The Sound of One Hand Tapping

I'm writing this one-handed. It's a  real-time blog this morning...

No, I've not been injured by the bad bunnies! My left hand is currently giving them both a  deep, tooth-grind-inducing stroke.

It's not often Mabel wants a stoke, but this morning, after Dijon made it quite clear that my need for breakfast came a poor second to his need for a cuddle, Mabel ambled over and joined in. Dijon is very must in your face, though, and tries to take a stroke from me at the same time as nestling into her, but she just kept repositioning herself into my hand.

And she's having the longest cuddle she's had for a long time.

I have just dared to type with both hands as the bunnies needed a scratch, and my foot was scrabbled to order me to resume stroking,

They are curious creatures these rabbits that live indoors with us.

Little vandals

3:30 this afternoon, the internet stops working. I think nothing of it as the wireless connection on the main PC is flaky at times. I should have known better.

At 4 o'clock I came downstairs, only to discover a trails of destruction in the living room. Mabel & Dijon had escaped...

I am too upset to write much about it, but I'd estimate that about £200 of damage has been done (that's damage we have discovered so far). Here's what was immediately visible:

• Two camera bags ripped
• Power supply to router in two pieces
• Telephone cable in pieces
• Router-phone socket cable destroyed
• Sewing machine power cable severely eaten

The camera bags can be replaces (about £40).

The telephone will need replacing as it took a special cable to power it. As it was the master phone the other two DECTs will no longer work. They will need replacing (£40 again).

Router power supply will probably cost about £10 to replace, or I'll have to buy a new router (at around £20 for a basic one).

The sewing machine power supply is another matter altogether. The machine is only a week old; a replacement pedal costs £69 which is third of what the machine cost! And search as I might, there don't seem to be any generic ones for this particular model of sewing machine.
Ouh

To say we are upset is an understatement.

Lego of my Leg

Mabel is a naughty bunny. A very naughty bunny indeed. And it all began with Lego.

A large tub of Lego found is way into the living room, and has happily set up home right in the middle of the floor. The bunnies were happy with this arrangement. Unfortunately, in an attempt to make the living room look tidier, somebody moved the tub, placing it so that it abutted a vintage, hand crafted piano stool and the sofa.

Mabel and Dijon, being very observant creatures, spotted this rearrangement, and it immediately attracted their attention. Dijon immediately set about trying to burrow between the tub and the sofa, but stopped as soon as I moved the box. Alas, moving the box a second time caught Mabel's attention. Now, Mabel, is far too sensible to waste her teeth on upholstery; she prefers to tuck into something more solid, and - you've guessed it - she had a jolly good gnaw on the piano stool.

No longer does it have four proud varnished legs. Instead, it has three varnished legs, and a stripped-to-the-core fourth one.

It may be possible to disguise the damage with a few new layers of varnish, but I imaging Mabel will only see this as a challenge. Frankly, I will lose the battle; a piano stool with just three legs is no use at all.

I'll leave

Wedding Feast

A wedding - and everyone's over-eaten, including the buns...

Today our family has attended a wedding - a Sikh wedding. Sikh weddings begin early, so we had to leave the house before 7am in order to be at the Hounslow Gurdwara by 9am.

Mabel and Dijon have freedom of the dining room for most of the day - they are only in their cage overnight, and if we're out for any length of time during the day, so were not going to take kindly to being shut in for a whole day. Therefore, we called in The Bunnysitters - my parents, who were happy to give them breakfast at normal time then to sit for 3 hours whilst Mabel and Dijon did there usual - chew a bit of cardboard box, then sit where they choose (ie. not in their cage).

I had warned The Bunnysitters that lately we've been having difficulty tempting them back to their cage at night time. However, when we arrived home later this afternoon, we were informed that Dijon was a good boy and went straight back, and Mabel had been willing to follow a trail of treats to the cage.

We use SMALL pinches of muesli-based bunny food as a going-back treat. Unfortunately, The Bunnysitters informed me, there had been a little accident with the treats tin, kept on top of the cage, and the bunnies had thought Christmas had come early when "a few pinches" had fallen into the cage.

Well, I've never before seen Dijon healthy yet not interested in food. There were still plenty of treats left on the floor of the cage, quite visible even to human eye, neither bun showed much interest in their grass/herb forage at tea time, and not even a whisker moved when they were offered their pellets!

It seems we've all over-eaten today... de-tox diet tomorrow, for everyone/bun!

Stop! Thief!

Yesterday evening, I ate a satsuma and mistakenly left the peel, which had been removed in one piece, on a plate on the arm of the chair.

I completely forgot about it, until Dijon casually hopped onto the armchair, snatched the peel from the plate, and jumped down again to eat it. As I approached, he skipped away, peels still dangling from his mouth. He managed to run a full lap of the dining room, leaving a trail of pith and pips in his wake, then attempted to hide in a box before I caught caught.

It's not the first time he's been attracted to citrus fruit; a dew months ago he managed to consume almost half of a clementine before we realised why he was mesmerised in one place

Yawn

A video recorded last November capturing a yawn each from Dijon and Mabel:

Watt a Fool

We've been watching The Great British Sewing Bee on BBC2. A couple of months ago, before the series began, we won an eBay auction for an electric sewing machine; not a fancy one, but good enough for most sewing tasks. Well, inspired by the Sewing Bee, we decided to convert some outgrown children's dresses into skirts. And all was well until we noticed the extension cable was looking somewhat naked.

We scratched our heads as to how this could have happened, and then it became clear... Last week, the extension cable had been used close to the bunnies. We hadn't been foolish enough to let it snake across the floor, so it had been suspended between the serving hatch and a dining chair, well out of reach of the eager teeth. Or so we believed.

Who the culprit was is unknown, but whoever is responsible has a very lucky escape indeed, for they only munched into the earth wire. Let this be a warning - rabbit's teeth are quick! It takes just a blink of an eye for them to sever cables. And the more dangerous the cable, the better...

Snail Fail

Do rabbits eat snails? Yes, they do - well, paper ones anyway.

Our 4yr old daughter made a lovely snail, drawn on both sides of the paper and cut out really neatly... she showed us, showed her big brothers, and then decided to show the bunnies. Mabel glanced from a distance, but apparently Dijon couldn't quite see it properly, and needed a closer look... we soon heard lots of crying... Dijon had eaten the poor snail's head!

Nothing could console our daughter, but hopefully she's learned a valuable lesson... bunnies must appreciate art from a distance.

Well, Hello Tailor!

A couple of months ago we won an auction for an electric sewing machine. It's nothing special, but it does the job of mending curtains that have succumb to rabbits' teeth...

The machine does not yet have a permanent home, so it tends to sit wherever there is space on the floor.

Well, Mabel has spied the curious contraption, and she has become quite besotted with it. Each evening, she'll hop over to where it stands and greet it. She will remain in front of it, staring, for a minute or two. Real, intense staring. And she doesn't like anything to obscure her view. If anything is in the way, she will do all she can to peer around or over it.

I suppose the sewing machine must have a smell that attracts her, and a shape to match. Whatever it is she finds appealing, every evening she has to hop over to give it a bunny greeting.

Get (un)stuffed

I've been busy finding all the video I shot of the bunnies over the last couple of years, and today I edited footage of Mabel burrowing into a cushion.

The cushion, six months on,  is still going strong, although over the last couple of days Mabel has started at it again. It must be the spring weather setting her off.

I hope to have more videos and some photos posted over the next few days.