Fluff migration

The new cage for the chins arrived finally today and after a bit of fiddling around we got it all set up.


Then it took a little persuasion to get Squeak out of his old cage. None was needed with Tweak and Cupid as they had definitely outgrown the cage they were in. But, as it was just a nursing cage it was bound to happen.

Squeak is on his own at the moment but eventually when Cupid and he have gotten better acquainted then, our youngest little one will move in with his new roomie. We'll be getting another of these cages next month and then we'll be getting rid of the big monstrosity to the left of the picture. Eventually we will have 6 of these cages with only two chins in each - they have pop holes so that they can pop in and out of each side. - but, for the time being they are big enough to house 2 chins in each side.

Got the Asda shop sorted this morning so fingers crossed, no problems this time. Have also ordered some hair dye from Beeunique thanks to Nikki for the link to them, we'd been looking for a place that sold great hair colours and now we have found them. Really looking forward to them arriving and then getting our hair done. We have a few parties coming up in the next month so they should be fun.

We had intended to go and get Robynne's passport photo done today so that we could get her 16-25 railcard, but, she's not feeling so good right now, hopefully she'll not be feeling so bad tomorrow. Especially as we are meant to be going up to our Aunt's on Friday so that Robynne can show her how to use the Mac that we have sorted for her thanks to Jem. Hopefully she'll get the hang of it OK, Robynne will sort out a list of processes for her just in case. But, if not we'll have another Mac at home which is what were going to do anyway.

Been looking into shows to see for Robynne's birthday this year, looks like it's going to be Mamma Mia for sure. Tho' there are many more she and I want to see, so I guess we'll be doing those too eventually.

Do delivery drivers think were stupid?....

....... I'm damn sure the ones who deliver here do. As having stayed in all day, we ring to find they had called to deliver at 3pm and no one was in. I don't remember having an out of body experience today. Then they say that they delivered to a church in the road, which seemed even odder. Finally they said "oh the driver knows it's flats, but there was no access to your building"... I must have missed it when they built a 10 ft wall all around our flats. Oh and they asked for our phone no: so they can ring when they deliver again on ... Monday... I guess delivery people don't work on the weekend. I sure hope they aren't as big of idiots as all the different companies we have tried and failed to get to deliver us a new washing machine. Lets hope the cage etc arrives, because the chins to be rehoused have already did a Houdini last night and much as I love them waking up in the middle of the night to them nibbling on the bed head really isn't my idea of fun.

Plans

Well, I finally gave in and changed this blog over to the new customizable layout, didn't realize when I started how long it would take me - almost 2 hours - but, it's done now. The only thing I'm going to have to do now is change the Sewing Friend link picture, as you won't fail to notice it's the wrong size and well it might mean that Robynne might get my new logo finished soon then I won't have to mess around and resize the old one.

Today wasn't quite as productive as I had intended, I meant to go down to both the Council and the Housing offices today to finally get everything changed over name wise, and also get sorted out so that we get onto the transfer/mutual exchange lists. Ah well shall do it tomorrow, I did get the grocery shopping done online and to tally with what we had to spend for the week, which means Andy only has to nip into town for a couple of items. Mind you Robynne will have to put it all away and check it when it arrives tomorrow as I plan to get the jobs done that I meant to do today.

I did get Robynne booked onto the course that she wanted to do down at the Adult Learning College, it's a 10 week course on Psychology Forensics. Not my cup of tea, but, it's something she's interested in. Later this week we'll nip down to the Community College and get her sorted for the courses that she wants to do next.

So since I decided yesterday to stop looking backwards and to get on with forward planning, I worked out a plan for getting the Chins all sorted into new cages, we have a new one arriving sometime this week, and we shall be getting a few more, but I worked out that getting just one more for the time being means not only can we get rid of the old bulky cages, but that Robynne won't have to have the tall cage in her room. Eventually this one is going to be fitted out as a play cage and they will all at separate times get to make use of it.

I shall also get on with finishing off all the items that I want to put up for sale and get on with making more. I need to learn to manage my time a little better, have been spending far too long lately on fun projects which aren't going up for sale. Though I have been working on designs with Robynne for an interactive story quilt, which if it works could be a great idea and hopefully make us a bit of money.

I need to get more organized in general, I'm a terrible ditherer, I come up with plans and rarely follow through so this year I'm going to get things done. No more dithering, well maybe a little. We've talked about sorting the living room out, so that's going to be done next week have decided so if they don't like it tough.Next job will be too box up and catalogue all our books, videos etc and sort through all Robynne's old toys. Most of which are already boxed up under her bed, but, I know there are a few items that she wants rid of. I'm also going to sort out my only Sim Story blog soon and get some new stories written, just a bit of escapism, but, well we all need that sometimes. Oh and I must find a quilting/patchwork course to do, and I'm gonna dye my hair some fun colour haven't decided for sure what colour yet, but, it's going to be different lol.

Freetime

I know I know I've been really lax lately with my posting, see that always happens when I set myself goals lol. I really want to blog at least once a week, but, well basicly I forget then I think ooh must blog about such and such and then I get distracted.... which isn't that hard for me to do.

So since I last blogged we have had lovely weather, we've also had some lousy weather. We also had one of our chinchilla's die too. We had a lovely family time at HESFES our darling nephew greatly enjoyed himself, tho' he may have been a little annoyed at Robynne occasionally for daring to go off with her friends without him, but on the whole a great time was had by all. Now my sister is considering Home Ed for S when he gets to Senior School age. Right now he's at a lovely small village school, that caters for him extremely well, sadly when he gets to 11yr he'll end up at a very large school and the worry is that he may get lost in the crowd so to speak. We never know he may love it and thrive there. We are all just thankful that through H.E. there is another option if it is necessary, tho' he's only 8yr nearly 9yr so a few years yet to prepare.

Oh while we were at HESFES, we had to come back to Leigh for the folk festival, as Robynne was performing with the Leigh Mummers shall just hunt for a pic, it's not of the best quality so please bear with me....



.... obviously Robynne is the one wearing the very fetching cap, about to hit the poor guy on the chair around the head - it was part of the script - sadly we have no idea why the picture is so blue, it wasn't when taken. Strangely most of the pics that we had taken that week with my parents camera have all gone blueish when my sister sent them through to us.

We had a day out at Colchester Zoo while at HESFES too, which was great it rained a little, which frankly with the way the rest of the week had been if it hadn't rained a little while at the Zoo we would never have made it round. A couple of Robynne's friends came with us to the Zoo and we got a very interesting pic of a Daisybird not sure if I'm allowed to show that so will check later with Robynne before posting it. Anyway a couple of pics from HESFES and the zoo coming up next..



... myself being glomped by my lovely nephew...



...... Robynne and co .....



..... now somewhere among my old pics, I have a very similar photo to this of Robynne at the same age as her cousin - in the front - on the same tortoise statue with some school friends, taken on a school trip obviously about 8yrs ago. I remember taking the picture, but can't for the life of me find it anywhere...



..... that lab coat was bought just before we went to HESFES and I think she wore it everyday, actually she did wear it everyday...



...... oh and a red panda pic just because .....

I do have a few other animal pics and some of Robynne and friends on my cam somewhere, but right now not sure where I have put it away too lol and well frankly right now I don't fancy hunting for it.

Oh and well now I shall confess to why I haven't kept up with blogging lol, it's silly really but, well I am a Sim addict there I said it I am a Sim Addict ... yes it's sad I know but, well what can you do. You see after we had to rebuild our comps into one all our sim data was lost and we had to borrow Sims 2 to get it all reloaded back onto our machine, - we do have a copy of Sims 2, but to keep a long story short the first disc doesn't load so we can't use it - and all the expansion packs we have and well we bought the new one Freetime and well frankly it had to be played and played and well played. So there you have it if it takes me a while to reply to emails etc, or Robynne is away from msn for days at a time it doesn't necessarily mean we offline again lol, we could just be playing the Sims.



..... where else would you get a heavily pregnant lady doing ballet exercises....

Coming to you via Wii

Well just a quick update today. After last week we had hoped things would be getting better round here, but, no the Gods have other plans for us it seems. Over the weekend our Internet went out again taking with it our old computer - well the Internet went out the old comp stopped working, so I drew the logical conclusion that the Internet was too blame - So now we are waiting for them to be fixed and so in the meantime, were having to use the Wii for email checking etc. thank the Gods for the Wii and wireless Internet. Unfortunately we can't do everything with the Wii - so no uploading off pics for the time being - poor Robynne is suffering withdrawal as she can no longer be on msn all day with her friends. It's a little sad ah, but actually it's been good as we have sat down and worked out what she wants to do next and how were going to go about it. She's going to be doing a mixture of Sonlight and OU courses until she's ready to go off to uni at 18. That's the plan for now anyway it may change later we'll see how it goes.

Our new chins Smokey and Rocky arrived Tues - pics in previous post - and are making themselves at home, it's caused a cage rethink, to happen, but when we get all the new cages we shall be converting their lovely 5' high cage into a play cage. Which will make things a little easier, well on Sox at least no more being chased by chins round the hallway, tho' personally she must like it or why else would she sneak in to join there play.

It was a great H.E. meet at the library again Weds, all about weather so lots of weather measuring equipment made by the children. Robynne was nabbed by the littlies and proceeded to read stories and play with them. She came over at one point with a huge grin and complained they had got her, then went back to them, methinks she doth protest to much as she was clearly having a great time.
While clearing up us mums worked out what to do for the next few meets, so that's May sorted. I have a few idea's in my head for later on, shall mention them to L next time. Robynne wants to do Blood typing, so will have to see how we go about that and what we'll need.

Well that's enough for now, as it takes quite a bit longer than usual doing this on the Wii and I'm not that adept at using it. Robynne would probably have taken less time, but, thats teens for you.

Well What a Week

As weeks go this past week has been a bit of a disaster, what with chin food deliveries that didn't happen, waiting for Robynne's new glasses. There was also internet going down, modem going wrong oh and yeah my handbag was stolen at our weekly H.E. meeting in our local library. On the plus side we are getting another couple of chinchilla's, Robynne has her glasses, the chin food finally arrived oh and I got my bag back and the perpetrator is now spending 3 months at Her Majesty's pleasure.

So where to start the beginning seems a good place Robynne went to specsavers three days running only to find her glasses hadn't arrived each time. The lenses finally arrived Weds morning so she was able to pick up her new glasses Weds afternoon.





I realised also that in my last post I mentioned she was getting two pairs of glasses, obviously my head was worse than I thought as I totally misunderstood. She only got the one pair with reaction lenses. Not two pairs one with reaction lenses and one pair plain, but we would of needed to pay another £40 and well she didn't really need two pairs.

Next we had the problems with our chinchilla food delivery, I made a mistake when it was first ordered, as they got the money, but not what was ordered so that delayed things that end. Then we had the delivery drivers who couldn't find us, which was really annoying we had to have someone stay in three days straight only to have no sign off delivery. Finally on Friday the 20kg sack of food arrived, hopefully it will be less drama next time round. Speaking of chinchilla's we are rehoming two more chinchilla's with us, so our little herd is now swelling too 12. I haven't seen them as yet, but Andy and Robynne went round to where were getting them from and spent two hours there and brought me back a couple of pics of them both. Till I see them better I'm not quite sure what colour they are, but, they look to be a female standard grey and a male beige or silver. Named Smokey and Rocky.

Smokey

Rocky

Smokey and Rocky

As usual they are really cute, Smokey is about a year old and Rocky is about 15/16months old. Smokey is the female and Rocky the male. Really looking forward to them coming over. We moved the other chins around yesterday as well. Harry has gone back in with Sally and Charlie, they all seem really happy to be back together again, tho' this is only temporary till our new cages arrive. We also moved Pumpkin in with Squeak and they are getting on brilliantly too. So now we have a small rat cage that is off down to the rubbish bins, I did think to keep it for maybe a sick chin's cage, but well Pumpkin as pretty much killed it lol. Besides with the new cage bank that were making we will have a couple of spare cages anyway for well new babies and separations if needed.

Then Tuesday evening the internet went down and what with power outages and modem problems, that didn't get sorted till late Thursday. Fingers crossed there'll be no more problems with the this well apart from random power outages. Which thankfully don't seem to happen that often.

I think that's about it for our stinky week oh well apart from the theft of my handbag on Weds afternoon, that was a fairly harrowing event. I was more worried about the loss of some. picture of Robynne than the money really. I mean it's a pain in the backside, but losing those would have been awful. Thankfully due to the quick thinking and brilliant observation of a couple of people in our group. The police were quickly called and the guy was chased down by the police. I got my back bag with everything in but my £50, but, I may still get that back eventually. as for the guy who took it well...



......... he's not going anywhere for a while.

Mmmm I really am hoping for a better time this coming week, you never know.

ChinFest 2008

Ok as requested by Lisa today is ChinFest here on Othena so if your not into cute and furry look away now, as this post is heavy with the cute and fluffy ones.

There all growing well, tho' obviously not as rapidly as Pumpkin did last year - can't believe she's almost 8 months old now - what with there being three of them, I guess it's a little harder for them all to get in there now.

Well here comes the picture, run and hide now if you need too.



This was taken a few hours after they were all born, so their still a little damp looking, it didn't take long for them to become all fluffy.










These are one's of Tweak and Ninja, they are having a little exploration around the cage, under the watchful eye of Daddy Joe.

Tweak

The following where taken yesterday...

Drexl

Ninja

Tweak

Have you had enough yet or shall I save some for another day lol, ..... no ok then just a few more, then I'll stop honest.


This one's Daddy looking out and down at the babies being weighed on the table below. You can just catch Mummy in the background.


And now for some very odd shots not sure which ones are in any of these but the highly striped individual is Robynne..... (told you it was a bright top Carol)













































.... and now for some seriously cute pictures that well I just couldn't resist....






Well hope that's enough for you Lisa, I feel I may have to post more of them later lol, but, well I'll try to be a little more restrained.

Surprise

Ok it wasn't really a surprise we new it was going to happen sooner or later, but, well it was still a bit of a surprise.

What am I babbling about well, I shall tell you. In the early hours of yesterday morning our chinchilla's were all making a lovely racket, which kept us awake lovely animals. Anyway we left them alone then in the morning - at a normal time - I heard the unmistakeable squeaking of a new baby. Went out to check on them and saw, what I thought was twins, but, when Chicca moved a little more we saw three little heads. So we know have three more gorgeous chins swelling our herd to 10. The new babies are two male Lt Ebony's and a female Beige. So the boys look like there dad Joe and the girl is just like her mum and big sister Pumpkin - who was born Oct last year.

Here's pic's of the three of them held by Andy, just after we weighed them this afternoon.

Drexl

Ninja

Tweak

Yes I know the names are interesting but, they do fit them very well. Drexl is the biggest of the three today he weighed in at 50g, with Ninja following behind at 48g and Tweak brings up the rear at 46g. We shall be weighing them every day just so we can be sure there all getting fed ok. Especially Tweak as her brothers do seem to push her out of the way, but she fights back. We may have to take them to one side a couple of times a day to give her a chance to get in there. But for now we'll just wait and see.

Oh and if anyone's interested in seeing Robynne, when performed with The Leigh Mummers. Click the link and then click video's it'll take you to the right page and it's Jack and the Princess.

Best Laid Plans

Well so much for those, see I had planned to be more regular with blog posting, but, well somehow something always came up. Then when I finally get some time to blog, my darn internet kept cutting out, it seems to be sorted now, but, you never can tell.

So anyway looks like I'll be doing another catch up post. Nothing that interesting has been going on her really, Robynne's been enjoying our local Home Ed meets, one of the dad's has been doing art classes which she has found quite helpful with her art. She had a free trial with Photoshop Elements 6. She enjoyed that and was quite sad when it ended, unfortunately it's a little expensive. But, she did a search around the net and found a lovely program very similar to it called Paint Tool SAI from what I have seen it's very good.

Also she's been having great fun, with the Leigh Mummers, she comes back from rehearse ls tired, but happy. It's good to see her having fun and doing what she enjoys.

Myself I have recently bought six DVD's from eBay starring the lovely Gary Oldman and I'm enjoying them sooo much lol. My collection is slowly growing and what a lovely collection it is too. Also my parents bought a trailer tent from eBay too, ready for us all to go to HESFES. Which were all looking forward too, well maybe not the cat lol, tho' she is slowly getting used to her harness and lead. We have a provisional booking for the Chinchilla's at a Chin Hotel, hopefully that will be ok as I have no idea what where going to do with them other wise.

Well I guess I better get on things to do and all that.

Busyness, H.E, Holidays and Pets

Time's been a flying by again and if I don't stop to get my words down now, I'll probably forget everything which is what usually happens. I finally worked out what direction to go in with regards to the business, and was starting to get everything implemented, when lo and behold the computer with all the relevant info on decided that enough was enough. So we now have the problem off how to retrieve everything and I mean everything and hopefully get it fixed. It wouldn't of been so bad if it had been our old geriatric comp that had given up, but, no it's the good one the one that we hadn't backed up anything on because well it's new - well newish - and well frankly I didn't think about it. Am seriously kicking myself now and vow to always back up if and when it's back up and running.

Next on the agenda as it were is our Home Ed group, which really seems to be going well at the moment. We seem to have a permanent home in the Library lots of trips are organized, for the next few months or so. I'm even thinking of repeating the trip that I organized a few years ago to go Paint balling.
At the moment Robynne is enjoying going to the library each week, but, I know that can change at anytime so I shall just have to keep an eye on her moods lol. Park meets are starting up again next week and those go down well with us, well especially Andy lol.
We picked up the coursework for GCSE English from my sister at the weekend, and after looking through the large folder. Robynne has decided to work through it even tho' she has no intention of doing the exam. Myself I'm going to put it all on the comp and make PDF's of the different modules which can then be taken out with us - easier than lugging that big folder and helpful to share with others in the group.
We had our reminder flyer come through for HESFES last week too and so we showed it to mum and dad at the weekend. As after visiting us at the site last year, they liked the look of the place. The up shot of that is that now, not only are mum and dad coming our sister is coming too and taking Simon out of school for the week. Oh and the parents are paying so even bigger bonus.

Going on holiday then brings us to our animals, last year Andy stayed behind and looked after not only our pets, but Willow's small animals too. But, this year Andy is coming with us, so plans have to be put in place for the animals. So Robynne is going to attempt to teach Sox to walk on/tolerate the lead, as the plan is to take her with us. We tried once before, but the harness we had then wasn't a good fit. The new one we bought yesterday is much nicer and it also helps that this week she's in season and will let Robynne do anything to her.
That only leaves the chins to cater for. We have been doing some rethinking with regards to their cages at the moment and were going to be investing in six new cages to make a bank in our hallway where our bookshelves are at the moment. So that's going to be fun, especially as some who shall remain nameless really don't want to come out of there cages lol, tho once out he has a lovely time. So back to what to do for holidays, we either needed to find someone to come in everyday and check them or have some one else take them in for the week. We have found a chin hotel in Kent, which charges £2.00 - £2.50 depending on the food per chin per week. Which isn't bad all we need to do is find out how far away they are and whether they have space that week, for our 7 darling little fluff balls.

So was there anything else that I needed to update on, mmmmm can't think of anything ... oh yeah chin food, it's been a bit of a nightmare lately getting there food, we went to two big pet stores yesterday. One up near our parents in Suffolk, and the big one here in Southend and neither of them sold Charnwoods pellets, which is what our little ones all eat. The helpful girl at Southend said oh these pellets are the same you can just give them these. Which we could see weren't the same by the shape. So now we need to work out how to get the food, Andy does a trek up to Leigh every couple of weeks for a few bags, but we really need to find a way to get a sack which would by my reckoning last 2 months at a time and be far more economical. Mind you it'll be better once we have all the food bowls attached to the cages so they can't take them out of there holders and fling the bowls around the cages. Which is quite funny I'm sure, but it wastes the food and I'm hoping this behaviour isn't a symptom of something else.
Oh Robynne picked them all out new toys for there cages yesterday, a cargo net thing for the boys which is made of string stuff, they'll have fun ripping that up lol. A couple of large willow twig nest balls, for the girls, Chicca and Joe which they too will eventually chew up. Then lastly something new which we hadn't seen before but is designed for chins, but we'll see how it goes a swing ledge for little pumpkin's cage with her being the smallest and the only one on her own at the moment - we are going to get her a mate later on - she has the smallest cage which doesn't have too much room for extra toys. Were getting a new cage next month for the boys so she'll move up into what will be our cage for nursing/sick chins and her cage will be for temporary stays.

.....

Well what have we been up to lately, we went to Tropical Wings on Monday with Shirley and the gang. It was a lovely place to visit we shall be going there again.

Robynne's blue hair dye arrived yesterday, so yesterday we lightened her hair ready to put in the blue this afternoon, once she gets back from Oakland's Park, where she is with some of her H.E friends from the Chelmsford end.

Also yesterday our new tent arrived, ready for HESFES - she had tried to deliver it on Tuesday, but we were swimming with Willow and assorted children -, just a couple more things needed and we'll be all ready. Were both getting really excited now, and counting off the days and outings we have till it's time to go.

Tomorrow were off to pick up two more Chinchilla's, these will be our breeding pair shall post some pics of them in a few days when they are a little more settled in, oh there names are Joe and Chicca and were getting them from the lovely Kelly.

Oh and I have lengthened my dreads, and they look very cool even if I do say so myself....

... also have been knitting head/hairbands, long wristbands and shall be doing some hats too, these will all go into our handcrafted shop. Which I have now sorted the shopping area out - when tested all links went to where they should do so yay -, just need to add some products now lol.

New members of the family & LA Report

Ok have been meaning to post pics of them for a while now so here goes.....

The Girls
Charlie & Sally

The Boys
Harry & Squeak

Harry, Squeak and Sally are all 5yrs, Charlie is 2yrs. Harry, Sally and Charlie are Standard Greys and Squeak is a Brown Velvet. Charlie is Harry and Sally's daughter.



Oops mustn't forget Sox, she's still not sure of the chinnys especially after they chased her round the living room the other day.... I would post a pic of the hammy but darn thing wouldn't stay put...

Oh and after our visit with the LA bod last Tuesday, we received our report from them in the post yesterday. I'm so so pleased our provision for Robynne has been deemed satisfactory and appropriate to her age and abilities. Oh I'm just so pleased isn't that wonderful...... ok enough, even I can't stand that level of sarcasm for too long..... oh and as everything is ok, they plan to see us next May 2008 and yearly after that.... umm did I miss something but did they not notice her date of birth...... we may have to see them next year but after that well I think they can go stuff themselves - sorry to those of a sensible disposition, but I couldn't really put what I wanted them to do really, I mean they do pass for human you know.