There’s always been a bit of a running joke between Joe and I, that one day we will live in a zoo. To an extent, I think we’re already there.
I love animals. Going to a pet store is dangerous for me because it’s a struggle not to bring someone home (although you should rescue animals – don’t buy them!).
Some of you may remember we had pet rats when we bought the house. They’ve not sadly gone to rat heaven. But these days we are the proud owners of 2 lovely ferrets eating us out of house and home. And who could forget Pebbles, our neighbour’s cat who for the most part lives with us, and has been known to come and wake me up in bed when I’m hungover poorly; no idea how she gets in.
But the garden has always been pretty wild too.
We have ‘cat parties’ from time to time. Not organised by us you understand. There are just so many pretty kitties in our area and for some reason they like to meet up in our garden once a week or so, and just roll around, play with sticks and make a good old racket.
And let us not forget the birds who live in the tree above our house. But we don’t speak of those too fondly…
And each year since moving in, we’ve had various other visitors. During our first year, it was the hedgehogs who sadly we haven’t seen since.
Last summer, as Joe started to gut the lawn and overgrown bushes, we found ourselves with a lovely family of toads. Mr Ribbit and his mates must have hoppled along elsewhere sadly.
This year, we’ve had a new friend taking some naps in the garden: a beautiful fox.
I know you’re not supposed to go near them and some people consider them vermin, but I love the visitors in our garden. I’d hate to think we have all that wonderful growth and wilderness with no life in there.
With all our construction on the house done – for now – we have our garden back, free of tools and free of bricks. Joe is excited to see what we can make of it, so we can really get to enjoy being there. And I hope over the summer with a nice cold bevvy I can sit in our garden (the shade of course – I’m terribly pale!) and see who else wanders into the jungle that is our garden.
