Bunny Love

The day I've been dreading has arrived: my bunny is no longer scared of me. He was a terrified baby when we first got him, wouldn't even sniff in our direction, a trembling ball of fluff. It didn't take long for him to make this (and us) his territory. He keeps an olfactory register of everything we own.

If there's fresh laundry on the clotheshorse, a new pair of shoes in the hall, a sweetie wrapper unseen on the floor, he sniffs it out and investigates. Usually he tries to eat it and most of my day is spent chasing him to recover things that wouldn't be kind to his bunny bowels. Until now, he's been a little bit scared of me. Not a lot but just enough for a shout of "stop it!" to send him racing back to his box and flop down, defeated.

Then one day a few weeks ago the Teacher and I were waiting at a bus stop after a 7 mile walk through the snow from my parents' when we noticed that Bunny was shivering. I buttoned him inside my coat and that's when he realised, I was never going to hurt him or put him in a stew, (however much I might threaten to).

Now there's nothing I can do to stop him stealing my bird's food, squeezing behind the tv in search of lovely chewy wires, nibbling unworn Kurt Geiger shoes or eating the Christmas tree...