The end comes swift

Our bearded dragon lizard died suddenly on Saturday. We had been caring for him plenty over the last month, taking him to the vet for tests (he was pronounced healthy which was odd really), changing his environment, enticing him with as many delicious foods as possible and all the time giving him water to drink on the side of his mouth. But to no avail. At the around 4pm he decided that life was not that easy, curled up onto his basking log and just stopped breathing. It was all very sudden. One moment alive, next moment dead.

Needless to say we held a ceremony fit for a king today and my four children filed past his cardboard box coffin and said a few words about him. A bit like when Leonid Brezhnev died before as was buried at the Kremlin with throngs of people flowing past his coffin to pay their respects. It is interesting how different people cope with death in different ways. My daughters were upset, my eldest son had the giggles and my youngest son, who's pet he was, wanted to understand in detail how he had died, which got more and more complicated as we tried to provide some plausible reasons. Then he broke down in tears. Now when I write a top ten count down list of the best features in a product, I will have to turn to the tortoise for inspiration.