Ani’s Advent 2020! Introducing Roscoe and Friends, including Jemima Pett.

Dear Santa,

I’m a bit sleepy this morning, so I borrowed her pillow. She’s been up a lot of the night and we got to talking. She tells me that she hasn’t always just had dogs. I am aware that she has had birds… and even cats…and she still has fish… but did you know she has also had mice, a rat, hamsters… and guinea pigs?

Her first one wasn’t really a guineau pig though. He was a leprechaun. One of the Little People. He wanted to see the world and travel a bit, so came back from Ireland with her grandparents after a trip there. But as Little People cannot leave Irish soil in their own form, he changed into a guinea pig and stayed that way for years. Or sp her gandad told her.

Another guinea pig was Fred… a French rosetted female that thought she was a kangaroo and hopped everywhere. She was pretty much free range and spent a lot of time wandering around the house avoiding feet.

Now she just has me and the fish… but the birds come in through the door to see here when I don’t guard her well enough. Especially the robin… I’ve had to do a double take sometimes when we have the Christmas Tree up as we have a robin on there.

But we don’t have any guinea pigs… so we are glad to have Roscoe and his family over today…

Much love,

Ani xxx

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Meet Roscoe and Family

Hey, there, Ani!

Thanks for inviting us into your Advent calendar. I’ve never been in an Advent Calendar before. I don’t expect many of your readers have seen a guinea pig in an Advent Calendar either. I thought I say a bit about how we celebrate about now.

First off, we have a party. Well, before the party we have presents, and have our Christmas photos taken – with hats. Sometimes it’s under the Christmas tree, but it probably won’t be this year. There’s no room for it.

You see this year’s been right strange. I’m glad it’s nearly over, to be fair.

The year started with the four of us, Bertie, Biggles, Neville and me, in our nice run in the big house in Norfolk. We had already been on holiday in Hampshire, three times to a very nice cottage, and just before Christmas we had a week in our new house. It was right bare. Mam put up some Christmas cards and a wreath on the front door just for show. Then we had Christmas as usual in our big house, with presents and Christmas pudding and everything. Guinea pig Christmas pudding, not human stuff. Couldn’t eat that, it would make me ill.

Then came the big transfer to Hampshire. We came down for a couple of weeks in January, then Mam left us in Norfolk and came for a couple of days in February, or was that the other way round? Anyhow, our cages were here and our big run was in Norfolk. Then the builders came and Mam took us away for most of the time because they’d be very noisy, but something happened and they were late. Mam got all stressed and eventually we had to stay here when the builders were finishing and the men moving all the furniture in. It was pretty noisy.

The next day everything went quiet. Mam told us we were in lockdown, but thank goodness we were all safe together in our new home. Well, we were fine, and in our cages, and Bertie got a ramp so he could run in and out of his (he jumped out, so Mam went with the flow). Then Mam built our runs again, and we got all settled.

And summer came, and we had a party for VE day, although it wasn’t much of a party because Bertie died that morning, all of a sudden, and we were all very sad. We settled down without him, and Mam tried to find some new pigs from the nearest rescue, but she couldnt get a home visit or something. And after months of this, she went back to Auntie Sophie in Norfolk and brought Ludo and Locksley home.

Locksley’s a baby, and growing fast, like babies do. Ludo is young, and traumatised from his experiences. He’s taking a long time to get used to things here, but he’s started to enjoy his cuddles. I have no idea how Mam’s going to do our Christmas party, because we usually all come together for it.

So I hope you’ve had a better year than us, although we’re all safe together, so we’re lucky. Except for Bertie, who we miss, but were glad we’ve given Locksley and Ludo a good home.

If you can give a home to another animal, please go to a rescue and ask – there are so many animals homeless through no fault of themselves. They’d love a nice home with you.

Here’s to a happier 2021!
love Roscoe

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About Roscoe
I’m a white semi-longhaired guinea pig, and I was born on Tyneside, up North. I’ve lived with Neville for most of my life, and we were left in a flat when our family moved out, and I got very upset. The North East Guinea Pig Rescue found us, and after a while, we went by train to Norfolk with our new Mam. We’ve lived with Mam, Biggles, and Bertie since 2017. Mam reckons I must be six years old by now, which is pretty old for a guinea pig. But Colman, who refused to wear the Christmas hat for his photo, lived till he was eight, so I’m planning on beating his record. I blog each week on our website, George’s Guinea Pig World, which George started in May 2009.
georgesgpworld.uk
we’re also on Facebook at Georgesgpworld

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About Jemima Pett, Roscoe’s Two-Legs

I’ve been an independent author now for over ten years, with fifteen titles published, and plenty more in the notebook waiting to be written.

Most of my books have been for middle grade (children 9-12+) readers simply because their characters are based on my pets. The main series seems to have attracted mostly adults who like clean mystery adventures with a touch of fantasy.

My favourite genre is science fiction, but I also like other aspects of speculative fiction. My aim is to use my environmental training to create some really interesting speculative fiction to help inspire transitions in the real world.

I now live in Hampshire with my guinea pigs, the first of whom, Fred, George, Victor and Hugo, provided the inspiration for the Princelings stories.  Where Pete and the Swede came from is another story!

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Find and Follow Jemima

Website   Blog   Pinterest   Goodreads   Facebook    Twitter

Youtube    Instagram    Amazon Author Page    Kobo    Barnes and Noble

Smashwords and Apple Books

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Books by Jemima Pett  available via Amazon

Kobo, Barnes and Noble,  Smashwords and Apple Books

The Princelings of the East

Suitable for children age 10 to 110, The Princelings of the East started a trilogy, then turned into a series, relating the adventures of unlikely heroes Fred and George. Two innocents abroad, they solve problems caused by unintended consequences, commercial greed, and blind prejudice—and still find time to engage in troubled love affairs and nearly blow themselves up with their own inventions.

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A feudal land with advanced technology that runs on strawberry juice? The Princelings world is not much like our own, except for adventure, bravery, double-dealing, and people working with their brains to try to improve life for all.
The first three books form a trilogy, and then the stories venture out into other parts of the Realms. We meet characters both charming and nefarious, unreliable and over-confident. We venture from north to south, from west back to east, and end up more or less full circle. Time and flying machines feature strongly, as do stories within stories.
With chapter illustrations by the author, this is a heartwarming set of mysteries with colourful characters suitable (in most cases) for eight years and up.

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The Veridian Series

Big Pete and the Swede, more correctly known as Pete Garcia and Lars Nilsson, are asteroid miners in the far reaches of the galaxy.  The asteroid belt of the Viridian System is rich in orichalcum, a rare, very useful, and therefore extremely precious metal, which everyone wants.  The Imperium, a dominating oligarchy which masquerades as a benevolent democratic institution, wants it badly.  And after years of being happy just to trade it and leave others to do the dirty work, it wants to control it, like it does other useful things.

Planets that produce grain abundantly?  Take them over. Planets with the raw materials for plasglas? Turn them into manufactories.

The only organisation that seems to have any hope of opposing the Imperium is the Federation, and they aren’t strong enough to be everywhere at once. Besides, they have their own type of nasty dictator…

Book 1: The Perihelix

It doesn’t come as much of a surprise to find Pete and Lars hold secrets of their own.  Each has been too closely mixed up with Imperium business in the past, and they want nothing to do with it.  But their pasts catch up with them, and in the first book The Perihelix, they are drawn into a chase around the Alpha Quadrant to find pieces of the Perihelix, a legendary weapon which will free the enslaved and deliver defeat to the enemies of the righteous.  Or something like that.

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Book 2: Curved Space to Corsair

Big Pete and the Swede, together with Maggie and Dolores, who is now a free woman, take a holiday in the miners’ new spacecraft while some building work goes on at their villa.  “Maybe ten weeks will do it,” Maggie estimates.

Dolores is training to qualify as a space pilot. Pete has had a call to his home planet, Corsair, to save them from disaster, so they set off in that direction to give Dolores more space hours, only to slight error of course which leaves them in a horrible mess.  Meanwhile the Imperium declares war on the Federation, while a little personal business by one of the senators leads him off in the direction of the Viridian System to start a canny land grab.

Guidance: 18+

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Book 3: Zanzibar’s Rings

Status: writing first draft

Concerned that the asteroid belt might not hold enough orichalcum to keep them going, the Viridian System elders suggest Pete and the Swede check out the fifth planet, Zanzibar, which has twenty-four moons and a slender ring system (much like Saturn).

With the Imperium senator still sniffing around, there is trouble for Dolores who inadvertently becomes his personal chauffeuse. With the refugees from Pete’s home planet needing more resources to help them rebuild their civilisation, there are enough sparks to fuel a fire—and then the Federation and Imperium arrive to argue about the wealth of Zanzibar’s Rings.

For these and other books by Jemima Pett,

please visit and follow her author pages.