My transformation into a vegetarian has been in place for about 6 weeks now. From memory, the last time I touched meat was in August.
I have no intentions of changing back to a meat-muncher, despite eating the stuff for 20 years. For those wondering “why only 20?”, I had a spell of being a veggie in my teenager years, but lost all will power at 16, when I joined Bath College, which was minutes away from Burger King.
Despite my dedication to this new diet, there are still meats that I miss. There is little chance of me giving into temptation, as I would just think of my poor pet rabbit, while munching on a sausage.
Animal flesh I miss eating
- Big Mac
- Bacon sandwich
- Pepperoni pizza
- Mattersons sausage
- Wall’s sausage
- Roast chicken in gravy
- Burger King cheeseburger
- Nandos peri peri chicken
- Pork pies with sandwich pickle
- KFC chicken
- Haribo sweets (contain geletin)
- Milky Bar dessert (geletin)
- Chicken pies
- Hunters chicken
- Swartz Bros BBQ cheeseburger
I hope all those pigs, cows, chickens and, in some cases, rats, are happy that I have sacrificed some of my favourite foods, so they can live.
This filthy rat was spotted on the decking outside the house, one morning this week.
What it was doing in our garden, I do not know, as Claire and I are always careful not to leave out any sources of food – ensuring kitchen waste is stored inside locked recycling boxes. I have also sacrificed my dream of having a bird table in the back garden, as that too will attract rats, as well as the animals of an ornithological nature, for which it was intended.
One things is for sure, if ratty hangs around too long, the exterminator at the council will be called – which will mean “Bye bye, Mr. Rat”.
As I didn’t blog yesterday, I am making amends, by blogging twice today. You’ve already had my post on the joys of online shopping. My second entry is about animals in the news.
There have been two recent stories, involving wildlife in my local newspaper, The Bath Chronicle. The first should really be one of my worst fears, but I just found it a bit weird. A woman claims that she bought a bunch of bananas from the supermarket, only to find it contained a nest of baby spiders. When she rang up to complain, she was asked “What would you like me to do about it?”
I don’t know what such an experience would have on me. At best, I would be a little peeved and would write a blog about my annoyance. At worst, I would burn the house down in fear. In reality, considering mother spider did not seem to be present, I think it would be somewhere in between the two.
My favourite line from the whole story was from the upset woman “In the meantime, I’ve got spiders crawling all over the house. Well, not all over the house, but they crawled out of the cocoon and onto the cake stand and I don’t know where else they might have crawled.”
Me thinks someone was after compensation and was disappointed when she didn’t get a £40 Sainsbury’s Gift Card. I’m hardly one to criticise her – especially after everything I’ve scabbed from Amazon and Tesco over the years, after their crap service.
The second story in my local rag involved a woman feeding seagulls, inadvertently recreating a scene from Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds, while causing furious outrage amongst Batholians. As if the locals haven’t had enough to put up with, what with the council changing the bin collection to once a fortnight!
Like with the banana spider babies, the seagull story had some amazing quotes…
“She had carrier bags full of crusts!”
CRUSTS! Not CRUSTS! When will this madness end? Will someone please think of the children?
“Hundreds of birds gathered”
Somebody call the police!
“This madness must stop, especially in the lead-up to the nesting season.”
Forget that! GET THE SODDING ARMY OUT!
The final animal story involves lions. Unsurprisingly, this wasn’t in the Bath Chronicle, as lions don’t live in Bath. I was pleased to read a heart-warming story of a poacher being killed and eaten by a pride of lions, in Africa.
I’m not somebody to wish death upon a fellow human, but if you’re that much of a C-U-Next-Tuesday, that you enjoy illegally murdering beautiful wild animals, then forgive me if I take a wry smile if the beasts fight back.
According to the story, only the poacher’s head was left. I hope he tasted nice and that the lions enjoyed their meal.
P-P-P-Pick up a Poacher!
I read this story on the Bath Chronicle website.
A distraught pet owner believes her missing beloved blind pet rabbit was snatched by a seagull.
Nikki Coker believes Flump disappeared after someone – or something – broke into the hutch in her garden.
And she fears the little white bunny could have been carried off by a hungry seagull.
Worried Nikki thinks it is the third rabbit near her home in Redhill, Surrey, that has gone missing in the past week.
Nikki thinks her blind bunny could have been stolen by a burglar, but the way the hutch was broken into suggests that it could have been breached by a hungry bird.
She said: “I was taking some food out for him and he wasn’t there.
“The back gate was smashed open and all of the hutch doors were wide open.
“My house wasn’t broken into. It seems they just intentionally did it for the rabbit, which is quite strange.”
Nikki contacted the police to report the incident, but was told there was nothing officers can do.
She has also walked around looking for Flump, and printed posters.
The four-year-old rabbit is white and has quite distinctive “milky” eyes.
I love rabbits and it is very sad that one has probably died, but one part of the story doesn’t seem right.
The back gate was smashed open and all of the hutch doors were wide open.
Is it being suggested that a seagull smashed the back gate open, to get to a rabbit?
I can see why the Bath Chronicle reported this story (even though it didn’t happen in Bath). There are some parts of the country, where immigration is wrongly blamed for everything that goes wrong in the world. In Bath, all the locals blame seagulls for any trouble caused in the city.
I have been watching the latest David Attenborough series, Life Story. Natural history programmes like this never cease to fascinate me. Animals, both large and small, are amazingly observed demonstrating natural behaviour I wouldn’t imagine would be possible.
The episode I watched today featured a group of crabs, of different sizes. The crabs had outgrown their shells and had to swap their living quarters, between themselves. Prior to the exchange, they would line up, in order of size, to ensure the trade takes place successfully. There was no crab solicitor in sight.
I generally believe that animals are more intelligent than some humans, which is disturbing and a little sad. If you don’t agree with my theory, watch any of Attenborough’s many masterpieces, followed by an episode of The Jeremy Kyle Show…
Is this hermit crab more intelligent than the man below?
About Me
So you stumbled across my blog. No doubt after searching for something bizarre on Google. Before you hit that 'Back Button', why not stay and have a read for a few minutes?
If you are after a website which gives advice on how to hack an iPhone X, download the latest Steven Seagal movie, or view nudy ladies, you've come to the wrong place and may now press 'Back'.
However, if you would like a lifestyle blog, written by a 30-something chap, living in Bath (England), feast your eyes on this.
You won't discover how to copy PlayStation 4 games. What you will find is a blog, covering life in the West Country, the highs and lows of supporting two unsuccessful football teams, while sharing a house with a wife and rabbit.
All written by a man, somewhere on the sanity-scale between normal and eccentric.
