Holidays

Packing is the worst bit of a holiday. I never know what to take or what to leave behind so I end up taking everything. My stool is the most important thing because I need to sleep underneath something with legs. I can't take my kitchen table so my stool is the next best thing.
I love Bunny Hops and feel a bit bored now because there's not much to look at here. You know what it's like after a holiday, things go sort of flat.
I miss my two neighbours, Jasper and Bobtail the velvet Rex rabbits. They were just a few months old but quite entertaining. In the apartment on my other side were two guinea pigs, Champagne and Sparkle and they never stopped talking. You should have heard the squeaks! I couldn't understand a word. There was no reason to natter all the time. They had a beautiful set up like mine. If they had watched me they might have learned how to behave in a quiet, sensible manner.

Other holiday makers didn't seem to take as much stuff as I did. I like my own things around me which probably made more work for Julie but I was happy. We have our own radio at Bunny Hops. It's nice to have a bit of background music.
I went outside into the garden while my bed was being made and my breakfast organised and quite enjoyed it, There were garden flats for outside rabbits so I had a good look round.
I'm going again next month. I know they'll be pleased to see me again. I'm probably their favourite.

Harvey Van Gogh

I've had a request from George to display my latest art work. As you know, I design cardboard boxes and frill armchair covers but I have now gone into mixed media. My friend Lennie and his mum know all about arty stuff and will appreciate my latest wall hanging.

Post-office-Margaret in my village has already asked for the next one I finish. She has very special cats which win silver cups so it is an honour for me, as a rabbit, to be appreciated.
The carpet fringe is an on-going piece of design work. It has to be sucked and nibbled for weeks to get rid of the actual tight fringe set up before I can pull it into shape. As you can see, it's a very exhausting job so I need a rest now and again.

They say all rabbits need a bonded partner. I don't agree. If you live with another rabbit you don't develop your originality and artistic bent. You spend time chatting to them about rabbit stuff instead of moving on to higher things and allowing your imagination to spread in other directions.

My family is very good about encouraging my talents. They give me stuff to work on. I'm busy with another chewy mat at the moment. Chill and chew I say.

In case you missed my other work here it is as well as my new stuff. I might send it all to the Academy of Modern Art. There's a bloke there who stuffs sheep. Disgusting. I could teach him and Tracey Emin a thing or two.

Got to get to work.

Garden bunny

I went outside today but there wasn't much going on in the garden. That blackbird has started knocking figs off the tree.He thinks he owns the place. He can't go on the plum tree any more because the wasps have taken it over and they're drunk.

I don't blame him really. He has raised three litters this year because we have been so generous with chopped grapes for the babies. MY chopped grapes! He needn't think he can move in with me in the winter. He already sits on the half door and poops inwards onto the porch floor to leave his mark. It's purple poop at the moment. Being a rabbit I'm an expert on poop.

But not an expert on gardens Harve! I have to carry you out each day for you constitutional, and shove your nose into the herbs and flowers so you can smell them. I only counted to 45 this morning before you ran for home after I put you down. Why? It's a beautiful day and it's so peaceful. You are now busy cleaning the smell of fresh air from your fur!! Weird bun.

Unloved?

I haven't written in my diary for ages. Nobody has taken any notice of me for weeks and weeks. Oh, they gave my my food and water and stuff but they don't love me the way they did before the duck invasion.
You might remember that duck came back. She lost all her babies and came back and laid some more eggs.
There were 10 ducklings this time and "we".......not me..............decided to keep them until they were strong enough to walk down the lane to the lake.
Well, we had them for three and a half weeks and you have never seen such fat things on two skinny legs with huge flat feet.

It was Disney World here for them. They ate chick crumbs every couple of hours, washed them down with fresh water, dashed manicaly about the garden, nibbled everything in sight including MY carrot tops, pooped all over the yard, plopped in and out of the pond, fell down the side of the oil tank and had to be fished out with the pond net. Even my hay was given to them for a bed underneath the garden seat up against the house wall. It was mayhem and they got all the attention.It went on and on and they grew bigger and fatter by the day.

Then, three days in a row their mother escaped into the big garden with them. Great, I thought, Molly the cat next door will get them but they came back each day for lunch, slept over, ate like horses then escaped again for good.

After that I went on holiday to Bunny Hops while my lot had a few days rest at the seaside.
Bunny Hops is my very favourite place in the world. I was fussed and cuddled and had a bedtime story every night. I took all my own stuff so it was home from home. Naturally they loved me. I needed to leave lots of my raisins about my run to make it really mine because there were one or two other rabbit about but I don't think Julie minded too much. She texted my lot twice each day and sent pictures to them. I'm going again in two or three weeks. Can't wait. There is so much going on there to entertain me.

It's all a matter of technique

First of all you scrabble your front legs about in the bag opening. Once you've made a hole you scrabble them a bit more until you get yourself most of the way in. Then, this is the best bit, you pull your back legs up to your front legs then KICK backwards with a quick flip until the hay flies out behind you in a storm, then you do it again and again and again. Simple. There you are,deep inside the sweet smelling hay bag and nobody has the faintest idea where you've disappeared to. Magic. Then you grab what you came for because the sweetest bit of hay is always at the bottom of the bag. Out you come with a flourish, nibble it until it's gone then back you go again right to the bottom.
Once you're in there you can't hear a thing. There's bound to be somebody saying, just look at the mess that rabbit's making! Won't he ever grow up?

Ouch!

That duck has just bitten me! She has a huge mouth.. All I did was wander over to see what she was eating and she pecked at me. They still put tasty looking food down for her and I wanted to try it. She's getting uppity because she has laid more eggs but we don't know where. She must know she will never get the babies out from here nor from next door because they have walls and fencing all round to keep their dog in. She is one of the most silly things I have ever known. At least the cats and dogs I have lived with had more sense and didn't lay eggs around other people's gardens. It's the ducklings I feel sorry for. Poor little things.

J is worrying now in case I catch some disease. She doesn't use a litter tray you know. The duck I mean.Not J. Messy creature.

Still, I'm feeling more important than that duck because I have a double page spread in the latest Rabbiting On magazine. I'm a celeb and I didn't have to be skinny to do it.
That pesky blackbird is still nagging for grapes and sultanas. Has nobody told him about worms?Worms are for blackbirds, grapes and sultanas are for rabbits. Now he has a baby as well and has brought it onto my patch.

Don't look down at me like that. I'm not going to give you any of my grapes.

Jamais plus.

I can't remember the last time I cried but I can't stop at the moment. All the babies are dead. They didn't make it to the lake. Twelve little beaks and twenty four little flat, webbed feet. They must have fallen behind her one by one and she wouldn't have known. All the pleasure they had in life was a dip in a drop of water in an old Swiss roll tin in the garden and the sun on their faces for a couple of hours.

She's back here again with the two drakes and they have forgotten. I wish I could.

If the drakes are still fertile she could produce another brood. I hope she doesn't.

I wish I had forced them into a carrier and taken them myself.

I wish...................

Would you believe it, those ducks are back. Just as I was going out of the back door for a breath of fresh air she arrived on the step begging for food. Huh! When can a rabbit have his garden to himself!