Hello, Biggles here.

As you can imagine, it’s been a fairly quiet week after Roscoe left us in the early hours of Tuesday morning. We saw him wobble into the Reindeer Tunnel, and I thought, ‘hello, he looks even more wobbly than yesterday.’ Everyone was sleeping, or occasionally going out for a nose around some hay, except Roscoe, and then Neville came over, and whispered ‘he’s gone’ to me. I asked if he was sure, and he nodded. Well, it’s hard to know what to say, but I did my best. Neville was very down. Of course, we had known he would go soon, after he started wobbling about. And it’s good that he didn’t wobble about for very long, because we’d rather remember him as the big strong boar we all knew and loved.

I was hoping Mummy would put me in with Neville when she rearranged the cages the day after. She left everything as it was to start with, just so we could rest and respect his loss. But she spoke to me on Wednesday and explained the changes she was making, and why, and I could see it made sense. So Locksley came down from his cage above us, and joined Neville, and Mummy took that run away. So we have light above our runs again now. I must say, I enjoyed having the little hidey hole underneath the loft part.

These were the last two pictures Mummy took: the pair of us together on Sat 12th, and on the evening of Wed 16th, after he’d gone wobbly a day or two earlier.

Locksley was a bit of a pain to start with, rushing about and showing Neville how much he loved him. Nev told him to calm down a few times, and eventually he did, but he had this habit of going over to Neville whenever he was having a snooze and mounting him, just to make sure he was okay. He gave up after a while, and got to be more of a pleasant companion for Nev.

That was Mummy’s plan, really, that Locksley should have someone to teach him proper manners. He’d not had much guidance up till the time when we went out on the grass, and he soon got too over-excited to run with the three of us for long. So that was all settled.

Then Thursday we went out on the grass, and Mummy put the three of us together (Ludo likes to be alone). Well, I suppose Locksley thought I was intruding, and I thought that was a bit much, as Nev’s my friend too, so there was a bit of a rumpus, which ended up with Mummy putting me in a section by myself.

She made a very clever arrangement, though, with the wire tunnel running between the two runs, so she just moves one panel and it can lead from one to the other. So Thursday and Friday we were separate, but Saturday we moved onto fresh grass, and after a while she opened up the tunnel, and we mostly got on well. With a few arguments.

So it’s been a quietish week. Mummy took Roscoe’s body to the undertaker, and brought it back in a little tube of ashes on Friday, and when she came back in at sunset, she told us she’d scattered them among the raspberries and the bluebells. That sounds very suitable to me. Roscoe’s off over the rainbow bridge having fun, anyway. It was just his body that went to the undertakers and is now helping the flowers and fruit grow.

That’s all the events of this week. I hope yours was happier. At least we had some sunshine.

Love

Biggles xxxx

PS All the rescues have received their donations from you now. Auntie Layla (NEGPR) contacted Mummy yesterday and said some nice things about Roscoe. She’s been following his adventures – and Neville’s of course.