2016.. FAREWELL, ADIEU.. AUF WIEDERSEIN.. GOODBYE!

Well folks.. mes amis.. Dear Readers. It's the evening of the last night of 2016 and we should be out having a good time BUT, we ain't. No, because she's in bed.. all because of a woman wanted to go out and not sit with her sick child at home.

She got the child up and took him out, she freely admitted that he wasn't very well. Not very well! The child looked half dead and was desperately pale.

Three days later she went down with a cracking virus which has given her a filthy cold in her head, sore aching bones and a temperature that goes up and down like a yoyo!

But we had such a lovely visit this afternoon! For Poppy, Freddie, Charlotte and, their mother, Faith did a very quick pit-stop to pick up a LOT of stuff that mum has collected for them. Plus, she gave away her cork board.

This board used to be the place where everything that was important was pinned. But we don't have anything important going on these days and she's given it to the children for them to pin all of their important things.

So here we are, she hasn't posted since Christmas Day because her eyes have been sore and she's not been on-line very often. Which means, of course, we missed the anniversary of my blog. But I am sure that you'll forgive us.

We wish you, whoever you are and wherever you are, the happiest of happy new years and we hope that you'll be back sometimes in 2017 to read my Tales of a Parrot.

GeeGee Parrot.
December 31st, 2016.

CHRISTMAS GREETINGS & A TRIP TO BOROUGH MARKET.

"Please come to Borough on either Friday or Saturday and bring WW with you" was the message from Debbie.. aka Goaty Mum. Friday she was being a tiny cog in a very large wheel of volunteers and so it was yesterday in the morning that she took a bottle of something non-alcoholic, a bar of White Toblerone (who knew it even existed!) and after kissing Beaky, she and WW left for Borough.

Ooh, lots of folk about! A huge amount of foreign tourists milling about not quite knowing where to go next, so she sent a bunch of FIFTY Japanese to Westfield at Stratford, knowing that would keep them all entertained and fed on what was a cold and damp day!

She slipped onto the Jubilee Line as well and got out at London Bridge with the Japanese all waving and shouting "Thank you" at her as she left the carriage. Such a great connection.. zoom, it is only four very quick stops and you're there, by bus, it would take ages!

Borough Market was heaving with tourists and last minute shoppers!

She slipped in the back way and appeared like a genie at the side of the Ellie's Goat Stall.. piles of delicious cheese greeted her plus two, slightly weary looking, friends Debbie and Joe. Getting up at the crack of dawn every day, milking, bottling, making cheese, feeding goats.. it ain't a life for the faint hearted folks. It fact it ain't an easy life for any farmer, whether they be farming arable or stock.

She kissed her friends and produced the bottle, which upon inspection, it would not heat up well.. it was Fizzy Lingonberry & Apple from Mr. Ikea. Joe was asked to nick three glasses from Boisdales. 

They toasted each other and then Debbie said "Ah good, you've brought Wicker Wheelie, I'll go and get your presents from the van" and disappeared.

Mum flogged some curd and didn't see Debbie reappear until she said "Happy Christmas" to her and she turned to see.. two metal tubes sticking out of WW's basket! Metal tubes that looked suspiciously like the two halves of a trimmer! 

"WHAT, no, you haven't, you got me the trimmer?" She said 'the' trimmer because 'Master Mechanic' David who knows all about things like trimmers and hedge cutters, had tried to mend her old one but had pronounced its' disease incurable and that he had recommended another which was sold by an agent in Kent. And here it was! Tried and tested by David himself to make sure that it worked. 

"And there's a bag of goodies in there as well, no peeking until tomorrow" said Debbie. 

Now it get it home.. without frightening everyone who saw it! The giant Lidl bag came out of WW and was unpended over the 'scary' metal tubes and after kissing everyone again, off she went.

The trip was uneventful, until she got to Green Park where several armed Policemen where very much in evidence. You can't get WW through the small barriers and so she had to go up to the big barrier where one VERY large Metropolitan cop was standing holding his gun. 

He surely had xray eyes for as she stopped to get her pass out of her pocket, he asked her "What's under the bag Miss" and she said "a Christmas present of a grass trimmer" and pulled off the bag to expose the two parts. He looked at the trimmer with a straight face and said "Well, that's just what a real 'girl' needs for Christmas, isn't it, what have you got, a wild garden or an allotment? Happy Christmas Eve Miss". 

She wished him and his family the same, picked up WW and walked up the steps onto Piccadilly. Yes, Piccadilly! For the road that runs from Hyde Park Corner upto Piccadilly Cicus IS Piccadilly.

She came home squeaking with excitement about trimmers but.. unlike when she was a child, she did NOT open the bag that was in WW, nor did she investigate further the trimmer, infact, I think she's finally growing up, for there is a gift from her much beloved Pat which has been sitting on her desk in the bedroom for two weeks and she hasn't even given it as much as a squeeze!

It is time to get up and start our day. With coffee and scrambled eggs with delicious curd and smoked salmon. Then we will sit and she'll read the instructions of the trimmer, see what's in Debbie's bag, she'll open Pats' gift and at 2.00pm we are going upstairs to Les Filles for Christmas lunch.

I do hope that whomever you are, wherever you are and whatever religion you are, accept that just as you celebrate your religious holidays, you realise we mean no offence when we say "Happy Christmas to you all" because, after all, she is a Christian and we celebrate this day, the symbolic day of the Birth of Christ.

GeeGee Parrot.

December 25th, 2016.

PostScript: I do hope she doesn't plan to give me a Chrismas bath.

BUT DID YOU SEE HER SLIPPERS!

I'm 'slightly' glad that we are not spending the Christmas holidays with friends, we were invited but she had already made committments and had accepted an invitation, so we are spending the nights in our own home and this, Dear Readers.. aka mes amis.. is what the 'slightly' is all about!

For her winter dressing gown and her bedroom slippers are, well, they're pretty strange (to say the least).

This dressing gown is older than I am and dates from 1996, gosh, exactly twenty years ago today! She was spending the Christmas holidays in Fredericksburg, Texas. No, I don't expect you to know where this is, suffice to say it's North East of Austin, up in the Hill Country and is a very charming place.

Dagga Parrot and Peter Pigeon were staying with good friends whom they liked very much and she was in America for both work and fun. She kept a wardrobe of clothes in New York so she didn't have to drag heavy suitcases back and forth but she didn't have a cosy warm dressing gown.

The day before Christmas Eve, the weather turned cold and it rained, not a good combination as ice lay thick and wickedly upon everything and only essential traffic was advised. 608 East Creek was a charming house and with log fires in most room it was very snug but she needed a thick gown.

So off up the road she walked to Walmart's, which was quite a long walk but it was dry underfoot and she was well dressed. She got there and went to the clothing dept. Only to find that everyone else in town had had the same idea and all that was left was a fleece gown.

'Splendid' she said and paid $7.50, reduced from she cannot remember what. "Your child will love that" said the sales clerk and they wished each other a "Happy Christmas" and she walked home. I can hear you think 'Why did the sales clerk say that?

Well.. the fleece is scarlet, full length to her ankles, has a ribbed collar and cuffs and is veryvery snug making BUT.. it has black 'Scotty' dogs allover it.. need I say more?

And yesterday she was in the North End Road heading for her hairdressers to give her much loved Anissa a gift of Crystallised Ginger. She spoke to all the usual suspects on her way through and then a sign in a shop window caught her eye.. two pairs of slippers for £8.00.. it said!

Zoom.. in she went and asked the sales assistant where to find these slippers, "they're at the back but I am sorry, they're children's slippers Miss" said the assistant. 'Even better' thought my mum and headed to the back of the shop.

Where she squeaked with glee, for she loves slipper boots with rubber soles and had found just what she loved! A ridiculous leopard fleecy pair and another pair in cyclamen pink fleece decorated with white snowflakes and a mad looking reindeer with a very big round red nose, just like Rudolf!

What was there not to like! The price.. perfect! The styles.. happy & glorious.. no more cold toes or ankles! The size.. they fit like a glove at size 3-4!

Upon her arrival home she showed them to me and I laughed so much I nearly fell off the top of the bathroom door! To you folk out there, she 'appears' to be pretty normal. Now, I do admit that a select few of you are privy to as to how mad she actually is but to the general public, she appears quite sane.

They would have been pretty shocked to see this mornings attire, that's for sure! And the place where we were asked to stay, they unpack for you, yes, it's a very smart house indeed and what would their staff have said about her scarlet Scotty gown and pink Reindeer bedroom slippers?

After all, I have my reputation and this Blog to consider, do I not?

GeeGee Parrot.
December 23rd, 2016.

ASIA BIBI..

You may not have ever heard of her but those of you who 'practise' your religion or Atheism freely should be truly grateful for this freedom, as she is not 'free' to do anything.

For Asia is a Pakistani Christian and is in jail, where she has been in a small cell since 2009. Her crime? Sharing a bowl of water with other field workers. We have followed her story, which is a dreadful and desperately sad one, for many years.

So whenever you next go to your mosque, chapel, synagogue, shul, temple, friend's room, church, mountain or wherever you choose to pray or talk to your God or Higher Power, I ask of you only one thing.

That you acknowledge that the God or Higher Power of your understanding is not necessarily the same as your neighbours.

GeeGee Parrot.
December 22nd. 2016.

IT'S THE WINTER SOLSTICE TODAY!

Yubba-dubba-doooo!

Oh, thank goodness! It's the shortest day of the year and this means that tomorrow it will be a fraction of something longer than today! And, oh my goodness me, we so do need something nice to happen, for the world's news is truly dreadful and here in deepest Knightsbridge, we have wet streets and the dullest, the greyest of grey skies. It is dreary.. beyond belief.

But let's be chirpful, for yesterday, it was bright as the sun shone! Which meant the pavement was dry.. and THAT, Dear Readers.. mes amis.. meant that the vinyl snake could be taken outside and unrolled and cut to fit the bathroom floor!

Yes.. she no longer has to hop to the loo because the floor is warm! No more cold concrete flooring for her bare toe-toes in the middle of the night! Oh, such bliss. And how very smart old vinyl snake looks lying on the floor too.

But let's go back to the world's news. The German Police have issued a reward of 100,000 euro for the Tunisian man who hijacked the steel truck, killed its' Polish driver and who then drove the truck into the Christmas Market in Berlin. And well they might.. for they know this man, he has already committed several atrocious acts of violence and they have arrested him three times and let him go.. three times.

I ain't saying a word and neither is she but watch our eyes..

GeeGee Parrot.
December 21st, 2016.

EITHER HER STANLEY THERMOS'S A FAKE OR THE ONES MADE IN CHINA ARE NOT NEARLY AS GOOD AS THE ORIGINAL ONES THAT WERE MADE IN THE USA!

Oh, a pox on these people! Stanley are a very famous, and quite rightly so, make of thermos flasks. Developed in the USA in 1913, they come in all shapes and sizes. She has several friends who have them and although her wonderful Tiger thermos is wonderful, it is not a thermos for transporting hot coffee, it is for food.

You can imagine her excitement when she found a Stanley thermos in the shop that she volunteers in. A little PINK Stanley thermos, who knew that such a little charmer existed? So yesterday morning, at some evil hour when I still had Beaky tucked between my shoulder blades and was ignoring her call of "Wake up", she poured boiling water into Miss Pinky to get her hot before she poured in delicious freshly made proper coffee.

I got up and blinked in shock at the sight of the time showing on the clock, it wasn't even 07.30am! She ate eggs and avocado, I ate egg and hummus, she got dressed and collected her basket, her bus pass and put me, with new food and fresh water, into the bedroom and off she went, to go wherever mothers go on Sunday at 07.50am!

At 11.00am, she thought, it's time for coffee and poured it into the thick ceramic mug she had taken. Only to find the coffee was stone cold, you can imagine the disappointment, for it was a bitterly cold and foggy day and she had made it using her most precious coffee from the Algerian Coffee Stores.

She turned the thermos upside down to see if it was a fake but no, what she found was 'Made in China'! What! Made in China, since when? When she came home, she went on line and found out that a company called PMI had bought the company and name and they've moved the manufacturing of these thermos to China.

Oh, think of a suitably rude word, what a pity! But thank goodness she has a trick up her sleeve, for she has that much treasured 'Tiger' food thermos, it comes with three containers and, by golly, it does the job of keeping the food HOT! She used it to take beef stew and mushroom soup to the troops at Borough and they were piping hot!

So useless Pinky by Stanley Made in China will be kept for transporting cold water to the allotment and she will be going online in the New Year to purchase a thermal flask by Tiger Made in Japan..

GeeGee Parrot.
December 19th, 2016.

ESCAPE TO THE COUNTRY.. TO HER CHILDHOOD HOME!

Oh dear, that has made her just the tiniest little bit sad.. her family sold this ancient and truly outstanding Tudor - late Georgian - house in 1964 and since then, the owners have ripped up an original Elizabethan Camomile lawn and carpeted the front staircase.. which was made out of Spanish ships timbers, think Armada galleon wrecked off the Rye coast!

Shane Lynch of Boyzone was shown the house and the fifteen acres by Gaby Roslin. For the price of two million pounds! The villains have also painted over Tudor woodwork with white gloss and added a gruesome conservatory, oh dear!

But it got worse, for they've put a tiny measily little wood burning stove in the dining room.. into a huge full sized Tudor fireplace which has not one but TWO bread ovens!

She wonders if they know that in the Tudor attics, grain was found that exactly dated this, the oldest, part of the house and it was the first ever example of this grain, found in 1963, being used as insulation.. as determinded by The British Museum. There has been a dwelling on this exact site ever since it was first recorded in the Domesday Book of 1086.

Ah well, 'they' say that you can never 'go back home', but one thing has made her smile and she reckons the secret will die with her.. and that is this.

No one has found the Tudor (King Henry 8th) Priest Hole.

GeeGee Parrot.
December 18th, 2016.

BOOHOO.. GUESS WHAT'S CAUSING HER HIVES!

They've been erupting every night for several weeks, she's changed her washing liquid, she's tried wearing her night-clothes inside out (do not snigger, you'd try anything if you have these awful things erupting every night), she's de-flea'd the bed AND me! She's vacuumed the mattress, she's had all the bed clothes washed, she's tried everything!

They're bright red, painfully itchy and each one lasts for at least thirty six hours! So life each night is pretty grim, to say the least.

On the way back from Romford this afternoon, she looked at which essential oil would help stop the itching, as she really doesn't want to go down the antibiotic route and is fast running out of the truly magical stuff from France, whose name I cannot remember.

'Lavender, Peppermint or Blue Eucalyptus.. well, I have those, I'll try the last one in my new Coconut Oil that I've just bought', she thought. So after greeting me, she went into the bathroom to get the oils, scooped out two ounces of the coconut oil into a brand new jar, put it into a pan of hot water to melt the oil and put in five fat drops of the essential oil.

She gave it a good stir, then left it to sit and harden up for an hour. Taking a spatula, she scooped some out and gently put a dollop on each hive that she could reach.. AHHHH.. wow, the itchyness stopped almost immediately!

We had a simple supper of vegetable and rice and then went to bed. To catch up on the news and emails and to make a couple of calls. Taking with us, my apple and her yummy tasty Assam tea with its' added spices. Cinnamon and nutmeg which make it taste so delicious and just like chai.

A couple of hours later, she started to scratch... as normal as every night but tonight, she had the sense to search also for what could cause these wretched things!

NOOOOOOO... Not anything evil but terriblyterribly sad! Cinnamon and nutmeg are high on the list of hive causing ingredients, along with fermented foods and cheese. Now we don't think It's them but the itching and the scratching certainly started after she started putting those 'warming' spices into her nightly cuppa!

By the diet of elimination she'll identify the culprit and tomorrow there will be no bedtime spiced tea and I'll report back with our findings.

She was immediately reminded of a wonderfully silly birthday card that Constance kept for many years and it went something like this.. that everything 'good'.. is either fattening, illegal or immoral!

So true mes amis, so true!

GeeGee Parrot.
December 15th, 2016.

AA GILL DIED THIS MORNING.

A very short while ago he announced to the world that he had 'The Full English' of Cancer. He died this morning and the Sunday Times newspaper, for whom he wrote, will tomorrow be carrying his final words.

Sad is not a big enough word to describe how she feels at the loss of this talented man. She feels such sorrow for 'The Blonde', his lovely partner of almost twenty five years Nicola Formby and for his four children and family, for his friends and colleagues and finds it extremely hard to believe she'll never again, after tomorrow, read his column again.

She met him a long time ago through a mutual friend, a kind and talented chef, their evening was an evening of excellent food and humorous banter.

Lordy, 2016 has been a 'hard' year, has it not? RIP 'AA' GILL.

GeeGee Parrot.
December 10th, 2016.

A REALLYREALLY BIG SCARY YELLOW JACKET!

Oh Lordy! Most African Grey Parrots don't have to put up with the level of eccentricity that I live with, that's for sure. Take today for example. It started well with delicious YumYum being served at an early, but not too early, hour.

Then it was off to the bathroom to splish and splosh about with hot water and that strange thing that she waves about in her mouth, I think it's called a toothbrush. As I only have one top and one bottom tooth that make up Beaky, I am not in need of this weird thing.

Then she was off out. Where to? Who knew!

But when she came back she looked very different! Cut + colour and a scary yellow, the jacket, not her hair! When I raised more than one eyebrow at the sight of this monster, she laughed and said "You've forgotten my big old yellow jacket GeeGee, the first time we ever met I was wearing it, don't you remember?"

And she was right.. it was her sailing jacket, well this isn't such a smart thing, that's for sure. This came from the supply store where all the road and gas engineers get their water and weather proof clothing from in Streatham.

This is absolutely 'glow-in-the-dark-yellow' and that's exactly why she has bought it, because it is very silly to be out in the weather that she goes out in and trying to cross main busy roads with a dark Barbour jacket. Because you are invisible to drivers driving in filthy weather conditions, well, she won't be invisible now, that's for sure!

What else is news? Not a lot to report, the postal elves have delivered two little packages to folks in Illinois and we have received charming emails, so we thank you MaryLou and Pegeen, like we thanked Patsy and BUB.

That hole in the ground which the numpties filled in on Monday is slowly starting to dry out.. good thing we don't have to sit and watch it, that's for sure! For it would be much slower than watching paint dry!

Ah well, it will all be done, not this year but some time. She is not about to spend the Christmas holidays dragging trunks and firniture around, no sirree. It will be done in January on a dull day when the mood takes her! As for now, we are bound for her bed and my night cage. She has stuff to do quite early and so much as I would like to stay up late and chew the fat with her, it ain't going to happen.

PipPip folks.. PipPip.

GeeGee Parrot.
December 8th, 2016.