A Bird In The Grand......

Robins are one of my favourite birds, but I'm not overly keen on their larger avian relatives. I think it stems back to an Unfortunate Incident when I was about 4 years old.....

My mother, granny and I had come home from the shops one hot summer day (remember those?) to find that a very large seagull with IBS had flown in through the lounge window. It was zooming round the room, enthusiastically pretending to be a Lancaster Bomber.

Initially, I was thrilled. For reasons unknown, I thought my dad had brought home a parrot, and promptly named it Fluffy. (Clearly I was a very stupid child.)

Even now, I can see my granny trying to shoo it out with two table tennis bats, in the manner of an octogenarian air traffic controller. (I'd never heard anyone swearing before; I thought she was speaking French.)

I can also still remember all the terrible squawking and flapping - and that was just my mother, when she saw what Fluffy had done to the keys of her piano.....