Late-Night Zookeepering
I always wanted to be a zoo-keeper. My impressions of the job were based almost entirely on Johnny Morris in the television show Animal Magic, where he wore a zoo-keeper's hat and gave the animals funny voices.
I never managed it: I've always blamed the school I attended, Roundhay High School for Nice Middle-Class Girls, for not offering biology as a subject - I expect they thought it was a bit smutty.
However, over the years I have looked after plenty of animals and birds, though none of them as big as an elephant, which has always rather disappointed me.
Rabbits, guinea-pigs, tortoises, terrapins, a crow without a tail, mice, hamsters, gerbils, goldfish, catfish, tadpoles too numerous to mention, an African clawed frog (Xenopus Laevis - no idea why I remember its Latin name when mine was called Fred) a dog, various cats.
These days we have Froggie the cat, Kelloggs the corn snake and three leopard geckos. One is a delicate little creature called Tasselhoff, and the other two are big bruisers in comparison - they look like Les Dawson in a frock and I call them Brenda and Julie. They live in a different tank from Tasselhoff because they tend to beat her up.
Also, we have four baby Giant African Land Snails and these are only about half an inch long.
Not one of these beasties is mine: they all belong to either just Emily, or Emily and Gareth. The baby Giant African Land Snails were a wedding present from Ginny and Russ who run the wonderful Silent World aquarium in Tenby.
But somehow all these creatures are living in our house at the moment. So I have a fair amount of zookeepering to do before I go to bed, as these creatures are pretty nocturnal.
Having fed the cat, and let it out and then let it in again, I feed the crickets, some of which are then fed to the geckos. The geckos rush to the front of the vivarium when I approach and then climb out onto my hand to be fed waxworms. I change the snake's water and, at the moment, its bedding, because it is recovering from its operation which I shan't mention because I know that at least one reader does NOT want to hear about it. So at present its bedding is kitchen roll rather than the usual wood chippings. Then I make sure that the baby Giant African Land Snails have some damp paper and dandelion leaves to eat.
Usually, at this point, it is about half past midnight, and I begin to think that other women's bedtime routine does not generally include this kind of thing. Do all those adverts for face cream begin "Just after you've fed the geckos - - "? I think not.
I never managed it: I've always blamed the school I attended, Roundhay High School for Nice Middle-Class Girls, for not offering biology as a subject - I expect they thought it was a bit smutty.
However, over the years I have looked after plenty of animals and birds, though none of them as big as an elephant, which has always rather disappointed me.
Rabbits, guinea-pigs, tortoises, terrapins, a crow without a tail, mice, hamsters, gerbils, goldfish, catfish, tadpoles too numerous to mention, an African clawed frog (Xenopus Laevis - no idea why I remember its Latin name when mine was called Fred) a dog, various cats.
These days we have Froggie the cat, Kelloggs the corn snake and three leopard geckos. One is a delicate little creature called Tasselhoff, and the other two are big bruisers in comparison - they look like Les Dawson in a frock and I call them Brenda and Julie. They live in a different tank from Tasselhoff because they tend to beat her up.
Also, we have four baby Giant African Land Snails and these are only about half an inch long.
Not one of these beasties is mine: they all belong to either just Emily, or Emily and Gareth. The baby Giant African Land Snails were a wedding present from Ginny and Russ who run the wonderful Silent World aquarium in Tenby.
But somehow all these creatures are living in our house at the moment. So I have a fair amount of zookeepering to do before I go to bed, as these creatures are pretty nocturnal.
Having fed the cat, and let it out and then let it in again, I feed the crickets, some of which are then fed to the geckos. The geckos rush to the front of the vivarium when I approach and then climb out onto my hand to be fed waxworms. I change the snake's water and, at the moment, its bedding, because it is recovering from its operation which I shan't mention because I know that at least one reader does NOT want to hear about it. So at present its bedding is kitchen roll rather than the usual wood chippings. Then I make sure that the baby Giant African Land Snails have some damp paper and dandelion leaves to eat.
Usually, at this point, it is about half past midnight, and I begin to think that other women's bedtime routine does not generally include this kind of thing. Do all those adverts for face cream begin "Just after you've fed the geckos - - "? I think not.
posted by Daphne at 7:31 pm
4 Comments:
Don't forget; you are also a zoo keeper offering telephone support.
Mr Grumpy was just feeling the cold a bit - he is now warmer and the crickets scarcer.
Thank you.
Dear Ms Morris,
after several months of having my leg humped by my Irish setter, I did the decent thing and proposed. She accepted and I'm typing this from the honeymoon suite of the Bellagio in Las Vegas.
Everything was fine for the first few days but now I suspect she's humping other legs when I'm at the gaming tables and I need your advice.
Will she grow out of this irresponsible humping and settle down with me or should I just accept that I've made a dreadful mistake and leave the slut ?
I read about you in Waxworms Monthly and would appreciate any help you can give me.
Lonely In Las Vegas
Daphne, I confess myself intrigued: did your snake have 'that' operation?
(ie: the one my kitten's just recovering from as I speak today, which renders him - like the Cromarty lighthouse he is named after - similarly unmanned...)
If it *is* 'that' operation, I'm amazed - I didn't know snakes could... that vets would... Hell - they'd need a magnifying glass, wouldn't they?
Love,
Rebecca
PS - newlywed luggage update?
Dizzy - yes, the geckos need to be quite warm in order to eat, otherwise they just go all lethargic, like me in winter.
Silverback - the title Waxworms Monthly kept me laughing all the way to Sheffield, and on the M1 too.
Rebecca - the snake got septicaemia in its tail and it turned black and had to be amputated. Let us hope that our mutual friend the snake-hating artist never reads these comments.
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