Wednesday 15th January – Tuesday 21st January
1. Dry stone walls
2. Baby aardwolf
3. Sunshine tray
4. Wing prism
5. Medieval rat queen
6. Morning sky
7. Badger, badger, badger…
Good Twitter week #2
Wednesday 8th January – Tuesday 14th January
1. Beachcombing
2. Cherry blossom
3. Contemplative crow (click through for full pic)
4. Architectural textures
5. Search and rescue (click through for more examples)
6. Magic tree
7. Baby parrots
Good Twitter week #1
There is a lot of negativity and outright nastiness on Twitter, but there are also people who share positive, amusing, interesting, or just simply pretty things there as well and it’s good to be reminded of that every now and again. So, I’m going to try to remember to pick one good thing that goes past me each day and highlight it at the end of the week. I don’t know how long I’ll keep doing it for – I am notoriously prone to forgetting to do stuff like this, especially if I have one of those bad days that makes it hard to see anything positive, but let’s give it a go and see how far we get.
Wednesday 1st January – Tuesday 7th January
1. Full rotation of the moon
2. Popcorn VFX
3. A man saves a cygnet
4. Goose parade
5. Long dog is long
6. Copper wren
7. Spread those wings
Films Watched 2019
January
- Tomb Raider (2018)
- The Death of Stalin
- Shoot ‘Em Up
- The Shape of Water
- Bad Times at the El Royale
- Robin Hood (2018)(C)(S)
- The Girl in the Spider’s Web
February
- Spider-Man Into the Spider-verse (C)
- How to Train your Dragon: Hidden World (C)
- Isle of Dogs
- Alita: Battle Angel (C)
- In Bruges
- La La Land (S)
March
April
- Shazam (C)
- Mortal Engines
- Super Mario Bros (riffed)
- Hotel Artemis
- Thor: Ragnarok
- Avengers: Infinity War
- Avengers: Endgame (C)
- Aquaman
May
- Incredibles 2
- It (2017)
- The Meg
- The Wandering Earth
- Pokémon Detective Pikachu
- Django Unchained
- Rim of the World
June
July
August
- Absolute Beginners
- Grosse Pointe Blank
- Fast & Furious: Hobbs & Shaw (C)
- Ocean’s Eight
- Brigsby Bear
- Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald
- The Darkest Minds
- Asterix: The Secret of the Magic Potion
- Avengers Assemble
September
- Hellboy (2019)
- Crazy Rich Asians
- Overlord
October
November
December
- Star Wars: Episode IX – The Rise of Skywalker (C)
- Welcome to Marwen
- Little Monsters
- Glass
- Christopher Robin
- The Muppet Christmas Carol
- The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part
- Klaus
- Santa’s Summer House (Rifftrax)
- Widows
- Deadpool
Smoak RIP
old Smoak
under the fleece
hiding and snacking
in her favourite spot
with her sister Nyssa
my beautiful Smoak
I was not expecting to have to write this yet. Smoak had seemed fine, it was her sister Nyssa who had a lump. But then there were little hints, slight changes in behaviour, that suggested something wasn’t right. She became a bit clumsy and then started having difficulty holding snacks and soon it was obvious that she had some sort of neurological problem. I took her to see the vet a couple of weeks ago and he agreed: she most likely had a brain tumour of some type.
She had been fluffing up a bit, which can be a sign of being in pain, so I brought her home with some painkiller. She went downhill gradually, losing weight and finding it harder to eat and to keep her balance. Even her beloved banana became difficult for her. And I knew that it was time to say goodbye to my beautiful grey Smoak, the rattiest of rats.
Ivy RIP
with her sister Molly
in the hammock
climbing
hiding in the bag
sweet face
lovely old lady
In November 2018, we said goodbye to Ivy. She lived to the very respectable age of two years and seven months. She slowed down, lost a bit of her mobility and gradually turned into an old rat. She did have a slow-growing lump, but that never really caused her any problems. Eventually, life was just getting too hard and we let her go before it became painful.
Meet the Rats: Smoak & Nyssa
Saying goodbye to Molly in November 2017 left us with just one ratty: Ivy. We weren’t going to rush to get more, but it was obvious that Ivy wasn’t going to be happy on her own, so friends had to be found.
I fell in love with Smoak the moment I saw her; such a beautiful grey-brown girl, a bit skittish, but utterly gorgeous. She proved herself to be the rattiest of rats: when we brought her home, she escaped onto the floor as I tried to get her from the carrier to the cage and the sight of her bounding along the skirting board under the sofa… just so incredibly ratty.
Such a pretty rat
So sleek!
Nyssa was more forthcoming and curious; she didn’t want to be held, but she was more than happy to be around people, especially if they had snacks. She quickly discovered that the inside of a t-shirt was a fun place to explore (I’ve used tucking ratties inside my t-shirt as a socialising technique before but Nyssa did it all on her own). She has to be the focus of attention, if anyone else is getting any fuss — or worse, food — then she will quickly place herself front and centre.
On the move
Raiding the snacks
Smoak was beautiful and a little aloof, with the softest fur. Nyssa was and still is, energetic and sleek, with a beautifully silky coat.
Smoak quickly learned her name and would acknowledge you, even if she then chose to stay exactly where she was. It took a lot longer for Nyssa to even understand what a name was, she recognises it now and does respond, but I’m convinced she just thinks it means “snack time”.
Molly RIP
beauty shot
with her sister Ivy
so shiny!
snack time
a favourite food
chilling with her nose out
At the end of November 2017 — at the unfairly young age of one year and seven months — we said goodbye to our beautiful Berkshire ratty Molly. In the summer, after she’d only been with us for just over a year, we found a small lump. We tried keeping it under control with Galastop but it didn’t respond, so we just worked at keeping her happy and comfortable until the lump became an insurmountable problem.
She coped with it astonishingly well for four months and never had any other health problems. In the end, it was only when the risk of the lump ulcerating became too high that we had to make the sad decision to let her go.
Catching up
This is hard to write. I have utterly failed to keep this blog up-to-date — it was just too hard to keep writing ratty obituaries and going through photos and I felt I had to do everything in the proper order — so now we have lost our gorgeous ratty Smoak before I even introduced her to you. And both Molly and Ivy have passed on, one from a lump and the other from old age.
Over the next few days, I am going to catch up. That will mean one “Meet the Rats” and three obituaries, which is so sad, but at least there will be cute ratty pictures to help make up for it.
Right now we are left with just one ratty — Nyssa — she has a lump and is quite feisty, so I am wary of introducing new rats. We will have to find a new source anyway; the place we got our girls from no longer has ratties and the local(ish) rescue that I was thinking of going to has just relocated to Ireland. I’d rather not go on GumTree and while I feel sorry for the rats in Pets At Home, I can’t bring myself to buy from there, but I have no relationship with any breeders, so I’m not sure what we’ll do in the future.
For now, we’ll just look after Nyssa (whose photo is at the top of this post), the ratty who always insists on being the centre of attention.
Films Watched 2018
January
February
- Arrival
- Black Panther (C)
- Captain America: Civil War
- The Mummy (2017)
March
- Mute
- Monster Family
- Straight Outta Compton
- Paddington 2
- The Death of Stalin
- Pacific Rim: Uprising (C)
- Now You See Me
April
- Annihilation
- Ready Player One (C)
- Despicable Me 3
- Rampage (C)
- Big Game
- Avengers: Infinity War (C)
- Dark Future (Rifftrax)
- Samurai Cop (Rifftrax)
May
- Glen or Glenda (C)(riffed live)
- Full Metal Alchemist
- Logan Lucky
- Deadpool 2 (C)
- Atomic Blonde
- Solo: A Star Wars Story (C)
- Alien: Covenant
- Baby Driver
- War for the Planet of the Apes
June
July
August
September
October
- Venom (C)
- Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom
- Ready Player One (Rifftrax)
- Devil Girl from Mars (Rifftrax)
November
- Phantom Thread
- 2001: A Space Odyssey (C)
- Mac and Me (MST3K)
- That Sinking Feeling
- Atlantic Rim (MST3K)
December
