#660 Let me bore you to sleep - NICE MEMORIES OF ANDRE - Jason Newland (22nd May 2021)

Hello and welcome to jasonnewland.com. My name is Jason Newland and this is let me bore you to sleep. Please only listen when you can safely close your eyes. Eyes, eyes.

So here we are. Here we are. It's Saturday the 22nd of May.

And before I start I'd just like to say a big thank you to all of your well wishes and kind words and messages and everything that you've sent to me regarding Andre. So thank you very much. And also a big thank you to Hope who's actually sent me some money by PayPal to help pay the veterinary costs which were quite high actually.

So thank you very much Hope. I really appreciate that. That's it.

That's all I really want to say on that subject if I'm honest. Other than I missed the little furry poo machine. I really do.

Oh yes. So what I might do, what I might do is talk about Andre but talk about his life and stuff you know from a just you know a nice memory kind of thing. Some of you listening have shared these memories kind of almost as they happened in a sense.

Maybe you've seen him on video or you've heard me tell you what he's been up to on the actual day over the last you know four years or whatever that I've been doing this let me bore you to sleep podcast. Is it three years or four years? Three years? I don't know. Let me check.

I like to check these things you know me. I'm nothing if not thorough. I'm not thorough.

Not really. Not really. Okay let me have a look.

27th of March 2018. So it's three years. March, April, May.

So three years and two months. So okay. So during that time I've been talking about him before.

Before that I was doing the Jason Chat Vlogs on YouTube and I was doing videos of him and I was putting videos of him on Facebook as well. There's still loads of videos of him on Facebook and I'm going to start sifting through, not now because it's a bit too soon, but I'm going to start sifting through old videos of him that I've got on a hard drive. Old Jason Chat Vlogs and other bits and bobs that I've kind of stored away that I've just forgotten about.

And maybe I might put together like a little compilation video of him and stick that on YouTube at some point. It's not going to be any time like soon soon because it's too soon soon to be doing soon soon stuff. It sounds a bit Chinese and then it's soon soon.

What's your name? Soon soon. Oh what's yours? I'm Pong Pong Ping. I love the name.

I love Chinese names. It's just so, I don't know, they're easy. Ying, Yong, Wang, Wing, Wong.

It's kind of quite easy to say but then you've got Russian names that some comedian would say they look, if you look at them, they look like Wi-Fi passwords. It's like, not my joke, it was, I forget his name who it was, I saw he said that. But it's like, yeah, it's true.

Something like really long. I think it's an English thing, you know, to be naturally ignorant towards, maybe not ignorant, but just find it difficult to pronounce. Names from other countries, like other kind of, you know, when I was a kid, right, it was Muslim, Muslim, Muslim, not Muslims, Muslim, Muslim.

That's what we used to call them. It wasn't derogatory, it was just that's what I think people thought that was the right way to pronounce it. And when you think about it, right, what's that, Lidl, right, Lidl.

For years and years and years and years, they were posting adverts, calling themselves Lidl, Lidl, it's Lidl, goddammit, it's not Lidl. We're not, we're not just on, we're not here just for council estate people. Although they were their, you know, predominant customers, as am I. But they gave up in the end after about 15 years of saying Lidl, it's Lidl.

Now the adverts go Lidl. They've even got rhymes that rhyme with Lidl. Spend Lidl with Lidl, or something like that.

I don't really know where I'm going with that, but it's very quiet in here. You know, it's really strange. And I don't know, I don't get it.

All the scratching in the walls and the, like in the ceiling and stuff like that from the birds and the mice, whatever else is up there, just seems to have ceased for two days. I don't know if they've all just gone off. I mean, I'd have thought if anything, there'd be more noise, they'd all be partying, that he's gone.

But maybe they liked him, maybe they were friends with him. Maybe when I was out, he'd invite them all in. That's why I'd find the odd mice in there.

Hungover, probably fell asleep in the sink. And I'd come into the kitchen like, oh my god, oh, I just want, you know, that would explain why he's wearing that hat. That little party hat, yeah.

So maybe he was, I do think that the one thing about Andre is he wasn't vicious. He didn't, he didn't, he could be a foot away from a rabbit and have no urges to do anything. Well, probably the only thing he'd want to do with it is probably become amorous, if anything.

You know, he wasn't, he had no instincts to hurt another being at all. But he did like biting dogs. But then it was fun.

It wasn't, he wasn't doing it to hurt them. He just loved biting feet and legs of dogs, for some reason. But if you put a baby, put a little baby near a little kid, he'd never bite the kid.

Never, ever, ever. He's never bitten anyone. He nibbled a kid once, like nipped them by accident.

And she was like, oh, I said, look at your arm. Your arm's fine. Because she was with her mum.

And otherwise, I could have slapped her. No, I'm joking. And I said, look, he wouldn't bite you on purpose.

He just, I think what it was, he had his, he had his teeth over her arm. Just, it's kind of, he does it gently, you can't hardly feel it. But it's his way of feeling around, because his eyesight ain't great.

And she must have pulled her arm away. Can't really blame him, can you? Look at the sight, the sharpness of his teeth, you know, wrapped around your arm, you probably would want to pull away. But never, ever bit anyone.

Apart from me. And that was only really when he was a baby. When he was a baby, he hated me.

See, I fell in love with him. So it's two, basically what happened, right? I'm telling you the story. Has it happened? This is what happened.

And it was September 2015. Yep. And I've come, I'm just walking home.

My friend downstairs, my neighbour, he's my friend. And he had a polecat. So polecat is kind of the more polecats and ferrets are the same, but one's a bit more vicious than the other.

You know, they're kind of the same breed, but one's a bit more kind of wild than the other. So his, his polk, his polk, he used to bite. So Andre was like half polecat, half ferret.

So, you know, but he, his one, oh man, the bite, it bite everyone. But not, it wasn't even vicious. He just enjoyed doing it.

It was just, I don't know how to explain it. And he was crafty with it as well. Not Andre, this other one.

It was basically, he was Andre's uncle or something like that. Yeah. It's either an uncle or a granddad.

Yeah. No uncle. Yeah.

It was uncle. So they were related from the same family. So I think it's like on Andre's mum was my friend's sister.

The polk, does that make sense? Not my friend's sister, but my friend's polecat's sister was mated with a ferret and had Andre and about 700 other little pups. Now Andre, apparently Andre was quite vicious at that time, but they are, they're born vicious. They're not, they're not.

Well, from my, from my experience, they were both pretty vicious. The two that came. So I came to my, I was just walking home.

My friend had already told me, he said, look, I've got, cause I'm, I was looking to get a dog. And I already had a dog from the rescue that I was going to get. It was a Pomeranian.

And the thing, the thing I didn't like about the dog is a dog didn't like me. So I visited him twice and he didn't like me. Didn't, wasn't, you know, and I always had it in my mind and I've seen it probably on TV too many times and in movies and, you know, people go into a dog kennel place where there's lots of dogs and a dog comes up to them and starts like, you know, getting all excited.

And you know, the, the dog picks the owner. That's how I kind of always felt we should be with a pet really. In a sense of if it was a dog, a dog chooses the owner.

If a dog comes up to me and lets me know that he or she wants to be with me, then that seems to be like, okay, that's I kind of, it feels like it should be their choice. It's like with kids, you know, if you're gonna, if you can, I don't think it happens anymore, but I used to live in a kind of, I guess an orphanage children's home when I was a kid, when I was little. And I know the old orphanages, people used to come along, family, and just, it would be almost like a jumble sale.

And you just, you know, choose, choose a kid or a couple of kids if they're together or whatever. But for me, if I was a parent or wanting to be a parent, I think I'd probably, in my mind, want the kid that came to me, like perhaps wanted, I don't know. It's a weird one because I've never been in that situation, but that's what I wanted out of a dog.

I wanted a dog that came to me, that liked me, you know, sort of felt that instant kind of bond. And the way that this place worked is they had a certain amount of dogs that were available and the ones that were available, well, the one that was available at the time didn't like me. I even took him for a walk.

I saw him for the first time, didn't want anything to do with me. Cutest little thing in the world. Didn't, wasn't interested in me.

And then he was, he was only a tiny little puppy, but he's basically the owner of the mother of the puppies, couldn't handle having puppies. So this dog got pregnant or, you know, he's quite an elderly person. So it had to sort of be rehoused pretty much at birth.

So I went back with my friend and I thought, let's just give me what you think. And, you know, tell me, I wanted to get her opinion. And we took the little dog for a walk along the, because it's a big farm area where all these different dogs and horses and all kinds of animals were kept.

Crocodiles, giraffes were not there. And the dog didn't want to be anywhere near me. Liked her, didn't like me.

And I didn't like that. I don't know why. And that annoyed me.

Because here's me, I like, come on, I'm a nice person, kind of. Come on, why don't you like me? And in the end, you know, I'd sort of, I put it off because if I'd have, I think if the dog had liked me, I'd have fallen in love with it probably sort of straight away. And, you know, I'd have just gone through with it and got it done.

They wanted to come around and check my home to see it was all safe and everything, which is, it was fine at the time. I had a carpet that wasn't ruined. Mind you, dog probably would have ruined it, but I guess.

And then in the end, they called me and said, well, someone else is interested in, can you let us know what you want to do? And I said, no, just let them have him. It's fine. You know, you don't, you know, you don't like me.

So as long as he's got someone to go to, that's fine. So at that point, you know, my friend was saying, well, why don't you get this ferret? My friends, who's where I got my ferret from, it's just got a big bunch of them that he needs to get, basically needs to house them, home them. And I thought about it and I thought, I looked at his one and I thought, they're a handful.

There's a lot of work. Yeah, they sleep a lot, but when they're awake, they cause havoc sometimes. And there was the bite in and I thought, I don't like the bite in.

I couldn't put up with that. And then there was a cleaning up after them. And so I kind of, I just didn't, I didn't think I wanted one.

And I thought, nah. And I said to him, nah, I'm not going to bother. I'm not going to do it.

And then I'm walking home just as his friend was pulling up and he was outside with his friend and he had this cage with two, two little ferrets in. So my friend said, well, come and have a look at them, come and meet them. So I did.

And it was two little, basically, if you go, if you are on my Facebook, I've got a few different Facebook pages, but the main kind of, I don't know if it's the main page, it's got Andre, a picture of him when he was a baby. It's like the main picture on there. It's just, yeah, it's on there.

And there's another little, the, instead of the picture of, which would, should be really picture of me, there's a picture of Andre jumping up, a little video of him jumping up towards the camera. But there's a little picture of him when he was tiny. You know, when he was pretty much when I first got him.

And there was two of them. So there was another one who was also cute. But Andre, I just, I couldn't, I fell in love with him.

But my whole idea of, you know, you might think I'm about to tell you that he came up to me and he was sniffing me and he was like, you know, giving me loads of attention. No, not at all. It was the opposite.

He didn't want anything to do with me at all. And I picked him up. Well, I went to sort of pick him up.

And so I knew how to handle, because I'd handled the other one, my friends. So I picked him up loads of times. I kind of knew how to pick him up.

And straight away bit me. Get off me, get off me. Who are you? Get off me.

Why do your ears smell of cheese? Get off me. It's like, rude. And it's like, I didn't know what to do.

But I fell in love with him. He was just, there's something about him. He was just cute.

But I don't know. You know, you don't know. It's just what happens.

You just, I just like, wow. Just absolutely fell for him. This most beautiful little thing ever.

And so I said, yeah, okay. I kind of almost regretting it because I knew that it was going to be hard work. And he was going to trash my flat.

And I just got, I'd only had my new carpet for probably a couple of months, if that. And the flat, I'd only had the flat since April. So five months.

Yeah, I didn't get the carpet probably till two or three months in, maybe two months. So I hadn't had the carpet for long. And for some reason, I was really proud of the carpet.

It's a very strange thing to be feeling particularly wonderful about. But, you know, this is the first home that I've ever had of my own in my life. And to have, you know, everything in here, I don't own the property, but it's a home for life if I want it to be.

And everything in here is mine. So I was unfurnished when I moved in. So everything belongs to me, including the carpet, because there was no carpet.

So I ended up getting a bit a grant from the government to help pay towards the carpet. And I paid £120 towards it. And the carpet cost about 600.

That was a special offer as well. I imagine it costs a hell of a lot more now. And it wasn't even a particularly good carpet.

It wasn't the one that I would have chosen for myself, if money was not an object. But I went with my dad, and he paid for the carpet up front. So I owed him the money, which I, you know, so, which I did, I paid, I paid him the money.

But because he was paying, so I had 120. So he probably paid about 350, 400 out of his own pocket on that day that he ordered it. And it was being put in probably a month later, maybe three weeks later.

And on that day, I had to pay I think £150 to have to the actual carpet fitter himself separate on top of the money for the carpet. And the carpet was on a discount as well. And even though I paid my dad the money for the carpet, you know, he didn't wasn't out of pocket or anything.

I paid him a couple of weeks, three weeks later, he kind of took control over the carpet. In a sense of what what I got, I said to him, I want to, I want soundproof. I want the thickest, most soundproof carpet ever that I can get.

But then we were talking probably twice the amount of money, which didn't bother didn't bother me. But you know, he wasn't, he didn't want to pay that amount amount of money out, which is understandable, I guess. Even though I would have paid it, you know, I'd have paid it to him.

However, I think he the right decision was made considering, you know, a few months later, I had Andre here, and he ruined, ruined the carpet ruined. I actually remember I made a video. It might be a Jason chats vlog, where I just make a video of the carpet.

Or maybe I took some pictures of the carpet for Facebook, something like that. I was just so pleased. Honestly, because I had pretty sure I had my new bed by then.

So I had my new double bed. Again, the first bed, first double bed of my own I've ever owned. I bought some single beds over the years.

I've also slept in a lot of other people's beds. Sounds bad, and it sounds good in another way. But I don't mean it in a like a bragging way.

Beds that have been used by other people, other tenants previously that have lived in that room that I was living in. So I had my own double bed. And probably Yeah, except after a couple of months.

Yeah, actually. By then I think I even had a new chair. Mrs. T bought me a new chair.

So one of my fans, one of my listeners bought me a chair for the flat. So it's a recliner. And so I had that.

Pretty sure I had that either just after or just before the carpet. I'm not sure. Maybe just after.

So the flat looked really good. You know, it's fairly empty. I didn't have much stuff at all.

I'm not got much stuff now. But I didn't have a lot of bits. Just the furniture really that my nan inherited from my nan like the table that I'm sitting at now.

TV cabinet. Yeah, just that was it. And I didn't have any bookcases that I've got.

I had hardly any books either at the time. I didn't have my punch bag. I didn't have Yeah, I didn't have a set a laptop.

That was pretty much it. With probably a webcam at the time, I think. So I've got a second hand wardrobe and set of drawers from a charity show charity, a charity.

That was really good because I didn't have anything to put stuff in. But apart from that, the place was just pretty much spotless. It was just clean.

There's nothing in here. Other than just the basic stuff, the TV, I had, I was drinking at the time quite regular. So drinking cans of lager, not a lot, you know, maybe six cans a night, four cans a night, six.

I don't know. But it was weak lager, it wasn't strong. Or semi, it was a semi like Foster's.

So it wasn't like really, really weak. But Foster's is kind of in between the really weak stuff and Stella, although Stella isn't strong, but it's the strongest of the, it's the strongest of the week. If you know, I mean, with lager, you know, if you want to go to strong, then you've got tenants and all that stuff, which is, I don't know, 14% or something.

I don't know what it is. But I don't drink that stuff. But at that time, I was drinking lager.

And blimmin well enjoying it, if I must say so. Thank you very much. I did.

Yeah, I haven't drunk lager for absolutely ages. I tried to drink lager on my birthday, on my 50th birthday in August. And I bought eight cans of lager, because I had my friend with me.

So I thought, well, I have four cans each. I sat down, he sat down, or he sat down, I'm not sure which order it was. Either side of the room, I don't sit next to people.

I can't, how can people sit next to each other? I don't understand it. If you can't look at them, you can't, it's like, even watching telly, I have to, or watching a movie, I have to be on a separate chair away from the person. I don't, can't be close to people.

It's not always the case, but just, especially men, it's not, it's not a sexist thing. It's just, I feel I can sit next to someone if it's like my girlfriend or something. But other than that, I don't really, and even then, I can't remember the last time I really had a girlfriend.

It must have happened at some point. But I can't remember what it was like. I think, I think none of my relationships really lasted for long enough to be sitting there watching television.

I hadn't got into that mode of boringness, of just sitting there. And they say boring, it's not definitely, it's not a bad boring, I don't think. It's probably an amazing boring actually, to be able to just chill out and watch telly.

And you know, I've never done that. Never really had that. Okay, maybe it was one, yeah, maybe a couple of times ish.

But that one of those is more, she was a friend beforehand. So I was kind of quite relaxed with her anyway. I was talking about a carpet and now I'm talking about making out on a say.

Anyway, Andre and his little is actually it was his brother. They were fighting all the time, all the time. And I think my friend was a bit worried about how his ferret was going to deal with them too, because the big ones can sometimes kill the little ones.

You know, it's a nature thing. I don't know, sometimes by accident. But it turned out that his one who's a proper was proper biter to humans.

Brilliant parent, really good, proper. You know, he's basically he looked after the other one for a few days, because I had both of them in the cage in a storage room overnight. And they were fighting all night long.

All night long. Honestly, rattling the cage screaming, fighting ground or everything. And I phoned my friend up in the morning and said, Look, you got to take them away.

Or take one of you got to take you can't have them both together. They are a nightmare. But one of them was already basically I had a choice of one and the other one was going to be going to another one of his friends.

That was the deal. So I did have first choice. So I chose Andre, right from the go get get go whatever.

And then the other one stayed with my friend for about I don't know, a few days until his friend came and got him. But during that period, the whenever Andre was with him, they'd fight. But then my friends for the adult will pick him up and go and basically pick both them up by the scruff of the neck and put them back in the cage or put them back in one place where you wanted them to be.

And they were they actually did what he told them. And if they didn't invite them. That's what they do.

They bite each other, not hard. Because well, there's a big difference between when they bite and when they bite hard, because when they bite hard, it's, it's very noticeable by the red splattering on the floor of blood, because they bite proper hard. But it nip, they nip really.

And that's the dominant showing I'm the dominant one, I'm the older one, you do what I say. And they did. And then Andre was up here.

And the other one was downstairs. And eventually he left. And he died probably about two months later.

And no one really knows really what happened. But it was a bit weird circumstances. But yeah, so that other little one, Andre's brother passed away.

So I might have, you know, I might have had that happen to me if I'd have picked him instead of Andre. I might have ended up with say with a dodo. That's not the right word.

But you know, with a very unwell little one. Very soon. And that would have been awful.

So yeah, Andre. I remember I had the table over there near the window. And I was making videos.

Maybe there were the Jason chats. I don't know. But I was making videos and post them on YouTube and people those people were commenting and about how cute he was.

And yeah, there was even like, there was even videos of him biting me and me holding him by my finger. And he was like, just hanging on to my finger with his teeth was because he'd lock his jaws. And it was almost like an electric shock, when his teeth got right through the skin to the bone, like, oh, so, so painful.

And what what his uncle did downstairs would actually do like a crocodile roll. So once they bit in their turn, roll over, which would rip a big chunk out. Yeah.

But Andre never did that. So he hadn't learned that, I guess, maybe they learn that. But because Andre had very little experience being around other ferrets.

As he was growing up, he didn't learn how to be a ferret. He just did what became what came natural to him. Because even though the ferret downstairs was there, Andre used to fight with him.

Andre wouldn't be told what to do. So the biting him saying you sit there, didn't work with Andre. It worked right at the very beginning, when the two brothers were together.

But once Andre was on his own up here, in his own little kingdom, he's all you know, could do what he wanted. That's it. He wouldn't do what anyone told him, especially not his uncle.

So they'd fight. And actually, and I kept I just, this is bad, but because Andre was so little, Andre would go for his balls. Andre's go for the other one's ball.

And there's basically an understanding between me and my friend downstairs is, this isn't going to end well. If either, if either of them hurt the other, then this isn't going to be a good position for me and you, you know, I mean, as friends, because Andre could have easily hurt the other one. The other one could have killed him, good Andre, because he was so strong and everything.

But Andre was devious. And he'd go for his belly and go for his balls. And Andre and my friend didn't like that.

And I didn't like it either. I didn't want to see that happen. So I had to keep him away.

And it doesn't take long before they're big, you know, suddenly Andre was, he got big fairly quick. He was little, he was always little, even, you know, three days ago, he was little, but he was just, he grew. And as he grew, and what I thought I couldn't believe would happen is both the ferrets, the one downstairs and Andre had to be kept apart.

They fight, they just fight all the time. And it's, they're vicious when they fight. And I don't like anyone hurting my little boy.

And even though he's probably not getting hurt, because he's enjoying it, he's enjoying having a scrap. I can't allow it. I can't allow, just like my friend couldn't allow Andre to be doing that either.

So we had to kind of keep them apart. Except when we took them for a walk, taking for a walk outside on Leeds, Andre and him, the other one, happy, got on really well. In fact, Andre would copy his uncle.

Seriously, he'd follow him around, he'd sniff his bum. That's what ferrets do. Well, human, animals do that, I guess.

But he'd follow him. And whatever his uncle did, he did copied him. And they went out for walks loads of times.

So they did. They got on really well outside. Even if they were in the garden, they wouldn't bother each other.

But stick them, have one in my environment. So if the other one came up here, Andre didn't like it. He didn't like, he didn't like other animals in his home.

Like the dog, my friend's got a dog, didn't like that dog up here. He'd always try and bite him. Well, he did everything he could to get to bite him, bit him loads of times.

And in the end, I had to keep them separate. Again, with the dog, when outside, walking, get on really well. Occasionally, Andre would still go to try and get a little nice, nice fleshy foot bite, but not as not as often.

He'd just follow the dog around. And sometimes a dog would, like, you know, you know, when they brush stuff behind them, dirt and stuff with their hind legs, they'd do that and Andre would be covered in grass. You just see his little nose poking out.

It's brilliant. But it was good outside, but not in his, this was his territory. He didn't like other.

He didn't always like other people being here. He was shy, which is weird, because no fear, had no fear at all. But if someone came in here, he would actually, sometimes if he recognised, if he'd seen them before, or if he was, if they had, to be fair, if they had a bag, he forgot his shyness, because he just wanted to see what was inside the bag.

You have to carry a bag or handbag or didn't matter, backpack. He wanted to get inside there. He loved bags, really loved bags.

And sometimes I went to eat, I don't think he was very shy of women. He liked women. He was definitely a ladies man.

He loved women. He wasn't shy at all. In fact, any woman that ever met him, that I was either friends or dating or whatever, they always gave him all the attention.

And he loved it. He used to look at me smirking. Yeah, he loved it.

When I was with one woman, she called me Andre in bed. Honestly, I could hear he was in a different room, he started laughing. That's like, that was his laugh.

He kept reminding me about it for ages. So annoying. But then when it was like, someone he didn't know, or someone he didn't perhaps want to know, I don't know, perhaps he wasn't sure of, or if they were here too long.

He'd, he would actually cuddle up to me. I really like trying. So if he's on the floor, he'd like asked to get up.

And he'd like cling to me. That he's not scared. He wasn't scared of anything.

But he just, he turned into like a little baby, like a little toddler. It was like clinging to his mummy, you know, because there was a strange person there. So I think he had some shyness.

And as soon as a person was gone, he said, get off me, put me down, get me some food. And that was it. He just did, you know, so that, that side of him only came out when there's other people around.

If I was, if I went downstairs and saw my friend, and maybe there was a couple of other people down there, Andre would just cling to me. If it was just my friend down there, Andre would want to get down and explore the place. Because he knows my friend is his uncle, you know, he's known him since he was a baby.

And my friend's the only person who he bites, or he used to bite hard. That's because my friend used to let him. Right from a baby, my friend's had ferrets for years, on and off since he was a kid.

And he, he was used to getting bitten hard by his ferret. So he says, right from a baby, he'd let Andre do it. And he'd never tell him off.

So Andre knew he could do that stuff. Right, you know, even up to like a month ago, he was, whenever my friend came up here, Andre would go for his hand. And he'd try and bite him.

Didn't do that to anybody else. No one else. He definitely didn't do that to me.

Because I taught him from a very early age, no. When in fact, I said, gentle. I taught him the word gentle.

And he would, if he's, if he bit me too hard, let's say we were getting a bit too carried away with play fighting. And I say gentle, he just ease off. He'd relax his jaw and stop because he didn't want to hurt me.

So I was quite, it's the only thing that I taught him. I taught him stop. No, but he didn't listen.

You know, he understood it, but he ignored it. Apart from when I really meant it. Sometimes when I said it to him, he knew straight away to stop.

So if he was doing something a bit too out of the, you know, going a bit too over the top, I'd say, no, stop that. And he would, which is good. Sometimes, most of the time, he'd ignore me.

But I think if I was really serious, it's, he'd listen. I'm trying to think of an example. It'd usually be something where perhaps he was playing dangerously, you know, so he was perhaps, I can't think of an example.

It might have just been something that was annoying me. What was it? I can't think of an example, but it didn't happen very often. But I did have to tell him off quite a few times over the years.

But not for years, not for ages. He's, the last time I told him off really was probably last summer, when he was scratching at the door, the front door to get out. You know, it was all hours of the night, all hours of the day as well.

He wanted to go out. Wanted to, I think he could smell the girls in the fields or whatever, and he wanted to go party, basically. And I'm not going into the fields at three o'clock in the morning.

I can't see anything. It's just, it's not, no. And he didn't like that.

And I'd pull him in there, and I'd pick him up, and I'd bring him in there, and he'd go back out there. If I closed the door in here, it'd scratch and scratch and scratch and scratch. He wouldn't stop.

He literally would not stop. And, you know, it got to the point where I'd have to put him in his cage. He didn't live in his cage.

He didn't sleep in a cage anymore. Hasn't done for two years or more. But I put him in the cage because I couldn't think of what else to do.

And all I'd hear is him rattling the cage. Let me out of here. Let me out of here.

He was almost crazed. You know, like, I've got to get out of the flat. I've got to get into the fields.

So that was the last time really that he pushed my buttons to the point, because I didn't, I don't want to, I didn't, I don't want to keep the neighbors awake. You know, I don't want to disturb the neighbors. It's one of my important things in my life is to try and be considerate.

Considerate. Yeah, considerate. It's sad what I would kind of, what I would give for him to, to be scratching at the door, you know, but hey, there you go.

But when he was little, I've told this story loads of times, but the one point where I knew that he liked me, he really liked me. And it took a while because my friend said to me, just got to keep picking him up. If you don't handle him, he won't let you handle him.

If you don't, if you, he's not going to let you handle him now, but when he's bigger, you know, if you don't handle him when he's little, you're never going to get to handle him because he will just, he'll be too strong. And you know, you won't be able to, you just got to keep doing it. So I did like so many times a day, I'd pick him up and he tried to bite me, trying to get, get off me, get off me.

And I, you know, I knew, I knew how to hold him so that he couldn't bite me, but it did look like I was kind of choking him, but I wasn't choking him. I had my fingers around his neck, but there was loads of room because of his fur. It looked like my fingers were like choking his neck, you know what I mean? But he was tiny and there was actually loads of room around his neck for him to move his head, but it's just his fur was sticking out.

So it looked like I was, you know, sort of strangling him because I wasn't. And I just had to learn ways to keep his mouth away from my skin. But the actual biting part only lasted for maybe four or five days where he really was going for me.

I kept picking him up, kept picking him up and cuddling him, kept picking him up, kept picking him up. And then he did used to follow me around and he had a time of his life. He absolutely loved, he ripped the settee to pieces.

So I had a settee, yeah, I forgot about that. I had a settee, he ripped a sofa, he ripped it to bits, absolutely destroyed it. He gutted it, basically.

He made a den inside of it. He destroyed two pairs of my slippers, which the last pair he destroyed is the one that he was using. I ended up having to buy Crocs because although he'd still bite into them and have me drag him around sometimes with his, he just like wouldn't let go.

He couldn't get to my feet. With the slippers, he'd get to my toes because they were quite thin. And I'd come home from wherever I'd been doing and he'd hidden my slippers, he'd hide them.

I generally, I'd be spending like 20 minutes looking, like where the hell? Where? Where? Honestly, ended up being like underneath the bed. He couldn't even get underneath. Well, maybe he could at that point.

Yeah, possibly he could because he was little enough. But he just, so he must have just, he's so naughty, but so funny at the same time. Another thing, he was an escape artist.

So he would, if someone came to the door, if I didn't pick him up and hold him, I'd close the door and he'd be, he'd just run through my legs and try and get out. I mean, once someone knocked on my door and someone shouted up, is it, is this your ferret down there? I said, no, it's not mine. Must be my friend's.

I said, he's up here. And I looked down and it is him. How did he get out? I don't know.

That's when I realised that people are distracted. Someone knocks on a door and they're waffling on about something. When I need to keep an eye on this little furball, because he will just run off because he's exploring.

It's not because he wants to get out. Well, sometimes, but he just wants to go for a wander. And he'll end up in the middle of nowhere, he'd get lost.

He wouldn't know his way back. Although he would now, well, he couldn't now, but you know, we went on a certain walk, weather permitting, and also, well, there's, there's, there's a period in the winter when I perhaps don't do it so much, but most of the year, there's a walk that I used to walk him. And he'd either walk or I'd carry him if he didn't want to walk.

So he knew his way home. He could walk me home. I used to actually quite early on, when he was even when he's still quite a baby, really.

You know, I used to start, I started taking him out for walks in November. So it's two months into him being with me. So he's probably three months old.

And it was tiny, but he's just about managed to fit into the, the, the lead, the thing on him. And I used to just say to him, take us home. I'd stand there.

And eventually he would. So I did that quite a lot. So I'd let him lead me back.

So I take him into the park. I say, lead us home, Andre, take us home. And he would.

Sometimes a detour, but it would end up home. So he's quite a clever little thing. He knew his way around.

Talk about escape artist, completely freaked me out. And the cage, it was only a little cage, wooden though, wooden with metal bars, specifically for that size animal. There was scratching at the door.

What the hell is that? Because he was in the storage room in the cage. So I thought, I opened the door and there he was trying to get out of the door. He'd escaped from the cage.

It bent the bars back. It basically, it's bitten through the wood and pushed the bars outwards. These, you know, they're not like the same bars as you get in prisons, obviously, but they were.

How did he do it? He must have really pushed everything into it to manage to do that, that determination to get out of that cage. That's when I realized that his place was not in a cage. He didn't like it, didn't like being in a cage.

But what I thought would be a compromise was to get him a really good cage. And I did, I got him a big cage, like, was it one, two, three, four-story high. It was a hammock.

There was a nice nesting bit in there as well, which was like a separate, it's almost, I don't know, like a lounge area that he could get inside when it was a bit cold or, you know, but he had a hammock, like a hammock, man. I haven't even got a hammock. Everything he wanted, it was really big thing, big, big old cage.

And he liked the hammock, but again, he was in the storage room and I'd only put him in there at night. The rest of the day, he'd come out. I'd leave the storage room door open and the cage open.

And sometimes he'd go back into the cage and he'd go for a sleep. I'd go and find, I'd come home and I'd find him in the hammock. So yeah, that's fine if that's what he wants to do.

But then he got a chest infection. Probably, I don't know if it might've been December, might've been, I don't know. He was still young.

He's still little. He got a chest infection. So, and he was struggling to breathe and like, oh, that scared me, especially after hearing about his brother.

Like, oh no, no, no, no. Luckily it was fine. It had anti-what's-its and it got better.

So that was good. So that's when I brought the cage out of the storage room thinking maybe it's too cold in there, which is ridiculous because he's supposed to be really in a cold environment. It's not, being indoors is natural.

It's not natural for them. So it's not going to be too cold for him. But in my mind, I thought maybe, you know, he's, he's in here with a central heating on and then going in there, maybe it is too much of a contrast.

He's too humanized, you know, to be in there cold or maybe it's too dusty. The air's not enough in there. I don't know.

So I brought the cage in here and that's where it was probably for a couple of years. And, you know, every day I'd open the cage, every morning I'd open the cage and he'd just, sometimes he'd just lay there. He wasn't bothered.

He was asleep. Couldn't be bothered to get up. He was happy.

And what I'd do is I'd open the door at the bottom so he could get out, but then also open the door at the top because there was, you could open the sides on every level. So I thought I'd open the one at the top so he could see that it's open. But then sometimes he'd climb out, he'd climb out of that one.

And, but yeah, he's, it got to the point he didn't like being, he didn't want to be in the cage because he, he got more and more used to being out and he'd made all these little nests and these little sleeping places. And I tested him, you know, I think about two, maybe three years ago. I can't remember, time goes by, but he was, I want to see, will he bother me when I'm asleep? Because that's something he would do.

If he was awake and I was asleep, he would hassle me. I'd wake up and he was like licking my, licking my eyelids or nibbling on my face or my beard, trying to, basically trying to wake me up because he wanted my attention. He wanted me to play with him or something.

And some, you know, there was times when it was a bit annoying. I'd be trying to sleep and I'd wake up and he was trying to eat my toes, like, come on, Andre. So I put him back in his cage and I kept testing it.

I kept letting him out all night and then he kept jumping. I'd wake up and he was biting me, not hard, but nibbling on me or I remember once he was basically sitting on my face, basically like the whole, it's like he was going to sleep on my head. Oh, come on, Andre.

But then eventually he just did his own thing. And I think what helped is I started being awake during the night. So for the last couple of years, if not longer, I've spent most of my time awake at night and asleep during the day.

And that suited him better because he has a lot of, quite a lot of energy at night sometimes. He sleeps, basically I have the same pattern as he does, really. I sleep during the day and during the night now.

I just go to sleep when I'm tired and I'm awake when I'm awake because I'm able to do that, I guess. And that's what he did. But when he was awake, he was properly awake.

He would just absolutely, he wanted me to be awake as well. Again, I've talked about this, but he used to, I actually had to remove the door from the wardrobe because he kept bashing it. He would kick it open and they would just close on the side and, you know, clack, click or whatever.

And he'd keep doing it just to wake me up. And I thought, no, that's just a coincidence. But I remember he kept doing it and one morning or one night, whenever it was, I thought, I'm not going to move.

I'm just going to just watch him. And he did. He kept doing it and he'd stop and he'd look at me and then do it again.

You know, get on his back, push the door open a few times, let it slam and then get up and look at me. At one point, he actually walked towards the bed closer to look to see if he could see if I was awake. And then he'd go back and start banging the wardrobe again.

He did the same with the kitchen cupboards. If I was in bed, he'd kick the kitchen cupboards open and let them slam. Or he'd push the plates onto the floor.

To be fair, I think that was more because he was enjoying doing that. But that's that. He went through a phase.

He didn't even know that he could get into the cupboards. But once he found out he could, he would empty it. He would push everything that was in the cupboard onto the floor to the point where I had to actually tape up the cupboards so he couldn't do it anymore.

One day, I left the freezer open. I must have gone in the freezer, the upright freezer, and he got in there pushing stuff on the floor. He was in all the different cabinets.

I mean, I think he even went to the toilet in one of them. Honestly, it's just gross. Like, honestly, I thought it was a Malteser in there.

It wasn't. It's like, what a weird, strange animal. What was he doing? Trying to think of something strange.

I remember once he climbed, managed to climb up the bookcase. And he knocked all the books off the top of the bookcase. And then he managed to get to the next, next one down, next shelf, knocked them all down.

And he basically knocked down about 60 books. I pulled the books back again, and he did it again. But this time, they all landed on him.

He actually fell down with them, and they landed on him. So that's when I had to rearrange the room so that he couldn't get anywhere near the bookcases. But he always found a way to get onto one of the, any shelf he could get to, he'd knock everything onto the floor.

If he could get onto the table, which he did many times, he'd knock everything onto the floor. Whether it was a bowl, cups, computer if he could, but his computer was too heavy. Because laptops seem to stick to the, to the surface a bit.

So he never really had much luck with that. But everything else, he'd knock onto the floor. You know, the amount of times, he's broken quite a few bowls and plates over the years.

And he just, honestly, the amount of times I just heard it clang, and I was like, oh, here we go again. How did he get on there? So he found a way to, once he found a way to do something, he never forgot how to do it. So he used to climb up the back of my chair, quite often when I was sitting in it, which was weird.

But he'd climb up the back of my chair when I wasn't here, and get onto the table, and just knock everything off the table. He'd do the same with a windowsill. He'd, once he came home, and I thought I'd be burgled, because all the whole of the kitchen was on the floor.

Like literally everything was on the floor, plates, cutlery, food, saucepans. And I realised, it's like, it's him. There was a chair, I left a chair in there, so he must have climbed onto the chair, got onto the surface, and he knocked everything that he could onto the floor.

On that occasion, he hid from me. So he knew, he knew that he'd be naughty. Now, you know, I'm not really a shouter, I never really shouted at him.

I did a couple of times, but it wasn't like I'm not regularly shouting. You know, he pushed, he pushed it a few times, he pushed me a great deal a couple of times, really. You know, just like kept doing the same thing, kept knocking things over, kept going back and doing it, kept going back and doing it.

Or one of his favourite things, when he was younger, was I'd clean, I'd clean a bit where it, you know, goes to the toilet. And I'd, you know, I'd move the paper, and I was about to put some new paper down and he'd go to the toilet on the carpet, before I got a chance to put paper down. And he always like, he didn't even hide, like sometimes he'd do it in front of me.

Like, look, look, look what I'm doing. Look up at me. Like, what, what are you going to do? You're not going to do nothing, are you? No.

Which is true, which is true. Another time, across the, across the road from me, there's a school. And for a year, ever since he's been walking, he's been trying to get into that school.

I don't mean to study, he just, he's been trying to get under, through the rails, he can fit through the rails. And I have to keep trying to stop him, because he'll get through the rails, then he'll curl into another rail, and curl it around, and it just gets hard to get him out of there, because it gets tangled. Well, I've always been pretty good and managed to get him out.

I mean, he's been doing it for years, still tries, still has, was trying to do it. But one night, the, the, what's it, the lead broke. And he was through there, running into the darkness, because it was about 11 o'clock at night.

No one around. I didn't know what to do. I can't just let him run off into the, I won't know how I'm going to find him.

But the, the fence goes up to probably, probably my chest. And you know, okay, 30 years ago, I'd have just jumped over it, it would have been easy. 20 years ago, I could probably have done it.

You know, not so much now. It's Yeah. But I had to.

So I did. I jumped over. And I landed on my back.

And my glasses flew off my face. So not only was on my back in pain, and I hurt my hand, very disorientated as well. But I couldn't see really what I was doing, because my glasses were gone.

And I managed to find my glasses. Well, I don't know, I did that. I think I just chased after Andre.

And he stopped. He just waited for me. I called him.

Andre, come in, man. Come on, Andre. He stopped.

He stopped running away. He just stood there. And I'm not sure if he walked towards me, might have done.

And I just picked him up. So he didn't want to get away from me. He was just exploring.

But I was stuck there because I couldn't get out. I found my glasses, which was good. I think they were broke.

The lens fell out. And I couldn't, I couldn't get out because the other side was pavement, concrete. I couldn't be landing on my back with you know, onto concrete.

Plus, I had Andre in my arms. How the hell was I going to get out? Well, luckily, there was this electricity pole thing. There was near the fence, near the end of the fence.

So I thought, okay, let's see if I can do this. And I managed to get up onto the fence and hold on to the pole. And well, I got I got down eventually.

And that was such a weird, weird experience. So I really thought I'd lost him. It's not the first time.

And when he was really little, I took him for a walk. And he was with the lead. He was in the field.

And he went down into a ditch a little bit. And I went, I kind of went down to pick him up and I slipped. And I ended up in the ditch.

And the ditch is full of water. So I didn't end up in the water. But I wasn't far from it.

So I had him in one hand. I had blood all over one arm because I'd scraped my arm open and covered in mud, trying to get back up out of the ditch. And it was all messy and slippery.

I did it. Obviously, it's like, wow. And then later on, you know, probably a couple of years later, maybe longer.

He went through a phase where he'd run in the field off the lead. And he was so good. I just let him do it because he behaved himself so well.

And I was never that far away from him. Sometimes I'd run behind him. Yes, I have run.

How dare you? I have I can run. Well, I could. Well, he got he gained my trust.

I didn't realize he was playing the long plan. You know, the long was it the long con. And he dipped right into one of the ditches.

So he was off the lead. I had no choice but to follow him. Because again, he was full size by then he's still little.

And it was there's not a lot of light in that ditch. And he was going under brambles under bushes. I had to follow.

I ripped my arm open on these brambles and some metal stuff down there as well. And on this occasion, he came back to me, I was stuck. And he actually came back and walked back to me.

And I picked him up. He could have run off. And I couldn't follow him anymore.

Because my clothes were stuck on this some metal frame that was down there, probably a bed or something. I couldn't follow him anymore. I couldn't get through the gaps that he was getting through.

And he came back. Then I had to figure a way of getting out, which I did eventually. But yeah, that's, that's what from then on, I could never let him off his lead ever.

So he gained my trust, because he was so good. And, you know, I used to let him off sometimes in the park, if there was no dogs around, and as long as I could catch him. But he'd run so fast.

I'd always catch him, but then I'd catch him and I'd roll over and, you know, it'd be a lot of fun. But, and in the later days, I got an extension lead, so he could go probably 12 foot away from me, which is quite good. He'd always go to the extension, he'd always pull it as far as he could.

He really wanted to get away, didn't he? Bless him. Trying to think of some other weird events that he... Well, there was a time he attacked a dog. I ended up in the dog's mouth, and I got him out of the dog's mouth.

That was his fault. He shouldn't have attacked a dog. But he ended up fine.

But he was angry. That's what he was like when I got him in the cage. When he was a baby, I mean, he was a little baby still, wasn't he? So I got him in the cage, probably, probably a week into having him.

Maybe two weeks, maybe, maybe no, maybe a month, three weeks, four weeks. So I got him in this cage, a big cage. And the door was open at the bottom.

But he couldn't figure out how to get in. He was walking around it, he was like, getting angry. He was really getting angry and frustrated because he couldn't, didn't know what it was, didn't know how to get into it.

He wanted to, you know, search it, because it had a, obviously, it was a certain smell it had, because it was new, didn't recognize the smell. He was letting off a stink. That's something he did then.

There was one time he actually crawled on me, I think it was in sitting down or something. And he crawled on me, or he jumped up on me. And he didn't seem angry or anything, but he let off a stink for no apparent reason.

And it was the smelliest stink ever. Because that's what they do. They're part of this kind of skunk family and they kind of, they let off scents, scents.

That's where perfume comes from, those kind of animals. And it was disgusting. But it's the only time that he ruined a t shirt.

I had to, I had to take the t shirt off. Because it almost like it sprayed me with this horrible smell. And it was awful, really bad.

Now he hasn't, he hasn't really let a smell off, hasn't for ages, not really. But it was a time when he'd do it quite regular. I think he's, he's been fairly, maybe it's just his older age, maybe it doesn't happen so much, or this was fairly happy.

I don't know. That's probably so many different things. I've thought about it, different stories about him, but I can't think off the top of my head.

He's trying to think, what did he do? What has he done? I remember I was in town, in town once with him, and with my friend, and we were just there. And I was picking him up. I was holding him and he let me down.

Now I didn't realise it wasn't a let me down so I can play. It was a let me down because I need the toilet. And he went to the toilet all over me.

Didn't mean to, he just needed to go to the toilet. And they get sometimes a few seconds warning, that's it. And he and people laughing.

Everyone seemed to find it funny. Except me, I really didn't find it funny at all. Knowing that I was stuck in town.

Covered in this stuff. I managed to clean myself off and stuff that was near the toilets and, you know. And this woman came up to me and she was talking to me and I don't know if she was flirting with me or something.

And just being friendly, just being really nice, but sort of saying that she loves ferrets and she's single. I don't know, she was telling me stuff. I'm covered, can you not see? I've got other things to think about right now.

You know, just look. And she kept coming back and talking to me and just, in a different circumstances, I might have actually sort of given her some attention but I couldn't. I was covered in Andre's stuff.

So that was weird. I remember he jumped onto my friend's sofa and just did a big poo on his sofa. But it was a new sofa.

So, I'm so, I cleaned it out, I'm so sorry. He's not, like I said, he's used to ferrets but it wasn't normal. A ferret wouldn't normally do that.

But I think it's the smell. The smell of something new, like packaging, whether it's the glue, the polish, I don't know what it is. But he just lost control.

I think maybe he was so excited. That's another thing that can set off a little bit of an accident if they get really excited. With him having a bath, and there was an excitement, he hated water.

Really, really, really terrified of baths and puddles. He would go out of his way to avoid a puddle. Seriously, he would never, ever go near a puddle.

Now we're talking about an animal that has webbed feet. Webbed hands and webbed feet. They are built to swim.

They're born to be able to swim. It's not webbed feet because of inbreeding and genetics gone wrong. This is because they're supposed to be able to swim.

They are brilliant swimmers. Scared of water. However, my friend, when we went out to the fields with his ferret, who Andre copied, my friend chucked his ferret into the water, into the pond, which he loved it.

His ferret loved baths and loved the water. So he chucked him in and he swam back. I did the same with Andre.

Andre did exactly the same as what his uncle did. Just swam back. I did it again.

Didn't make any fuss. And at one point, they were both in there together, swimming back together. Didn't make any fuss at all.

Because his uncle was there. His uncle was doing it. But as soon as that was over, he went back to being, oh, I'm scared of puddles.

Yeah, it'd be out in torrential rain that didn't bother him. Seriously, it'd get absolutely soaking wet. He'd walk through soaking wet grass.

It'd be soaked through. Didn't care. It'd be wetter than it would do if he'd had a bath.

Did not care being wet. Just hated baths. Hated water.

Plus, I think he enjoyed getting home from being soaking wet and covered in mud. The first thing he'd do is climb onto my bed and dry himself off on my bed. He'd get into the duvet and rub, you know, he would dry himself off on my duvet, which is a bit naughty really, isn't it? Always know where to find him if it got particularly dirty and wet.

But they dry quick. Even after being chucked in the pond. Chucked.

Wasn't really chucked. It was more gently thrown. It wasn't chucked.

It was, I don't know. They were on leads as well. Well, my one, his one wasn't, but my one was.

Andre, I would definitely not leave him off his lead. Just in case. I just had this idea that maybe he couldn't swim.

Of course he can swim. He's got webbed feet. And if we were born with webbed hands and webbed toes, it means that we can swim.

Or something else. You know, well, we don't have webbed feet, do we? But you know, the man from Atlantis used to. And yes, we're going back quite a while.

That's a reference you don't hear very often. The man from Atlantis who made it really big in oil. He changed his name to Bobby.

So, okay, it's, I'm trying to think of some other little things that he did that I kind of wish, well not wish, but I'd maybe made more videos. But I did make a few. But I do have a memory.

My memory works. And unfortunately, at the moment, the only thing I'm remembering is things I don't want to remember. But that'll change and I'll talk about the things he's done, the naughty things he's done and the funny things he's done.

And because that's what most of his life was. He looked so cute when he was asleep. So innocent.

And then when he was awake, he was sometimes so naughty. Almost as if he was trying to wind me up. But also hilarious.

So funny. You know, it's a mixture. Sometimes it'd be so naughty and hilarious at the same time.

So I'd be laughing, I'll be telling them off, but also laughing at the same time. It's a bit like, you know, when a little kid swears. Like when they're really tiny and they swear.

And, you know, you don't want them to be swearing. So you have to kind of tell them off. But at the same time, it's hilarious hearing this squeaky voice saying something that is generally like really offensive.

But they don't even know what it means. So they're not, you know, it's not really swearing. It's funny to listen to.

That's a bit like with Andre, but without the swearing bit. Some of the things I find quite funny is his attempts to jump from one object to another. To try and jump onto the table from the settee.

Because he wanted to get onto the table to knock everything off the table. Now sometimes he would end up missing the table. This is funny, but he didn't give up.

He'd be back on the chair again, right on the edge, trying to figure out if he can do it. And the weird thing about it, yeah, he could attempt it maybe six times and fail six times. If he succeeded on the seventh time, every other time after that he succeeds.

For the rest forever. It's almost like one trial learning in the sense of if he does something that succeeds, because you know, you keep trying. So it's not one first attempt.

But once he's learned how to do it, he doesn't have any problems. He just has the confidence. So I was always trying to keep things apart.

Keeping tables apart, chairs away from tables, settees away from the bookcases. Just so that he couldn't use one thing to get to another. Like one layer to get to a higher layer to get to a higher layer.

So he'd end up being on top of the bookcases, which I found him once. Came in here once and he was at the top of the bookcase. No way down.

Seriously, no way down. He climbed up there. But he couldn't get down unless he jumped.

And we're talking six foot high, which he did. He'd have managed it. It'd have been fine.

But would he? You know, it's like that could cause damage without knowing it. And luckily, I caught him, you know, I caught him. I got him before he did it before because it looked like he was about to jump.

Like stop. Stop it. Give life a chance, Andre.

Don't do it. And he wasn't scared. But I was just like, come on.

So I do wonder what he got up to when I wasn't here. If he'd do stuff like that when I was actually here in front of me, what did he do when I wasn't here? He once wiped his bum on my pillow. That's true.

And that was gross. That's like, it didn't mean I don't think he meant to. You know, it's just one of those times where he didn't, he wasn't quite clean enough.

Most usually he was very, very, very clean boy. Kept himself clean. But on that occasion, he must have just.

And who knows? Who knows? But yeah, that was a bit of a weird, weird one. That's why from then on, I always check my pillows before I lay down on them. So that's a weird way to end recording, isn't it? Pooey, pooey pillows.

Yeah. One of the things I think I remember, I always remember about him is he loved having his chin stroked underneath his chin. Loved that.

Absolutely loved that. Yeah. He'd like put his face right up, you know, and he'd, he'd almost maneuver himself.

It's like, okay, do the left side now. Do the right side. He'd turn his cheek around, his head around.

He liked to sometimes have his nose rubbed up as well, because he couldn't scratch his own nose. So sometimes I just give his nose a little rub. Just gently, because he's still tiny little on the inside, all that.

Doing him, I give a little like tweak, a little rub and he seemed to like that. And his ears as well. Give his ears a little scratch.

And he'd push right in, into my hands, onto my fingers. So he could get a little bit deeper, get a deeper itch. Yeah.

Also remember, if I put my finger in his, um, foot, that's the right word. Yeah, foot. Like just in the middle of his foot, his toes would wrap around my finger in a way that wouldn't happen with his front hands.

They just automatically seem to just claw and grip my finger. Like on their own, like he wasn't even trying to do it. Just automatically would grip.

Yeah. I always found that quite cute. He loved cuddles.

Loved having cuddles and kisses. But I think I loved it more than he did. I think I was the instigator.

I used to wake him up sometimes just so I could have a cuddle. He wasn't always up for it, if I'm honest. But hey, I didn't like being interrupted when I was asleep.

So why should I expect him to? But then I didn't go around banging stuff and knocking stuff over and banging cupboard doors just to wake him up. Now he'd do that. I mean, if he could have done, he'd been playing the cymbals.

He would have been on a drum kit or something. Honestly, that was the blatancy of what he was doing. Anyway, that's probably enough of me for now.

So I'm gonna go. Thank you for listening. I thought it'd be nice just to give a few memories of the little one.

And there's a lot more. I just, I don't know. I just, they're just some of the ones that I thought of whilst talking really.

But this, you know, it's a lot more that happened. Yeah, he can't really fit nearly six years into, was it May, June, July, August, September. So five years and eight months.

You can't fit that into an hour and a half of chatting. You know, I said I couldn't hear any noises or scratching. I can just hear now, unless it's the chair.

It's really weird. Like it's hardly, I haven't heard any sound from the attic at all. Very strange.

Normally, like you'd hear it even now. Half 11, they'd be like, scratching, scratching. You hear the birds tweeting and stuff in the loft.

Nothing. And I've got the window open as well. There's not a lot of sound really at all.

It's weird. Not complaining because I don't want to hear scratching in the walls and stuff. But it's a bit quiet.

Generally, if you know what I mean. It's just, yeah, I'm just not used to being so quiet. It's weird.

It's weird. I guess it's just how it was before Andrei moved in. This is how it was.

Quiet and I was fine with it back then. There's no reason why I shouldn't be fine with it now. But you know, I thought I'd better make an effort to make a recording because if I don't make one, if I keep putting it off, keep putting it off, it could be one of those situations where I just don't make any more.

And I don't want that to be the situation. So here I am. That's why I made this recording.

So I might title this like Remembering Andrei. Remembering. Yeah, I want it because it's been a happy, positive, you know, it's been a positive podcast.

So I've been focusing on some of the funny, funny little things that he used to do. So, you know, I don't, I don't want it to, I don't want people to read the title and think, Oh God, he's still talking about that bloody ferret. Like, no, it's different.

It's it's a sort of little celebration. Little, you know, and this is life. We've got to move on, got to move on.

And someone did say, Why don't you get another ferret? I said, I can't replace him. He said, Yeah, I know that. But if you like ferrets, and I don't know if I do like ferrets.

I loved Andrei. I don't know if I'm a ferret person. I'm just an Andrei person.

I think that's different. But then when I see ferrets, I just fall in love with them. I do, I do love them now.

So, you know, I couldn't see a ferret without asking if I could pick them up and cuddle them. And I think the only thing that people want to know is, do you know how to handle them? Which I obviously I do. So I'd pick up a ferret and I'd handle them exactly how I did Andrei.

And even if they said, Oh, he might bite, I know how to hold them so they don't, that they can't bite. Plus, if they say, Oh, he bites, I'll say, Well, maybe I won't, I won't huddle him then. Huddling? What's huddling? How do you huddle? You can't huddle a ferret.

Right. So I do believe, I hope this has been boring enough for you all. I hope it's been boring.

So I want to go, thank you for listening. Please remember, remember, remember, remember to be kind to yourself. Because you deserve to be happy.

Lots of love. Bye.