Hammy Houdini....

Hammy Houdini has returned home, but not without putting me through the most terrifying of escapes, he had managed to vanish completely!

He performed his escape on Saturday night. In the morning when we awoke to find him gone, panic became the mood in our house. The whole of Sunday was spent looking under the kitchen units, everywhere, which was hard as he had over 2000 square feet to roam freely about during the night.  Luckily the Dexter the cat had been out all night, and for obvious reasons did not get back into the house until we found him late on Sunday night! Marvin and Carly too had to spend the whole day with Anders and Dexter outside whilst I hunted all over the place, leaving peanuts in their shells with thread attached to them so as to find where he was hiding and sitting in wait to see if I could see or hear a scuttle. Before Dexter went to sleep, he said "Mummy, please find him or else I will have to admit this at school when we have to write about what exciting things happened during the summer holidays, and this will be embarrassing". Dexter and Betsy go to the same school but are in different years.  Talk about pressure!!!

The worst of it was, Betsy, the little girl who he belongs to came over at about 7pm to take him back home.  I had to admit, he had escaped and promise that I would not sleep until he was found (hamsters are nocturnal). Betsy kept a stiff upper lip, but I knew that this 7 year old child was going to burst into tears at any minute and that if I didn't find him, I would forever be looked at with big eyes that would have tears start to well up as she remembered that I was the woman who lost her hamster! I thought they were not returning until the 1st of August, and that I might not need to admit this awful thing, but alas no, they arrived just in time to hear of his last and final escape!

I had sat in the house all day Sunday, quiet as a mouse, listening for signs of him scuttling.  It wasn't however until about 9pm that I caught him.  He had walked downstairs and was hiding under the fire engine! As soon as he saw he had been spotted he ran right back under so I had to get Anders to move the fire engine to catch him.  As I caught him, he squeaked and leapt out of my hands into Dexter's Wellington boot, which I grabbed and ran upstairs with him sitting inside with all four of his paws at either side trying to climb it like he does his hamster hutch pipes! I got him to his cage and rushed him express delivery over to Betsy's house so she would see him safe and sound in the morning.  Jackie, Betsy's mum, said Betsy had gone to bed dreaming of safe and good thoughts for him to return the next day. Clearly her thoughts had worked, phew!

Hammy Houdini (or Trevor as is his Sunday name), is now back at his home safe and I too feel a huge relief, not sure which of us got the bigger fright! That said, today I got a huge smile and thank you from Betsy, together with a bunch of sunflowers to say thank you for looking after him!