I AM OTTER

One of the things I am best at is definitely colouring in. I know this because Otter Keeper is always really impressed whenever I show him anything I’ve done. Colouring in is like reading, it can be REALLY hard, but the more you practice the better you get. Me and Teddy try to aim for a minimum of 2 to 3 hours of colouring in each day. When I’m bigger I might be a professional “colourer in”, then I’d get to colour really important things like maps… or adverts.

Anyway the other day something happened that had never happened before. We were busy colouring a page from our favourite colouring book… it was quite a complex picture (Teddy couldn’t help and was just watching) when all of a sudden we ran out of colours! We had actually used them all! Someone who isn’t very experienced at colouring in would probably give up and get quite frustrated at this point. But instead, I had the best idea ever! Me and Teddy would just invent a new colour.

We ran the idea by Otter Keeper (we like to do this, as sometimes he has been known to give useful advice) but NOT today. He said it was ‘impossible to invent a new colour Otter’ as they had already all been invented. How silly of him, that’s probably what they said to the person who invented fluorescent highlighters before they existed. Fluorescent colours are magic – even Otter Keeper can’t explain them and he can explain almost anything.

We started off with our paints and mixed the red with the blue, this gave us purple which was a great start. We then mixed in some yellow which made a brownish type of colour which was also very promising. Me and Teddy both felt this brown was a really good brown. We tried mixing more colours and the brown changed to a slightly different brown. We realised we were really quite good at making browns.

After a long time mixing we got a bit bored of making browns. It was then that Teddy cleverly suggested we needed to “think outside of the box”. This is what Otter Keeper says sometimes when he’s trying to think of a solution to a difficult problem (It’s also a good thing to say if you’re making a secret den inside a cardboard box and get stuck thinking what to do next).

After a while of thinking outside of the box we realised it didn’t really help. However seeing as we’d been thinking about boxes we decided to leave the new colour till another day and transfer our efforts into making a spaceship out of an old shoebox . Otter Keeper gave it to us last week and me and Teddy have been wondering what to do with it for a while.  If you’re having trouble mixing a new colour, making a spaceship is a particularly good thing to do instead.

I’ll probably be tied up with my spaceship project for a while now. Teddy says he will try and find time to continue work on our new colour next week (I think he feels a bit guilty because he made several bad decisions during the mixing process – technically it’s mostly his fault we didn’t discover a new colour).

This week we watched a programme about a man that set himself a challenge to do a really long walk in the Antartic. The man got very cold because there was LOTS of snow (this is probably because someone had left a very big freezer door open and let all the snow escape (freezers are where snow comes from). But anyway me and Teddy decided we wanted to do a challenge and we had an exellent idea for what we would challenge… Bedtime! Me and Teddy are going to stay up ALL NIGHT.

Staying up all night is apparently really hard. Otter Keeper explained to me that in his opinion Otters (and Teddy’s) aren’t really designed to stay up all night. I politely pointed out to Otter Keeper that with the right training anything is possible. He laughed (he sometimes does this when i’m right about things)

What follows is a step by step account (the highs and the lows) of mine and Teddy’s epic journey.

6.31 We’re making preparations and gathering the last of the supplies. We are however missing a wafer bar. Teddy says he hasn’t eaten it but I’m not so sure. I don’t know if Teddy appreciates the magnitude of what we are about to do. He had better start taking this seriously.

8.30 We are now approaching usual bedtime. Everything is going well, both me and Teddy are in high spirits.

9.00 Otter Keeper says it’s now half an hour past our bedtime. Our training and preperation must be paying off because everything feels normal (it’s just been going on a bit longer than usual?)

9.38 Teddy says he’s starting to feel tired. I’ve given him some juice and now he’s wide awake.

10.04 It’s getting really quite late. Otter Keeper has been explaining to us just how long the nightime is. Teddy is finding it hard to deal with.

10.45 After refusing the challenge himself Otter Keeper has now gone to bed. The true nature of the task at hand is now sinking in. Otter Keeper has let us keep the light on which was kind of him – we miss him quite a lot already actually.

11.03 Teddy wants to go to sleep….. I’ve made him eat a wafer bar…

11.15 It’s very quiet here in the living room at this time, me and Teddy have been talking about how we are probably the first Otter or Teddy to have ever been up this late before. That is quite a special feeling. It feels good to be doing something important (like the man did on TV).

11.20 Teddy is having problems .. he’s being grumpy and keeps mumbling about going to to bed. I’m singing to him to keep up moral.

11.21 Feeding Teddy wafer bars as fast as possible, this makes it harder for him to talk about going to bed.

11.22 I’ve given Teddy the blanket to keep him warm. We’re both thinking about Otter Keeper lots.

11.25 It appears Teddy is asleep.

11.26 It’s very hard to stay awake.

11.28 I think it’s almost morning…it can’t be much longer now.

11.29 I’ve never noticed how soft Teddy is when you lay on… him …..

This week I made a new friend, his name is Monty… Monty is a moth. If you’ve never met a Moth before they are really great, they’re a bit like butterflies but without the colour and not quite as good (which is a bit of a shame). I think Monty would look very pretty if Otter Keeper would allow me to colour him in (he said I can’t!?)

Monty does have a bit of a problem though, he really REALLY likes our lamp. He likes it so much in fact that he’s actually been flying around it ever since we met him. Otter Keeper says this is normal behaviour for a moth.. and seeing as Monty is the only moth I know… I will have to conceed that Otter Keeper is right.

If you think about it, it’s actually quite understandable to run around something you like if you really REALLY like it. I love the park and often run around it… which is sort of the same thing. They also have rides in the park that go round and round … and that’s quite similar also.

You shouldn’t think about these things too much because it’s science and science can get really confusing. But the bottom line is if you like something…you should probably run around it so that everyone knows how much you like it.

I’m off with Teddy to go and run around Otter Keeper now because we really like him. Somehow I think this may annoy him but it serves him right because of what he said:

“you can’t colour in moths Otter, they are far too delicate.”

Otter Keeper KNOWS how good I am at colouring  in (I hardly ever go over the lines anymore – and if I do it’s usually down to bad advice from Teddy) – so it’s just him being mean again!