Bye bye Roger, hello E.T.

Day 351

A word about guinea pigs.

Dearest Roger has died. I knew he was ill (just like Spike Milligan) but the vet said he wasn't.

But he was. Died in my arms on Thursday morning.

Farewell you sweet natured, soft furred, handsome fellow.

Sandra and Barry, the girls he has left behind, are coping - for which fact I am very grateful. We only got Roger in the first place because bitchy old Barry was constantly picking on poor little Sandra. Get a neutered male, we were told, so we did and they all turned into one great, big, peaceful, lovely family of oinks. So have been on the lookout for a return to the snotty behaviour from Baz but it seems ok for now.

Old friend Janine came for the weekend. She is funny and beautiful and interested in the same things as me, which is a treat when you live with all blokes for too long.

She brought with her my birthday present - a large, mummy-sized money box and a smaller set of salt and pepper pots ALL IN THE SHAPE OF GUINEA PIGS!!!!!!!!!!

They are sitting on top of the cage and looking too life-like for comfort sometimes. I have named them Mandy, Dick and Phil, respectively. I don't normally name inanimate objects - I have never named my car, for instance - but they make the loss of Roger a little easier as it feels like I have just got three more (and they don't poo or eat, which makes life cheaper). Yay. (Thanks Janine, you always know the right thing.)

Except even she could not solve the 'mystery of the stained hand'. Sounds good that - the 'mystery of the stained hand' (pause for blood-curdling laugh and spooky noises).

Quite simply, I went to bed, slept, woke up and went to the loo, then went back to bed with a book (one of the shopaholic books, so I couldn't put it down). Then the phone rang so I answered it from the extension in Sam's room as it's closest (he wasn't home). Sat on the end of his bed chatting to Janine about what train she was arriving on and what we were going to do when she got here, and then I looked down at my hand.

It was covered in a rust coloured stain over half the palm and most of the fingers.

And it wouldn't wash off.

In fact it took two and a half days and a lot of scrubbing to clear it.

And I have absolutely no idea how it got there.

I don't smoke so it wasn't a weird, massive nicotine stain.

I'm not American so I don't use iodine when I cut myself (I'm British - I just run it under a tap or suck it or, if something's hanging off by a thread of sinew, I slap on a bit of Germolene).

I hadn't picked up some large, rusty object whilst fast asleep in bed, and even if I had, it ought to have washed off, which it didn't.

I don't think it was a stigmata, but if it was, then it was wasted on me.

And it wasn't blood or paint.

So that just leaves alien encounters in my sleep. Newsflash. Aliens now kidnap us in order to badly henna our fingers instead of conducting mad experiments involving drills and such.

Perhaps there is a new strain of young aliens who spend their gap years in India, before settling down to the proper task of abducting humans.

So if you wake up in the morning with a hankering for the remains of last night's curry for breakfast, it may well be less to do with your hangover and more to do with recently ashrammed aliens with no artistic ability.

You have been warned.