A better place

Well, the inevitable has happened. I am sad to report that our little bunny, sweet, innocent Jiffy, who has been menaced for weeks by the Puma of Peckham, has finally gone to a better place.

The spare room. Unfortunately.

As you know, I was never keen to have her in the house. Or, indeed, the garden. The pet shop seemed like a perfectly fine place for her to spend her days, frankly. But Child One and Child Two were not to be gainsaid and, as usual, guilt got the upper hand. Was I stunting their development by refusing them to care for a small furry creature (though what about the cat we've already got?). Was I just the meanest Mummy on earth? And could I stand the nagging a moment longer?

No I couldn't, and thus we became proud bunny owners.

Already, it's getting a bit frosty here in Herne Hill. And the Puma has stepped up its attentions - the second gardening glove was left abandoned on the lawn last week, in a similar grisly state to its twin. As True Love said, down a crackly phone line, it does make you wonder what happened to the gardener.

All this meant that, at the weekend, I found myself wandering miserably through Pets At Home, looking at delights like dried pigs' ears (apparently dogs like to chew these, yeeesh!) and a million different flea products. The joy of pets! Sixty quid later, we had a spanking new ghastly plastic cage for Jiffles, and plethora of dried sweetcorn cobs, looking a little like those shrunken cannibal heads, to garnish it with. Harumph. I tried not to think of the lovely cardi I could have bought in Hobbs for more or less the same amount, give or take a hundred.

Still, it was worth it as Child One snuggled up that night to sleep with little Jiffy in her cage at the foot of her bed. Though I did revise my opinion at 1am when Child One insisted I remove the bunny as it was chomping its hay too loudly. Jiffy was despatched to the spare room and everybody was happy.

Except, apparently, the Puma. This morning, we found a horribly dismembered sports sock on the lawn.