Well, I ain't got a big family, there's her and me and BUB up on the Isle of Man, that's three of us in total. It doesn't mean I lack for attention or love but she does call me the strangest names.
As you all know, my name is GeeGee, the Gee being prounced like in gee whizz, not like Gi as in GiGi the film with Leslie Caron and I am a (Congolese) African Grey Parrot. My body is pale grey, my wings are dark grey, I have a silvery face, a black beak and a scarlet tail.
And you all know that I spend a lot of time perched on top of her head, it keeps her head warm and I don't have to wonder where she is or what she's up to.
In the morning, I have a dish of a boiled egg with steamed carrot and broccoli, that sets me up for the day and gets my blood sugar going, so I start to chat, toot and to imitate other animals, I do a very good duck as in 'quack quack', an amazing kitten in the smallest 'miaow' you've ever heard and a rather manic dachshund and I whistle and make weird noises, so I am called 'The Tooty-Frooter'.
As the day progresses, my intake of food.. aka yumyum.. usually sparks my vocabulary to increase and I dig out my repertoire of songs and tunes, I can't honestly say that I know all the words but I can remember snatches of them and they certainly cause her to smile and to join me in singing the correct lyrics!
One of my passions is hummus, it is one of hers too and we eat home made hummus, NOT the shop bought kind. It is SO easy to make, you soak dried chickpeas over night, boil them gently in water together with a clove of garlic and a bayleaf for about 60 - 75 mins, but you don't want them too soft.
Drain but reserve the cooking water. In a food processor, you whizz some of the cooking water, 2 cloves of taw garlic and black pepper, very well stirred tahini paste, fresh lemon juice. Put this into a bowl, put in your chickpeas with some of the reserved cooking water and make them soft but not TOO soft, then add the tahini liquid and adjust to taste.
We do not add salt to ours, she makes a big pot of this which lives in the coldest part of chilly-white larder. She plops two tablespooonfuls of this into a bowl for me to eat during the day, we then have another bowl which she eats with carrots and celery at night.
I eat fresh vegetables, steamed vegetables and bird seed throughout the day, it is a healthy diet with fresh water that has some avian vitamin drops in it. I take a lot of exercise unless she's gone for the whole day (a rare occurence), in which case, I find a comfy spot usually on a book shelf and snooze facing the SAD lamp that she leaves on for me in the daytime during the winter months.
At the end of the day comes the dreaded sentence "Hey, GeeGee, it's bedtime" and I am off like a rocket, flying to the highest, most inaccessible place in our bedroom and then I climb even higher up onto the pole which is fixed between two piles of old lampshade frames.
I know, of course, that I have to go to bed and once, to her absolute astonishment, I actually put myself to bed! Then there starts the battle of wills but she hasn't reached her great age without learning a trick or two.. and I, stupid bird that I am, fall for it every night!
It ends with me stepping down onto her hand and her covering my head with tiny kisses and saying "You're such a silly Red Bum".. 'Red Bum', I ask you, what type of a name is that for a mother to call her only daughter.
GeeGee Parrot.
February 21st, 2017.
As you all know, my name is GeeGee, the Gee being prounced like in gee whizz, not like Gi as in GiGi the film with Leslie Caron and I am a (Congolese) African Grey Parrot. My body is pale grey, my wings are dark grey, I have a silvery face, a black beak and a scarlet tail.
And you all know that I spend a lot of time perched on top of her head, it keeps her head warm and I don't have to wonder where she is or what she's up to.
In the morning, I have a dish of a boiled egg with steamed carrot and broccoli, that sets me up for the day and gets my blood sugar going, so I start to chat, toot and to imitate other animals, I do a very good duck as in 'quack quack', an amazing kitten in the smallest 'miaow' you've ever heard and a rather manic dachshund and I whistle and make weird noises, so I am called 'The Tooty-Frooter'.
As the day progresses, my intake of food.. aka yumyum.. usually sparks my vocabulary to increase and I dig out my repertoire of songs and tunes, I can't honestly say that I know all the words but I can remember snatches of them and they certainly cause her to smile and to join me in singing the correct lyrics!
One of my passions is hummus, it is one of hers too and we eat home made hummus, NOT the shop bought kind. It is SO easy to make, you soak dried chickpeas over night, boil them gently in water together with a clove of garlic and a bayleaf for about 60 - 75 mins, but you don't want them too soft.
Drain but reserve the cooking water. In a food processor, you whizz some of the cooking water, 2 cloves of taw garlic and black pepper, very well stirred tahini paste, fresh lemon juice. Put this into a bowl, put in your chickpeas with some of the reserved cooking water and make them soft but not TOO soft, then add the tahini liquid and adjust to taste.
We do not add salt to ours, she makes a big pot of this which lives in the coldest part of chilly-white larder. She plops two tablespooonfuls of this into a bowl for me to eat during the day, we then have another bowl which she eats with carrots and celery at night.
I eat fresh vegetables, steamed vegetables and bird seed throughout the day, it is a healthy diet with fresh water that has some avian vitamin drops in it. I take a lot of exercise unless she's gone for the whole day (a rare occurence), in which case, I find a comfy spot usually on a book shelf and snooze facing the SAD lamp that she leaves on for me in the daytime during the winter months.
At the end of the day comes the dreaded sentence "Hey, GeeGee, it's bedtime" and I am off like a rocket, flying to the highest, most inaccessible place in our bedroom and then I climb even higher up onto the pole which is fixed between two piles of old lampshade frames.
I know, of course, that I have to go to bed and once, to her absolute astonishment, I actually put myself to bed! Then there starts the battle of wills but she hasn't reached her great age without learning a trick or two.. and I, stupid bird that I am, fall for it every night!
It ends with me stepping down onto her hand and her covering my head with tiny kisses and saying "You're such a silly Red Bum".. 'Red Bum', I ask you, what type of a name is that for a mother to call her only daughter.
GeeGee Parrot.
February 21st, 2017.
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