The Ark

My luck with animals, seems to be getting better or so I thought until this mornings early wake up call…..

Let's start with last weeks 'gift' shall we? Darling Mog decided to bring Toby Toad into the house on three separate occasions.

The first one was intercepted as she was skipping down the garden, checking him over, he had a punctured leg, and I put him back in the middle of the pond, on a lilly pad and walked away fingers crossed for his leg to heal, and that the little horror didn't try and get him again.

The second time - a few days later, was dropped at the pedal of my sewing machine….any closer and I would have finished him off by squashing him flat doing 60 mph on zig-zag!

The third time was the day after at 6.30 am, when she came skipping up the stairs, and promptly threw poor Toby as if she was tossing the Caber - splat on our bedroom floor.  The conversation went like this:

Craig, "Oh god, the cat's been sick."
Craig, "Oh no she hasn't, it's a bloody toad!"
Me, "Is it alive?"
Craig "Yes, I don't think I can deal with this so early in the morning!"
Me, " Just get a bloody jug and put it outside!"
Craig, "I didn't even want a bloody Cat!"
Me, " Oh shut up and just put it out, be grateful she didn't drop it on your face while you were asleep"
Craig, "Grumble….Mumble…Bloody Cat! No! Don't look at me like that, you are a bad cat!"
*stomps of down stairs with HUGE toad hanging out of my plastic jug*
*stomps back up the stairs and stops half way*
"Hello beautiful! You're so cute…"

Yeah, right, of course he didn't want a cat.

Anyway, today is Sunday, we thought we'd have a lazy morning, cooked breakfast, before going for a drive this afternoon to collect something.  Picture the scene.  I'm up and showered but in my comfy slouchy clothes, Craig's dozing in bed, and both girls are still asleep…..

I put the bacon on and before I had time to turn it over, Meg came down and said, "Errrm, Mum…what is Mog doing?" Thinking that Toby Toads time was up, and that I'd see the last knobbly leg disappearing down Mog's throat, in one bound - I was by her side…..Mog was miaowing and swishing her tail, sooooooo pleased with herself!  And there on the floor in the hall was the most perfectly formed Gold Crests' nest….complete with just hours old, four baby birds.  She hadn't taken any out of the nest, but it was only going to be a matter of seconds before she was going to tuck into her 'KFC Bargain Bucket', and so I quickly swiped up the nest and yelled for help.  Daisy was as usual, heartbroken, and Craig was as useful as the toad incident earlier……

Can you believe, we drove all the way over to NUNEATON to the Wildlife Sanctuary with this tiny birds nest, all of us fretting over the outcome of the mornings trauma.

As we pulled up along the front of the Sanctuary (which was actually somebody's house), I wasn't sure if I'd done the right thing….40 minute drive time, had meant that Daisy had adopted and named all the little darlings, and it was going to be a tough call on whether she's leave them there or not.

Luckily we were greeted by a fabulous man, and had only taken two steps into the back garden when we were greeted by 2 foxes, and a tiny deer, that was roaming freely (like a dog), infact the deer had been adopted and bought up by their late greyhound, who had mothered most of the wildlife bought in!  There were 8 barn owls, stoats, a raven, parrots (one of them had even been on TV…..Britains worst pet - for its bad language….)  Daisy thought this was absolutely hilarious.   A turkey, rabbits, guinea pigs, two HUGE owls, and a Peregrine Falcon, pigeons, love birds, 3 other foxes, 4 dogs and numerous smaller more vulnerable mammals that had been bought in.  It was AMAZING!  Daisy handed them over (phew) and we had a look round.We will definitely keep updating their status.

On the way back home, I thought it was an appropriate time to let him know I'd received a text the day before asking if I still wanted a tortoise, as somebody was giving one away.

"NO MORE ANIMALS!" was the response I got, "What's the use of a tortoise anyway?" he went on to say.  I calmly sat and smiled at him, "You can't cuddle them, or stroke them! They don't do anything!"

Still smiling and looking straight ahead at the road, I nodded in agreement.

"Oh for gods sake! " he exclaimed, and sighed a deep sigh  "It doesn't make a scrap of difference what I say anyway."

I leant over and patted his knee and said calmly "Well done darling….how long has it taken you to figure that one out."

"Oh, and by the way, the tortoises name is ASBO."