[Gpdd] RAINBOW BRIDGE Diamond Piggyfriend

[Penny Charlesworth]

It is with great sadness that we have lowered the Piggyfriend flag to half mast in honour of our dear Diamond, who has left us for the Rainbow Bridge. She was the eldest of the Piggyfriends.

She came to us in 2003 as a tiny piglet along with her litter sister, Peridot and her mother Ginger, carrying Gingerbread and Mayflower in utero.

Diamond was a wonderful little piggy, who celebrated her sixth birthday in February and I am glad that she stayed with us long enough for her younger sister, Gingerbread's, sixth on the 1st. May this year.

She enjoyed a long and happy life as a Piggyfriend, never suffering from any illness except for developing slight arthritis during the last year. This was kept under control by Potter's Tabritis tablets, which she adored and which enabled her to continue to do a little pirouette every time the veggies came around. She never had a proper "wheek" but sang a little "hoo,hoo" song when the food was in sight and also when I came down in the morning. I would hear her before I could see her as the "Ginger Girls" pen is round the corner from the others.

On her last morning, she was very quiet and just wanted to sleep, cuddled up to her fluffy sister, Gingerbread. I knew that her time was near and gave her some painkiller, just in case, but I do not think that she needed it. I picked her some of her favourite sow thistles from the garden. She nibbled a few and seemed to say that she was packing up to leave and wanted to rest. I was watching her sleep when she just stopped breathing and left us. Gingerbread nuzzled her as if to say her goodbyes.

I wish that all departures could be so peaceful. I miss her dreadfully, as I do all of the Piggyfriends past. With all the love and joy that piggies give us, it is impossibly sad when they leave.

There are some pigtures of her on the SCAMPS page, about half way down.

http://scamps-gpdd.blogspot.com/search/label/Piggyfriends

Gingerbread is now the last of the Ginger Girls. I have always had groups of sows, into which a bereaved one could be introduced but so many of the recent additions to the Piggyfriends herd have been boars that Gingerbread is still on her own. She is eating up well but has been with her family since the day that she was born and must be lonely. She is too old to move in with either of my two boisterous "sow plus one neutered boar" groups and that leaves Toffee and Crystal, who could eat for England and I am afraid that they would out compete Gingerbread for the veggies. At her age, she sleeps a lot and would miss out.

So I have moved her into a smaller pen, right next to Toffee and Crystal, so that she has their company without the competition. Buttons and Floyd have moved from there into the large Ginger Girls pen. At first the boys were unsure about the large open space and hid in their pigloo but it did not take long for greed to get the better of these two large fellows and they are now rushing out for food just as they did in their old pen. The exercise will do them good.

Farewell dear little Diamond, gone to meet up with your family at the Rainbow Bridge and to find friend Chester, the Jolly Rodent, who escorted her to the Piggy Olympics. She will finally get to hear his soliloquy from the Cavy Cavaret.

I still see her every morning as I have her pigture as the start icon on my laptop.

Penny and the Piggyfriends.