Rejoice - we are a great grandmother

I don't know if I mentioned it, but I have two daughters (Jessica - 11 and Luisa - 9). Usually they are hanging around like a bad smell and I am forever banishing them to some far off park (Glasgow abounds in them) to recreate a kind of 50's childhood.

In January one of their guinea pigs, Lucy, was taken from us by a fox (Glasgow abounds in them), and we had to find a replacement girl to keep bereaved Cocoa company. You should always keep guinea pigs in pairs as they are sociable creatures. Same sex pairs otherwise you will be abounding in them.

We traced what seemed to be the only female guinea pig in Glasgow to a shop on the southside and set out one snowy afternoon to pick her up. The 10-week old guinea pig was so tiny that my girls named her Minnie (after the maid in Larkrise to Candleford).

Last weekend, Minnie's bottom seemed to have expanded enormously and our French neighbour (who works in some capacity with animals) proclaimed, 'Ooh, la, la, I zeenk shee eez pregnant' (okay, he never said 'ooh, la, la'). None of us really believed him. But lo and behold two days later, when Jessica went to check the cage, there were four tiny, but perfectly formed guinea pigs. In my effort to be more colourful on this blog, I will be posting pictures.

Which makes me a great grandmother of Zinzh-zhinzh, Buttercup, Sooty and Spiderpig (because she keeps trying to climb walls). Don't say publishing is all about books. Needless to say, when the little blighters are 5 weeks old, we will be taking them back to the shop. But not in front of the children.