Alas, poor Pinky…
Try and contain your excitement, but I can reveal it is Rabbit Awareness Week next week.
So, er be aware! It is also Doughnut Week though I notice we don’t need to be aware of those.
Probably because we are carrying the awareness around, generally in the areas of our muffin tops and thighs.
However all this talk of rabbits has reminded me of my plethora of pet experiences as a snotty-nosed child.
I say snotty-nosed child because as a teenager it became woefully obvious that I was pretty much allergic to anything with fur or four legs, leaving me er, snotty.
But before all this grown-up stuff kicked in I loved my pets, no matter how ill they made me.
One of my formative memories is our beloved cats Smoke and Fluff. Smoke was my sister Jenny’s cat, mine was Fluff.
The siblings arrived as cutest kittens and departed as tragically was one can imagine when one is around 12.
First to go was Smoke, who unfortunately – and I’m sure these days this would provoke a lawsuit – was ‘lost’ by the cattery as we holidayed in Cornwall.
Of course this was deeply suspicious and as an adult I quizzed my parents, who were adamant the cat was lost and not surreptitously put down due to illness.
Fluff’s demise was even more tragic as the cat went missing and we searched for days.
I was playing in my garden when a friend came round to tell me about a cat lying on the side of a nearby road.
I rushed round, small sister in tow, where I found Fluff dead, covered in blood and stiff as a board.
But with the bravery that only a child can muster, I carried her home in my bare arms where she was buried with ceremony next to several generations of my sister’s late hamsters and her curtain-eating budgie Charlie in the back garden.
Pinky and Perky , rabbit and guinea pig, were our next love – though Perky who survived Pinky by several years, was less popular due to his high pitched squealing.
It was my then tiny brother who found Pinky passed. He has never really recovered from that trauma.
Be aware.
