The Monkey House

I've been looking out of the window and wondering if Speedy was up yet.  He usually keeps time with the daffodils, which are early this year.  This morning I got an email from his lovely new carer in Whittlesford with before and after pictures.

Just up...



As you can see, he's had a nice warm bath and some oil,  and looks splendid - ready for another summer!


I think this is the earliest he's come up apart from the year of the Japanese earthquake, but I'm sure he was shocked out of the ground early by the vibrations from that as it wasn't at all his usual gradual rise and he went back to bed again afterwards.  This year it sounds as though he's just woken up gently and early because of the warm weather.  Just like the daffodils.

This was Speedy on Saturday in his new home with the gorgeous (and really quite large) Toby (now Toberina or Tobette).

They were blissfully happy together for about 40 minutes.  But then he started to make a pest of himself, ramming her shell, biting her legs, and generally giving her the full, irresistible male tortoise pick-up routine.  It wasn't as irresistible as he thought.  Toberina lumbered away.  Speedy followed.  Thump, crash, thump.  Toberina turned round and bit him.  Speedy persisted.  And persisted.  And persisted.  Seriously, tortoises are not good with hints, or indeed with forceful rejection.  Toberina's owner put her up on the decking where Speedy couldn't go, mostly for Speedy's own safety.  Speedy rammed the decking.  Toberina's owner phoned me.  I phoned bugshaw.  Speedy was packed up and returned to bugshaw's garden.  He wasn't happy about leaving Toberina, but seemed quite relieved to be home.  He ate three large helpings of lettuce and went to sleep.

The next potential victim tortoise owner on Speedy's list is away over half term.  So Speedy gets to annoy ozymandias_cat by occupying the tiger barn (TM) for a while longer or so before we try him somewhere else.  Somewhere without a lady tortoise this time.

I somehow have another translation - somebody's business is picking up out there, or maybe it's just the aftermath of everyone making their in-house translators redundant.  Got to get it done before half term and EMA marking.

I keep saying I'll have free time in another week or so, and it still looks like that, but who knows.  If the translations keep coming, I should grab them while they're there and I'm not busy with Unreal Uni work.  On the other hand it would be nice to see friends...  I do plan to get to the beer fest for lunch either today or, more likely, tomorrow.

So I'd better get back to that German medical report.

In other news, Speedy if grateful for all the offers and inquiries, of which he's had many here and elsewhere.  He'll be making his decision over the weekend, if he's not too cold to think.

Speedy is back.  He was spotted wandering along the sheep field at the animal research place up the road, who knew he was missing and phoned us.  It's quite a way, but at least he had the sense to keep away from the roads and to get himself found by people who have hay and boxes.  Insert your own jokes about animal research labs and lost pets, but they were lovely to him.

He is now grounded in the greenhouse, which has brick walls and a step.  Our considerable efforts to provide a tortoise-proof enclosure have failed.  We don't even know where he's getting out, so we can't begin to prevent him doing it again.  His adventure has made it clear that we live in a terrible place for a tortoise to go walkabout--it's all busy roads and fields where he's impossible to spot.  He could live happily in the fields for years chomping on dandelions, but then there's farm machinery... and the fact that the whole area is soon to be bulldozed and concreted over...  Also, something about being here makes him frantic to escape.  I've known him 35 years, but I've never seen him work so hard to get out of anywhere.  He was always foiled by the slightest step, but here he climbed up quite a big one in search of freedom.  (I watched him do it and moved the plant pot he was using to brace himself, so he won't do that again, but he obviously found another way.)  I think he sensed the wide open spaces of countryside and just went for it.  So the only sensible thing is to rehome him before he escapes again.

I'll do a separate post in a minute with info about adopting him.  I would obviously be lovely for us if he could go to someone we know.

Leicester and Speedy recharge their batteries.



Meanwhile, Humbug is away hunting.  The Beast of Girton has been fierce lately.  One day, he brought home TWO baby bunnies, which he devoured on the lawn.  He tends not to bring his prey indoors, unlike Leicester, so we rarely get to see what he catches, but his tum is so full that he often chooses to ignore offers of gushiefudz in favour of staying out late.  Tidying in the spare room Lair of Teh Beest, I found a single pheasant feather left neatly on the bed.

To even greater relief than usual, Speedy is up!

This was him at about 10.30.  Hint: click to enlarge, then look for an eye next to the leaves.



Then at 1ish


And 2ish

Speedy spent most of Wednesday trundling round the garden. Then I went out to the bins at about 3 and saw his back half sticking vertically out of the ground where I thought he'd gone to hibernate before. He was waving his legs around in what turned out to be quite a purposeful way because the front legs underground were digging him further in, bringing his back legs in range eventually. But it looked very odd.

After an hour or so of that, it was just the back corner of shell sticking out, with his back feet still working away and poking through from time to time out of a big pile of dug earth. It's a slow process. You can watch for 5 minutes and only see one footful of earth moved. We were curious to know how he smooths out the ground behind him, so we checked every 30 mins for a while, but it got dark and we gave up before he'd finished. There's a limit to how interested I can stay in a small patch of earth where the only perceptible sign of life is the occasional vibration or mini subsidence.

He stayed down all day yesterday (Thursday) and shows no sign of coming up today, even though it's very sunny and warm. But he hasn't covered his tracks either: the signs of recent digging are obvious. Does this mean he's planning to come back up? Or just keeping his options open? Maybe he thought he didn't need to smooth it as the whole area is quite lumpy and dug over anyway (I've been moving plants around). Or he just ran out of energy and couldn't be bothered after all that bobbing up and down...

I'll let you know.

Note to myself in case I forget: he's just in front of the blackcurrant.

Meanwhile, Leicester is catching mice and staying out late. Humbug is catching sticks and scoffing Leicester's share of the gushy fudz.

Like the weather, Speedy has suddenly decided it's winter. He was still (relatively) running about until yesterday, though he clearly had plans because he stopped eating several weeks ago. Now all I can see is the very top of his shell. Normally slowing and digging down is a much more gradual process, though I suppose it'll be a few more days before he disappears altogether--or he might even still pop back out if we get a warm day.

He's pretty much in the usual place, though less under the roots of my sickly magnolia, which must be good. He liked the nice loose area where I recently dug and added compost.

A glance back at the tortoise tag confirms his bedtime has been mid-late October ever since we moved to Cambridge. Before that, I didn't keep a record, though I used to put him in a box in the shed as per Blue Peter Procedure. I seem to have been pretty sure he wouldn't sleep before November. Maybe the difference between nippy Siberian East Anglia and the balmy Surrey Hills?

It's a busy half term this term. And I'm still working too, so apologies if I miss things on LJ as I'm only reading patchily.

Monkeys have bought a new car (used Skoda Octavia estate) with much visiting of dealers and haggling, not least with Squirrelmonkey who offered to rent out his bedroom so we could buy something with real leather seats. But we didn't.

Humbug has discovered he is volcanically intolerant of Hills Science Diet dry food. After few days of mess and droopy, dehydrated kitty, he is now on the mend, and on an even more expensive brand. We haven't pinned down the ingredient responsible but the likeliest suspects are linseeds, which would also account for the time he hunted and ate one of those suet bird feeders with similar results.

Leicester has killed a collared dove and at least one mouse. He is very proud. He also enjoys being back on Royal Canin brand kitten food. He was fine on Science Diet, but he didn't like it much.

Teen monkeys spent 2 days at a music workshop with other members of the Cambridge Youth Orchestra, and visiting musicians from City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, where they improvised and played pieces based on bits of Rachmaninov's 2nd symphony. It was dead impressive.

We all played Carcassonne with bugshaw .  It was lots of fun, but monkeys seem to need 2-3 times as long to finish a game as it says on the packet.  Must remember this for future planning.

Speedy has finally gone into hibernation.  Probably on Oct 26th.

Tomorrow we set out for Sussex, coming back on Sunday pm.  This will be the last proper trip in the old car.  We collect the new one on Friday 5th.

Back in mid-October, when I wasn't really paying attention, Speedy the tortoise put himself to bed.

On Sunday, a little hole opened up and we saw his nose and (closed) eye, like so:



Yesterday, he was like this:



And today...



He's eating a bit already and moving all of 8 inches from his burrow, which is more than he usually manages in the first week out of his nice box in the shed. I reckon he prefers to look after his own hibernation. Now we have a tortoise-proof garden and don't anticipate moving house for many years, I'm inclined to let him do just that. But I'll go on taking photos of where he buries himself and posting them here. I'd never have spotted him on Monday if I hadn't checked October's pic.