The Green, Green Grass of Home.

Christmas came and went and we are staring at 2024 like a steam-train in a tunnel. The GPs enjoyed extra hay, extra capsicum, extra fawning and extra grass thanks to the extensive rain interspersed with hot sun. The guest GP has settled in well and appears to be bossing the locals through the safety of the wire division. The arrangement seems to be working exceptionally well. A treat for all three today: a purple carrot from the new fresh food store in Louisa Street. They are very happy cavies.

   Violet the long-haired guinea pig is shown in the photo enjoying some late afternoon grooming with a gentle brush in the early summer sun.   Violet has settled in well into her holiday accommodation and retains the two-storey residence, where she retires in the evenings to the upper storey and comes down to breakfast at dawn. Her two holiday acquaintances, Mullet and Vegemite (also known alternatively as Meat and Vegetables) provide the entertainment, such as it is. Guinea pigs amuse easily. The roses in the background are, from left, Radox Bouquet (pale pink), Just Joey (apricot), John F. Kennedy (white), Gold Bunny (yellow), and Queen Elizabeth (pink).

‘Tales of the Riverbank’ was a  television series featuring a guinea pig, a hamster, a rat and other real live animals. Based on a rejected Canadian pilot (no sense of humour, the Americans) it was shot in a bucolic Wind-in-in-the-Willows setting in Britain. GP, the guinea pig, lived in a disused water mill, flew aeroplanes, and was an inventor. The adventures involved boats, cars and, in one episode, a cannon which blew something up.  The pilot had been voiced by a Canadian, but thankfully the BBC recruited legendary actor Johnny Morris to provide proper English voices. Later, the Canadians reversed their rejection of the concept and bought the BBC series, shamefully re-voicing it with American accents. Possibly GP took on a New York taxi-driver’s accent, or that of a Boston academic. Perish the thought. The makers of the show discuss its production in this Radio Solent broadcast. I was a bit old when the series hit Australian screens; it was televised around dinner time, whe...

The sun broke through the first time in a week, heralding the arrival of Violet (see posts November 15). Violet looked like a 1960s starlet, with a blonde bouffant hairstyle, a porcine Brigitte Bardot. Vegemite and Mullet took notice, gazing somewhat impertinently through the bars of their simple flat into Violet’s more luxurious two-storey accommodation. Were they in envy of the house? Or ofViolet?

Circa 1967. A photograph taken by my father in a metaphorically Elysian field (actually it was in the west: a western suburb of Melbourne) surrounded by bucolic gardens lined with shrubberies and flower beds.  It is mid-summer. A nine-year-old boy holds a guinea pig with a fat brown body and a patrician white flash down its nose, like a Melbourne Cup winner. The boy is me. I have forgotten the guinea pig's name. It was one of two; my brother had a multi-coloured one of white, brown and black, whereas mine was that black-and-tan brindle colour set off by its horse-like nose flash. 

Day breaks bright, the longer shadows of earlier spring receding with the advance of the season. Out in the garden the guinea pigs are already chewing grass, little crepuscular creatures that they are. They chew mechanically and have something of a distracted look in their eyes. If they were human, they might be wondering what to do with their day. They look very fat, even rabbit-like; but while the caviomorph or lagomorph debate might never end, children have made the distinction for centuries, based on the simple belief that if it walks like a duck and talks like a duck it is a duck, if you'll forgive the cross-species metaphorical allusion. Later, Violet will be placed back into the triangle cage from the two-storey mansion; Mullet will make advances on her. Blind in one eye and with long unkept black-and-tan fur, he looks like a rough-coated pirate chasing a maiden around the deck of a wooden ship. However, Vegemite steps in and defends her honour, a knight without a horse.  No...

Bright, sunny morning full of the promise of summer. The grass has that late spring bounce and that quality of green that will fade once the long, hot summer sets in. Today it is studded with small white round seedheads that look like crystal earrings, and some yellow ones, little happy parasols of the wild plant world. Mid-morning Violet arrives. A guinea pig apparently of the Coronet type, she has long hair of rich vanilla with caramel ends. She looks like a society matron in a fur coat, the latter part of which simile is, of course, literally true. Violet attracts interest from Mullet and Vegemite, the two resident guinea pigs whose names and appearance suggest a lower caste when compared to Violet's regal bearing. They could be a pair of London barrow boys. Violet holds her dignity and Vegemite appears to take the role of consort, sending Mullet outside while he takes up residence in the royal box with the furry one. There are two boxes, but Mullet remains out of doors most of ...