Frogs, turtles, spiders

Frogs and turtles provoke a deranged affection in me. I have a Jellycat Ricky Rainfrog bag. I also wanted the Timmy Turtle, but my sense was that the person I requested this from didn't entirely approve of him. Note, I cannot prove this, but I think it is down to the colour he is outside of his shell (said person has expostulated about 'industrial toilet green,' which maybe they might consider him? Who knows). I think I'll just have to buy him for myself and OH GOD, I SEE THAT THERE IS A GNOME VERSION OF HIM NOW. 

OK, on reflection, I feel that the gnome version of Timmy is somewhat insulting to his dignity (I wouldn't want a fucking beard and full set of clothes if I was crawling along the ground day-to-day), so it has been summarily dismissed. I have however bought the regular Timmy Turtle bag as it was still available. NOW I CAN PUT HIM ON MY BACK AND PRETEND THAT HE WILL OUTLIVE ME, WHILST PONDERING GRUMPILY ABOUT THE STATE OF THE WORLD. He looks as though he could be angry, disapproving, despairing... Aren't we all, Timmy? Aren't we all, these days?

 On a similar note, Duolingo includes a character called Junior who is an 8-year-old boy, sometimes accompanied by his frog, Rosina. I cannot find ANY images of her during a cursory DuckDuckGo search, which is yet another indictment of Duolingo alongside its CEO being a complete arsehole, it failing to recognise German pronunciations of German words (honestly, just TRY saying 'Euro' or 'U-Bahnstation' with anything other than an American accent and see what happens) and now it refusing to recognise me saying the word 'disparait' in French. Rosina is a breakout star in the making and I frankly am happier whenever I get a glimpse of her (NOT OFTEN ENOUGH). 

As was alluded to in my previous post, I am a D&D participant and I went to a games shop to buy dice for this purpose. I felt extremely awkward and was despairing of the selection... until I spotted some that had little frogs or turtles inside them. Now, this didn't entirely resolve the wider issue of dubious colour-combinations and frankly lurid shade choices, but then my eye snagged upon some blue poison frog dice:

Was it love? Well, I was also eyeing up some teal octopus dice:

 JUST LOOK AT THAT TEAL. Reader, we left with both, which was good because while the frogs were definitely coming with me, LOOK AT THAT TEAL.

On a less commercial note, I have successfully rescued 2 spiders this week, which is always a wonderful feeling. I thoroughly enjoy how the little jumpers are almost reckless in relation to their larger brethren, especially the ones who fold themselves into cracks. It's mesmerising to watch them push themselves forward, the long legs unfolding outwards as if they are magician's assistants emerging from a trick suitcase. Rescuing any from a sink is always a fraught situation - they skitter about with panic as I desperately try to sweet-talk them into climbing onto the piece of paper/knife/other relatively flat flotsam I could find nearby. I feel terrible when they pull back one or two of their legs after being set down elsewhere, as if taking a moment to regroup over the horror they have just experienced. Then, when they run free away from the path of drowning (I accidentally typed 'bath', haha, oh dear), I'm happy.