First, the update:

It has been a long time since I wrote on this blog. There are reasons for that & although I had originally intended to chronicle as much of  life with Monty & his chums as I could, some things are just too painful to write about at the time.

2009 was a horrible year for the inhabitants of Monty’s Manor. There were several emergencies, huge vet bills, sleepless nights treating poorly chins, difficult decisions, and a some heartbreaking losses. One thing which left me devastated was the loss of His Furriness, The Lord Montague back in May.

At that point, I must say, my heart went out of chinchilla keeping &, to be perfectly honest, it is still recovering – slowly. Monty was my first chinchilla. He was the reason & his departure marked the end of an era. I genuinely miss his massive, cute, larger-than-life presence & the chin room is just not the same without him. He taught me so much about chinchillas.

Now I don’t want to be Danny Depressing so I’m not going to wallow in the mire of last year but I am going to go back and add in some posts when I can (including a memorial to Lord Montague) – to fill in some of the gaps now that things are not quite so raw.  Although I guess one could call it cheating (back-dated blogging) I think that’s preferable to doing a massive long catch up post now – even I probably wouldn’t want to read it!

So please bear with me……… I’ll add in some links when I’ve posted.

A Fresh Start -

So life in Monty’s Manor has changed quite a bit.  Talie is no longer living in my lounge & I now have 2 chins living in my bedroom: Ebby and Gzifa.

Ebby is currently watching me from her cage on my right & Gzifa (silent “g”) is burrowed under my duvet. Every now and again she appears to check I’m still here, sits on my shoulder for a minute or two, & then disappears again. The lump in the duvet is heading towards me as I type this. She will be out again soon – I will check her over for signs of being a tad warm (red ears & hot feet) &  if she is a little warm then it’s back in the cage for her. She’s pretty good though and usually comes out of under the duvet if she is getting warm. Gzifa’s a bit of a nutter!

I’ll try and update on some of the other chin room characters during the next few posts. For now it’s nice to be back.

Monty is 11 years old today He celebrated this auspicious occasion with an extra raisin, an extra shredded wheat, and a locust bean (I have absolutely no idea why chinchillas like those things – they stink – but they must taste ok I guess). He’s very happy now his tummy is full

It’s a hard life being a Montague – not! All that snoozing on your shelf with added carpet for comfortable feet, all that on-demand room service, and all those chin tickles and grooming – yes, it’s definitely a hard life.

Of all my chinchillas I know Monty the best. He was with me on his own for 3 years (before I got my first rescue chinchillas) and in that time we spent many happy hours together. He would be out most of the evening with me and would follow me around. He never over-exerted himself and would potter around for a while before hopping onto the arm of the sofa to watch TV with me.

He also got himself into mischief – like the day he decided to play at being a telephone engineer. I turned around from working on my PC to find Monty sitting in the middle of the lounge with a piece of telephone wire in one paw and another bit of telephone wire in the other paw. He looked very pleased with himself and was contentedly nibbling each piece alternately. Needless to say I was spluttering and muttering while I fixed my phone line. He did make me laugh though and he was not hurt in the incident. I learned very quickly that no matter how “chinchilla proof” you think a room is, one of the little furry creatures will prove you wrong!