Sometimes I think I might stop writing this. Not because I want to, but because there just aren’t enough hours in my day any more. How sad is it, that I love my job this much? I’m actually looking forward to the fact I’ll be working during the holiday season this year. Even on Christmas Eve morning, potentially – but there’s nothing more lovely than Christmas Eve with hilarious work colleagues in a beautiful festive mansion. I will even sacrifice my dignity, and dress as a Regency maid.

But then, I suddenly realise that if I stop blogging then when I’m an old lady I won’t have anything to look back on. Presumably by the time 2070 rolls around the entire world will be run by Apple and I’ll have had the archives of this blog downloaded into my iBrain, so it’s probably worth carrying on.

I thought I’d better start by explaining exactly how much of a madhouse Castle Mort has become. Grandpa Mort is currently in hospital, and is quite content there, which means we are taking care of PsychoParrot.

PsychoParrot is called George. That’s because every animal my Grandpa has ever owned has been named George. The man is nothing if not consistent. George is actually a girl though, so I have temporarily renamed her Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire (and we’re back to Regency again). Georgie has gotten nicer and nicer, and more and more talkative the more time she spends here. She lets me scratch the top of her head now. Before, she wouldn’t let anybody come near her without trying to hack their fingers off – I’m quite nervous around birds anyway, and she could probably sense that, and I’m certainly not confident enough to do much more with her at the moment. That said, we’re becoming friends, and I hope that if we can both get over our fear of each other we’ll get on famously.

The downside, of course, is that Ferris is insanely jealous of any attention the bird gets. Otherwise, he isn’t bothered at all. He just pretends it isn’t there. But if you make even eye-contact with Birdy, he LOSES HIS MIND. This isn’t made any easier by the fact that Georgie can whistle (how I call for Ferris), and can growl like Ferris. Ferris retaliates by attempting to eat millet whenever I clean out George’s cage. I have a dog who thinks he’s a parrot, and a parrot who thinks she’s a dog.

Any and all bonding time must take place when Ferris has gone next door. Yeah, Ferris goes next door – have I mentioned this? We have a hole in the fence at the bottom of the garden, just big enough for a Becky and a Ferris to get through, although not at the same time or someone (read: me) ends up face down in the pumpkin patch.

So when Ferris finds life at Castle Mort too boring, or he’s eaten all the food he can here and needs some more people to bully, or ANYTHING happens next door, he goes shooting out through the back door, up the garden and over to Shirley and George’s. He often goes for walks with them, and their Staffie who is called Sasha. I pop over regularly to see Shirley for some gossip, and to try and find my errant dog. I cannot count the times I have been over there and asked for his whereabouts, only to find that ‘he’s just popped to Morrisons’, or ‘he’s gone for a picnic, they’ll be back soon’. My dog has a better social life than me, some weeks.

Sasha used to scare me, being a Staffie, but this is a dog who is so filled with ennui she poses no threat whatsoever – she will even happily stand by and watch Ferris eat her dinner. Despite being three times his size, he is clearly Top Dog. Sasha and Ferris are like the world’s strangest double act. Sasha’s part in their relationship is largely to ignore Ferris. Ferris takes the role of a strange doctor, as he constantly feels the urge to examine Sasha’s ears. If you wrote a sitcom about them, Ferris would have to play an Quincy-like ENT doctor ghost who is perpetually obsessed with the ears of a woman who cannot see him.

The only time Sasha condescends to notice Ferris is when they’re up to no good together. Shirley told me that she came downstairs and found Sasha standing on a table, picking a wrapped toffee out of a bowl – rather than just take one for herself, she threw one down to Ferris who was being the World’s Worst Watchdog, since he was facing the wrong direction – that said, if Father Christmas had come down the chimney at that time, Ferris would have been ALL OVER IT.

This happens constantly when they go for walks in the woods too. Sasha tracks rabbits, but can’t run fast enough to come remotely close to catching one. Ferris can’t track, but he can run faster than Usain Bolt. So when a rabbit flees from Sasha, Ferris goes MENTAL, running like the clappers after it. Only, he doesn’t realise that he’s meant to be catching it – probably doesn’t really know what it is. So when it veers off, he just keeps going in a straight line. Basically, my dog is not really a hunter – he just likes challenging rodents to a foot race. Sasha is perpetually disappointed. They’re both stupendously useless.

Shirley and George don’t help matters, since they’re perpetually encouraging eccentricity in the animals. At Christmas, Ferris came home wearing a pair of jingly reindeer antlers – on inquiry, I found out that they’d had a Christmas party next door, complete with party games and a carol service. My invitation must have gotten lost in the post, but I’m happy to attend this year.

Today a man came into work to play the organ, whilst another man did a sound recording of it. All fine and dandy, except all us conservation assistants were shut out of the room and had to keep total silence at all times so as not to upset the sound equipment.

Ever seen Gosford Park?

It was like the scene where Ivor Novello plays the piano. The three of us were like the servants hanging around outside the door (skip to about 1:40). We were sneaking around barefoot, listening at doors, and accidentally stepping onto creaking floorboards and having to run away. We got into the entrance hall and did a passable impression of Regency dancing. It was all terribly good fun until how low you could curtsey became very competitive, and someone landed loudly on their bottom in the middle of the floor. Naturally we left her there and ran off before the curator could catch us.

Turns out that it’s difficult to make a swift exit when you have to double back to get your shoes though.

1. Throw things

2. The “Vehicle Reversing” beep

3. Yawn

4. Flick water at you

5. The telephone ring

6. Answer the telephone after he’s pretended it has rung. “Hello?”

7. A selection of squeaking doors

8. “Eh?”

9. Dripping tap

10. Wolf whistle

There’s nothing quite like the sensation of thinking you have a really tired burglar in the house who has just reversed his bin wagon up to the door and is now making off with a ringing telephone through a series of doors in need of oiling.