Frozen Parrots

Did you know that there is a parrot that lives in the snow?

I didn't and though there are MANY things that I don't know, this- cold parrots - seems surprising.

Ok, if you read the article in today’s Guardian Newspaper you will learn that it doesn't REALLY live in the snow, just near it- but come on, parrots, snow, who would have guessed. Anyhow, this parrot stole someone's passport!

It is probably very unsafe to believe EVERYTHING that you read, maybe the Scottish gentleman concerned made the story up to explain his decision to extend his holiday by whatever time it would take to get a new passport, or maybe the local tourist office needs more publicity.

A friend gave me an old copy of The Week, a British publication that rounds up news and stuff and presents it in a magazine format. The edition that he passed on is the Christmas 2008 one and features a section "The Best Tabloid Stories of 2008" and I have no idea whether these are true either.

I learnt, for example, that an American man was arrested after attacking someone with his homework from the anger management course he was attending. Apparently this took place in St Paul, Minnesota - can anyone confirm that this really happened and is not just the opening line in a stand up comedy routine?

So I would like to assure you that everything I write about here is true, unless specifically stated to be imagination, if I make a false statement I will correct it when I spot the error.

As I have been writing an insect landed my arm and caused me to jump, and I read in this same issue of The Week that this is a sign of someone with right-wing views (the jump, not the landing of the insect).

I like to think it is more illustrative of my sensitivity to entomologic attack rather than my politics, and as I swept the invader onto the table I feel vindicated.

It is a full one-and-three-quarter inches long, from the tip of its arched antennae to the end of its rear pincer. Its other pincers, beneath the head remain defiantly and aggressively open and it remains unmoving adjacent to my nervously typing fingers.

It has refused to move since I screamed uncontrollably, and it resisted three heavily gloved attempts by Krissie to push it onto the largest envelope invented. She has since had to leave for the vet with one of the cats (another story) and I am alone with "IT".

If this is my last post then you will know that my last spoken words were "would you like to take this to the vet's too, find out what it is?"

To establish blog-credibility I offer this photo as evidence that what I tell you is true.

However, it is not the main photo of this post, that is reserved for another surprise I received today.

After lunch in a nearby 5-courses-for-10-euro-with-a-bottle-of-wine-and-fresh-roses-on-the-table restaurant, I drove past the workshop described earlier in these pages, the sign over the door confirming both my understanding of the last conversation I will ever have with the owner, and the truth of these pages.