First - it's Diwali - we wish all our Hindu, Sikh, and Jain readers a good festival.
There was a time when fireworks were set off on Bonfire Night (Guy Fawkes Night) and only then. Now they're going off every night for around a month before, to two weeks after, that day. It's bloody annoying and it can't be much fun for all the birds, foxes, rodents, rabbits, cats, dogs, etc.
I wasn't prepared for the sudden explosions one night about three weeks before the 5th. If I'd been expecting them then the ferrets would have been tucked up safely in their hutch. As it was they were out in their playpen.
The bangs, hisses, and crackles didn't bother them in the slightest. But the fireworks that scream... oh boy. When ferrets are seriously hurt they scream. Mine have never been hurt so I've never heard that noise, but the fireworks must have sounded like a ferret scream to them because they went berserk.
Total panic.
I've never seen them scared like that. Not even when the cats got out and tried to jump on them. (Cats 0 - Ferrets 1. Ferrets have sharp teeth).
I leant over the side of the playpen to pick them up and pop them safely in their bed. I didn't get a chance. Arctic took off from a standing start and leapt into my arms. I often wear a hoodie with a sort of hand-warmer pouch on the front - not really a pocket, but she likes to crawl into it. Unfortunately I didn't have that one on that day. So she scrambled up my arm to my shoulder.
Whilst she was doing that Polar was clambering out of the pen. He's bigger than she is and heavier so he couldn't leap the way she had. I reached down and picked him up. He scrambled onto my arm and headed up towards Arctic.
As he was doing that, Arctic discovered the hood. She promptly wriggled into it and settled down. Another firework screamed. Polar jumped over my shoulder and fell into the hood. There was a bit of wriggling as they tussled and then it went still.
They'd settled down and gone to sleep.
In the hood of my sweatshirt.
So there I was, standing in the garden, night falling, with a pair of ferrets asleep in my hoodie. I couldn't take it off without hurting them. I couldn't reach into the hood to pick them out (since my motorcycle accident I can't reach back there). I was stuck.
Then Polar started snoring.
I couldn't help it - I just started laughing. Had the neighbours seen me they'd have thought I'd lost my marbles - standing in the garden, in the dark, laughing my head off.
Fortunately my cousin was home, and I had my mobile phone. A quick text message to say, "Help, ferrets in my hoodie, need help to get them out", brought her downstairs. She looked in the hood. "You would not believe how cute they look," she said. "Where's my camera??"
"Don't you f***ing dare." She didn't.
But she did lift them out for me so that I could put them to bed.
Little beggars didn't even wake up!!
Ze
