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.