(Short Music) #7 ANDRE THE FERRET DISCOVERS UNCONDITIONAL LOVE - Jasons Bed Time Story Time

Hello and welcome to jasonnewland.com. My name is Jason Newland and this is Jason's Storytime. I think, is it Jason's Storytime? Anyway, please only listen when you can safely close your eyes because this is a nice bedtime story. I think Bedtime Storytime would be a better title but I might change it when I actually start a podcast just for these recordings but I'm not going to do that yet.

I'll wait until I've maybe done a few more. Now, this story is going to be about Andre the Ferret. Yes, and as I tell you this story, Andre the Ferret is actually in my arms having cuddles and kisses with his daddy.

Aren't you? Give Daddy kisses. I love you very much. Yes, I do.

So, this is going to be the first story in the adventures of Andre the Ferret. So, there'll be a few different ones. I'm not quite sure what this is going to be called.

Andre, stop doing that, you cheeky little monkey. What have I eaten? Oh, Andre, what have you eaten? Anyway, this is going to be, what should we call this story, Andre? He's going to whisper it to me and I'm going to tell it to you. This is going to be, oh, Andre the Ferret, the day that Andre was adopted or something like that, or the day that Andre went to his new forever home.

Yeah, yeah, it's a nice one. So, we're going to start now. So, get yourself nice and relaxed and Andre's going to sleep as well in my arms as I tell him his story.

He gets very bored when I talk to him, very calm, his eyes closed. I just stroke his face, stroke underneath his cheeks, he likes that. Sometimes I like to tickle his nose and I'll do that now but he's now licking my finger.

Yeah, and I just stroke his face and he, sometimes he pushes me away because he's had enough. It's enough of that now, thanks. I'll let you know when I want you to do it again.

So, now he's just, he's gripping my thumb with one of his feet and, oh, you wanted to give daddy another kisses, didn't you? You can't get enough kisses today, can you? No? Is it because you're so lovely? Is it because you love your daddy? He said, no, it's because my daddy's so needy. Oh, don't be rude, don't be rude to your daddy. So it was, it's quite a nice day in September, five years ago and Andre the Ferret was visiting.

He didn't really know where he was going but he was with his brother and technically they were kind of twin brothers but he had about 17 brothers and sisters so none of them really looked the same apart from they were ferrets so they did have similarities. Anyway, Andre, he didn't really know what was going on. He was in this place and he was with his little brother and they were running around in this, this new place.

They didn't know what it was but they, they liked it. They had a little competition to see who could, who could poo in the weirdest place and then suddenly this big person picked him up. He picked Andre up.

He was this big person who had this big, looked like he had a ferret on his, on his chin. He picked him up and Andre didn't like it and he just bit him, kept biting and biting and biting. Get off, get off, get off, bite, bite, bite, off, get off, get off, get off.

Mummy, Mummy. But his mummy wasn't anywhere to be seen. He didn't know what to do.

He just didn't. He was very confused because suddenly, you know, after being with his mummy and with all his brothers and sisters, suddenly he was there with just one of his brothers and he couldn't understand it. It just didn't, didn't make sense.

However, he was no longer in a cage. He could run around. By the way, his background sounds of Andre eating, I suppose a story about a ferret's, you know, if any background sounds or a ferret eating fits in, it's probably with this one.

It didn't quite fit in with Humpty Dumpty, but you know, mind you, he might, yeah, unless he was eating an egg, eating the star of the story. So Andre was, he's like a bit confused. Anyway, before he knows it, he's back in the cage with his little brother.

And he's, he's taken up these steps to another place that looked kind of similar to the one he was in before. But it smelled of farts, foul, really stale fart smell. He didn't really understand.

And he said to his brother, Oi brother. Yes, yes, Andre said his brother. I didn't think we'd ever go anywhere that smelled worse than us.

And his brother said, I know, I can't wait to get out of here. This is awful. Smells like months, months worth of farts all contained into some kind of pickle jar and it just opened all at once.

And Andre said, Oh, that was quite poetic. And his brother said, Yeah, I think that's where I'm going to go in my life. I quite like the idea of writing poetry, either that or maybe become a singer.

Or maybe a lollipop man. And Andre said, that's so silly. How are the cars going to see you? How are you going to hold a big lollipop up? And Andre's brother said, Oi, don't, don't even think about trying to squash my dreams.

And Andre said, you know, when you said the word squash, you had a really lispy sound there. Did you know that? And Andre's brother said, you're really winding me up now. If you keep this up, I'm going to have to do some karate on you.

And Andre said, Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Others have tried. Others have failed.

What do you think you're going to do, eh? And they both had a little punch up and stuff like they did. That's it, Andre, make a bit more noise. That's a good boy.

As we speak, Andre has decided to rub himself over everything. I want to say rub himself, rub a particular part of his body over as many surfaces as possible. I mean, he's hardly marking his territory.

You know, this is his territory. He doesn't have to mark it. Unless of course, having the bird here, he's had a little bird here.

Maybe that disrupted his, the smell of the place. Anyway, him and his brother, Andre and his brother, they stayed upstairs in this new flat during the night. And they were fighting all night long.

They thought it was funny. They were drinking, they had a party, they were drinking pop, eating cheese sandwiches, you know, just general stuff, dancing and stuff, listening to ABBA. Because a lot of people don't realize that nothing excites a ferret more than hearing the beginning of Dancing Queen.

There's something special, it really just gets their, gets their joints going. I mean, when I say joints, wasn't that kind of party? I'm talking about their legs and their, you know, ankles and elbows and stuff. And it's a kid story.

And they were so noisy, that the man, they didn't really know who he was. He went downstairs and knocked on the door of his neighbor and said, you have to take one of them back. I can't have two.

The two are just too much. They're just nonstop. And his neighbor took one back laughing.

He said, okay. The other, Andre's brother already had another home to go to, another forever home. And he was going to be taken there that day anyway.

But the man upstairs, let's just say, I'll call him Jason, just for daddy. Let's say called daddy, Andre's daddy. And he, after that, Andre kind of calmed down a little bit.

And, uh, Andre's daddy picked him up and every time he touched him, Andre tried to eat his hand. I mean, he really bit hard, right through to the bone, with his sharp, sharp teeth. And Andre enjoyed every moment of it.

He found it hilarious that he was able to make something, you know, another, like a human being that was a thousand times bigger than him, cry like a little baby. And no one else knew about the crying, apart from Andre. And now everybody listening to this.

So Andre wasn't madly impressed with being in this new home. First of all, he missed his brother. And he missed his family.

He did. And he, he couldn't see any benefit. He couldn't see a reason why he couldn't be with, why wasn't he allowed to stay with his family? Why wasn't he allowed to stay with his brother? And he didn't understand it.

And he thought that he'd never be happy. How could he be happy? You know, how could this human being give him what he needed? And he tested that theory by clamping onto his new daddy's nipple and no joy there, nothing. Well, it was the milk, that kind of milk.

It wasn't, wasn't white. It was red. Then he discovered it was blood.

And his daddy wasn't too pleased with that either. That really happened. And I actually did it while I was on camera, actually, was making a video and he, I think I had a dressing gown on and he clamped right onto me, me boobie.

I mean, you know, it ruined my hands. And he, he didn't know what to do, didn't know what to make of it. And he felt a bit lonely.

But whenever he felt a bit lonely, suddenly this big, massive face with, he didn't realise it was a nose at the time, but he didn't, he thought it was some kind of spaceship landing. And he did it like right in his face, like massive. And then his big hands picking him up.

He's like, get off me, get off me, stranger danger, stranger danger. Doesn't get older, keep saying it. And he, he did, he just, he was listening to himself.

He was listening to his own doubts in his own mind, saying, oh, no one is going to love me. This person doesn't love me. You know, I've been abandoned and all this stuff.

But then when he stopped listening to his own thoughts, and it took him a few days, when he started listening to what was going on in reality, when he started listening to what his new daddy was saying, he started to hear different things. So instead of hearing, Andre, your daddy kisses. Now various sounds.

He started to realise he was hearing words like love, sentences like, I love you, Andre. Daddy loves you." So he went from not believing that he could be loved to hearing it. So he could hear it, but he still didn't believe it.

But he could hear it, which was a step forward. So he started to think, well, this person's telling me that he loves me, and that he's my daddy, and he's going to look after me, and he's going to be with me, and this is my forever home. So that one, Andre decided there, and then he's going to test it.

Because Andre had recently, you know, he's quite into psychotherapy, psychology, psychological theory, and the idea of unconditional love. He didn't really believe it existed. So he'd thought he'd test it, really test it.

Especially as he knew that, you know, in reality, he hadn't been given birthed by his daddy. Daddy didn't give birth to him, didn't put him out. He knew that he had a mother, it was, you know, different species, he knew that.

So he didn't actually believe that he could be loved by someone that didn't give birth to him. He didn't believe it. And especially unconditional love, that's not possible.

That's how he felt at the time. So this was sort of, he had this same feeling, probably going into October. So being with his daddy, new daddy, for about a week and a half, two weeks.

So he thought, I'm going to do, I'm going to test my daddy. I'm going to destroy everything in this flat, starting with the sofa. Let's test this unconditional love that you've got.

And his daddy, his daddy didn't know anything about this. He was, he was unaware of being tested. And then it was, I mean, he'd had relationships before.

It wasn't the first time he'd been tested without realising it. And he, his daddy was just doing his best. I mean, at this point, there was a point, I think it was about a weekend before he decided to test him.

He had already decided to not bite him anymore. Because he kept coming up to Andre, kept coming up to him and picking him up. Andre would bite him, struggle, get off me, stranger danger, stranger danger, you know, all that stuff.

And he'd run away. Yeah, his daddy would still keep coming, still picking him up and kissing him. And still kept coming back, still kept coming back.

At this point, he was feeding, his daddy was feeding Andre by hand. So he used to have the cat food in a tiny little spoon. And he'd feed it to him.

So Andre would eat the food off the spoon, because he'd only gone from being breastfed to solid food, you know, a week or so before he, he moved into his new home, his forever home. And Andre started to think, you know what, he's doing all this for me. I'm giving nothing back.

All I'm doing is wiping me bum on his pillow. That's probably the nicest thing I've done. So and it was one Saturday, it was a Saturday evening.

Andre was, he'd made, he'd completely destroyed the sofa anyway, partly, but not completely. He'd made a little den underneath the sofa, so he climbed up. And he kind of, he was hiding from his daddy, and looked through.

And he could see his daddy was sitting on a chair in his dressing gown, drinking a cow lager, watching television. And in that moment, he was thinking to himself, Andre thought, why is my daddy not coming over here and cuddling me? Oh, perhaps he's lost interest. Maybe, maybe he's, he doesn't love me anymore.

And then he started thinking, well, I've not really given much back, have I, apart from the present of wiping me bum on his pillow. But that was, that was a nice gift. That's what I thought anyway.

That's what Andre thought. So he said, Oh, I know what I'll do. I'll meet him halfway.

I'll have a little truce. So one day, Andre climbed off the sofa, ran over to where his daddy was sitting, climbed up his daddy's leg, and then climbed into the sleeve of one of his daddy's dressing gown sleeves, the left one, and then went to sleep and stayed there for about three hours asleep. And throughout those three or four hours, it was quite a long time, his daddy didn't disturb him at all.

He went to the toilet a few times because the seal broke on his bladder. So he had to do drinking lager. He'd go into the kitchen.

I think he had a little, did a little bit of sword fighting, you know, just general stuff. Fixed the roof, just general things that you do on a Saturday evening. Didn't disturb Andre at all, made sure that he was safely in the sleeve, protected, had not, you know, not fallen out or anything.

And I don't think he walked on any hot coals that night. He thought, nah, it's a bit cold outside. Mind you, if you're going to walk on hot coals, probably a cold night's a good time to do it.

That's not really part of the story. So Andre just went to sleep and he realized, Andre realized for the first time, that he actually felt safe with his daddy. He felt safe with him.

He felt comfortable. He felt safe. And he relaxed really deeply, really relaxed.

And he realized there was, it was a similar feeling to what he had when his daddy would talk to him gently and give him cuddles and stuff. And he started to realize that even when he was pulling away, he almost still wanted his daddy to sort of hold on to him. Because he liked, he liked the, the closeness, the physical contact.

Wasn't sure, wasn't sure if he liked his daddy, but he liked, he liked the way his daddy treated him because he'd been treated nicely. And his brother used to be a bit of a bully to him and eat the food before he got to the food and try and push him away and stuff. And now he's able to eat his food.

He could eat it when he wanted, didn't have to eat it all in one go. His daddy, well, his daddy would sometimes eat it, but, you know, as his daddy used to say to him, a belly like this takes maintenance. So, you know, sometimes you just got to eat everything you can to keep the belly going.

Andre understood that. It made sense. So Andre was, you know, as I said, he was thinking, I need to test my daddy, really.

You know, I started to like the old fella. He seems to be quite genuine with his kindness towards me. Doesn't seem to have many friends though, which is unusual because my last place I lived, loads of people coming in.

Yeah. But he seems to, it's almost like I'm his best friend, which is, seems a bit strange. So Andre thought, what I'll do is, I'll destroy everything in the flat.

So I'll completely destroy the sofa because the sofa was destroyed underneath, but his daddy didn't know. Because he had made a small hole underneath and the top so he could get in, but you couldn't see any of this big den, had loads of stuff hidden under there, underpants, bits of pizza, you name it, everything. I think at one point he even had the cooker under there.

So he thought, yeah, I've got to test, test his, test his, unconditional love. See if he's genuine. Just test if unconditional love actually exists.

So he, in the next few weeks, absolutely destroyed everything. And the new carpet, which had only been there since May. So five months, it was, you know, really lovely carpet.

Andre ripped up the edges, every part of the carpet, every doorway. He stained every, pretty much every part of the carpet he could. He went to the toilet in places that, how he managed to get on the ceiling, I don't know.

But he, he, you know, he just did it everywhere. He managed to go to the toilet underneath the floorboards. How did he do that? No one knows.

I mean, how on earth did he wipe his bum on the curtains? I mean, he can't even reach that high. Anyway, he really pushed things to the limit. But his daddy just kept clearing up after him, kept playing with him, telling him that he loved him every single day.

You know, many times a day, it was almost embarrassing, actually. It's like, oh, he's a bit overkill here, isn't he? I've got to keep telling me that. Then he realized that there was no one else listening.

There was nothing in it for his daddy to tell him how much he loved him, and how he was going to look after him, you know, forever. There was no one to impress. There was, it's not impressive anyway, but there was no one listening.

It was just him saying it to, to Andre, personally, with no one else about. And then he realized, there was this two things that he realized, was one day he was hiding from his daddy, just for fun. And his daddy came in from the shops, and he was looking for him.

And his daddy couldn't find him anywhere. He was calling him. Andre was hiding in the one place he didn't expect.

He knew his dad wouldn't look. And that was actually in the cage. The cage was open.

He never went into the cage. He slept there at night. And he would never go in there during the day.

He didn't like being in the cage. So he thought he hid in the cage and he hid right in the corner. So he couldn't be seen.

And his dad was getting, always getting, his dad seemed to be upset. His daddy seemed to be upset. He was looking everywhere.

And then finally, Andre thought, I might as well let him know I'm here. So Andre, he came out, sort of started banging on the bars of the cage, rattling it, even though the doors were open, he thought he'd rattle it, so his dad could see how silly he'd been by not looking into the cage. Because he wanted his daddy to still feel silly, for some reason.

And what happened next really surprised him because his daddy picked him up. He started cuddling, his daddy started crying. Because his daddy thought he'd lost him.

He thought he'd got out. Because they, you know, ferrets are quite good at escaping sometimes. And he thought he'd lost him.

And Andre started to think, maybe he does love me. And the second thing that happened that kind of cemented it, made him realize that his daddy definitely did love him, was when he, Andre got a bit ill, he was very poorly, had a bad chest infection. And his daddy took, his daddy phoned every single vet in the town, to find one that would see him without taking any money, and would be able to, would accept the money afterwards.

And none of them would do so. And then he heard his dad phoning up people, friends to try and borrow the money, in order for him to be seen. And he thought, wow.

And then he heard him arguing with people. He heard his daddy telling people off, for not seeing Andre, for being all about money. And he thought, wow, he's getting really angry here.

Because normally, his daddy's calm, and, you know, very, very relaxed, generally. But he was getting really angry. And he realized that this, this fat, balding man, that could win a gold in Olympics for farting, actually really does love me.

He really does care. And that's when Andre realized that unconditional love does exist. And five years later, he's fast asleep, inside, like a play tube thing, that he's got a little tunnel, fast asleep, happy, contented.

And he knows that he's loved. He knows that his daddy is always there for him, no matter what he does, no matter how naughty he is. And he knows that every single day, his daddy tells him that he loves him.

And he knows, or he feels that he's the luckiest little ferret in the world. Although he wishes daddy would stop farting. And that's the end of the story.

So thank you for listening. That was kind of a bedtime story, wasn't it? I think the story about unconditional love. Thank you for listening.

And remember to be kind to yourself, because you deserve to be happy. Lots of love. Bye