Hello Biggles here. We’re in official mourning for Prince Philip, who died last Friday. It’s just till his funeral next weekend, we don’t have to do seven weeks like we do for our guinea pig friends.

Seven weeks is traditional for guinea pigs, according to the lore that is handed down from our older friends and ancestors. Seven is a magical number, because it’s the way we count, having fourteen toes altogether, which makes it easy to count to seven on one side or the other. George did something to explain it to you here.

We did seven weeks for Bertie, of course, last May, but I don’t remember doing it otherwise. Mummy said we did it for everyone, but before Bertie it was Percy, who died at the end of May one year, and Midge, who looked a bit like me, who went in April just before him. Midge is the only piggy Mummy has had to go over the Rainbow Bridge in April. His anniversary is tomorrow week. That was in 2018, when I was a year old.

There are far too many with anniversaries in May, Mummy says. George, Victor, Kevin, Percy, and Bertie. Five out of fourteen piggies. It does seem strange. But it’s not to do with going out in cold weather or anything. George had enough of his struggles with his teeth, Victor was very old, Kevin was pretty old, Percy had a tumour, and Bertie; well, from the Health talk we listened to on Zoom on Saturday, and other things Mummy’s been learning about, she wonders whether Bertie had a heart problem like me. The vet didn’t xray him, so we will never know. That vet didn’t xray me, either. Mummy is glad she took me to the new vet. I’m on heart meds now. One tastes horrid, but there isn’t much of it, and the other tastes okay, which is good as I have at least two mouthfuls. And I get both of the meds twice a day, morning and evening.

Mummy is wondering about having a special celebration of George’s life next month. It’ll be ten years since he died. That’s a long time. She’s thinking about having a raffle with donations to the guinea pig rescue, either here or where we came from. There’ll be a prize of George’s Guinea Pig Notebook. You can see what it is at the side of the page. Click on it and you can even see inside. It’s for writing or drawing in. But there are pictures of George, Fred, Victor and Hugo all through it, with words of wisdom from George.

I think that’s a great idea. What do you think?

Love

Biggles