I know what you’re thinking “Arrh, how cute” well don’t be fooled! This tiny little cat is demonic. This week I’ve had to fork out £35 on a new lead for my laptop because she’d chewed its original one so bad it wouldn’t work anymore. There isn’t an electric lead in our house that doesn’t bear her teeth marks and you wouldn’t believe the amount of I-pod leads we’ve had to replace.

There she is curled on my lap all comfy and happy, she doesn’t care that I’m trying to write this blog and she’s just making it hard for me to type. As soon as the laptop comes out she’s crawling all over me and won’t take no for an answer.

I have to say I’m more of a doggie person myself, I like cats well enough, just never really wanted to share my home with one. But my daughter desperately wanted a kitten, begged me for years until I finally relented and Kyrie arrived. Now Catherine, my daughter has gone off to university leaving me here alone with… ‘the cat.’

I’m sure she’s trying to do me in, whenever I attempt to go up or down the stairs she runs between my feet and were ever I walk she’s there rolling on her back in my path. If I’m cooking she’s lying by the cooker waiting to trip me up when I’m carrying a pan of hot fat or boiling water. She’s stalking me, following me around the place, meowing loudly if I shut her in a room, until I have to let her out again.

 “She’s doing that because she loves you and wants your attention,” you say. More like it’s part of her evil plan for ‘house domination!’ Chew all the electric leads cut off communication, do away with the head of the house and take over.

You may think this is the ranting of a mad woman, but be warned, her evil plan won’t end with the taking over of our home. No, she’ll move on to bigger things, no one will be safe!!!!!

 
As a child I read numerous books where the young main characters would somehow manage to acquire pets, usually dogs or horses, from thin air. Said animals where often abandoned on the main character’s doorsteps or willingly handed over free after the cruel previous owners were confronted with their cruelty. No matter how hard I looked I never found abandoned dogs on our doorstep or horses in our garden.

Now I am an adult (well, supposedly according to my age!) with the means to look after other creatures, I find myself surrounded by animal friends. When I think about it most of them have been abandoned on me, for different reasons, but I do love them all to bits.

One such creature that I have a particular soft spot for is a little yellow dragon. He was bought for my son three years ago, but last year had to be moved out of my son’s bedroom due to some building work being done. It then fell on me, for some strange reason, to look after him

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He is in fact a Crested Gecko. We had been given lots of advice about looking after him when we bought him, but I found that whenever I went back to the shop I got differing advice. You can feed him on little bugs. No, you should feed him on pureed fruit only! He needs an ultraviolet light. No, he’ll be perfectly ok without a light.

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I do feed him on pureed fruit, but I also give him little bugs too, because they’re his favourite. I carried on using the light for a while because it kept the cat off the top of his vivarium and so made his life more peaceful. During the last six months I stopped using the light as the cat stopped attempting to sit on Gecky’s house (yes I know it’s not a very imaginative name! My son chose it).

Last week while buying some more bugs for Gecky I came across a book on crested geckos. It was written by Lance Jepson and is simple to understand and very informative. I now realise that yes they should have both bugs and fruit to eat and yes they do need ultraviolet lights, but not very strong ones. It’s full of everything you need to know should you decide you want to look after a little dragon friend. I’m hoping I haven’t caused Gecky any harm by not using a light for a while, but he does seem fit and healthy at the moment.

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It just goes to re-enforce how wonderful books are, also I may have to stop referring to Gecky as a ‘he’ from now on!

Here’s a link if you’d like a copy of Mr. Jepson’s book http://www.amazon.co.uk/Crested-Gecko-Expert-Understanding-Caring/dp/1907337164/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1333641714&sr=1-3