Fluffularily Played?

Did you ever have something happen to you where at the time it all seemed so reasonable, but thinking back on it you suddenly realised you totally got "played"?! So here's what happened to me this month, the story of which, I later found out, is similar to that of several of the regular volunteers.

There I am, working away scraping wee-soaked shavings from the corner of some shed or other when Caroline appears as-if-by-magic beside me.

"You know all these litters of oh-so-cute baby bunnies we suddenly have?" she says, all casually and what-not. "Well, I've been thinking how vulnerable they are in the cold outdoors of the Rescue and how they might benefit from being indoors for the winter months. I wonder if some of the volunteers might consider taking them in for a while..."

So later that afternoon, after some careful consideration of the logistics of having a group of tiny floofy joy-bundles somewhere in my house I say to Caroline "Well, I guess, if they're all small an' all, and are happy to live mostly in one of those big cages I have for emergencies, I guess, maybe I could squeeze them in somewhere in my house..."

"Great!" Caroline says, "We'll sort that out next week!".

But by next week, Caroline has been thinking again. "You know what?" she says. "You know who would really benefit from being indoors - some of our elderly bunnies! You wouldn't mind taking them instead would you...?"

So the next thing I know, instead of having a cage of cute little munchkins causing excitable (but contained) chaos in the corner of one room, I have:

• Whisky giving me grief because I've given half his room to Sushi and Serena for the winter.
• Grumpy glares from Jemima and Elvis because they are having to share garden time with yet another pair of bunnies.

Whisky getting his grump on over

sharing his newly partitioned room

Not that I can complain too much - of all the pairs at the Rescue, Sushi and Serena are one of the friendliest. And apart from all the extra sweeping, they are not exactly high maintenance (they do like to spread the hay from their litter trays all over the floor before they eat it).

So it seemed like I didn't come out too badly from the last-minute switch, but the story doesn't end there. Two weeks after they move in, I get a text message from Caroline.

"Can I borrow that cage you didn't use? Another unwanted litter of babies just handed in..."

But guess what? By the time Caroline arrived at my house the plan had changed once more. Instead of loading my cage into her car, we ended up loading the bunnies into my cage. In my spare room. [sigh]

So there you go. That's how I went from living with three quiet bunnies to having, after some subtle manipulation from Caroline, a houseful of chaos. It is also why once again I've found myself with no time to take photo's or write much about the Rescue this month.

Still, I may be constantly exhausted and spending all my time cleaning up after somebun or other, but when hard work looks like this it's hard to resent it!

The moment Sushi notices that Jemima

is watching him with disapproving interest

Serena remembering how annoying muddy feets

can be after two weeks indoors

"I am Meeko. And you are...?"

Shanti, Pikachu, Mr Magoo, Pooki and Meeko