Love / Hate Relationships

I have never had a love/hate relationship with animals. I have had a hate/hate relationship and everything in between - tolerate/hate, dislike/hate, almost-like/hate.

I am one of a family of 13 kids and, believe me, there was no room in the house or the budget for animals. So I grew up without pets - for which I was always grateful.  I'd hate to think that anything four-footed would be more important to someone than I was.

My own kids were a little more accepting. Greg constantly asked for a dog. Once he said, 'If we had a dog, what would we call it?' I suggested he call it 'Mum' because I wouldn't be around. When the circus was in town, Krista asked, 'When are we going to see the rotten animals?' She'd never heard the noun without the adjective. Andrew suggested I should keep my home made scones to throw at the dogs next door when they got into our bins. Even the satisfaction of seeing my husband walk away from us was compounded by my final yell, 'And take your bloody cat with you!'

And, in my other life, I was a teacher and had to cope with a subject called Nature Studies. I don't know how much the kids learned but I learned a lot. If a child presents me with a twig covered in tiny little black bumps, I will never tell them to put it on the science table until we could look at it on Monday. I now know that by Monday there will be 4,317 tiny spiders hanging on their own little silken ropes from the ceiling, the window sills and every child's desk.

Two fresh-water lobsters  should have been happy in their large fish tank surrounded by the love of the junior members of the class. Their disappearance overnight was suspicious. After all lobbies are quick to cook and tasty to eat.  The stench from behind a bookcase a few days later told us they had escaped of their own accord and obviously without planning their future. The fish that replaced them fared no better. When I filled the tank to the very top with lovely fresh water and dropped in some long-lasting blocks of fish food, I expected them to be content while we all went on holidays. However, perhaps learning from some of the students, they apparently jumped their way to a  short-lived  freedom and died a lonely death on the classroom floor.

A bird in another class had a longer and happier life. It was only a budgie but it seemed to be able to reach its beak out of the cage and peck holes in the kids' artwork and projects displayed on the wall. It was stuffed full of knowledge - other people's knowledge. And it gave great joy to the children who took it in turns to be weekend custodians, for a while! One poor girl arrived at school one Monday disconsolate because the bird had died on her watch. Her parents took it to the vet for an autopsy and was told it died of an inadequate diet. I would have thought with bird seed, cuttlefish shells, and plenty of love and roughage, it would last forever.

So tell me why do you think I offered to house- and pet-sit for a cousin who had to go to hospital for a few days? No, don't tell me. I know. I must admit I have been increasingly concerned by the realisation that my mind is not what it was and I am probably well on the way to dementia.

Watch this space