The 30 Days of April

[Pebbles82]

This month’s thread is primarily about Charlie, as he is our only pet. Charlie is a very special hamster as he had had quite a few experiences before he became ours.

We got him from an American Serviceman who had recently returned from a tour of duty in Syria, and found Charlie in his kit bag, curled up asleep in a pair of fleecy long johns. He told us how Charlie came to be in his kit bag. While he was in Syria, hamsters had managed to tunnel their way into a secret underground US military bunker, and the Soldiers woke one morning to find hamsters zipping about in their dormitory.

It took the Soldiers a few hours to catch all the hamsters and they then took them to a quiet rural place, set them free and watched them dig new burrows. But it seems they had missed one – which had got into the kit bag and was transported back to the US airbase in the South of England, on a large military transport plane and then driven all the way to a barracks in York, before anyone even discovered him.

We saw the advertisement for an ‘interesting hamster’ and went along to pick up Charlie from Catterick Garrison, not far from where we live. He was quite wild and not used to being handled. We also noticed he was quite large for a hamster, and assumed this was because he was a wild hamster, but no, apparently it was because he had been nibbling anabolic steroids in the Soldier’s kit bag, and he had doubled in size since the Soldier found him.

We didn’t take any photos of Charlie until we had had him a few weeks as he was too wild and too fast, but the Soldier gave us this newspaper cutting with a photo he took of Charlie when he first found him in his kit bag.



He also gave us this photo taken by one of the ground crew at the US Air Base in the South of England, as the plane came in to land. So Charlie had clearly got out of the kit bag for a while to see where he was going.



Before we could take Charlie home, the Army vet checked him over and thankfully no harm had been done by his dose of anabolic steroids, but we were warned he may be prone to nervousness at noises after his wartime experiences, and we were also invited to attend an award ceremony for Charlie before we took him home. Charlie was given a Hamster sized replica of an Army Truck as his “Tour of Duty” gift for his experiences in Syria.



Charlie says he was already a resident of Syria and so didn’t really do a tour of duty, but they gave it to him anyway, for surviving the journey to England.

In this thread I will show how long it took us to tame our wild giant Syrian hamster, and how he has become my much-loved baby, and got over his early life traumas.

Today is the 1st April 2016 and Charlie is having a really good chuckle about something. I hope you are too.

[RubyDG]

Brilliant! Thanks Serendipity - that gave me a good chuckle - absolutely love the pic with him on the plane!

[pinkneon]

Oh wow amazing story! Love those pics of him - especially on the plane! Sweep says he is a little jealous that Charlie got to go on a plane and wonders whether or not Charlie behave for his passport photo?!

[cypher]

lol! what a great start to the month, love the story of Charlie's adventure
Look forward to a whole month with Charlie as the star

[CalebsMom]

That is a hilariously funny story. I love it! Seems Charlie is quite the traveller. Perhaps he was trying for frequent flier miles

[souffle]

Naughty!! Ypu had me there! Great start to a fun month I think!

[velma]

Brilliant start serendipity! I'm looking forward to this thread. But I shall have to keep my wits about me today....

[Nancy's Hamsters]

Haha if he was a solid Golden you may have gotten me but I am quite aware there are no banded hamsters in the wild. I do say Charlie makes a great honorary wild Hamster

[BeautyandtheBeast]

You really had me there Serendipity, right up until the part about the army truck. I'd seen you talk about it in a different thread, Charlie's thread I think

Thank you for bringing such a big smile to my face this morning. I can't wait to read more of this thread

[WinnieTheHam]

You had me too until I realised Charlie was banded, haha! Great start to the month