Miss Mocha & &.

We finally settled on a full name for Miss Mocha. Her "kennel name" is Miss Mocha-Choca-Marion Asterisk von Munch. Ampersand has formally adopted her as her little sister, to teach her how things work here. I'm glad she's taking care of confused Miss Munch, because things are still very scary for her.

Our Sandy has a lot of sympathy for her, coming from a similar background and having to find her way in a whole new household - it's a daunting experience for any little lizard. She's even gentle with bouncy, boisterous, clueless little Hyphen - Kyle would have clouted him one by now!

Mind you, Sandy doesn't make things easy for Tsam. She doesn't play to the rules he's used to, and now he's all confused. Kyle was easy to bob at and show off to, but Sandy looks at him funny and raises an eyebrow instead of bowing and waving.

This does something very strange to his brain and now he gets baffled when he sees her - a bit like your average Joe Bloggs meeting Natalie Portman.

For example, yesterday he got so het up that he ran round the side of the tank to bob at her... and was thrown when all he found was the wooden wall of the tank there. (It's always been there.)

But today, he really fried his grey matter. He was antsying to come out and stretch his legs, so I put his slope out for him. As he bounced out, he caught sight of Sandy, looking all citrussy alluring in her tank. He bobbed furiously, got so worked up that he did a frantic little dance and then SHOT along his slope. Only to come to a very muddled halt.

Instead of charging DOWN the slope to show off to her, he accidentally ran UP the slope -back into his own tank.

It has made his brain hurt, so he's gone back to bed to think about it.