DianaUnder The Guinea-Pigs Belly
March 11th 2008 09:47
The day three of our eleven guinea-pigs went to star in the new Channel Nine Australian television drama Underbelly, I woke late then lay in bed worrying about which hutch to give to the film crew and whether the guinea-pigs would come back alive tonight.
Visions of dogs rushing in and dragging them out of their cage or of them getting loose while the crew were on a break flitted through my minds eye.
Hearing the wind rattle the panes I started worrying about them getting a cold or the lid of their cage blowing off.
Finally, my eleven year old daughter came in with a cup of tea to coax me up.
“Come on Mum, are you getting up at all today?”
Fresh from her customary thirty-five minutes in front of the bathroom mirror, Lisa was bright and lovely, blonde hair tortured into ringlet pigtails, gym skirt hitched up and black lace-edged leggings topping the obligatory ‘Dunlop’ runners.
With the help of eight year old Michael, we dragged the heavy old hutch around to the front of the house ready for collection.
Seeing the thick trail of straw, poos and crushed food, I went back into the garage and found some old chaff sacks to put under the cage for the van. Went down the mossy side of the house to pull up a few succulent dandelions to keep them going for the day.
While this was going on all the chooks wandered out behind me and were industriously scratching in the front bed of bulbs. The kids chased them back around, then Michael went off to hunt for eggs while I went inside to unstack the dishwasher.
When the doorbell went at 8am with Phil, there was a mad rush for the front door. We tenderly marshalled the three washed, clipped and fed little girl guinea-pigs into their travel crate.
We gave Phil ten minutes of instructions on how to hold them and how the child actor should hold them and how they can scrabble and jump. He seemed a bit of a natural and shyly admitted to having had a rabbit as a child, which wouldn’t have been all that long ago.
He assured us his sole job for the day was to take care of the guinea-pigs; he was in effect a guinea-pig wrangler!
The kids thought this was hilarious.
Standing at the front gate having a final chat to Phil, I was furious to note my neighbour from over the road out and sticky-beaking, yet again.
She was supposedly sweeping her front path but was clearly trying to get a better look at what was going on.
Of course, it will be all around the school mums by lunchtime, I thought crossly, strange goings-on over the road, TV this time. Plus today I had to work in the canteen so there would be no escape from the questions and jealous comments.
Hitching up my slide-down pants up for the hundredth time I finally saw off weedy-but-sweet Phil and his precious cargo, and went back in to deal with the school lunches.
Visions of dogs rushing in and dragging them out of their cage or of them getting loose while the crew were on a break flitted through my minds eye.
Hearing the wind rattle the panes I started worrying about them getting a cold or the lid of their cage blowing off.
Finally, my eleven year old daughter came in with a cup of tea to coax me up.
“Come on Mum, are you getting up at all today?”
Fresh from her customary thirty-five minutes in front of the bathroom mirror, Lisa was bright and lovely, blonde hair tortured into ringlet pigtails, gym skirt hitched up and black lace-edged leggings topping the obligatory ‘Dunlop’ runners.
With the help of eight year old Michael, we dragged the heavy old hutch around to the front of the house ready for collection.
Seeing the thick trail of straw, poos and crushed food, I went back into the garage and found some old chaff sacks to put under the cage for the van. Went down the mossy side of the house to pull up a few succulent dandelions to keep them going for the day.
While this was going on all the chooks wandered out behind me and were industriously scratching in the front bed of bulbs. The kids chased them back around, then Michael went off to hunt for eggs while I went inside to unstack the dishwasher.
When the doorbell went at 8am with Phil, there was a mad rush for the front door. We tenderly marshalled the three washed, clipped and fed little girl guinea-pigs into their travel crate.
We gave Phil ten minutes of instructions on how to hold them and how the child actor should hold them and how they can scrabble and jump. He seemed a bit of a natural and shyly admitted to having had a rabbit as a child, which wouldn’t have been all that long ago.
He assured us his sole job for the day was to take care of the guinea-pigs; he was in effect a guinea-pig wrangler!
The kids thought this was hilarious.
Standing at the front gate having a final chat to Phil, I was furious to note my neighbour from over the road out and sticky-beaking, yet again.
She was supposedly sweeping her front path but was clearly trying to get a better look at what was going on.
Of course, it will be all around the school mums by lunchtime, I thought crossly, strange goings-on over the road, TV this time. Plus today I had to work in the canteen so there would be no escape from the questions and jealous comments.
Hitching up my slide-down pants up for the hundredth time I finally saw off weedy-but-sweet Phil and his precious cargo, and went back in to deal with the school lunches.
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