On March 9th, We Remember Peter Gurney

                                        

 Oliver here!  I am one of the organizers of the Peter Gurney Memorial 

Candle Lighting, which takes place on March 9th.

The Guinea Pigs' Daily Digest has held this event every year since Mr. Gurney passed away in 2006.  It's a time to remember and celebrate guinea pig advocate Mr. Gurney, as well as other friends and loved ones who have gone to the Rainbow Bridge, whether they were human, furred, feathered or finned.

We hope you can join us!  All you have to do is light a candle (which can be real, virtual or electric) at 

8 p.m., wherever you are, and keep it lit for an hour if possible.  At 9 p.m. your time, others in 

the next time zone will light their own candles and in this way, our little light travels around the world.

You don't have to be a member of the GPDD to participate.  Just let us know where you lit your candle (please include city or town, state or province and country) so we can include you in our list of locations. (No personal names will be listed.). You can do this by sending a note to PG_Memorial@gpdd.org (http://gpdd.org).  

We hope you will help us shine our light around the world --- thanks! 

On Valentine's Day, We Are SMITTEN!

First we'd like to wish everyone a very Happy Valentine's Day! 

Second, and of utmost importance, we received quite a lovely note from Charlotte and Emily of the Prairie Pigs, asking us to be their Valentines!  We happily accepted.  This is the letter we sent back to 

Charlotte and Emily: 

"Dear Charlotte and Emily,

We have never received a Valentine letter before <blush>, and we hope you will forgive our tardiness in answering. We have spent much of our time popcorning in happiness and reading your note over and over.  "Just once more!" one of us will say.  Please take our delay as a tribute to your lovely words.  We can only hope to come close to your eloquence.

In short, our answer is a very happy "YES!"  We would be very honoured to be your Valentines.  You are beautiful, thoughtful and smart ladies, and we admit we have awakened our parents at night a few times as we sighed in admiration at your photos.

You have most definitely captured our hearts, which we freely give to you!

LOVE and KISSES, and FOREVER YOURS!!!

OXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOX

💗💗💗Scottie and Coke💗💗💗"

(We wanted to put exclamation marks after every sentence but tried not to. )

Having seen their photos, we asked our mom to print them out so we could admire them night and day. Then we asked our mom to take our photos with theirs.

We decorated their photos with hearts. Emily is on the left, and Charlotte is on the right. (I, Scottie, must note that Charlotte and I look quite alike, and somehow it turned out that we are in similar poses.)

I, Coke, admire Emily's coloration and think she has excellent taste in veggies.

We send love and kisses!

We also wrote a poem for you:

Ladies, thank you for your Valentine's note.
We appreciate everything you wrote.
Your thoughts are better than any treat.
You are the true definition of sweet!

Love is in the Air in the Frozen North

 I should have known something was up!  At the beginning of January, Emily and Charlotte began to ask whether or not we could do a Valentine's Day post for the blog this year.  It seemed a little early for that so I just told them we could think about it a bit later, but they seemed to be very impatient about waiting for an answer.  

Soon after that, I noticed that when I got up in the morning, sometimes things seemed to be moved around on my computer desk, as if someone very small was trying to find a way of boosting themselves up to use the keyboard --- who could that be, and why?

Then --- this!!! One morning I came downstairs and surprised little Emily, who appeared to be guiltily admiring Cindy's piggy Coke on the computer!  Oh my goodness, what was going on?  I decided I had better pay closer attention to what those little girlies were up to.  Teenage guinea pigs are like teenagers of any species, after all --- they do sometimes get these romantic notions into their little heads.  

Then I was cleaning cages a few days later and decided to sweep out the very furthest back corner of the girlies' cage --- what on earth???  Where did that poster of Scottie come from, and could that be my sweet, innocent little Charlotte casting such amorous glances at it?  (I hadn't noticed before, but they do look a bit alike, don't they?  Maybe that match was just meant to be!)

Even more shocking was the piece of paper I found folded up very small and hidden under a pile of hay at the back of their pigloo.  Yes, it was a love letter from my little girl piggies to Scottie and Coke!!!

"Dear Scottie and Coke,

We have a very important question to ask:  will you be our Valentines???  We have seen your pigtures on the blog, and we think you are sooo handsome and intelligent.  We printed out some of our favourite photos of you so we could look at them secretly and we even had a few enlarged into posters.  There are some rude and boorish boars living in our immediate vicinity and we don't want them to know!  They think rattling the bars of our cage and honking at us will make us love them, but they are wrong!  Our hearts belong to YOU!!!  We hope you feel the same way.

LOVE and KISSES,

XOXOXOXOXO

💖💖💖💖Charlotte and Emily💖💖💖💖"

Of course, I immediately sent a message to Cindy so we could put our heads together and come up with a plan, only to discover it was already too late.  The girlies had figured out how to send their message and Cindy had just discovered that her boys had already responded; their message to the girls was on its way at that very moment.  It seemed as if we could no longer stand in the way of True Love, which had already triumphed over cage bars and thousands of miles of separation.

So, my little girls are getting their Valentine's Day post after all.  Perhaps they are old enough for boyfriends, at least long-distance ones, and I know their hearts are in the best of hands (er...paws) with Scottie and Coke.  Happy Valentine's Day from Emily, Charlotte and all of the Prairie Pigs (with special love going out to two handsome boars far, far away)!

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY!!!

 Hello Readers,

Valentine Piggyfriend here. Yes, that really is my name! I came here to live at Piggyfriends on that special date with my brother so Slave wanted to name one of us Valentine and it was me.

I am here to introduce a lovely romantic story featuring our friends Charlotte and Emily of the Prairie Piggies (along with their Slave Pat) and Cindy's boys, Scottie and Coke, who many of you know from the GPDD and you will have seen them here too.

I have many lovely girlies with whom to share this special day and here is one of them. Our Bella.

Valentine's Day arrives here in England earlier than some of the places where you, our lovely readers, live so keep watching and enjoy!!

Episode Four: Coming Home.

Pinky and Brownie have had a lovely holiday in Bermuda, but now it is time to come home. Here they are at the airport.

"Look out of the window," says Pinky." I think that must be our plane. Do you have our tickets ready?"

 

 

"Yes!" replies Brownie. "We are all set to go. We just need to find Mom and Dad."

Meanwhile Shannon and Ceilidh are getting excited, knowing that their friends will soon be coming home.

 

                                                       -------------------------

The following day, Shannon and Ceilidh are looking out of the window.

"Look, Ceilidh!" says Shannon. "There is Auntie Karen, bringing home Mommy and Dad, Pinky and Brownie from the airport. They have been away in Bermuda for two whole weeks."

The piggies are so happy to see their friends again.

"You must tell us all about your adventures in Bermuda." says Shannon. " First of all, we must ask Mom to cut up this fruit for us." says Ceilidh. " You must be hungry after your journey."

                                                  Welcome home little piggies!

Episode Three: Excitement at Piggyfriends and a Stormy Day in Bermuda.

"Hey guys! Come and look at this." calls out Bella Piggyfriend. " We have a postcard all the way from Bermuda."

"It is from the Piggyville Plushies, who are there on holiday. What's that, Rafael? No. I don't know where Bermuda is, but I think it is further away than Brighton. Please do not chew the edges, Rafael. We all know what happens to your name cards. Look where you have eaten the "R" from your own name!"

Meanwhile, back in Bermuda, the Plushies are having to stay indoors as there is a huge storm raging outside. They managed to send a photo to Shannon and Ceilidh back home in N.C. before they all decamped to the basement to wait it out.

"We thought that we were having bad weather," says Bella when the Piggyfriends receive the photo, "but that looks really nasty. I hope that it doesn't spoil the rest of their trip."

As Pinky and Brownie cannot go out today to take more photos, they have sent Bella a text, which she is going to read out to the Piggyfriends....

"Hello Bella. We wanted to tell you that we have been to Bermuda before. Eighteen years ago, when Mom and Dad were married here, their Best Man and Maid of Honour gave us plush piggies to them as little wedding gifts. We have stayed with them ever since, so we would like the Piggyfriends, together with the Piggyville Girls back home, to join us in saying a big piggy hello to James and Donna, who might be reading this story."

"Ready, guys and girlies," says Bella. " All together now....HELLO JAMES and DONNA!!!"

" Aaah!" says Bella. "Aaah!" chorus all the Piggyfriends.

Another Day in Paradise: The Piggyville Plushies go Shopping.

Shannon and Ceilidh of the Piggyville girls were excited to receive some more photos from their friends Pinky and Brownie in Bermuda.

Today, the plush piggies visited a gift shop.

" What do you think are in all those tubes?" asks Shannon. "They might be full of biscuits," replies Ceilidh, "but we could use them to make some additions to our houses when they are empty."

"Look at those pretty pink and blue boxes, Shannon!" exclaims Ceilidh. "I think that it says "truffles" on those boxes, so they are not for guinea pigs," says Shannon. The girls eye the boxes, thinking what lovely additions they would make torn up for piggy house extensions. 

Pinky and Brownie send a text to the girls back home saying that they are going to a bar next. "Aren't they a bit young for that?" asks Shannon. " They will probably be allowed in with Mom and Dad" replies Ceilidh. 

And they were!

Here they are, perched on the bar......

......and now they have climbed up on this display of bottles.

Be careful girls! That is a long way down.