Telling Tales..

What do those two word mean to you... SHE says 'snitching' springs to mind but that she'll get back to me when she's had a cup of coffee".

Well.. No, actually I don't think that is good enough! Because, in my bird brain, 'Telling Tales' or Tale Telling signifies mini-story telling and that what today's Blog is about... Short Tales. Where to begin? Even in my young life I've been privy to some pretty weird and wonderful times and so beginning at the beginning is always a good place to start.

You've read about Debi, she's the Human who is living up in Yorkshire, well, Debi has had a bird or two in her life and knows a few of the tricks we keep tucked away under our wings. But, she and my HER were unaware of this talent... The strange talents of 'BEAK'.

This was when I was very young, less than a year old. Debi came for lunch, we were sitting at the table and mama brought out HER mama's Spanish coffee cups. They are shallow and wide, you can see into them from across the table, I saw and liked what I saw.. "yum, black stuff", so I trundled across and went to stick my beak into her cup. To my absolute amazement, this person whom I had never met before, pushed my head away, put her other hand over the cup and said in quite a strict voice "NO GeeGee, this is not for you, go away". I looked at HER and she nodded and said "you know you're not allowed coffee, leave Debi alone".

Well! As you can imagine, my beak was sorely out of joint. But I said to myself "she'll regret it". Their attention changed to other matters, MINE didn't, I gave them about 10 minutes which lulled them into a (false) sense of security and then I rushed at Debi's cup, grabbed the handle and threw the coffee at her.... "Haha, if I can't drink it... you can wear it".

It was worth being banished.... Luckily, for the chair and her clothes, she had a very large napkin on her lap. But the shock element was e-nor-mous!

As far as I was concerned, it was Parrot 50 - Human 0.

The nest two Tales are totally different and star NEW Stars!

Just before Christmas this year we were at the Studio. This is an extraordinary building to find in Central London, the building is made up of 3 floors but the top floor is Studio Owner's private domain.

What I will refer to as the Studio is on the first two floors with a skinny office hidden at the back on the ground floor, in front of this is a big room with a pretty table and chairs, prints of Artwork and a view of the yard. Upstairs is an open space with the kitchen, with huge drawing tables and storage chests for these priceless drawings, it is a marvellous room with wonderful light. The building is ancient and was, originally, a Wheat Store.

Usually, I ride about on HER head, don't be alarmed, SHE is quite used to this, if fact, I spend more time sitting there than anywhere else. But for some reason I had been left downstairs when all of them went upstairs. There is much too'ing and fro'ing in this place all the time, but they didn't come back down.

What is a Parrot to do? The answer is to go upstairs, right? Well, this is where it gets a bit tricky, upstairs is up-the-stairs, WE don't have stairs in our home. Do you realise my dilemma? And to get to the staircase to go upstairs, you have to go through a narrow doorway, turn SHARP right, fly upstairs and IMMEDIATELY turn sharp right again. Now I knew the route as I had done it countless times but always on HER head, however, it was a bit scary to think of those VERY sharp right turns and what would happen to my beak if I didn't make the turns.

Dear Readers, I prayed... revved my engine, flapped my wings and made it. WHAT a great flight, off wicker trolley's handle, across the room, through the narrow doorway, I held my nerve and made the first very sharp right turn, zoomed UP the stairs, successfully made the final right turn, through the kitchen, flew around the room a couple of times whilst I looked for a suitable landing pad and made a bit of an emergency landing on a shelf by the stove.

Three very amazed looking Humans sat there with their mouths open.... SHE came and picked me up off the rather narrow shelf, thank goodness I had not broken anything as I am extremely fond of Studio Owner, more of her later as she features a lot in our lives.

My dear, the fuss, the kisses, the congratulations, the acknowledgement of my 'bravery'. It was quite enough to make my chest swell in self-pride. The very satisfactory result is that I don't get left behind if SHE is going upstairs for any length of time.

The next Tale is of a Human who didn't know when to leave 'WELL ALONE'.. Read it through to the end, please don't yawn as there is a happy ending.

Studio Owner had arranged for an ex-assistant who is computer literate to come and send out invitations to Her 'Open House' which was going to be spread over several afternoons and evenings, she was also possibly going to be given the well paid job of overhauling and improving the website.... She (who shall remain anonymous, not because I wish to spare her reputation but because the mere sound or spelling of her name makes my blood boil), arrived and set to work. Now, I genuinely like Humans, I truly do. I enjoy listening to them, the different sounds they make and I especially enjoy the sounds of laughter and singing.

But, there are some Humans whose behaviour is questionable. And Ex-Assistant, as I shall call her, was one of this type. She kept sticking her hand under my beak, and as she drinks (rather too much) and smokes, you can imagine what her skin smells like.. phew, uggy pooh.

I was happily ensconced on a downstairs door, out of anyone's way, watching the goings-on when yet again, this, by now, very boring person shoved her hand under my beak. What's a Parrot to do? Well, I will tell you, you give it a very quick and sharp nip. HER said "I'm sorry but I warned you not to push your luck and that GeeGee can and does nip, it is your own fault".

Luckily Studio Owner was there, had heard the warning, seen the nip and that I hadn't drawn blood.

Now I don't like nipping, I am NOT a bitey-bitey Parrot but sometimes it has to be done. I bit Studio Owner once and I gave the Lovely Assistant, as he shall be called, a munch on his thumb, he was dreadfully hurt, not so much because of the pain element but because he had not done ANYTHING to warrant it and I regret it, I was just much too full of myself, going to The Studio was TOO exciting for words, HE is an extremely nice man, so I hold my claw up and freely admit that I am deeply ashamed of my behaviour.

Anyway, Studio Owner asked HER to go and fetch something which was ready from a local workshop, SHE popped me into my cage, and out SHE went. Horrors.. For what do I see? Ex-Assistant coming towards me, clutching a large wineglass full to the brim and a lit cigarette... And she sits in HER chair. This is about 2 wingspans away from MY cage. It is a swivel chair and she swivelled round and blew smoke straight in my face!

Now I can talk but how was I going to explain to HER when she came back what happened?

Lovely Assistant and Studio Owner were upstairs, you know the layout of the building, I was trapped in my cage, there was no escaping her or the dreaded smoke and I regret to say, I panicked. I plucked a large expanse of my chest.

Thank God SHE was only out for a very short while, it was raining and so SHE had not loitered in Leather Lane Market but had hurried to the workshop and hurried back. SHE always comes straight to fetch me from the cage. And very luckily, for her own safety, Ex-Assistant had left the office but there were the wineglass and the cigarettes. SHE saw my chest and howled with anguish as she KNEW something horrid must have happened to me, SHE took me gently out of the cage and cuddled me, that was when SHE smelt the smoke on me, and HER face went hard and mean-looking and HER eyes went all squinty looking. I have NEVER seen MY mama look ANGRY like this before, ever.

SHE realised that SHE wasn't able to throw Ex-Assistant out of the building, That SHE would have to keep me with her at all times and that someone as evil as this usually digs their own grave. Sure enough, she did something really stupid and the computer went down. Wallop it crashed which was not good but it did mean that S.O realised that Ex-Assistant was NOT the right person to rebuild the Website..

Ex-Assistant managed to get it up and running again BUT in the process, changed the password.

Then Stupid Girl, as I shall now call her, got drunk, which is un-acceptable and totally in-appropriate behaviour from an employee who is supposed to being making sure other people's glass is attended to and NOT sitting by herself in our office in HER chair guzzling wine.

Studio Owner is a gentle soul and has had a huge amount to deal with over the past 2 years. I think S.O is amazing, her talent is beyond words. But, like HER, S.O can be a softy so she wasn't aware of the hidden agenda of Stupid Girl, in fact, none of my beloved 3 Humans were, as it had yet to be revealed...

It is too convoluted to write in this Blog but the much shortened version involved Computer hacking and fraternising with a very suspect person who wanted access to our computer and all of the financial records, sales, clients.

Yes, dear Readers, Commercial Espionage.

Needless to say, Stupid Girl ain't welcome anymore at the Studio. Thank goodness Stupid Girl thought that MY humans were stupid. wrong. They realised what was going on and S.O swiftly changed the Pasword.

And, as luck would have it, SHE Had introduced Rob to S.O... No, you haven't met Rob yet. He is going to known on the Blog as The Wizard or T.W for short as! hopefully, he will feature as a MAJOR Star.

Rob is a Maker-and-Mender-of-All-Things, PLUS, he is an IT man. So Rob was sitting upstairs in the Studio, having a cup of coffee and looking at HER dead Acer Laptop when someone spoke about S.O's Website and how it needed a lot of work being spent on it and whom could we find and trust not to rip us off and very quietly from the end of the table came "it sounds as if it needs to be....".

Silence reigned... And SHE said "he knows, you know".

And he does. His report on HER Acer is that some parts are burnt out but that the Hard Drive can be stripped out, all HER photos (mostly of Your's Truly) will be safe and T.W can put in new bits and pieces to bring Acer back to life.

So, in the New Year, T.W will rebuild S.O a proper WebSite, one that will dance and sing and will slide and slip from picture-to-picture and allow clients to access everything and US to add details and information as and when we want. He will finish the electrics in the office and the kitchen, strip out the rotten window frame, build a proper step into our office, etc, etc, there's lots of work for T.W.

We go back to the Studio on January 9th, 2012. And I can't wait.. To see Studio Owner and Lovely Assistant again, to hear who did what and to whom and when and what happened next...

Ohhhh, I have forgotten to tell you the happiest of happy Tales.

Now, you remember the 'chilling' Tale of Debi, cold in Sheffield, no boiler, pilot light wouldn't light.

Well... The Gas Engineer came, she showed him the boiler, he asked "what are these matches doing here!" Well, you can imagine what she thought "stupid man, how else do you lit a pilot light"), luckily for her she didn't speak her mind as he then said "it is an electrically controlled pilot light, but hang on, pass me that".. He twisted something, pressed a button and WHOOOSH, on went the pilot light and the boiler roared into action!

There are VERY nice people around and this man is one of this breed, he charged her 'a cup of tea and a mince pie'.. Isn't that a happy Tale?

And, on that very happy ending, here is the end of today's Blog.

It is December 31st, 2011... It is also the end of 2011. Tomorrow will be January 1st, 2012... WE hope that you all a have a very happy New Year's Eve and send you this wish...

"May you all have a Happy, Healthy and Prosperous Year with the time to enjoy it all".

GeeGee Parrot.
December 31st, 2011.

Gifts, Friends & Manners.

How to please one's friends...

Kindness, of course, goes a long way. As do gestures that show the other person has thought about what would amuse or interest or be useful. One of these gestures happened when SHE was 'across the river' in Barnes. someone gave HER a Christmas present and it was for me! This meant that the present giver had recognised the importance of myself in HER life.

It is a hanging Bird food holder, very cunning it is too. It consists of a long metal rod, at one end is a hook and at the other a bird's foot, in between is a metal bird. The foot unscrews, you push the spike through the food, it could be a Fat Ball or a piece of fruit, then you hang it up.

The only trouble was... I had never seen such an item before so it was a bit scary... SHE loaded it with a piece of Papaya and hung it on my triangular perch in the kitchen and then took a picture of it... Shamefully, in the picture you can also see me.. cowering on Goosehead.

I hope SWSBO doesn't post THAT picture!

BUT.. That was yesterday and as Scarlet herself said "Tomorrow is another day", so today I flew into the kitchen, got hold of that piece of Papaya and gave it a good breaking... haha, that'll teach it to frighten me.

Whilst it is grey skied and dismal here in London, at least our home is snug. We heard that Debi, Yowie & Little Miss are having a dreadful time in Sheffield. The weather in Yorkshire is cold and windy, their boiler went out yesterday morning and the pilot light won't light. There is NOTHING worse than being far away and hearing sad news like this. There is nothing one can do... And the gas engineer can't make it to their house until this afternoon.

Today is December 30th.. and in another 2 days it will 2012. Two thousand and twelve, it sounds strange, doesn't it. Mind you, Parrots are older, much older than than two thousand years. We are the direct descendants of Dinosaurs. Did you see the film Jurassic Park? There was a scene when one of the scientists was in a car with one of my little relations, the man did something stupid so my (many) great, great grandfathers showed his displeasure.

Well, I can do that and very frightening it is too! In fact, all animals have this ability, we raise our feathers or fur and puff out our cheeks and growl / hiss. And I, although I say it myself, can make the most spine chilling growl if I am displeased.

SHE, of course, is not alarmed at all by any of this... apparently Dagga-the-Parrot introduced her to all of these Parrot tricks, so when I came into her life she wasn't scared. One night when I was a baby, I thought that I could intimidate her into letting me stay up late, oh boy, was I wrong.. she ignored the nip I gave her and the next thing I knew, I was in my cage, the door clanged shut and blackness descended over me...

And that, dear reader, is what happens every night, I get put to bed. So you see why the act of NOT being put to bed, when SHE stayed the night with a friend was most alarming. My bedtime was upset, this was very disturbing to a small grey avian person.

SHE has had some very nice news..

Remember I wrote about Patsy, the weekend Californian Fruit Seller? Well, she wants to come and stay with us next year.. Won't that be fun? Sadly, she cannot come laden with fruit, those wretched Officers of HM Customs & Revenue will have it off her in a flash - they know a GOOD Apple when they see one, you see, (they mostly have to deal with BAD Apples), so when a good one comes trundling towards them, they say to themselves.. "hello, what do we have here?" and nick ii.

And Barbara, human mother of DOG, is coming too... It will be a full house next year, that's the great thing about living in a great city, we get to see our friends. If you live in the Boondocks, nobody wants to come and stay with you.. Why would you? If you want peace-and-quiet you go on a Retreat. We get to see our friends and the nice thing about real friends is that they stay in touch, we don't just hear from them when they want a bed in London...

Not like the subject of the next part of this Blog.. And I bet you've got or hopefully had, so they are ex friends, your equivalent of Beverley.

My HER and Beverley used to work in the same profession, but different companies, in the same building in the 70's, Beverly went to live in Australia, Melbourne to be precise. Over the years, chatty letters were exchanged and she sent a photo and card announcing the birth of her daughter, Sophie. They called each other on Christmas Day and each other's birthdays.

Email came into being and this was fun, then my SHE realised it was becoming very one sided... As it was she who wrote and seldom got a reply, or it was short and very dull..

Then an email came asking if Sophie and a friend could spend 3 nights upon their arrival in the UK, they came, they stayed, they left for Europe having asked if they could stay for 3 nights before they left to go back to Australia. SHE gave them a set of keys so that they could let themselves in.

This all happened. They went back to Australia and nothing more was heard.... NOTHING. Neither of those young women bothered to send any form of "thank you".

SHE realised that Sophie had absolutely NO manners. So SHE wrote a small email asking about the well-being of the daughter to her mother, "had Sophie AND her friend got back safely, as no word had been received", this filtered through and a meagre "thank you" email was received.

Fast forward to 2010, an email was received from Beverley, a cousin was dying and she would be in the UK for a few days and it would be " just WONDERFUL to catch up on my HER'S news and could she spend the night"?

Well.... You see, my HER is a softie... And,sometimes,NOT so bright.

Beverley arrived in the UK, she didn't call, but sent a text saying that she would arrive at our home on such and such a day at x time.

She duly arrived, recounted the tale about her cousin dying, told MY HER that she had not brought her a pot of her NEW, FANTASTIC FACE CREAM - she is an Aromatherapist of some renown - and generally was quite 'unpleasant', she moaned about: Sophie, her lack of money, that she and her husband, Geoff, were finding it so hard saving to come to the UK in 2012 to celebrate a sister's 60th birthday, how strictly the Australian Board of School Governors was treating her... gosh, such dreary stuff, I couldn't take it and went off to sit and do my dry cleaning on the bedroom door.

SHE decided she was b......ed if SHE was going to cook for this monster, so suggested a pizza, up the road they went, and SHE GOT STUCK with the bill... Upon returning home, the monster said "I am SO tired, I am going to bed" and did, thank goodness. She left before SHE got up in the morning, leaving a note that she had left early as she wanted to go to Harrods to do some shopping.

She didn't write a "thank you note" either and the 'promised' vegetable seeds never arrived.. Strange that, as I am pretty sure the Australian Customs only stop INCOMING seeds, NOT out-going.

BUT, we all know there has to be the redeaming sting in the tail of this sorry tale and it surely is funny (in this instance, funny haha AND funny peculiar) how sometimes bad manners can catch up with you...

The landline telephone rang 2 days after Christmas Day. It was an International call and SHE took it and guess WHO was on the line? Why, goodness me, the bad mannered meanie herself!

Unfortunately for her, My SHE is slow, but thank goodness, NOT that slow.. SHE DID have a sore throat but SHE knew why Beverly was calling.

For 2012 is just around the corner and Beverley and Geoff are planning their free stay at our home in Central London. The sacherine tone of Beverly's voice was extraordinarily sweet, cloyingly so. So much so, that if SHE hadn't been twice bitten by this family, she'd have fallen for it. But she had, so said that "she wasn't feeling great and didn't want to talk" and disconnected the call. Well, I'd LURVED to be a fly on a wall in THAT Melbourne house!

But what was this? A long rambling International Text Message (wow, she must have been desperate as they don't come free). How she "misses HER emails with the tales of the garden and the news of London, how Beverley and SHE have been friends for such a long time.. Etc, etc"

Boring. Too little and MUCH, much too late.

Now.. on the other side of the world, in Bali, is our-gurl-Nora. Hop-diggedity-dog, now she's a cute gurl, she's LuLu's (from NYC) daughter and is over there in the big outside world paddling her own canoe (very useful if you live in the middle of the Pacific Ocean). She's learning how to make Silver Jewellery and to speak the local language.

When we've been in touch, we'll post the link to Nora's site so you will be able to see what she's doing with semi-precious stones.

Back to Guests..

Nora came to stay the night a few years ago, she was leaving very early to catch a morning flight, in the morning SHE found the bed stripped and a box of Chocolates was on the table together with a note..

Any time Nora, you're welcome anytime. Just like your mama. Hello, you reading this, LuLu?

Oh... Do you know LuLu said a couple of days ago, get this! Did I want an Editor, an Editor, edit this.. you're joking LuLu, that's the whole of this.... FREEDOM of Parrot Speech, with NO Editing!

Bringing my thoughts back from warm Pacific Isles.. I think of 'our' allotment. There are nasty problems with stealing and not just small things, someone lost their small caravan! The thieves, probably the same ones who stole the metal water tanks for scrap metal, drove onto our site, backed up on to the plot, hitched up the caravan and towed it off. Inside were all her gardening tools, her gardening boots, gloves. It will be in pieces now.. Sold for scrap.

HER shed was vandalised 3 weeks ago. Someone forced the door and rummaged through the shed looking for ..... we don't know what. But the mess... Grrrrr. Come next week SHE is planning to get sheets of exterior ply and reinforce the side of the shed and put on a door lock, padlocks can be forced off so easily.

This makes HER so sad. When SHE first went there 11 years ago, you could leave your shed open, go off up the patch with a cup of coffee and chew the fat with another gardener. the fruit remained on the trees, vegetables waited to be dug up and SHE and I would sometimes work there in the summer until it was too dark to see what you were doing. all alone, no fear of nasty thieves or creepy people lurking with evil intent.

Last June, thieves climbed over the back fence and stole her mobile and took £20 out of her purse, the frightening thing was SHE was only 20 feet away weeding the Asparagus bed and her bag was on the table where I would have been in my cage! They steal Parrots.. So now I only go if she is going to work on the terrace which means I am only a few feet away and in sight ALL the time.

Sadly, this means I won't see Daisy & Bunny-Doos until it is a warm Spring day. They're toy Bunnies who belong to Jane, Jane is a fellow allotment holder and her plots are just up the path from ours, in between we have our very own OSCAR winning fellow plot holder Brian. Bunny-Doos like to watch the river, he gets a bit alarmed when it is low tide and accuses the French of stealing our water.. Well, they did buy Thames Water!

Bunny-Doos is from Adelaide, which is why he likes water, they don't have enough in Australia. Miss Daisy is from Lady Bamford's shop and sometimes, well, she gets a 'little' above herself and has to be left behind at home with the cats and Jane's friend.

Talking of water.. It is tea time! I like Lapsang and I know there are some mini Stollen, I love the bits of Maripan, don't you?

More tomorrow... Got to speak to those Goaty Folk and find out when they're coming to Parsons Green Farmers Market.

HOME ALONE...

Do you remember the film when the young boy got left behind by his family?

WELL... Last night, SWSBO got dressed in pretty clothes, which was the first time since Christmas Eve, (yes, yes, she did have a bath and wash her hair, you THINK I'd allow MY human to go out unwashed).

Having put big bowls of humous and sweet potato next to my water bowl, she put a big bag into wicker trolley, scratched my neck, gave me a cuddle, a kiss on the beak and told me "be a good girl and stay, stay GeeGee".

STAY! This is the dreaded word that means SHE is going out and I 'm going to be 'Home Alone'.  AND, she stayed out all night!  Uh... I don't do that and I'm much younger than she is.

She crossed the river.  Oh, scary stuff, in the dark, on a bus, she went to a house in Barnes. And she ate Kedgeree and played Charades.... and had fun.

Then she slept in a huge cosy warm bed and woke up at 9.00am!  Normally by 9.00am, I would have been got up, kissed, taken back to her bed for a cuddle and we would have gone to break-our-fast.

Meanwhile, back home on the perch....  Darkness fell, the moon rose, nobody came to put me to sleep in my cage and cover me up, I stayed awake, eventually falling asleep on top of the bedroom door. The moon went down, the sun came up and still... No sign or sound of HER..

Are you in tears yet or, at the very least, wet-eyed?

And then... sound of keys in the door, the familiar sound of wicker trolley squeezing its fat body up the step and through the front door and then HER voice saying ... "HELLO".

I may moan about HER and give her the odd nip to keep her in her place.. But, when all the (hopefully Tortilla) chips are on the table and one's beak is behind bars, SHE aka HER, is my mum and I love HER very dearly.

Uh, it is far too early in the day to be so emotional, whatever next? Well, it's lunch time!  You all think must that all we do in this house is eat.. Not true, but I cannot deny that we both like food and love eating it.

For instance... Those pretty ORANGE fruits of Winter... Oh, yum-de-de-tum-tum.. do you know of what I write?  They are nature's way of giving you the RIGHT STUFF when days are short and the sun don't shine...

Apricots, Mandarins, Persimmons (do not even think of taking one out of MY bowl), Pineapples (why aren't called SpinyApples?), Pomegranates, Oranges and Satsumas and then Seville Oranges - for Marmalade.

We know someone called Patsy who lives in California.  She has a brother-in-law who grows fruit.  Lots of fruit and lots and lots of different types of fruit, he sells it directly to hotels and restaurants and on weekends Patsy works for him doing Farmer's Markets in places like Santa Barbara & Santa Monica. I will get her to send 'us' some photos of her fruit stands in the sunny Californian sunshine.

'We' grow fruit too, SHE has an allotment. She took it on 11 years ago next January. It was a completely bare plot, well, bare in the sense that it didn't have anything of use on it apart from an very sad, broken down old shed.

This was before I was born, Dagga-the-Parrot was the love of her life then.... More about him later as I know there are several people who are reading this that don't know what happened to him and the very sad tale will have to be told but NOT today.

Now on the plot, there are over 40 Fruit trees: Apples, Cherries, Damsons, Figs, Pluots (mix of Plum & Apricots), Plums, Green Gages, Yellow Gages (yes, such a thing exists), Pears and Grapes. Black, Red & White Currants, Red & White Gooseberries AND a BIG Asparagus bed!

Not a lot of people realise that, actually, my HER is a little shy, hard to believe eh? Well, she is shy with strangers, with ONE exception.  If she wants to know something about anything, she has a saying and this is it.. "IF you want to know something, speak to the Organ Grinder and NOT the monkey"...

So, when she wanted to make an Asparagus bed QUICKLY, and not have to wait until she was too long in the tooth to eat it, she had a quick think and went online to find The British Asparagus Association.

And she called up THE Chairman, who, in those days, was an enchanting man called Victor Aveling. And he was charming, so charming in fact that he said "you need to speak to my wife". And Barbara Aveling was equally as charming and equally as enchanting as her husband, she asked HER what size the bed was going to be and then gave HER very precise instructions of what to do with the soil in order to make a cosy bed for the Asparagus Crowns and said "with that amount of space, you will have 6 rows, 10 Crowns to a row, so you need 60 Crowns"...

Have you ever read a Kitchen Garden Supply catalogue?  Now, I know we are talking about 8 years ago but even then ONE Crown was a very silly price, so HER gulped and said "oh, how much will that be?". The response was brisk "including next day delivery the cost will be £23.45p, I'll post them out to you tomorrow morning and you can pop a cheque in the post".

So, you see, you must never be shy of speaking to genuine experts, they are always generous with their expertise and knowledge (just please remember to ask them if it is convenient time for them to talk).

And remember the motto:

Always speak to the Organ Grinder and not the monkey.

The very charming Barbara charged 35 pence each for 2 year old Crowns.

With which, dear readers... I have to cease as SHE is going out. I gather to an Apple Store to make an date for her first lesson on the iPad. So, alas and alack, not only is she going out, so is the iPad... Sigh .. But, the good news is that it is now gone 3.45pm and it is still light.

Love and toots to you all.
GeeGee Parrot.
December 29th, 2011.

Knightsbridge under siege!

Have you watched the television over the past couple of days?

SWSBO and I watched the News last night. Now we know why our, normally quiet residential, street is heaving with badly parked cars AND traffic wardens!

It looked like a Bear's Jamboree out there... With hoards of appallingly badly dressed people pushing and shoving in order to get into the shops to GRAB 'stuff', anything they can get there paws (sorry hands) onto.

Meanwhile, back home in our nest, everything is calm and peaceful, she is reading the newspapers on line and we are chatting. I do my dry cleaning first thing when I wake up, I have to beak my feathers into shape, we Parrots do this in the same way that humans brush their hair and do their teeth, or should do, before they greet the day or other members of their flock.

But breakfast is around the corner.. Yeah.. Any minute now we'll go into the kitchen. I heard her open the kitchen door before she came to get me out of my bed, so I know that the butter, eggs and the milk are out of the fridge. It is truly happy holiday time, we are going to have Buttered Eggs, she most certainly knows the direct path to my heart.. It is straight through my stomach.

Here we go.. Her feet are on the floor, hand is stretched up so I can step down.. I spend a lot of the day on top of the door in whichever rooms she is in, remember the expression 'Bird's eye view'...

Buttered Eggs... Oh happy times here we come.

More later.

The Christmas holidays.

My own page..

My claws and feathers, this seems so strange to have this freedom. Before it has always been channelled by She-Who-Should-Be-Obeyed, who, I am happy to report, is getting better, had her at home in bed now for a few days now and with some light food which included baskets of MY favourites, yummy Persimmons and Pomegranates, she is recovering fast, plus, of course, having me to fly about and make a complete fool of myself cheers her up no end.

I had a belated Christmas present today.. a splendid toy. A WHITE paper bag with handles!

Well, I am not sure it was meant to be a present, I was thinking of tasting, just tasting, I can assure you, her Sweet Potato at lunch time. To be fair to her, she had offered me my own dish of this but her plate also had French Beans and other delicious stuff on it... Anyway, suddenly, my whole world went white!

You can imagine what went through my 'bird like' brain... But certainly "Don't panic, don't panic" was one of my thoughts. So I stayed very still, the dropper-of-the-bag-over-my-head also stayed silent AND still. I gave the bag a nudge and it moved, then I gave it a push with a claw and trod on it and lo and behold, the kitchen came back into sight. BIG relief as I know there's a good film on this evening.

I have to learn how to write and do this Blog properly, I have a friend called Ellie, she runs Ellie's Dairy in Kent. she has a Blog, called elliesdairy.blogspot.com.

Now, Ellie has a huge herd of Goaty Folk and she makes THE VERY BEST GOAT'S CHEESE, my mama found out about her as she cannot drink Cow's milk. And now we have FRESH Goat's Milk SWSBO makes fresh Ricotta Cheese which, if you've never had it, is heavenly, either with jam or in pasta, I love it and as 'she' makes it, we know what is in it!

Then we have another friend who writes about her family (she has a husband and SEVEN, yes seven boy children! They are all grown up (I wonder what that means?) But sadly she lives faaaar away in Texas, she has a Blog called joanna-darcy.blogspot.com. However, as they're both smart and kind, they'll help me tap this out and teach me how to do photos, in fact, there are several of MOI on Ellie's Blog!

Oh.. It is nearly supper time and as I SAW her making it, it is worth getting excited about. Off we go to the kitchen, I'll be back another day. Not tomorrow as I know SHE has to go out and I haven't figured out the iPad on / off switch yet.

But.. As ole MacArtur said "I'll be back"...

With a lot of best wishes for a cosy night wherever you are.

GeeGee Parrot.
December 27th, 2011.