Touching Scenes With #Degus And #Chinchillas, Hoovers, Weather Reports, And Preparing For Hospital

Once Lilie settles for the evening, it's so quiet here now Maizie's gone. Maizie was always so full of energy. I used to hear her half running, half hopping, so enthusiastically on her wheel she'd make their cage rattle. Or she'd be playing with their bell. Not to mention her jumping and climbing about energetically. I miss hearing all the sounds from her playing coming from the living room. I can still hear Joshua and Mollie, of course. But Joshua doesn't make as much noise as Maizie, and Mollie's even quieter still. Actually, Mollie has always been quieter and more reserved. Even at her most playful, she's never made even half the noise Maizie did. Maizie was also the one who used to throw things out of the cage at Lilie, and - strange as it might sound - I think Lilie is actually missing that. So we're all missing Maizie. Though Mollie most of all, I expect, since they've been cage mates since Mollie was six months old, and Maizie was three months old. That's almost three years of never being out of sight of one another.

At least Joshua helped Mollie deal with losing Maizie. Yes, really. Nobody will convince me otherwise. Mollie had been calling for Maizie, and generally seeming miserable - understandably. Then I heard Joshua squeaking away in the way he used to with his brothers. We've heard him talk to himself a bit, but never for this long. I didn't interupt though, because he didn't sound distressed. I'm glad I didn't, because it turned out he was on top of his house, in the spot where he could see Mollie in her log house best, and just a squeaking and chittering away to her. He was at it for a good five minutes, and then he scampered off to play on his wheel. Before that, Mollie was calling for Maizie, and only coming out of her log house to eat and drink. Since then Mollie has stopped calling for Maizie, and has even been playing some (as mentioned above, she was never as enthusiastic about playing as Maizie, so a little playing counts for a lot with Mollie). She even watched some TV with us. I don't care what anyone says. Our little degu buddy helped his chinchilla sister. I don't know what he said to her, but I'm glad he did, whatever it was. I mean, she's obviously still missing Maizie, of course. She probably always will. But whatever Joshua said to her seems to have helped, and kept her from spiraling down in to depression. So, Thanks Buddy!

In other news...

There was a marching band outside here on Saturday. I don't know why, and don't have photos or videos to share, but I did enjoy listening to them.

Anyway, we got a new hoover (vaccume cleaner). Our old one was a cheap one that needed bags, which we got because it was all we could get at the price we could afford at the time. Bearing in mind, this was several years ago. We've been meaning to replace it for a while, especially since it started being a bit unreliable as to whether or not it would suck things up a little while ago. Not to mention, getting hold of the right kinds of bags for it was getting to be quite difficult. Plus, we wanted a bagless one in general: les expense, and less waste. So, we finally got a new one. It's a Dyson, and even comes with an extra atatchment for the hose that's especially designed for picking up pet hair and such. Plus, though it's mostly grey, it has some red and purple on it, which I thought was great. Kelly usually does the hoovering, but I got all excited about it having some red and purple on it, so begged to be allowed to try it out first. Probably one of the few times in the history of the universe that anyone has ever been excited about doing the hoovering. Haha! I suppose I don't need to tell you he was happy to let me do so? Yeah... Thought as much. You also probably won't be the least bit surprised to learn the novelty wore off quickly, and I handed the task of hoovering back to Kelly, will you? That's what I thought! *wink*

Also, sticking on the theme of things around the house for a moment: we had the annual check for our boiler and heating system last week. The guy seemed happy with it, and we haven't noticed any problems with it. So, in theory we're good to go for another year, barring any unforseen circumstances. Oh, and we made sure it went back on the right setting afterwards this time, so we didn't end up with the problem we had last year, where we thought it was broken, and had to call someone out, only to find it was just on the wrong setting, and we hadn't realized that. So, we're all good as regards heating and hot water. Just as well really, since it's been pretty cold here. Although, quite warm compared to temperatures many of you have been having. Temperatures you can keep, by the way. -3 degrees C is quite cold enough to be getting on with, thank you very much!

If you're offering it, I'll take your snow though. It did sort of snow here Thursday night in to Friday morning. It tried to anyhow. A lot of the UK got snow, and places not far from us even had a couple of inches. But it turned to rain too quickly here - probably because of the salty sea air - to avoid being slush for long enough for Kelly to even get photos, let alone for me and Lilie to go down and play in it. They do keep saying we might get more snow before long. It's certainly stayed cold enough. We haven't had any more so far though. We've had a couple of awesome rainstorms, but no more snow. You watch it come this weekend, when I'll be stuck in hospital, and unable to go out and play in it. I really hope it doesn't do that.

Yes... It's almost time. It's just two days until I go in for surgery. I'll be having surgery Thursday afternoon. All prayers and positive thoughts gratefully received. I hopefully won't need them, but it doesn't hurt. Thanks in advance!

Anyway, tomorrow I get to find out just how bad that special before surgery drink stuff tastes. They didn't have that last time I went in for surgery, so I've never had it before. I hope it's not as bad as I'm dreading it will be. Hopefully my dread of the terrible flavour will mean I get a nice surprise when it's not as bad as I fear it will be. Can but hope, right? *wink*

Speaking of things not being as bad as I feared: my ankle is doing well. I'm still getting nasty twinges of pain in it more than is normal for it, but I've either done a great job of resting it, or didn't hurt it as badly as it felt like I had. Either way, it's mending nicely. At least, as nicely as is possible for that ankle. I'm sure it will be glad of the proper rest while I'm in hospital though. Not that hospital is generally a relaxing place, as those who have spent a lot of time there know. But at least I won't be needing to walk around much.

Anyway, I'll be offline from early Thursday morning through to whenever I'm up for sitting at the computer after I'm home. Can't say exactly how long that will be, since how quickly I get to come home depends on how smoothly surgery and initial recovery goes. I've got posts set up for all the weekdays of the next two weeks, which should be long enough to give you plenty to read while I'm gone. I hope. Those who usually get to my posts via Twitter or Facebook will have to either come to my blog looking for them, or wait until I'm around to share them, since the only online activity there might be from me during that time is if I feel like checking in briefly on Facebook to let people on there know I'm alive, and that's if I even feel up to doing that, which there's a good chance I won't. If you're worried you'll miss a post, you can always subscribe by eMail... There's a thingy for that somewhere on my sidebar. Anyway, I hope you enjoy the posts I've got set up for you, and that I'm not gone too long.

I'll catch up with all your posts and things when I can after I'm home, though I expect that will take some time, since - if my usual list of posts and eMails is anything to go by - I'm sure I'll have quite a stack of stuff waiting for me to deal with.

Before I end this, here's another random photo of Lilie... Just because: