A few years ago a friend of mine mentioned that his wife bread guinea pigs. An ex-girlfriend of mine once had a hamster and that seemed like a bundle of fun (the hamster, that is). It’s tenacity of trying to escape should be an inspiration to us all…

Anyway, I was offered a couple of guineas if I wanted and I thought “what the hell” and said yes. Being a typically unimaginative guy I struggled to think of interesting names. Eventually I came upon “Whitie” and “Brown and Whitie”. Pretty lousy names, so I then came up with Belle and Sebastian, which is somewhat better (despite the fact that they are both female). However, the first names stuck…

They’re pretty good pets and spend most of their time eating, sleeping and playing around. They have a fascination with anything resembling a tunnel (in that they will run back and forth through one almost indefinitely). They scream loudly when they think they’re about to be fed (almost constantly). And they’re extremely tame and are therefore pretty good with kids.

If I run out of other things to write, I’ll come back to them at a later date…