Helena has adapted the door to our room to give it that ...cage effect.

Hmmm

I suspect that Helena's confused; she's supplied us with a length of electrical cabling and a length of fabric, neither of which we have touched. She thought that, because we've recently gnawed through the cables of her T.V. and telephone and chomped through her curtains, that our enthusiasm relates to cables and fabrics per se, but it doesn't, it's about happening across them - not being supplied them.
The excitement of 'finding' triggers the desire to 'gnaw'.

And then there were three....

Bars

The larger container we now occupy boasts similar features to those we enjoyed previously.

Weekend away

My sister and I returned to the house with the red sofa. On this occasion we decided to tailor it to our liking.

Our host was gracious.

Giving eachother some space

Weary of repairing electrical cables and protective of newly acquired soft furnishings; Helena banished us from the living room and we were compensated with long tubes in which to exercise our legs along with the occasional runaround on the landing. However, we were never far from wires just begging to be severed and Helena decided to put an end to our runarounds all together and to keep us contained in a huge wire cage.

Only then did it dawn on her; we hadn't been craving for space in which to run around, but for a space in her life.

So now we have our very own room, with our very own rocking chair, and Helena can now enter our space, rather than we hers and she doesn't need to worry about our dental ventures on her living quarters.

We like this arrangement.

Time to reach an understanding....

Helena prefers the company of my sister. And my sister hers.

I'm a lot more independent. I like to explore. I'm more of a challenge to 'control'.

I'm the 'Houdini' of the rat world; the board and wooden door could not keep me out of my 'playground'. When Helena entered the living room yesterday, and was obstructed by the fallen skis and affronted by the soil on the carpet, her approach to my capture was determined and she demonstrated no consideration to my needs.

This morning, for the first time, she took me outside. She sat me on her lap while she drank her coffee. I enjoyed that.

The smell of the great outdoors was inspiring to me and I was ready to explore it. But no, that marked the time for us to return indoors. Ho hum.

Better than nothing I guess. At least she's giving me SOME one to one attention. That's some improvement.