirty alcohol, it might be a good idea to actually pack something.
“Right, I've found us some karaoke,” announces Russ jubilantly as I walked back in the room. “Bad news is, it's in the Admiral.”
I groaned, it's a grotty little dive of a pub across the other side of town ... but sobeit. In the last few months I've seen domestics and fights, and been offered love in's with lesbians, swingers and wife-swappers all in our quiet little local, so how bad could it be?
The drive over in the taxi was a mutual pep talk about how much we'd have to drink. We decided that we'd have just three double vodka's each and then go on coke. That would help to relax us, aid restful sleep and not be enough to mar our day when we woke up alert and refreshed. We promised ourselves that we would leave before the end and be home and in bed by midnight.
Ha ha ha.
We walked into a pub with about half a dozen people sitting around the bar and two women and a man behind the bar. The staff turned out to be husband and wife and grown up daughter. One of the blokes was the daughter's husband and the bloke doing the karaoke was some relation too. What friendly people they were. Although we were strangers and expected the 'offcomer stare' famous around these parts, we couldn't have been made more welcome. They all chatted to us immediately and made us feel right at home.
The karaoke got under way with the staff singing a couple of songs and Russ, having poured over the song books was dying to get us up to have a do. He finally settled on 10CC's Dreadlock Holiday. We sang it as a duet and got huge applause because we were newbies. Frank, the Karaoke bloke aid that he'd never once heard anybody sing it before. I told him that we had a habit of doing the odd and the obscure and didn't like repeating the same songs week after week. This instantly scored us huge brownie points with Frank. Like most local karaoke gigs, the same people get up to sing the same songs, in the same order week after week after week. Russ and I might mess them up often but at least we always try something new.
As we sat down the next surprise came walking towards us. The barmaid came over with two shot glasses. “Here you go folks, that's your prize for being brave enough to get up and sing. Every singer gets a free shot when they've been up.”
Well ... I've done a few karaokes in my time but I've never been rewarded for it before, this was great. We swallowed the foul liquid and Russ had just been up to the bar to get us our second vodkas.
“Come on you two get your names on the board again, it's slow tonight and it's great to have some new blood in”
Russ put us up for ELO's Mister Blue Sky. As we sat down along came the lady with two more shots for us. I thought she meant that you get one after your first song and that was it ... nope. For every song you sing you get a free shot. I told Russ not to put us up again because the locals might not like it if we got up more than twice and also I didn't want them to think that we'd just gone to cadge free drinks all night. He sulked but agreed with me. As it happened he needn't have worried, every time Frank had a spare slot on the board he'd shout over and ask us what we wanted to sing and wouldn't let us get way with not getting up again. After five shots and three double vodkas (the shots we later discovered are some home made concoction with absinthe in them) I had to ask the lady to stop sending the shots over.
“Lishen,” I said, none to steadily, “I've got to fly a plane at eleven o'clock tomorrow.”
“Are you a pilot then?” the barman asked looking genuinely impressed. I giggled realising my mistake.
“I mean,” I said red faced, “I am going on holiday and am catching a plane tomorrow.”
“And that's not till half past three either,” put in Russ.
“Oh well, in that case you need another drink to see you off then.” replied the barman.
We had a fantastic night with some really friendly people, it was a great start to our holiday.
