What’s in my House?

In my house we have always had musical instruments. Some hardly get played at all, and others, like the drum kit, are played most weekends. At the moment we have:

The drum kit is used every time my youngest son’s band practises in the barn. They’re called Stitch, and play lots of their own music as well as covers. Sometimes they play local gigs, and whenever I can I like to go along. They play indie-rock, and I think they’re great.

I’ve always had pets in my house too, ever since I was little.

These are the different pets I have lived with, but not all at the same time!

Pond snails, locusts, loads of fish, tropical and cold water. Dogs called Frisky, Chloe, Pip, Jake, Lynton and Jack. Cats called Figum, Oliver, Piccola, Fiddle (Piccola’s son), and Deshi who was a rescue Bengal cat. Bengals need special care with loads of space because they aren’t far from being wild animals. She liked lying in our apple trees, and looked like a mini leopard. She was very affectionate and extremely noisy!

I’ve also had a rescued blackbird that used to peck my pencil while I did homework, a toad called Ceremony and a jackdaw rescued in the snow with a broken wing, called AJ. At various times I’ve also had pigs, lambs to bottle feed, several geese, thirty ducks and a variety of hens, but most of them didn’t live indoors!

Ceremony the toad liked to sit outside the door at night, catching insects that were attracted to the light. When we had visitors I used to say, “Do come in, don’t stand on ceremony!” For a while, when I put Oliver the cat out, I had to bring Ceremony the toad in, so the cat wouldn’t hurt him. He spent several hours on a piece of turf in the empty bath while Oliver went hunting animals I wasn’t so fond of! Ceremony didn’t seem to mind his temporary home too much, and gobbled down the insects we gave him.

Of all these animals I only have Jack now. He’s a big, black and white dog and was in kennels at the Blue Cross rescue centre until we saw him. He is very kind and gentle, but he does like to run after dogs and other animals to try and play with them. One day he cornered a baby blackbird in the garden. He licked its head a couple of times to encourage it to play but it pecked him on the nose and he ran away! His favourite toy is a cuddly red mammoth soft toy, that he chose for himself from my study when we’d only had him a few days. He carries it round with him, and tosses it into the air sometimes, and likes to cuddle up with it at night. Sometimes I put it in the washing machine, and it comes out as good as new. Although it’s made of soft, fleecy fabric he’s never made a hole in it or spoilt it in any way.

click for a larger photo of Jack

What do you have in your room? Here are a few things I have in my study: