[Fluffagrams]

Since I last posted, there has been a few events that I thought I'd update you on.

As you know, Victoria was put to sleep earlier this month due to complications of an ovarian tumour and not long after that, I became increasingly concerned about James to the point where I thought that I was going to lose him too. I decided to switch his diet to include some softened food because although his dental situation has not changed, I didn't think it would do him any harm. Sure enough after a couple of days on the softened food he returned to his normal self and started gaining the weight he'd lost.

I also found out that one of Victoria's surviving sons who had gone on to live at another hamstery (Jamesy) had also died. By the sounds of it, he actually died before his mother meaning that Victoria was only survived by her two sons Matthew and Oakley as well as her grandchildren via Oakley.

After a rather pleasing return to the show team at Dawlish, Matthew's performance yesterday was rather disappointing and he was actually beaten by Juno. It was pleasing for her of course but I am wondering if this is the start of a downward slope for Matthew's show career. He'll never lose the scarring that his first skin split has caused and because of that his fur just doesn't lie as nicely as it used to. I'll reconsider his position at Andover although both James and Victoria were retired at a similar age to what Matthew is now.

The Cormes have been growing with Jack weighing in at 50g which means that he is larger than his father ever was. Alex has been a little bit slower to grow but is still 43g and Louise finally hit a growth spurt and is now as big as her mother although she is rather pale in colour at the moment.