Woman spends hours creating mini lockdown-themed scenes for her hamsters

While we’re all doing puzzles and baking sourdough, Beverly Borrill, 52, has found a fresh way to while away the days in lockdown.

The mum-of-four and teacher has been spending hours painstakingly crafting mini scenes of lockdown out of cardboard for her hamsters to play in.

So far her hamsters have done all sorts of activities that have become the norm amid the coronavirus pandemic, including lending a hand to NHS staff, working from home, and doing a spot of socially-distanced shopping.

Beverly, from Devizes, Wiltshire, crafts each setup at her kitchen table, then lets her hamsters loose, capturing photos of the lockdown scenes.

Beverly said: ‘I’d thought about posing the hamsters in these coronavirus-related scenes for quite a while, when we first went into isolation.

‘I didn’t want to do anything in bad taste so I decided that it would be better to have them do things such as help the NHS, as opposed to the hamsters pretending to have coronavirus.

‘Really I’ve just been inspired by things that we have done in lockdown – endless amounts of laundry, cleaning the kitchen and quite a lot of time with some wine in the hot tub!

‘I’ve been enjoying having more free time to do the things I love the most, such as creating these scenes for the hamsters.

‘The hospital probably took about four full days to do.

‘I have to say, my other half was extremely helpful because he 3D printed the little hand wash pumps and also the table that the ventilator sits on.

‘The bellows in the ventilator do actually work – it’s incredible – and my daughter Maddy did all the paper folding for that.

‘My mum knitted the little blanket for the bed so it was a really big family effort.

‘Normally everybody’s rushing out to do their own things but now it’s so nice to have everybody around the table doing something together and chatting.’

Beverly’s hamster hobby began when her daughter Isabel, 14, was making a mini hot air balloon for a school project, and thought it would be fun to put the family’s pet hamsters Max and Lulu in it for a picture.

Since then, the mum’s ideas blossomed and it turned into a regular hobby, which led her to set up Instagram and Facebook pages for the Harcourt Hammies to show off her amazing creations.

Beverly has eight hamsters in total, so there’s plenty of scenes to be built to keep them entertained.

Each set can take hours to create. Once they’re ready, Beverly lures the hamsters into position with their favourite treat, peanut butter.

‘Everything is made from scratch, it’s all very fiddly and can take a couple of tries,’ says Beverly.

‘All the action happens on the kitchen table, so it’s a regular thing to see the family eating their supper around a half constructed golf course or MasterChef set.

‘People ask how to get their hamsters to sit still or how to tame a hamster so they don’t bite or destroy the set.

‘The simple answer is patience and lots of perseverance – and a little bit of peanut butter!’

Beverly is currently unable to work from home, so she is now spending a little more time penning her next set ideas for the hamsters, hoping to spread a bit more positivity in these trying times.

She added: ‘You’ve got to look for the positives because you’ve got to live through it whatever happens.

‘The nicest thing of all is that the lockdown really has shown the wonderful community spirit we have if we choose to access it.

‘There’s no point in being miserable about it, you’ve just got to get on with it.

‘I was talking with my mum about other lockdown-related things that we might be able to do next.

‘I’ve also got an assault course ready but it doesn’t seem like the right time to post about that, because the hamsters shouldn’t be outside!’

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