The rabbit has a shiny nose as nature does intend, because it has a powder puff at the other end

The rhyme in the title is one that I learnt in childhood - before I moved on to more dubious playground rhymes! Judging by Robbie's recent difficulty when building the Lego figure in a rabbit suit, he probably didn't learn that little rhyme. 

One of our regular blog readers has asked for a picture of Robbie's version of the rabbit suit figure, so here it is. I am surprised that he didn't notice that the arms were on backwards, but more to the point what did he think the tail was? The bunny version of a fig leaf perhaps, or perhaps it was a Scottish rabbit with the bunny version of a sporran! 

Taking another look at this minifigure had made me wonder if someone at Lego has a slightly warped sense of humour, that rabbit is holding an implausibly large carrot, and the gorilla suit figure from a previous minifigure series is armed with a banana of equally magnificent proportions! 

Built for a kilt!

Robbie has been rather upset recently because he thinks someone has a grudge against him, in fact he thinks they are deliberately setting out to make him unhappy. At first I took no notice because, I thought he was making a big deal about it, but it does seem that he may have a point. So who is this terrible person that has a vendetta against Robbie? It's the 'Lego fairy'. Robbie thinks that whatever mechanism mixes up the minifigures in the boxes that Lego send out to shops is not working very well. Getting duplicates is just the luck of the draw, but ending up with quads when it is only a couple of weeks since the series was launched is a bit much.

So there was great excitement the other day when when he opened his latest minifigure and found one that he hadn't got. He sat in the corner with a look of deep concentration building his figure. It seemed to take an age so I asked what the problem was and he explained that it was the Scotsman but he was struggling with the kilt.  I was rather surprised because Robbie is not unfamiliar with kilts, but eventually he got it sorted and he proudly showed off his new minifigure. I couldn't resist taking a peek under the kilt, just in the spirit of extending my general knowledge! It was rather a disappointment, white Y fronts, what a turn off - Lego are spoilsports!!

Before I stray too far from the subject of 'under the kilt' I should also point out that when Robbie got the bunny suit man minifigure, I had to give him a lesson in basic anatomy. He had built the figure and proudly held it up to show it to me. I asked if he could see what was wrong with it, but he couldn't so I had to explain that a tail usually goes at the back! I don't know what he thought the white fluffy thing was, the modern day equivalent of a fig leaf to cover the rabbit's modesty perhaps. Finally the rabbit had all the right bits facing forward and it looked a lot better, it is a cute minifigure.

White Rabbits

Photo by Fish

When I was a child I was always told that on the first of the month the very first thing I should say was 'white rabbits'. It never really made any sense to me, but apparently this ritual somehow brought good luck. I guess I have never been superstitious, I couldn't imagine how a white rabbit could bring good luck. We had pet rabbits when I was young, mine was black and white female with attitude (all the women in our family are a force to be reckoned with) and my brothers was a big placid white rabbit called Skippy. He was a big softy, he was gentle and he liked to be petted there was just one problem, he didn't like my grandma. Their cages were mounted on the wall one above the other with Skippy on top. My grandma was not very tall (under 5ft) so she had to reach up to Skippy's cage  when she went out to feed the rabbits. Skippy would do a turn jump and urinate on her head every time he saw her. That particular white rabbit certainly didn't bring my grandma much luck and he made life miserable for us too because my grandma had plenty to say about it - we never heard the last of it!


When I began this entry it was my intention to write about a different white rabbit. The rabbit in question appeared in our garden a few days ago much to my son's amusement. He thinks I have some sort of Dr Dolittle thing going on, after all most people don't have white rabbits turning up at their back door uninvited. We still have our feline lodger, she turned up and just moved in and of course Dave turned up as a stray a few years ago. According to the vet 'the lodger' is a probably a long term stray, we haven't been able to find her original owners so we are trying to find a new home for her. Fortunately the white rabbit was easier to deal with, it lived in the road behind us, but it had decided to make a tour of local gardens. Thanks to my son it was caught and returned to the safety of it's own garden. Robbie wasn't at home when the rabbit turned up, but when he heard about it he vowed that if one more animal moves in with us he would move out!

Obsessive Pets

I was half listening to the review of the newspapers on Radio 4 this morning when a story about a cat caught my attention. Apparently a cat in England has become the first feline in UK to be diagnosed with obsessive compulsive disorder for excessive grooming. It may be the first formal diagnosis but I think obsessive behaviour is fairly common in pets.

Our dog Megan has an obsession about rounding things up, when we had a rabbit she would spend hours running round in circles to make sure that the rabbit didn't escape. We had lawn circles where she wore away the grass. Maybe crop circles have nothing to do with aliens, they are probably caused by demented border collies trying to round up rabbits!

Oreo the cat has an obsession with moths, he has declared the bathroom a no fly zone and he patrols the area to ensure that any moth foolish enough to fly in through the bathroom window is caught and eating in record time. That brings me to his other obsession - food! He will eat absolutely anything, he is like the Robbie of the cat world, he even stole and ate some wine gums the other day!

Dave the cat is a feisty character, but he also has his obsessions. He is very attached to me and whenever I sit down he is there within seconds ready to sit on my lap. He gets on well with Robbie too because Robbie feeds him, but if Robbie sits next to me or attempts to hug me, Dave appears and pushes himself between us to make it quite clear that that he is my best friend and Robbie should go away!

The Curious Case of the Diasppearing Rabbit (and Trouser Troubles) 04.01.07

I mentioned yesterday that Sam's rabbit has escaped from her hutch. I was prevailed upon to buy her a hutch with access to a large run beneath it so that she had constant access to grass and an exercise area. It is beautifully made, and it provides her with every possible comfort, but there is just one thing that nobody thought about - rabbits burrow! As soon as she moved into her expensive new accommodation she decided that she would make a bid for freedom and within days she had tunnelled under the run and set about exploring her new territory. She is not a cute soft little bunny, she is a rabbit with attitude. She terrorises our dog, sees off the local cats and gives Sam the run-around. She has taken up residence under the shed and happily potters around the garden during the day. She even pops back to her hutch for the latest tasty morsels left to tempt her back, but she is too quick for us and she never stays there long enough to lose her liberty. She has been at large for about three weeks now and all Sam's Baldrick like cunning plans have failed to recapture the fugitive.
I am becoming frustrated by the situation now. With considerable effort I manage to keep Robbie and Sam in order (most of the time) and I am not ready to be outwitted by a rabbit, so I have been forced to invest in a humane rabbit trap and some reinforced wire for the base of the run. The trap should arrive tomorrow and I anticipate that the balance of power in our household will soon be restored.

Robbie is very upset this evening, he has managed to tear his best PJ bottoms, not just a slight tear, a huge, uneven tear at least 12 inches long and in a very embarrassing area. I think he harboured a forlorn hope that I would sew them up for him, but I had to gently explain that they were now beyond human help! I still can't work out how he managed to tear them. Oh well, I hated the things anyway - every cloud has a silver lining, or so they say!