English: One of my Ferrets, his name is Cincin (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

This will be a very short post but I felt I couldn’t keep this little gem all to myself.  This Sunday has been designated as Admin Sunday – all the Christmas decorations are down, bills are paid, washing is done etc etc.  All very dull until that is I came to book Eurotunnel tickets online…

You know when you read something online that you cannot believe is real and you have to check mentally whether it is the 1st April just in case…well, if you would like one of those moments can I suggest you check out the Eurotunnel website.  The booking process is much as you would expect (very efficient I might add) until you come to the section dedicated to extra costs that are applied if you are bringing your pets.  Now, it is a truth universally acknowledged that we, Brits, are very fond of our dogs – no surprises there and indeed cats come a pretty close second.  What about the French – as far as I know they are not adverse to “les chiens” or “les chats” either?  So one would be quite unsurprised to find a premium for bringing our little furry friends back and forth across the Channel.  However, Eurotunnel do not just charge a premium for dogs and cats – oh no, no, no.  What else you might well ask? Well, I can only speak for the Brits but I suppose at a stretch you might wish to take your hamster or your rabbit with you (I’m not really sure why to be honest but there is no accounting for taste) but I bet your pet ferret would not spring to mind…

Yes, for some wholly unknown reason the Eurotunnel website asks you whether you will be bringing any pets with you and specifically dogs, cats or ferrets.  Yes, I repeat, ferrets.  Now, admittedly I do not profess to be a pet expert (and indeed I am allergic to almost every animal known to man (including some humans)) but I have wracked my brains and have been utterly unable to name one person I know who keeps a ferret as a pet.  I suspect that even if I did know someone who kept a ferret as pet, I would be fairly surprised if they wished to take it with them to continental Europe.  I feel like I must be missing the point here and I would be very grateful if anyone could enlighten me as to why Eurotunnel are so specific in their pet premiums – dogs, cats and ferrets.

In the meantime I shall continue to try and ‘ferret’ out what information I can to solve this rather peculiar mystery…