Saturday, 21. March 2009, 19:33:27
Firstly, apologies for extreme lack of posts!!!

Neo and myself have been quite busy with various things lately...!!
I guess I should reveal what we have been up to! Well, the most important news from Neo anyway... Neo, for some reason, decided that she wasn't satisfied just being an 'ordinary' iguana, and has adopted a part-time career... as a rock star!!!

LOL!
Here's a link to her first rock movie premiere...
http://vimeo.com/3223978Ok, ok, she only appears for about 5 seconds, but hey! She's proud of herself, hehe
Here are some pics of Neo's little band buddy. He's called Plato, and he's a plated lizard
He was going to be in the video too, but unfortunately his nerves got the better of him on the night and he decided that he wanted to stay behind the scenes

He also does not like people too much

although he is beautiful to look at

He was kindly lent to us by his 'manager'. Plato is also a rescued reptile, so it's nice to see them showing people how lovely they are!!
I was very impressed with Neo when I took her out, as this was the first time I've taken her anywhere since I rescued her (more than two years ago!) I warned everyone that I couldn't guarantee her behaviour, let alone encourage her to do what they wanted to film! She took a while to relax enough to begin to explore, because she was in a room full of strangers (besides myself, and Rhys who she knows anyway). Before that though we had to ask everyone to leave who wasn't involved in the filming, as of course when people heard there were lizards making an appearance everyone wanted to see!!

It didn't help that we were filming in the back room of a pub and it was a rugby match day... hehe!
What Neo had to do was to walk across a table and knock down some toy soldiers. At first she didn't move, even after encouragement from a rustling bag of yummy watercress and rocket salad, and me asking her if she wanted food! (I knew she did as we had to skip her breakfast to try and tempt her somehow...) So I tried something else to see what would happen, as the offer of food wasn't working... I asked her, 'Neo, do you want to go home?' I repeated the word 'home' a couple more times, and to my amazement she began walking towards me across the table!

Now, I don't know if that was a coincidence or not, but I do talk to her a lot at home, particularly saying the words 'food' when feeding her, and 'home' when I'm about to lift her back into her vivarium. I think it's possible that an iguana could learn to recognice some words, as I know for sure she knows what a rustling bag of food sounds like!!
As Neo seemed fine with the situation after a few hours, we invited the people that wanted to see her back into the room. She let people touch her and take her photograph quite happily! She'd even let some kids dob some toy soldiers and planes right next to her during the filming. The only thing she didn't like was being much lower than everyone else, as I could see her looking up and trying to figure out how to get to a higher vantage point... easily sorted by letting her climb up onto my shoulder. She stayed up there for the rest of the time until it was time to go home!

I think the thing Neo found the most scary was the actual car journey! But that's fair enough - the last time she was bundled up in a towel and placed in a dark crate was probably when she was just rescued, and that was a very scary time for her. Myself and both lizards went to pick up Rhys first, and we had an hour to kill so let Neo out for a wander and to relax a bit. She was bright scared colours when I first let her out, but she recovered in a while once she realised she was ok and were people she knew still around. After that initial journey, she was fine. After arriving at the pub, we got her out and she hadn't even changed colours

I think the people at the pub were more apprehensive than her in the end, as the only thing they could see when I carried her in was a reptilian eye peering out at them from a darkened crate, and three claws hooked out of one of the air holes!!! lol. (Neo hated the towel over her which was supposed to calm her, so she insisted on digging herself out of it every time so she could see where she was out of the container!)
Here's a more recent pic of Neo, enjoying her rock star life. She's relaxing on the 'pillow' I made for her

(a sock filled with rice!)
(She probably is annoyed at having her peace and quiet disturbed by yet another large camera being pointed in her direction...!
Other Neo news:
She's been fascinated by all the snow we had! I took her to her favourite upstairs window where she likes to bask in the sunshine and observe the world down there... But this day, everything was a little strange... for some reason, everything has turned white!!