Telling a Tale and Gremlins

HI! It's the early hours of the morning. The BBC World Service is still playing so I know it's before 5:30 (after which time we get Radio 4 again).

I just picked up my robotube and two furry faces appear double-decker - it's always Bashful on top, Itchy underneath. Bashful grooms Itchy's fur to near-extinction, she has a wet centre-parting nearly all the time thanks to Bashful's sisterly attentions... They are so funny and I have to strive not to laugh or they will get frightened. Even when I husked, "Come out you furry gremlins!" they sprang back two inches and woke up Spherical at the other end. Only to re-emerge this time like a two-headed beast, the heads side-by-side and equally curious.

I ned to get my hands on a video mobile phone so I can film Baby Itchy's magic wand trick. The "wand" as I described the other day, is a tube about 2cm or 2/3" wide and 6" or 15cm long. You can't force her in (you can't force them to do anything; they're almost as contrary as cats in that respect) but if you hold her and it at approximately the right angles she will shoot down it to bunnyhopper out the other end a couple of secs later. Also, if you turn it horizontal while she's inside, she pops out the end eyes bright (well, as bright as jet black eyes can possibly be), ears perked, looking utterly astonished. Which is something hamsters of all species do particularly well.

Poor Baby Itchy. I think she really is a pygmy dwarf hamster - showing absolutely no signs of growing.

When all three do "hamster Kentucky Derby" - running the wheel all at once - unless Baby Itchy's in front (which she does well cos she's fastest) she ends up clinging on for dear life doing constant loop-the-loops - seven, eight, nine of them - as the others ramble mercilessly forward. Also Itchy's something of a marvel because, despite what the experts claim: "you can't tame a Roborovski" she will not only let me handle her, but even sits still on my hands and will pause to wash/etc. For a roborovski this is quite something. They rarely stay still when they are conscious.

Because I fell asleep so early last night I'd hardly got any writing done. I've written all of my memoirs so far basically by recalling and recanting as I go... I don't even use notes now. Having said that I've only done 2.5 chapters so far. Though they are 5000 word chapters, which is longlonglong for me...

This must sound rather thick, but until I'd really embarked on writing them (the first chapter, being a retelling of my childhood I feel I've gone over so much now it's almost a set piece and doesn't really count) ... I hadn't realized how very vividly the process of telling would bring my memories back to life... in some of the obscurest details.

I'm currently on my travels from Wales to Spain (from where I went on to Marrakech in Morocco) - I went all the way by train plus one boat-ride Dover-Calais. (The Channel Tunnel had been dug but was yet to open...)

I'm calling my book "memoirs" rather than autobiography because it's not supposed to be a retelling of my entire life. Rather it focuses on my relationship with drugs. I don't know a single other book that I feel has done this well and that - rather than any sense that my own story is more important than anyone else's - is what's spurring me forward...

I have an extract I want to post up to see what people think of it. But I can't post it now because it's midday (as of keying this in rather than scrawling it out by pen) and I've gotta ping up Mother Hubbs's "yard"...

Righto, take it easy!!

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