The Man Who Shouts At Wildlife

If your memory is any better than my staff's you may recall that a few weeks ago I told you that my staff had my female staff's late Mum's house "styled" by an inferior designer by the name of Dominique Clutterd-Hoams in order to tart the place up to make it more attractive to potential buyers.  (See the post entitled "Wink" published on 11 January 2015.)  If your memory is not better than my staff's then you are probably reading this post stark naked on the bus on the way to work having forgotten to put your clothes on before heading off.  In which case you now have more important things to worry about than reading some dated blog post written by a deceased guinea pig.

Anyway, despite finding Baci dozing in her knickers as she sat on the toilet Ms Clutterd-Hoams obviously did an excellent job because my staff could have had three contracts for the sale of the house in the first week, and I am delighted to inform you that the place is now sold.  The real estate agent said it would make all the difference and that is exactly how it seems to have turned out.  Ms Clutterd-Hoams told my staff that she'd done some sort of course in colour psychology.  Apparently all the lime greens and yellows that she uses in her styling not only stand out in the on-line advertising but they also worm their way into the simple, under-developed human brain and say "Buy this house. You need to buy this house.  You REALLY need to buy this house."  Guinea pigs would never fall for such an unsophisticated ruse.  It takes more than simple colours to sway our thinking.  Taste and stomach filling elements play a much larger role.
 

 Here's a photo of the house after Ms Clutterd-Hoams had finished with it.  

WARNING! Prolonged viewing may lead to inadvertent cheque signing, or in extreme cases you may find yourself purchasing a subscription to "Better Homes Than Yours" magazine.

So now my staff have finished clearing all my female staff's mum's stuff out of the house.  The emptiness is striking.  Every word echoes.  It makes my staff want to whisper, like being in a church.  There's nothing of my female staff's mum there now.  Her spirit was never really there anyway, particularly after her husband passed away.  She was never very happy there.  She always said it was too big for her, and it was.  I guess you could say that it closes a rather sad chapter in my female staff's life.  Her mum and dad were both ill while living there, it holds very few happy memories. Both her parents have gone to the Rainbow Bridge and now the last place they lived together has gone too.  However, my staff's house is now filled with memories of my female staff's parents.  The place is full of their old furniture and this is what really contains their spirits - the beautiful old oak dining table, the oak sideboard - these are the things from my female staff's childhood.  These are the things that now hold my female staff's mum and dad's spirits and memories of them when they were younger, happier and healthier.

My staff don't have a big house.  It's looks big, but actually its a bit like Doctor Who's Tardis in reverse.  This means that many of my staff's furniture has had to be relegated to the shed to make room for the stuff from my female staff's mum's house, or my staff would never be able to get from one room to the other without having to scramble over the top of bits of furniture, and when you're their age you don't need that.  Especially when you're in a hurry to get to the toilet.  It's all very well cramming unwanted stuff into your shed, but what happens when you want to find a rake or the weed killer?  You have to rummage around for hours, peering under dust sheets and shoving heavy items of furniture out of the way.  Here in Australia that can lead to some very interesting wildlife encounters.  In Britain the worst thing that can happen is that you tread barefoot on a hibernating hedgehog and have to get your husband, wife or significant other to spend an hour pulling prickles out of your sole with a pair of tweezers.  In Australia though its a more hazardous task.

Paolo the budgie and the four guinea pigs can now tell which animal my male staff has encountered in the shed by the noise he makes.  For instance a large and hairy but harmless huntsman spider can be recognised by a shrill "Aaaaiiiiiieeeee!" On the other hand a much smaller but venomous red back spider induces more of a "Yiiiiiiii! Woah shit!" response.  A python is more like an  "Arrrrgggh! Bloody Hell!" A deadly eastern brown snake or taipan elicits a "Faaaaaaaaaaaaaark!" Often followed by a loud bang as my male staff jumps four feet in the air and hits his head on the shed roof.  So far we haven't been able to decipher the difference between the eastern brown snake and the taipan.  If anything there may be one or two more letter a's in the taipan Faaaaaaaaaaark!  A large centipede is "Eeeeeeeyuck!" And a scorpion is "Shit! Jeeeezus!"  My personal favourite is the paper wasp, which goes something like "Ahhhh! Ow ow ow ow ow ow ow." This is followed by the thudding of running feet, the opening and slamming of the front door as my male staff bursts in and about ten minutes of heavy breathing and dark muttering as he leans against the door examining the stings he's received.

On one memorable occasion we got the lot.  I was nibbling my way through an entire basil plantation in Piggy Paradise, Baci, Alfie, Tom and Toby were napping and Paolo was entertaining himself by aiming his poo at a photo of Vladimir Putin in the newspaper at the bottom of his cage, when all of a sudden all hell broke loose in the shed.  "Aaaaiiiiieeeee!  Yiiiiiii! Woah shit! Arrrgggh! Bloody hell!  "Faaaaaaaaaark!  Eeeeeeeeeeyuck!  Shit! Jeeeezus!  Ahhhhh! Ow ow ow ow ow ow ow."  Thud thud thud thud thud.  Click, SLAM, sigh, mutter mutter mutter mutter.

Apparently as he opened the shed's roller door a large hairy huntsman had fallen from it onto his shoulder and as he waved his arms about trying to knock it off he swept a red back spider from it's untidy web onto his other shoulder.  He pulled a dust sheet from one of my female staff's mum's coffee tables to beat the red back with and revealed a three metre python curled up under it minding it's own business.  Stepping back and still doing his crazed get these spiders off my shoulders dance he trod on the tale of an eastern brown snake who had come to see what all the fuss was about.  Luckily the snake decided not to bite. (He was probably concerned that he might contract rabies.)  My male staff then put his hand on the wall of the shed to steady himself and found a very irate eight inch long centipede under his palm, meanwhile, looking down he discovered a scorpion had crawled onto his shoe.  Kicking it away he made a grab for the light switch which might have been a good thing to do a few minutes earlier.  While groping for this he disturbed a paper wasp nest.  By this time he'd forgotten what he went out to the shed for anyway.  Ah. Happy days.

BACI'S BALONEY

The wun thing I find most irattatt  irrytytat  annoying abowt Uncal Billy's staff is that they tork abowt me like I'm not there.  Yesturday frigzample they were like diskussing my testostricles.  Sum peepul mite find this flattering but I wuz far from flattered wen I herd them say "Maybe we shood have them remooved."  I dint like the sownd of that at all.  Parrently it's coz they think they're making me too aggressive towards the other piggies. Well let me tell yoo sumthing.  I'm going to get a lot moor aggressive if they try chopping my testostricles off.  Just coz I bit Tom's bum last week and like chayst Alfie three times arownd the room chattering my teef at him all the way duzzunt meen I shood like looze my boarhood. It's all very unfare and I'm going to start an online campain to try to save my family jools.  It'll be on Twitter with the hashtag #SaveBacisBalls. Pleese retweet it if yoo care.