While talking to Paula yesterday about pets and pet related matters on Instant Messenger I was suddenly struck by the idea that I desperately want to get a pet rabbit. I think it’s important that Amelia J grows up with exposure to animals as I didn’t get too much of a chance to bond with anything, thus resulting in a life long aversion to animals. I don’t blame my parents as with the best of their intentions we did have the odd pet or three over the years – a tortoise named Timmy (who would chase us across the backyard, snappity snap), a duck named Dixie (who disappeared from our lives very quickly due to a disgusting habit she had of tapping twice on the glass back door early every morning demanding instantaneous feeding or she would drop her droppings all over the back door step) and an extremely aggressive tom cat named Edward.

So I am thinking not just one pet rabbit, who would be terribly lonely, but two pet rabbits. And they would have to be those super cute ones with floppy ears. Brilliant! I thought, what an excellent pet for our little family… soft and cute and can be kept outside so us allergy suffers can still enjoy the pet thing while not itching and sneezing and feeling lethargic. So I put it to Big-P who I was sure was going to be his usual thoughtful self and point out the impracticalities of a rabbit (not that I could think of any at the time) but instead he was keen as I. This morning I started looking up rabbit sites to find out what kind of breeds we should think about and very quickly I decided that an Orange Holland Lop had to be one of the cutest things I have ever seen. But the more I read the more despondent I felt. It seems the only way to not be cruel to a rabbit it to house them indoors away from cats, poisonous plants, heart attacks and (most topically) heat exposure. Rabbits become uncomfortable at temperatures above 27°c – what on earth would happen when it reached 40+ outside while inside remained in the high 30s? Would we have to have Amelia J and the two fuzzy bunnies sleeping in our bedroom gathered around the one portable airconditioner all tossing and turning? Hmm. It requires more thought I guess.

Speaking of the heat, I am feeling very grumpy at the prospect of the temperature staying in the 30s over night.

After surviving Saturday, the hottest Melbourne day (44°c – around 112°f) since “Black Friday” in 1939 we decided to go for a walk on Sunday along the river to get out of the house and into the breeze. Down by the depressingly low and brown Yarra River there was not only a gentle breeze but even some long and very green grass. A sight for sore eyes these days. Amelia J slept in her pram or watched the trees while we ate sandwiches and felt ourselves slowly come back to the land of the living after a night of tossing and turning in the pea-soup heat. There were ducks, and people sitting on picnic rugs and in wooden boats and a jazz band singing by the kiosk and people playing bocce and cricket and frisbee and water polo in their kayaks. It really was just like a scene from a Lasse Hallström movie only enhanced by the large group of women sitting on folding chairs under the trees all working away on large wooden spinning wheels.

So there are a few days reprieve before it heats up again on Wednesday.