There are 34 places in the world named Bristol (most in the United States, but also in Peru, Canada, Jamaica and Costa Rica), but last night Horatio arrived in the English flavoured version. This is Horatio’s 1st major city experience since starting his hike 49 days ago and will be one of the few major cities Horatio will pass through.
Bristol is famous for a number of things but non cooler than Concorde! Concorde was put together in two locations one of which was Flinton Filton (thanks to Ben W for pointing out my unacceptable error!) in Bristol where the nose, rear fuselage, fin and wingtips were assembled. It could fly at an amazing 1,330mph ( 2,140 km/h Mach 2.02), Concorde was retired and made its final flight to Flinton Filton in November 2003 (pictured).
Horatio loves nothing more than a little aviation history, and decided to visit the air museum at Flinton for a little look at Concorde, he’s a hamster of few words but he managed a muted mumble at the sight of the impressive plane:
Well our badges have arrived, the 1st 5 emailers in the competition have been notified so check your inboxes to see if you’ve won! If you want a badge but haven’t won then you can buy them HERE
Last night Horatio passed by the town of Cheddar in Somerset, famous for its cheese! Us brits love our cheddar - 204,251 Tonnes of chedder were bought in the UK in 2008 - thats a lot of cheese!! There is only one remaining cheese producer in Cheddar which is a bit sad really seen as though it originated there.
What’s that sayng? “When in Rome, do as the Romans”? Well of course Horatio couldn’t say no to a slab of cheese during his hiking last night which explains the strange noises coming from his cage today, he should have known better, cheese before bed = nightmares!
I’m too good to you guys! I have been wondering if Horatio prefers a specific day of the week to run on, and the results are actually quite interesting. He’s run his furthest on a weekend, but on average he doesn’t really run more on any day, they are pretty even:
The interesting part comes from how much his running varies day by day, his distance varies the most on weekends (blue) and the least on weekdays (orange) particularly Wednesdays when he is at his most consistent (this is a box plot, the lines protruding from the boxes represent the upper and lower values):
I do have a theory why this is; on weekends it varies how much we are in the house disturbing his sleep during the day, sometimes we aren’t in at all and on other occasions we are in a lot. On weekdays we are much more consistent due to work. This change to his routine on a weekend must disrupt his running somewhat. We only have 6 weeks of data to go on, so we’ll revisit these stats when we have more data.
To help spread the word about Hamster Hike we’ve had some badges made, they are of course awesome and available to buy here. The 1st 5 people who fill in and send their email below get one free! yes FREE!
Winners will be announced Wednesday - and who know’s how many vistors we have you could be in the 1st 5!!
Another week has gone by, and it’s been a big one for the site! We were featured on a load of American radio stations as a ‘quirky’ link, it brought loads of new people to the site so welcome and we hope you stick around for some hamster fun. We are also in talks with a large pet social network site with a possibility for some integration into their main site, so watch this space!
I thought I’d stick a picture up of the whole family this week, Bryony, Horatio and Me. This was taken after we’d got back from a day or so away from the little scamp so we had to get him out for a BIG fuss! So what’s he done this week? (hit the read link!)
There aren’t many free days left in the competition to guess when Horatio will finish his hike, but there are a few, so get guessing (a few in early September and late June are a good bet). Horatio was checking out one of the prizes just now - the wodent wheel that has just arrived from the states! If you want to win this and other mystery prizes then check out the calendar for dates that are taken (in red) and fill in your details and guesses! Enter Here
Horatio spent his 1st night alone on thursday after both Bryony and I were away, we stocked him up and food and water and bid him a teary goodbye. Horatio wasn’t phased by this at all, he nonchalantly looked on as we locked the door and headed on our separate way. After all he had sustenance and his trusty wheel to keep him occupied. During the lonely night while hiking away a bump, quickly followed by a crash, interrupted his running, fearing a Home Alone style incident Horatio quickly prepared a boobie trap for any would be burglars.
Thanks for all your entries to the recent poll to guess Horatio’s weight. Here’s how the votes panned out:
I have to say that on the whole people were at least in the ball park (no one guessed as heavy as a can of beans - Horatio was pleased about this, he knows the internet adds 10lbs and didn’t want rumors spreading about his flabby jowls!). He actually weighs about 75g, the same as a Sony Ericsson W350i. We’ll be monitoring his weight every week to include in the weekly stats, so watch this space.
There are 34 places in the world named Bristol (most in the United States, but also in Peru, Canada, Jamaica and Costa Rica), but last night Horatio arrived in the English flavoured version. This is Horatio’s 1st major city experience since starting his hike 49 days ago and will be one of the few major cities Horatio will pass through.
