BLUEBELLS

Well, I appear to have too many bluebells. It's so completely not my fault. This sort of thing could happen to anyone.

I was home sick. So, I did what anyone would do who was sick of trying to get through daytime television. I went onto ebay.

As it turns out, there was a very nice woman who was selling 100 bluebells in the green on ebay. Now, I have two apple trees in the back garden, under which there are some wild violets and naturalised chives growing. So I decided a while back I'd keep it fairly "wildflower garden" looking, and keep the violets and chives, and just fill in the rest with nice, traditional wildflower looking things. My main ideas were bluebells, oriental poppies, and possibly some allium cernuum (nodding onions).

100 bluebells sounded like just the trick.

So I placed a bid. I was immediately outbid, and I thought, well, fine. She's also selling 25 bluebells (for an equally EXTREMELY REASONABLE price), so I'll put in a bid for those.

Fine.

Auctions all end, I have won the auction for the 25 bluebells. Then I get a note from the woman saying that she does have an extra 100, which she would be happy to sell me for the amount I bid on the original 100.

I thought, well, 125 bluebells, not so bad, if I have any extra, I'll just give them to people at work, since they are nice and lovely and have given me many freebie plants.

So I paypalled the money over to her, and was patiently awaiting the delivery of my bluebells.

This morning, I received an email from her, which contained the following:

"When buyers buy multiple items, I usually reduce the postage cost, but because of your appreciated immediate payment, I did not have time to send a combined postage invoice, therefore I have added an extra 30 bulbs free of charge!"

OK.

That makes it a grand total of 155 bluebells.

I would like to point out that these things are not going into the ground themselves.

I may have to give some plants away.

FERRETSES

So, yesterday we went and picked up the ferrets. They are, in fact, adorable. Their names are Aristotle, Plato, and Socrates (pronounced "So Crates"), and they are extremely friendly and playful. We got them from an adoption centre, and were really only after two, but these three have been together since birth, and we obviously didn't want to separate them.

Mike, who was trying to pretend he doesn't like small animals, was completely enchanted, of course, and has decided that the bunnies clearly are MY pets, while the ferrets clearly are HIS.

We put camping chairs out in the greenhouse (where we are keeping them) so that we could sit and visit with them. Aristotle was absolutely CONVINCED that ferrets like coffee, and spent considerable time attempting to drink out of Mike's coffee cup.

They're just so cute. I'm used to animals hiding for the first several days when you pick them up from an adoption centre, but even in the carrier on the way home, these three were vying for pole position to see out of the front of the carrier to look around, see where we were going, and if there was anything to play with there. The minute they were let out of the carrier, they were climbing in, over, and around everything. They're not the least disturbed about being picked up--they just see it as an opportunity to see if there is anything to play with up higher. There are few things more amusing than watching a ferret climbing on top of Mike's head.

I will obviously have to get photos as soon as possible.