For those of you who don't know, this is Bella. She is the solitary living creature on this earth who depends on me for life. Poor thing. Over recent months, Bella has become even more temperamental than usual. She's always been a drama queen (I wonder where she gets that from?) but while previous dramas have usually involved her escaping (despite her home being the rodent equivalent of fort knox) now it's the opposite. She's taken to stopping movement all together. Now even the smallest change in temperature sends her into hibernation. Or as we like to call it 'eventual death'. Yep, Bubs is the Britney Spears of hamsters. If you don't give her attention, she curls up in a ball and plays dead and you wonder how long it'll be until her dreams become reality.

See hibernation isn't very good for hamsters, so I've spent a lot of time cooing, placing her by radiators and trying to make her lick drops of water off my fingers. Bella has been in and out of hibernation for the past few weeks, causing me and my housemate to wonder how long she had left...but yesterday - by moving her to the kitchen table, where apparently the temperature is a bit more to her liking - she finally came back to life. For how long? Only time will tell. At just over 2, she's an old lady now.

You'd never know it from the way she plays up for the camera, though, would you?