Just a quick update

We're still not really fully functional here I'm afraid. My Grandma came home from hospital last week but my Grandpa is still in and will be over Christmas - for the second year running :( We've also both been ill again with a rotten cold and chest infection although we're more or less over that now. So we're slowly starting to get back into things but we still have a lot of catching up to do with cleaning, answering emails etc.

Happily last weekend saw four rats go off to new homes - Angel and Daisy went to keep new friend Poppet company and T'Pol and Hoshi went to live with Reggie, a wild ratty girl who had been rescued as a baby. Introductions are still going on there as Reggie has never seen another rat but I hope to have some lovely pics of their happy ending before too long.

Four mousey ladies are booked to go to their new home on Boxing Day and the four degu girls have also been offered a new home, living with some other degus adopted from us.

A little sad news to report though in that Smokey degu passed away yesterday :( Smokey was one of the goos who came from the house in Essex which was overrun with degus living in awful conditions. He arrived in January 07 in a pretty bad way and clearly quite elderly then. Others from his group went to a new home and then the other two, also elderly, passed away so Smokey was introduced to two younger boys, Dre and Eminem. He got on great with them and it gave him a new lease of life really. A few days ago I thought he suddenly looked his age again although I checked him over and there was nothing obvious. And then last night when I went in to feed everyone Dre and Eminem were acting strangely and hadn't eaten all their breakfast. I checked the nest box and darling Smokey had passed in his sleep. He was a real character and will be greatly missed. I'm sad for him that he never did find a new home but I know for sure that he was very happy here for his last two years so I don't think he really knew the difference. We certainly loved him like one of our own.

One last thing - if you come to this blog via Sprogpages.co.uk you'll notice something odd. Sprogpages now redirects to starlighttrust.org.uk! We're having a bit of a reorg there and sprogpages will become a subdomain of starlighttrust. So fear not it will be back - I'll update again once this has happened. If you email me using a sprogpages address I should still receive it but if you don't hear back then please resend it replacing @sprogpages.co.uk with @starlighttrust.org.uk instead.

Can we also take this opportunity to wish everyone a very happy christmas and a lovely new year.

Much love

Sarah & Dave