A Springtime Hello 🌷

Been so long since I wrote here and just wanted to say a springtime hello from us… Here in our wee corner of the world things are coming to life… the daffodils in the driveway have been out for a little while but our first doorstep daffodil opened up yesterday, causing much excitement among the kids!

We’ve had a mix of weather recently – mostly really lovely and warm and sunny which has been amazing, but also some dashes of rain, hail, wind and snow just to keep us on our toes. I’ve been reminded as I am every year of my favourite quote about this time of year…

Life has been hurtling on a fair pace, with the kids reaching new stages and keeping us on our toes, and in the past few weeks I’ve started a new job as well as taking on another voluntary role that’s been keeping me busy too. Really loving my new work – still in elderly care, but in a new care home I’m so enjoying settling in to; and also the new challenges and lots of learning as chair of the committee of the playgroup the kids have been to / will go to!

I’m going to start working more over the next little while – in the care home and also (eventually, taking a little longer to get all the training set up!) in the NHS at our local hospital too. Both are very similar roles and both on a relief/bank basis so I can build up my hours slowly and adjust as needed, and I’m really looking forward to it all.

But I continue to love all the time I get to have at home with the Littles – which has been all the more this week as we’re one week into the Easter holidays and filling our days with soft plays, park explores, cycles round the village and just all those chilled-out everyday things – and we met Bluey this week which definitely wasn’t an everyday thing and blew everyone’s mind!

Since I last wrote, we’ve had the whole spring term and got established a school start date for our biggest girl, something we’d been spending lots of energy deliberating over as she’d been on the younger end of her year and we had the chance to defer and therefore choose whether it was best to go at 4 1/2 or 5 1/2. We’re now set that she’s starting in August 2023, with one more year left of nursery, where she’s really learning and growing, which feels like the best decision – and it’s lovely to see everyone settle into a new settled-on plan! Our littlest too has been enjoying her toddlers groups, wee music class and a new gymnastics one too which is right up her street – building up her confidence of different places and groups before she starts at the playgroup in October when she turns 2 and a half.

It’s been lovely to have lots of time with both wee ones – and we had an extra special time last week as the tiniest turned a big 2!

We spent the day the four of us at the sea life centre we’re lucky to have just ten minutes away and are very excited to have booked a family pass so we can make trips there more often, as it’s something both girls are loving just now.

The animals have been doing very well too, with “young” Charmer creeping up on his 26th birthday and even younger Rosie and Theo following a few days later with their 1st! The last week of April is a big one for the furry members of the family, celebrating our oldest on the 23rd and the youngest pair of tearaways on the 29th… so expect more ramblings on all of them very soon!

Little Sparkle-hamster is doing great too, 21 months old and enjoying life – in fact this little positioning of chosen bed and food bowl the past few days have been making me laugh that he has life made – doesn’t have to move far! Though actually he really does choose to, such a happy wee exerciser, especially for his age!

We have actually added a new addition to our pet count since I last wrote (and it’s not Pidge, though more on him in a minute as he is still going strong – against all odds!! – with the rehabilitation people who have him) – a new very handsome six-year-old Sarasa Comet goldfish, inherited from family and here with us to join our household now. ❤️ I had no idea there was such a lot to learn about goldfish, it’s been such a learning curve so far! But also no idea how quickly you could become attached to one, very fond of my swimming friend.. ❤️

(As is Rosie….!)

(If anyone is a fish expert let me know!.. as I am learning all I can about them and currently like a little chemistry student with my test strips navigating the world of nitrogen cycles before we transfer Fish to a new tank we’ve got for him..!)

Last but absolutely not least is the handsome Pidge, who has made a remarkable recovery and is still in the very capable hands of the pigeon rescue experts at the moment. They don’t have the capacity to keep him long term so we do think at some point he may come back to us again for a wee stint before finding where he’s best to spend his days! Part of me would love to keep him and offer him a base here but I’m really not sure we’re the best place and want him to have a happy life after all he’s come through. But wherever we end up finding for him, or what next twists and turns his wee journey takes, Pidge has had some story and we will have been so glad to be a part of it for as long or short as we are.

It’s a very eclectic mix of animals at the moment! Been taking me back to my days of rat cages stacked up and new and interesting characters coming in from rescues and teaching me lessons every day. The last two have just found us when we were least expecting them, and very glad to have them all as temporary or permanent additions to our home.

Saturday morning now as I’m finishing this off and and have enjoyed a wee bit time with my biggest boy and some whole-family biking fun before my back shift later. With the new working routine time making the most of all the time we get to have the four of us and a proper springy day this morning to enjoy it.

Hope you’re all doing well, have a lovely weekend.

The Adventures of Pidge ❤️

This week we unexpectedly added a new “pet” to our little family here, though we don’t quite know how long she’ll stay, and we are very much winging it!

Last weekend brought some very stormy weather here, as we’ve been used to every few weeks over the winter – and this time we weren’t brought some slates from next door’s roof or a flyaway trampoline, but instead found this lovely little lady (best guess female, she may yet be re-gendered!), a racing pigeon, in Charmer’s barn, sheltering and not keen to fly off.

We weren’t quite sure what to do at first, so she spent the first night in the barn in a little makeshift corner some of the girls set up for her. We were all delighted she was still there in the morning, so having done a bit of reading the night before we agreed I would take her for some food and shelter and read her ring numbers to find her owner. She was such a good wee soul travelling and absolutely fell on the food and water I gave her in her little makeshift cage at home, so really must have been starving. We’d discovered it was very common for racing or homing pigeons to become exhausted in high winds and need food and shelter to get back to full health. She was obviously used to being handled and I managed to read her ring number easily and trace her owner within a few minutes with the Scottish Homing Union which was absolutely amazing, so I thought we would just be feeding and sheltering her for the day until they could come to collect.

However, our wee Pidge (as we’re now calling her! 😬) had an interesting story, as she’d been lost from the owner we traced since 2016 where she’d not returned from one of her first flights as a youngster, and where she’d been since then is a mystery! Her registered owner was very nice, and was willing to come and collect her, but some of the other girls at the farm had read that often older pigeons don’t have a place in a racing loft any longer when past the age for flying and when I checked with him if he would be able to welcome her back it did seem that at six years old, and away from his loft so long it wasn’t a home for her, it really wasn’t an ideal place for her to go back to.

She seems in such good health, and I could already see was such a great wee character and so tame, that I wanted to give her every chance to recuperate and live a full life… and so we agreed with her owner that we would keep her here, make sure she got her rest and recovery and take it from there. He believes she must have been with another loft nearby us all this time (though not registered so no way of knowing), which makes sense with her tameness, and there is a chance she’ll home back to there when built up enough to make the flight, but he also advised she was likely to stick around with us if she knew where to find food and water.

And so began a week of learning about these beautiful and interesting birds and finding our feet with how best to look after a pigeon!

For the first day or two we kept her in our old rat cage – the closest to a pigeon loft we could manage at short notice – but as we’re really lucky to have a very sheltered little area by our back door, the last couple of days we’ve released her by day and shut her away again at night, a routine she’s settled into beautifully. She is wandering around happily exploring her food and water and finding corners she likes to settle in but as yet no attempts at flying.

The general consensus from those that know a lot more than me still seems to be that she’s just tired and recovering. She’s bright eyed and doesn’t show any signs of pain or distress, but we do have an appointment with an avian vet booked for Wednesday if she’s not up and flying by then to check if there’s anything underlying. We really have no idea how this will pan out – if she takes off for her home then we’d have to trust she’ll make it and that’s a happy ending for her. If she turns out to be injured we can make the best decision for her at the vets, and if she sticks around – well we’ll just have to play it by ear. We know she’ll need a mate so we’ll either have to find someone with a small loft who could take her, or maybe instead of being “that time we adopted a pigeon for a couple of weeks” it’ll be “how we got into our lifelong hobby of pigeon-fancying”!!

For the time being, I am loving learning what I can, getting to know her and seeing her enjoy her food and her little space. She’s a hit with the whole family, the girls loving measuring out her seeds, visiting her in the mornings and tucking her away at night.

I’m never happier than when I’ve got a rescue animal project on the go – our pets have pretty much always been rescues (except the cats who were just farm kittens) but our Sparkle hamster and our last hamster Sandy were such well adjusted wee souls when they came to us from the hamster rescue near us that they adapted so well and it’s been years since I really had to put the work in! I’d forgotten how passionate I get about actually having to nurse and coax a wee one, it takes me right back to those wonderful days when I first started this blog when our house was full of cages and I had pet rats at various stages of warming to us and recovering from their past lives all the time, and I’m just never happier than when seeing those little faces get more and more relaxed and settle to home and routine.

We don’t know what the future holds for wee Pidge – part of me hopes she takes happily to the skies, part of me doubts she’ll make it past her vet appointment if she’s bravely hiding a wee injury, but whatever happens we’ve given her a chance and for now we are delighted to welcome her to the family. ❤️