I am Veronika

The week  has brought some great and not so great things.

Great things have included being invited by Hayles to London for an Aussie PR evening, I’m sure she’ll be blogging about it soon… The bad things have included not being able to go (though I’ll hint for another invite as and when!).

I couldn’t go because I was off to see my best friend, she’d turned 25 at the weekend (I was in Devon), so we went out for a midweek Indian and the four of us (our boyfriends came) were highly inappropriate for about three hours. Lovely.

As it was her birthday I had I wanted to get her a present, last year I bought her lots of rat goodies (I’m obsessed with rats and she loves them too) but I wanted to get her something special because it was a landmark birthday (fuck 30, 25 is QUARTER OF A CENTURY) so I decided I wanted to buy her a cute piece of jewellery. Last week I’d met up with some twitter ladies (@pouss, @unbrokenreality and @hayles) for a Rocotillos’ milkshake (best milkshakes in Bristol, if not the world) so I knew where to go. @Pouss aka Amanda is the owner of this delicious site and she creates beautiful and interesting jewellery (i.e. you won’t look like you’ve bought it from Topshop). It helps that she’s lovely so she was really helpful when it came to me panicking over my best friend turning green; she offered to change the chain to sterling silver and confirmed which charms/pretty things were likely to cause a reaction in someone who’s sensitive to particular metals.

I ended up choosing (after a while -  it was difficult process) a little teapot charm necklace – I’d pop a picture up but due to the limited amount she sells (i.e there aren’t millions of one type of charm, so your necklace will be one of few, rather than one of many) the image isn’t available (I think I bought the last one, sorry!), however, here’s an example of one of her other rather stunning designs:

Her necklaces are really reasonable, the one above is listed at £21.29 (it’s converted from the $ so you may want to DM or email Amanda for a more precise price) and comes in a cute little gift box. Amanda knew I was giving mine to my friend straight away so she popped it in a gift bag as well. My friend loved it, it was quirky and unique (like her) and alongside a bag of pick ‘n’ mix it has to be one of the best little presents you can give to one of your girlfriends, so thanks Amanda, your jewellery will definitely be on my birthday list!

I blogged (briefly) a while ago on ethical diamonds. Today we were looking at diamond rings because if/when we get engaged I want something ethical and Naomi Campbell’s blood diamonds palava has brought the issue to the surface again.

The Kimberley Process Certification Scheme, which “‘imposes extensive requirements on its members to enable them to certify shipments of rough diamonds as ‘conflict-free’” (taken from the Kimberley Process website), has allowed jewellers to sell ‘ethical’ diamonds in this country. This is obviously bloody marvellous, however as Ingle and Rhode point out  looking blingtastic and giving a shit about other people (i.e. trying to be ethical) at the same time may not be as straight forward as it looks:

While the Kimberley Process has reduced the trade in conflict diamonds, unfortunately the problem has not been eliminated, and diamonds produced in conflict zones are being smuggled to neighbouring regions to be certified. Blood diamonds from the rebel-held north of Cote d’Ivoire and from eastern DRC are still entering the market, as are diamonds from Zimbabwe where the army has taken control of diamond fields by force, killing and raping local people, and making others work under the threat of violence.

So unless my beau can afford a beautiful Ingle and Rhode engagement ring or one equally ethical I’m  going to have to do with an onion ring, which will be hot, in more ways than one.

I got an email yesterday, it was from the Labour Party. This isn’t odd, I’ve received plenty of them since I joined the party earlier this year. I enjoy politics and attempt to keep up-to-date with what’s going on. I’m moderate but I’m definitely on the Left rather than the Right and think that losing the GE should do the Labour Party a world of good in the long run, because of this I’ve particularly enjoyed receiving emails and letters (well A letter, from David Miliband) in the lead up to the 2010 Labour Party Leadership Election. These emails and letters have brought promises of  ‘grass roots politics’, attempts to work out why Labour failed to win the election, drives to get Labour Party members involved and opportunities for us to share our views about where the Labour Party’s going wrong. Sounds lovely, doesn’t it?  Except they clearly haven’t been listening (or maybe they have and I need to jump ship ASAP) because I received this:

Socialism’s great, huh? I’m not too bothered about the 5* hotel, I mean, it’s a prize. Maybe I should be more indignant about it. I’m not even bothered about a one-off £10 payment (though first come, first served may have been more fitting), but the last paragraph  really, REALLY bugs me:

You can enter as many times as you like for this once in a lifetime opportunity, for just £10 a ticket. Make sure you don’t miss your chance to have VIP seats for the beginning of Labour’s next chapter. These packages also include tickets to an exclusive Leader’s reception to be held on the Saturday evening, alongside a chance to meet the new Leader.

(I’ve underlined the important bit)

Am I misreading this email? I hope so, I really do. Just so we’re clear, it states (in small type) that “Entry to the prize draw is £10 per entry” so I can’t be that far off, right? So come on all you  (preferably well off)  members of the Labour Party, people who could really turn this party around, dig deep, because it’s going to cost you. More money, more chances.

PLEASE NOTE: Ella is still a Labour Party member who thinks that Labour rock locally (in her experience) but fail nationally. The Labour elite have lost touch with REAL people. SORT IT OUT.

I also emailed Ray back, here it is, I was very angry and shouty so apologies to Ray for this badly worded email,  this isn’t personal:

Ray hasn’t replied.

I went away for the weekend to Devon to see a friend of mine with my boyfriend and another couple (camping!). It was only for two nights and we were all going in one car and the other couple DO NOT pack light so I decided to leave my cameras at home (an old skool SLR and a Canon digital) and use my iPhone4.

I, as a geek (or am I a nerd?!) who reads books, not tech magazines, found it brilliant to use. The speed it which you can take the photographs means you can create some funny flick/flip book -style images which were  fun to watch back on the slide show, however the zoom was disappointing.  On the iPhone the picture looked beautiful but as soon as you get them onto the computer they were poor, which is a bloody shame.

However it did document our break nicely, here are a few photos – no faces!

Corcoran and I hate having our pictures taken so we regularly take photos of our (covered) feet. It started on a romantic Valentine’s weekend away when I took a picture of our feet whilst we were sitting on a wall – so apologies for the oddity that is us and our holiday snaps.

Hope Cove is absolutely stunning. I love the little harbour and all the different little boats that live there. My friend now lives down there permanently (lots of envy here) so I’ll be visiting again.

Considering my iPhone took the photos, provided a torch (free torch app) and put the tent up (well nearly, the tent came without instructions – that’s what happens when you use things after your younger sister) and is a lot cheaper than the digital SLR I want, I’m impressed. It could have done a lot more if the 3G hadn’t failed. Devon is a bit of a black spot when it comes to signal; no wonder you relax.

Note: If you read this post and you like my pictures you’re clearly blind (or very kind) but don’t nick them.

I was on the Daily Mail website last night (guilty secret – I don’t read it for the ‘real’ news – honest) and read this article.  This article was placed alongside the news that SamCam was the first pregnant ‘First Lady’ (to my knowledge she is NOT the First Lady because we have the Queen)  to be included in Vainty Fair’s best dressed list (I’m so proud to be British right now) and an article where Kelly Brook moaned that she found it hard to find clothes that fit (maybe that’s why she decided to do Playboy?!). I don’t know why this is important, I just felt the need to include it. Think of it as context, context is always important.  Anyway, wedged between SamCam’s stylish bump and Kelly Brook’s tits was this dress/belt/skirt/top thing.

This item can be worn in 6 different ways (if you include the Mail’s ‘belt’). As we can all see the  model in the maxi looks bloody gorgeous so I started to think about me in that dress/thing; unfortunately my vision wasn’t as gorgeous. I can already see that I would look like a potato in a leg warmer if I decided to showcase my ‘curves’ in this (very) unforgiving dress.  But never fear,  the Daily Mail reporter informs us that if we fold it over it becomes more ‘spandex-like’. Oh yay. I do love a bit of spandex, especially when I’m moving, eating or drinking. So I had a look.  Here’s the  magical ways you can wear your £89 piece of material. Exciting huh? You can also get it in a range of colours, though why anyone would choose peach (as the Daily Mail reporter did) is beyond me.

I have to confess, I like the pencil skirt. I’ve got slim legs (and a barrel for a waistline before you start sending me hate mail) and I think I suit a nice pencil skirt. I could use it for work, I could ‘roll it up’ (this brings back my memories of having to roll my school skirt down for a nun – not as dodgy as you think) to create a mini skirt OR a mini dress. It can even be a top. Can you see where I’m going with this? Buy it in black and you’ll never (well, not for a while) struggle to find an outfit to go out in. Can’t find a top? Roll it up to make a dress. Can’t find a skirt? Roll it down. It’s only downfall is a lack of straps (I do like a dress with straps) so a good strapless bra is a must. If the Daily Mail reporter is correct, the more sluttish we are (or how many times we roll it up/down) the more toned we’ll look – we can look like sluts for a reason. Hurrah! So isn’t it at least worth a go?

NOTE: For brides to be (or if you just want a pretty dress), check this out, one bridesmaid dress – lots of different ways to wear them. I do like these.

He soothed her mind by slowing her thoughts with a simple kiss upon her forehead.

As you may have seen (I have twittered about them quite a bit) we (Corc and I) have adopted two rats. Boris and Rupert.

I lost my girlies about month ago within a week of each other. If you’ve read my blog before you’d have known that Bunty was quite ill for a long time, this didn’t seem to impair her enjoyment of life so we kept the old girl going, but she went rapidly downhill one night and we assumed that the cancer/growths had finally ‘beaten’ her, she couldn’t move and she didn’t want to eat – two things she constantly did. After a late night phone call to a lovely vet nurse I decided to take her in. The vet arrived and she was gassed until was in an extremely deep sleep (I think we actually lost her at this point) and she was injected to make sure she was put to sleep permanently. I can’t fault the vets, I was allowed in and I held the home-made mask over her face wrapped in her fleece. Considering the time (1am) the exhausted vet did everything he could to make it comfortable for all of us. After the procedure he examined her and one of the growths had started to ulcerate so her time was definitely at an end.

The next day poor Baby looked pretty baffled, we fussed over her, gave her treats and let her ride around on one of our shoulders for the majority of the day, she sat and watched the TV with my Mum in the evenings and shared her lap with the dog. She seemed pretty low and her eye started to look quite bad (she’d been on antibiotics for an eye infection) and I took her into the vets. The vet explained that her eye was pretty itchy hence why she was so miserable so we popped her on a different medication. Unfortunately she went downhill and I had to make the decision to put her down exactly a week after Bunty. On Wednesday her lungs were clear but by Friday her lungs were full on mucus and she was struggling to breathe, move and eat which makes me think that Bunty had the same complaint. The vet explained the change in temperature can kill a rat (especially one who is vulnerable at the time – Bunty who was already ill and Baby with her eye infection and losing her cage mate).  It all came as a bit of a surprise. She was put down in the same manner as Bunty except she was bigger and stronger so it took longer. It also only cost £24 whilst Bunty’s departure from the world had cost £200. Oh the joys of pet ownership.

I was lost without my girls and as Corcs will tell you I was a miserable cow. He told me I was only allowed rats if they came from a breeder and not a pet shop. If you want to know why rats from pet shops are a bad idea, google ‘rodent farms’ or have a look at this blog post which outlines some of the problems with pet shops. No good breeder would sell to a pet shop, they don’t breed for monetary gain (you’re more likely to lose money breeding rats) and they breed ethically – this page outlines some of the things you may like to think about.

Because I don’t want to support rodent farms (duh – obvo!) and I have bought pet shop rats before (I wasn’t rat savvy at the time) I needed to erase the inherent Catholic guilt which penetrates your soul once you realised you’d supported (without knowledge) evil/animal cruelty. So I decided to adopt some abandoned rats.

Corcs was worried that they’d die too soon and he’d have to deal with sad Ella again but I decided that the good would outweigh the bad (how Utilitarian of me) and rang Bath Cats and Dogs Home who have a number of rescue rats (all boys). Now, I’ll be honest, older rats aren’t as cute as baby rats but if you want an aesthetically pleasing pet I suggest you get a hamster…or something. Rats are bloody adorable and I think they’re gorgeous but I can see why people can be scared of them – their tails tend to be as long as their body but you do get used to them! They’re bright, sociable and (I would say) like being pets. My rats (both sets) like/d their cage as much as they like being out, they are happier in pairs than singles (usually) but love love love human attention, rats have been known to wag their tails when they see a human or rat they love after a long time apart (Baby used to wag her tail when she saw Bunty out of their cage) and will sit and play with humans once they get past the ‘oh shit you’re not a rat so what the hell are you?’ stage which Rupert and Boris are currently in.

Bath Cats and Dogs home were brilliant, they let me hold all their rats and talk about their pasts and what type of characters they have. Rupert and Boris were lovely, didn’t bite and had been there since Christmas (they started life on a rodent farm, got sold in a pet shop, kept for 5/6 months and then given to an animal shelter) so I decided that they were going to have a better Christmas this year. They had one final check at the vets (they’d come in with mites) and were given the all clear, their coats are beautiful and shiny and they’ve settled in well.

I’m learning about male rats quite quickly – boys are a lot calmer than girls and a lot bigger! They’re currently chilling out in their hammocks dozing and you can guide them back into their cage like mini cattle, they don’t seem fazed by anything. I miss my girls (a lot) but I’m glad I’ve decided to home these little guys, they deserve it.

I’ve been thinking about my vegetarianism quite a bit recently. I meet new people quite regularly who want to know why I’m vegetarian (and, inexplicably, tend to tell me that I don’t look like a vegetarian). I happily tell them it’s the taste. I’ve been vegetarian since I was 9 (a ‘phase’) and now when I try meat I don’t like the texture or taste in my mouth. Fair enough, they accept that, as long as I’m not a ‘nutter’ who loves animals more than burgers then I’m ok.

However, I read this article today and it made me think about sweets. I had to take some sweets into work one day and I knew I’d be catering for people who observed various food laws (and vegetarians, probably). I had to think before I bought and I looked on the back of loads of different brands and I was really surprised at how many were not suitable for vegetarians. I ended up buying sweets from a pick ‘n’ mix which had all the ingredients for each type of sweet listed. Lots of my favourites weren’t allowed in my bag. I’m not stupid, I knew about gelatine, but maybe I just pushed it to the back of my mind or refused to acknowledge just how many sweets contained animal products which required the animal to be dead before being used. I definitely don’t have that excuse anymore.

So now I’m stuck, do I really have, as the article suggests, more empathy for animals? I certainly love animals, I go out of my way to make sure animals are happy (my pets live in better accommodation that I do) and safe (I once scraped a stray cat off a road, begged a towel off of a stranger, flagged down a random car and convinced the driver to take me to the vets – all on a first, and only, date). I cringe when passing a lorry teeming with chickens jammed together in the most dire conditions with animal cruelty compounding my belief in the flimsy, thin veneer of civilisation we pretend to be blinded by, yet, part of me wonders whether I’m just freaked out by their being animals products in sweets?

An amazing blog post has been brought to my attention by a lovely follower on twitter, the blog post is here.

I wrote a blog post a good few months ago on hand holding and the frustration of being treated differently by people because I was with a man.

My mother didn’t seem to mind whether my boyfriend hurt me (emotionally, not physically), she was more concerned about whether I’d ‘go back to the other side’ if we split up. She’s one of the main reasons my boyfriend and I have survived the shit and the struggles because I’m pretty sure I’m more likely to have another girlfriend than boyfriend if we broke up.

The blogger’s following observations explain the frustration perfectly:

I went home this weekend with my new boyfriend. My mother’s joy hurt. My ex had nursed my mother through multiple painful events, mowed the lawn when she couldn’t, gotten drunk with her, but all of this was wiped away by bringing a man home. And she should love him too – he is amazing and wonderful and smart. But she should love him for him, not for his gender.

I don’t know where to go from here. I don’t want to go back to wearing rainbow buttons, and frankly they don’t work with my knee-high boots or strappy sandals. I’ve made it clear to my mother that I have not changed and that women lovers will always be a part of my life. But some part of me is still waiting to get into the dyke bar. I hate being invisible again, and I hate being in a world that defines my sexuality by the person whose hand I am holding. Even all of my sauciness can’t lead me to easy answers or fast retorts, and I’m struggling to find how to be here and queer even while holding my boyfriend’s hand.

I like to think that mothers are just looking out for us. Unfortunately it’s easier to be ‘straight’ than it is to be ‘gay’ when you’re just ‘bi’.

One of my rats is terminally ill and only (realistically) has weeks left to live. She’s such a beautiful little thing, great personality and loves human interaction. Because she is so wonderful we (as a family) have overlooked her cheeky/naughty side. When she was a mere kitten she would run up the curtains (often ripping them on her way) and stroll across the curtain-pole quite oblivious to the panic below her. Not so long ago she walked away from a fun-filled adventure (chewing through the fridge wires) and got away with it. She’s managed to demolish a months worth of my sister’s pills and my mother’s HRT. She’s also drunk glasses of wine (there’s no point being hygienic about it now, you either share or you don’t get any at all), pints of cider and mugs of tea (rats love tea). She’s also decided that the best place to take her medication is on my mother’s new Laura Ashley upholstered chair (which is fine, but the dog gets told off for even going near it) and prefers to take the medication with strawberry flavoured yoghurt and nothing else. Bunty loves a Spag Bol and will do anything for a Schmacko and can often be seen relocating the dog’s treats. Bruno the dog likes to assert his authority when the rats are in their cage, yet Bunty fascinates him when she’s out and about; I’ve seen her chase him off my parents bed and out the door, poor thing.

Rats tend to be bred badly – often breeders will breed rats for snake food as well as for pet-shops so they don’t necessarily breed for heath or temperament. A lot of female rats get tumours (usually benign) as they get older and rats can have a surprisingly short life span, Bunty is only just two years old. This also makes them quite expensive pets – Bunty has cost me around £300 in the last month. Their cages (a good cage) will set you back the best part of £100 and then a lot of rats will spend a good portion of their lives on Baytril for bits and bobs. Mine have avoided Baytril because they don’t seem to suffer from respiratory problems, but vets will admit that rats can spend more time on it than off. And vet bills are never cheap. On top of that rats are curious little things, so curious they’ll often injure themselves – Bunty had to have her tail partially amputated after catching it (I’m still not sure what she caught it on) and slicing it lengthways making it impossible to stitch, so they can be a handful.

Rats also have distinctive personalities, so if Bunty’s put you off rats for life (or you value your wiring too much) no two rats are the same. Her cage mate, Baby, loves nothing more than sleeping in the dog’s basket and storing dog treats in corners, she’s not as confident as Bunty (Bunty will come to her name and perform all sorts of tricks) but she’s a lovely rat who’ll happily sit and be stroked for hours. My best friend has a Dumbo and a Blue and they have completely different personalities. I’ve heard that Albinos tend to be shyer and the multi-coloured or dark ones more confident (that’s true of mine) so maybe something to take into consideration. Boys are often more placid than the ladies, and according to my vet they don’t tend to develop as many tumours.

My vet is fantastic, but it took a while to find one that gave a toss about a rat. My sister calls her the ‘Rat Whisperer’, Bunty would turn into a nervous wreck with any other vet, but this lady has got the magic touch – and genuinely loves rats. I just wish I’d found her before Bunty got ill.

Great places to get information on rats (and great information on good breeders as well) are rat forums like this one: Fancy Rats

Or a good small animal practice – they’ll often have details of a good breeder, I met one in the waiting room!

Check this out.