Tag: rats

#oneaday Day 889: Rats!

We got two pet rats yesterday. We didn’t start the day intending to end it with some pets, but they were cute and we’ve been fancying having a pet for quite some time. Given that we’re renting our house (and contemplating moving at some point, too) it’s not practical to get a cat or a dog, which would have been our first choice, so something small, cute and furry that doesn’t go very far was ideal, really.

I’ve never owned my own pet before. Sure, my parents had cats for most of the time that I was living at home, so I was used to having an animal around as a child and very much loved both Penny and Kitty. But since leaving home (on both occasions) I’ve never had a pet that is “mine” (or “ours” in this case). It’s a slightly daunting prospect, if I’m honest, because getting a pet is essentially saying that you’re confident enough that you can take care of some form of small furry creature well enough that it not only doesn’t die immediately but also (hopefully) comes to love and appreciate you.

Our two rats haven’t quite got to that stage yet as they’re both very nervy and scared still, but they’re getting there. One thing that has struck me about them is how clearly-defined their personalities are. Never having owned a creature of the “small and fluffy” variety before, I never really thought about them having particular personalities. I know from experience that dogs and cats have their own distinct character traits, but I’d never really considered rats as being the same. It does, of course, make sense — every creature, whatever species it is, is different and will react to situations in different ways regardless of primal instincts. At the most complex end of the spectrum, we have humans with their various neuroses, phobias, passions and addictions. And at the other end, we have our two rats, whom it’s impossible not to assign very “human” characteristics to.

One of our rats (who has since been dubbed “Willow”) is very shy. When we first got them she sat completely motionless for a very long time just staring at us. She’s moving around a bit more now but is still startled by loud noises and doesn’t like to be watched while she eats, drinks or indeed does anything. She’s already grown in confidence, though, so she’ll be fine in no time, I’m sure.

The other rat (since dubbed “Lara”) is the complete opposite. She likes to explore. She was the first to come out of the box and wander around the cage. She was the first to find the food and the water. She was the first to start climbing around the bars on the side of the cage — and she’s really rather good at climbing, too. She seems to be the smarter of the pair, as she figured out very quickly how to get into the “hammock” they have hanging from the top of the cage, and spent a very comfortable-looking few hours in there earlier today. Willow, meanwhile, came close to figuring it out but didn’t manage to get in there, and tended to bolt if we actually picked her up and put her in there.

I’m looking forward to the two of them coming out of their shell a bit more — they’re both very young and very nervous at the moment, but I have several friends who keep rats and say they’re great pets that are very friendly. It will be interesting to see these little balls of fluff grow and change over time, both physically and in terms of personality, no doubt. For the moment, they’re very cute and fun to watch; as time goes by, I’m sure they’ll become wonderful companions and parts of the “family” (for want of a better word).

#oneaday Day 123: Going Underground

The London Underground is, like most subterranean metro systems, something of a mixed blessing. It allows you to quickly and easily traverse London without having to take your own life into your hands every time you cross a road, but sometimes I wonder if the very nature of the transport system makes it less efficient than it perhaps could be.

Take my journey to where I am right now, for example. (In a hotel overlooking Tower Bridge.) I had to catch a Circle Line train from Kings Cross to get here. In order to get from the platform where my train arrived into Kings Cross to the platform where Circle Line trains departed from, I had to walk for a good 10-15 minutes, including up and down a few sets of stairs and through a labyrinthine series of corridors that the Minotaur would be proud of.

It gets worse if you have to change lines somewhere. Not only do you have to walk all the way to the platform, you then have to get off and walk for another 10-15 minutes to get to the other line in the station, which is inevitably a very long distance away, somewhere deep in the bowels of the Earth.

And then when you poke your head back out above ground, you realise that the fifteen stops you’ve taken have actually caused you to travel less than a mile, and that you can still see your starting point from where you are sitting right now.

Despite all this, though, I kind of like travelling on the Underground. It presents a curious assault on the senses, the likes of which you don’t get anywhere else. There’s the smell, for one thing — and I’m not talking about the pissy scent of a tramp who has collapsed, possibly dead, somewhere in the station. I’m talking about that strange smell you get near the platforms. I have no idea what it is, and it’s probably something unpleasant, but I kind of like it.

Then there’s the sound. Underground trains make great noises. From the vwwwwoooooooo they make when they’re moving to the clackity-clack of running over bumpy bits in the track (fear my technical knowhow of how the rail systems of this country work) to the unnecessarily plummy voice of the automated announcement system, there’s a great combination of sounds.

Plus, if you ever get bored waiting for a train, you can always play the Which Rat Is Going To Get Electrocuted First game, the rules of which I probably don’t need to explain.