13 March

Dear Country Living Bloggers old and new, I need you all to sit in a metaphorical circle, hands linked, eyes closed, and concentrate very hard on the image of a small white hamster, returned to the bosom of his family. Yes, I’ve lost my son’s dear pet, white prince amongst hamsters, pearl of the rodents, Snowy (my James shares the trait of imaginative pet naming with exmoorjane’s James). I gave him his evening run -around, fed him carrots and apple, and presumably left the cage open when I put him back. James is supposed to feed him but he was home so late last night after Hitler Youth (Cubs) that we both forgot and I ended up doing it. See how fate intervenes. Luckily, James was in too much of a rush this morning to notice the open cage, or the fact that his mother, heart pumping, was staring crazily around the room and being very careful where she put her feet.

I know I am supposed to be ‘talking’ about country matters, and, however hard I try, a hamster doesn’t really count as a country animal. Chickens, dogs, horses, yes. Pigs, sheep, goats, even stoats and weasels. But hamsters are just a bit, well, suburban, somehow. Not even as much fun as guinea pigs, but surely further up the pet pecking order than stick insects, or am I being too partial? Anyway, our super-size hamster with his pink eyes, always looking like he’s had a night on the town, with a few pies on the way home, has managed to worm his way into my affections. I have always hated rodents. It may be something to do with the fact that my sister and I once brought the class gerbils home over half-term, and they promptly died on us. Both of them. The shame I felt at returning the empty cage to school still stays with me; my Mum did subsequently buy another pair for the school, but they died too. See what I mean? Anyway, I caved in, as usual, to James’s demands that he have a pet of his very own. Never mind the fact that we have two cats, used to have a dog and have promised him another one this year, and also have some chickens and ducks. No, it transpires that no self-respecting country boy’s life would be complete without a hamster. Who’s going to clean out the cage, each week, I demanded. “I will, Mummy, I absolutely promise I will, I’ll take care of him myself, I’ll do everything, I promise please please please”. I tried to tell myself I believed him, but in my heart of hearts I didn’t, really. I knew it would be me. So anyway he chose Snowy, possibly the strangest looking hamster in the world; he’s an albino. We also seem to have got the only hamster in the world who doesn’t think he’s a hamster. We have bought him every gadget available in an attempt to entertain him; he has wheels, houses, acres (seemingly) of tubing providing endless hours of fun, if only he would avail himself of them. We let him out each evening for a long run around an enclosed room, we give him buckets of soil to burrow in, we tease and tempt him by hiding his food around his cage, to keep him alert. He seemed lethargic a few weeks ago; I (the rodent hater) was to be found feeding him grapes. My daughter sings him lullabies. But all he does is fix us with a menacing (pink) eye and hangs upside down on the top bars of his cage, gnawing away, day and night. We tend to take a highly anthropomorphic view of domestic animals in this house; we know it’s madness, but we can’t seem to help ourselves. We joke about him being so alert and ready for action, our guerrilla hamster, and some of this seems to have rubbed off on him; I’m sure he thinks he’s human. What am I doing in this cage, he seems to be asking, let me out! I want to sit on the sofa with you and have a take-away Indian and a bottle of wine. Well, he got his wish last night. Not the curry and the wine, of course, but freedom. He’s off, into a house full of loose floorboards, nooks and crannies, and two cats. The guilt, the guilt. I locked the cats out last night, but I can’t keep them out forever. I’ve left the cage open, with a little pile of food just inside, and keep running backwards and forwards to see if he’s back yet. I remember my sister having two hamsters (I was still traumatised by the gerbils and didn’t want anything to do with them), and one escaped. My mum, not wishing to upset my sister, secretly bought another identical one, but forgot to mention it to my Dad. He was sitting up late one night with a glass of whiskey, and looked down to see a hamster by the skirting board. He picked it up and returned it to the cage, only to find there were already two in there. I think he stopped drinking whiskey for a while after that. That would be just my luck – buy a replacement and then find the original returns. I’m most worried about the cats; a hamster lost in the recesses of the house is one thing – we could make up stories about the wild, adventurous life he’s now having – but a mangled corpse laid reverently before the children is quite another.

I’ll let you know, no doubt you will all be on the edge of your seats all day.