Robo Water Crisis!

FOR TWO DAYS NOW my robbies have been lacking a reliable water supply. They used to get water from a bottle taped to the glass quite securely. The tape ran out and I made alternative arrangements, balancing the bottle over cardboard etc... this didn't work the bottle fell down and Bashful and Spherical nearly beat it up, biting and nudging at it to try and force water out. When of course my Giant Hand came to their aid they gazed up at its celestial appearance and scrambled away for sheer terror! Then I set it up again but the tape was too thin and came down. Their only reliable water these past 2 days has come from fresh cucumber! And the sogginess left by a slowly leeching out waterbottle.

I once tried them with water in a pot, like Pingpong the excellently behaved Chinese hamster. These roborovskis are not well behaved at all, however. Nary had it been down half an hour than Bashful tried to go swimming in it - sploshed in! - then pinged out in astonishment as if shocked that so much water could be so wet! If it had been Itchy I'd have wrapped her up in warm towels, but Bashful by name; Bashful by nature. She shot into the teabox to dry off alone in the fluffiness that fills it ...

My last efforts at reattaching the bottle have also failed. Said bottle is on the floor, leaking into the sawdust - where at least they have enough moisture to drink even if it's not ideal. They are after all desert critters and are supposed to be adapted to make to without any supply of moisture save the morning dew... but I heard a sad tale of someone who went away for a week to find their rebellious tubby had taken on himself to rearrange his home, pushing the plastic hammyhouse up against the water bottle, which either blocked it off or caused it to empty out... either way, the poor hammy had already died.

So I've invested in ultra-secure thick tape this time so no more waters-spills, so to speak and hopefully Spherical, Bashful and Itchy will be pinging happily for a long time yet!

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Xmas is approaching and I think I have got an invitation to do Xmas lunch at Mother Hubbs's. They weren't sure whether they weren't going out to eat this year... but the way it's going I expect they will do Xmas at home after all.

So I shan't be stuck on my own with a turkey sandwich and a gnarled copy of Dickens!

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Talking of literature I'm still on the trawl for something OK to read.

Three books I do have are:
~ Dickens' Bleak House (as frequently mentioned) ...
~ Dostoyevsky's Brothers Karamazov. My English teacher at school said this was the most boring book he'd ever opened, which personally I take as a contrary sort of recommendation as he recommended Joseph Andrews to me which I found wafflesomely longwinded!
~ Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment. This one's quite good and I'm already about two thirds of the way through. My problem was the poor paperback falling in half! And a necessary hunt for the unknown second section ....

I also think I have Dostoyevsky's The Idiot somewhere lurking in a corner... however I really could not say where ...

UNFORTUNATELY I cannot use the public library, cheery idea as it is, as I've still got overwhelming debts to them from nearly a decade ago. I'm reduced instead to trawling the charity shops and ordering notable books from the budget classics ranges from the local "stores"... this part of London is disgustingly badly supplied with bookstores though, I have to say.

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ALL MANNER OF VULGARITY was going on in my house late last night. I reckon I was the only one to get any rest in there. I dread to think precisely what was going on... and so I don't want to know.

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I'm busy summoning up characters for my own novel. Which I wrote out once; but for various reasons I'm unhappy with the haggard old plot. And so I'm going to perform something midway between a common rewrite and a total reworking; just keeping some of the same characters and situations but making a totally new construction out of it...

Last night I got a little paranoid about my powers of characterization. I believe that in fiction the portrayal of character is far more fundamental and important than even a good story. Why? Because in a great story it's the characters we remember as much if not more than what happened... It's the characters that make us want to come back to their wonderful world... I could go blithering on but will leave it for later. I need something to start penning directly the very second my memoirs are over!

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Have you ever seen a white robin? This one was photographed in an East Dorset garden and got in the Times and Sun newspapers this morning....

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Here's the link for the BBC's brand new Oliver Twist adaptation. Typical me to have mist the 1st 2 parts but what the heck. Mr Bumble's getting married tonight!

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IF ANYBODY WANTS TO EMAIL ME YOU CAN GET IN TOUCH AT
HAMMYNUTTER@LYCOS.COM

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I had a peer in the tartan washing bag just now. All three gremlins are rambling on the wheel, two at a time with the spare one pinging around the perimeter. Spherical has packed her pouches so exceedingly she is seriously globular and sending Itchy looping the loop round and round again ...

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SO THE GREAT READING POLL CLOSES...
Charles Dickens wins the day...
The one I really want most is Great Expectations as that is the story I know second best after Oliver Twist...
I'm also hunting out my copy of The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoyevsky but cannot presently find it anywhere...

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NOW I'M PUTTING UP A NEW POLL...
My forthcoming fiction shall feature a giant, ill-tempered slavering hellhound of an English Mastiff who spends her time savaging pram wheels, dolls, etc; pulling soft toys apart... growling at houseguests, baying at the light fittings etc etc. She has a total personality change, however, when she gets "raped" down the park by a local rottweiler... leading to a howling, baying, snaggle-toothed litter of puppies!
Anyway, which of these three names do you think fits best?
(In alphabetical order)
Gwendolina
Pansy
Tinkerbelle
???
Vote now (up top)...!!

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Video:
My Lil Turkey Farm