Today is ten years since George wrote his ‘Hello’ greeting to readers of his brand new blog. I thought we could celebrate with a recap and a giveaway, which closes on 13th June.
George
George was a modest chap, very keen on new technology, and on engineering his surroundings to make them more comfortable for Fred and himself. He was appointed Forum Mechanic of the Rodents With Attitude Forum (sadly no longer with us), and amused many people with his matter-of-fact way of solving their piggy problems. He also mentored them on using the site. Continue reading “Ten years of George’s Guinea Pig World”→
HELLO! Bertie here. Today we’ve got as far as letter H in our A to Z blog.
HAY is always at the top of our minds, but Mummy said everyone has blogged about hay, and shown pictures of Humphrey and George and the others hiding in it. As well as eating it of course.
Biggles’s nose in the hay
So I thought I’d tell you about HOLIDAYS.
The first holiday that George’s Guinea Pig World went on was when George, Fred, Hugo and Victor went with Mummy to the Isle of Mull. That’s a very long way, and includes a trip on a boat! They went back the next year too. You can read about their trip here.
Grass with a view
When there were five or more piggies here nobody went on holiday, because Mummy couldn’t fit everyone in the car. Mummy took a couple of holidays, but she didn’t take us with her. She went to cold places like Svalbard and Iceland.
But now we are four, Mummy’s taken us on holiday twice – to HAMPSHIRE!
We told you about the first trip here, but we went again in April, about the time we started this Blog Challenge, so we haven’t shown you the new photos.
We stayed in the same place, but it was warmer later in the week, and we went out on the grass next to the cottage. We couldn’t go on the grass immediately in front of the cottage because it had been treated with ‘Feed and Weed’ which would be poisonous to us, or at least upset our tummies. The grass we went on had dandelions and things growing in it. Mummy made sure it didn’t have daisies or buttercups in it where we were, but it was nice. The run was a bit small, though, because we were using the panels indoors as well.
Top Tug showing off
Top Tug at home
Bertie on the table
River Meon
Morning social
Lawn mowing at the cottage
Bertie considers escape
Biggles on the table
Mummy went out most days but came back to give us a cuddle later on. One day she went to a place where they train racehorses. Top Tug is one of her racing club’s. He ran on Saturday and came fifth. Mummy says that’s fine for his first race of the season. She also had lunch with Dani and her Mummy, and also with her other nieces. Mummy has a very big family. Although I’ve got more family at Auntie Sophie’s house.
Anyway, that’s our Holiday in Hampshire, complete with Hay, all for H in the A to Z challenge.
I’m glad Roscoe’s doing I next week, because I have no Idea what to talk about for that!
We’re back to our A to Z weekly blogging challenge today. I’m Roscoe, the handsome one of the party. The one with the dashing eye patch!
G is for Garden parties, Gotcha days, Gardening and something Mam does pretty often, which is Golf.
We had hoped to have a Garden party last week to celebrate the blog’s anniversary. Mam is very happy you came and visited her special anniversary post, but is a mite disappointed that people haven’t entered her Giveaway. I mean, it’s like a raffle, and friends enter raffles, don’t they? So step up and enter the Giveaway. It’s at the bottom of Tuesday’s post.
Mam says she might add everyone who’s left a comment on the blog anyway.
Midge’s 3rd birthday party
Roscoe and his Gotcha cake
Colman’s 7th birthday 2015
Kevin’s 5th birthday party
Jubilee Garden Party
Biggles and Bertie have Gotcha cake
Neville helps Bertie eat his cake
We generally have Garden parties for birthdays, and Gotcha Days, which are the dates on which some of us arrived here, rather than the date we were born. Nev and I don’t know when we were born, and neither does Mam, so we have our Gotcha Day on 18th August. Bertie and Biggles celebrate their birthday in February, and we have an indoor party for that. Garden parties are a tradition here, though. Mam says we might have one for Princelings Day, 13th June.
Gardening is something Mam does to keep the garden tidy, while we do the gras mowing for her. This weekend she was weeding the new veggies. She says the salad leaves are nearly ready to pick, and the carrots and kohl rabi are growing nicely. She took out weeds like chickweed and some mini dandelions and mini fennel, which she gave us to try. We liked them. She gave us some extra Grass she found too. Yum.
Golf is what Mam does when she goes out all day. She usually gets us cuddled, cleaned and fed then says ‘Bye Boys, see you after 3,’ or after 5, or before dark, and she goes out of the door. She comes back later, and usually she brings food or hay. So Golf is obviously related to shopping.
So that’s it for G, apart from George, of course, who was Gorgeous, and so am I. He-he 🙂
We’ve reached F, which was a very difficult letter to think of something interesting to write about.
I mean, there’s FOOD, and FRED, who is a very important guinea pig indeed. And FLEECE, which we have on the floor of our cages with pads underneath, to give us nice bedding.
But when Mummy put the calendar on the wall onto May, I saw that there were FOUR legends of our world, whose pictures occupied one day each. That means these are special days for those pigs. It can be birthdays and Gotcha days, but these are all Rainbow Bridge Days.
These are our FOUR May legends
Kevin went over the Bridge on the 9th, two years ago. We met him and ran around with him in the garden in the April. We’d only been here a month. He was very patient with us. He had just FINISHED doing the A to Z with Percy. I think this is why Mummy told us we couldn’t do the A to Z every day, because everyone that had done that went over the Rainbow Bridge soon afterwards. It’s too much hard work for us.
Then George, who went on May 13th a long time ago. He’s the FOUNDER of this blog of course. He was an engineer and a legend. He worked very hard on the FORUM that is no more. It seems like most of the things George did were part of history now.
Victor went when he was very old, and he was ill in the morning and went over the Bridge at lunchtime. Mummy knew because she had a premonition when she was playing golf. She says it was very spooky, but she wasn’t FRIGHTENED, just surprised.
And Percy, my mate, who I still miss, but I’ve got a bit used to not having him around. He was very wise. He went on the last day of May, the 31st, last year. I miss him. It was FUN playing with him.
So those are my FOUR legends of the George’s Guinea Pig World for May.
And please come back tomorrow because we’re celebrating a very SPECIAL DAY, and you can enter a competition and win prizes.
I’m a bit behind on the lettering, because EASTER was last weekend, but since Mam gave us Easter boxes, I thought I ought to say something about it.
It’s the same sort of yummy box that Mam gave us for Christmas, but this time she gave one each to Biggles and Bertie as well as one for Neville and me. Hang on, that means we share, but they get one each. That isn’t fair!
Oh, hang on, Mam’s just filled our up again with herby hay. That’s okay then. Right.
Mam had an Easter Egg in a box, but it was made from Green & Blacks Dark Chocolate. It smelled terrible. I don’t know how she can eat that stuff. Our boxes are filled with hay and made from lovely noisy grass-covered cardboard. They sound and taste AMAZING!
They help us take lots of EXERCISE as we push them around in our runs. We also got out to EAT grass last week, which was also amazing
That’s enough Es from me. I’m going to take it EASY 🙂
Bye for now. Special week next week – with TWO posts, Mam says. She’s writing the second one. Sounds EXCITING!
Hello! Bertie here. We’re blogging from A to Z once a week, through to September. Mummy says it’ll take us that long, but we need to spend more time eating grass outside, and not stuck in front of the computer.
D is for Degu!
I have a blogging friend who’s a degu. It’s a small furry animal (like me) but not like me, as he has a long tail and he climbs very well, and he’s quite a lot different in other ways too.
Say hello to Joshua the Degu!
He’s a handsome chap, isn’t he? Joshua interviewed me and Roscoe on his mum’s blog. My mum says we can interview him later in the year. Maybe I for Interview. But this is what I’ve found out about Degus.
Degus come from Chile originally
they are classed as rodents
they are even more sociable than guinea pigs!
they have long silky coats, grey-brown in colour, and a long, thin tail with a tufted, black tip
they live to about 8 years old, although I think Joshua is older
they are supposed to typically weigh 300 gms. That’s tiny compared with me. I weigh 1500 gms. I haven’t asked Joshua how much he weighs.
they are inquisitive and intelligent and have lots of different squeaks and sounds
Well, that sounds a lot like Joshua to me!
D is also for Death
This weekend was one year since Midge died. That was a horrible evening. Mummy went out to her bird meeting, and while she was away, Midge went all funny. He lived with Percy in the run next to me, where Neville and Roscoe live now. He started twitching and shaking, then he rolled over on his side and kept twitching. It was horrible, because Percy and I could do nothing. Then Mummy came home and said hello to us, saw Midge, picked him up and cuddled him tight, and phoned the vet. Then she took him downstairs and stayed up all night with him, but he died in the morning.
Bertie and Midge
Midge looks out
We were very sad, but she let us sit with his body and say goodbye to him. Actually, I found it very scary and didn’t really want to sit with him, but Percy told me to say goodbye or I’d regret it when I was older, and understood better. I think he was right. I made sure I said goodbye to Percy when he went a month or so later.
I don’t like it when someone dies, but Percy said it’s natural, and everyone dies sometimes. And then we go over the Rainbow Bridge to the place where everybody’s well and happy, and we can be with our friends again.
And Joshua says he understands because all his degu family have died, too. That’s very sad. But he has other friends to keep him company.
So that’s our post for D and next week we’ll do E which might be for exercise. I think Eating would be better.
