Long Time...

Where have I been? Well, my shiny new laptop arrived. Yay and big smileys.

I plugged in the various brain-sucking cables and my nasty, spiteful crusty old PC took one look at aforementioned Shiny and bit down on the cyanide pill hidden in its processor, never to recover. Not so yay. Those That Playeth Games poo-pooed my frustrations, barely grasping the concept of ‘sent items’ and ‘bookmarks’ lost forever, never mind the stockpile of web-page templates for my various website projects. My data was thankfully safe, but please don’t ask me to resend anything, all emails throughout May and June remain unanswered and if you are a sponsor – forgive me – but I haven’t a clue who you are anymore. If everyone I know would like to send me a quick hello, I may start to rebuild Rome. And please don’t even think about looking at the website.

In the meantime, what of my real life??

Well, Crazy Bird Lady appears to have taken over any remaining sane parts of Miss Nikki. What used to be a quiet secluded veranda outside my bedroom door now resembles the ‘parrots for sale’ section at the back of PetSmart. I agreed to watch over some exotics while the owner is on holiday for a month or so. That was probably a mistake. I hadn’t realised how much these companion birds would tug at my attention span. The grey is a hooligan, romping around the floor, biting men, falling in love with women and trilling a version of our phone ringing every ten seconds so we all look like a bunch of jack-in-the-boxes. The conure wants shoulder rides all the time, and is so small and light that we sometimes forget she’s there. And the eclectus just wants to sit on the T-stand and watch the world go by. They all say hello, shout for mummy and are totally adorable – except for the lorikeets, who have projectile diarrhoea and have turned my outside wall into a Jackson Pollock mural. Needless to say, Chilli is apoplectic most of the time.

Every so often I yearn for a real life. I was sat bored in the doctor’s office a few weeks back, waiting for a medical to confirm my suitability as a Citizen of Belize, when I happened across a year-old copy of Conde Naste. Oh, the luxury. The far flung places, the beaches, the yachts and private jets. Not to say my life was ever quite that luxurious or privileged, but there was a time when Jerry and I could stick a pin in the map and hop on a plane. I stole the magazine and burned it late that night crying ‘heretic’ and ‘Jezebel’. I shan’t be visiting that doctor’s surgery again for a while (although it sounds like I probably should)

Most of the releases are doing well – Paddington visits once or twice a week, Monty and Como once or twice a month. I haven’t seen last year’s releases for a good while, but the aviary got buzzed by two adults and a baby last week: I am totally convinced they were ours. Well, I would be, wouldn’t I?

Unfortunately, the mismatched idiots, Bib and Daphne have suffered a huge setback. I’m not naming names or pointing fingers, but when I get the chance to sort out the delightful neighbour that shot Bibi in the eye with a slingshot, there will be retribution. ‘An eye for an eye’ is the phrase, I believe. I knew something was brewing when I was informed that those ‘annoying birds are making noise near my house and waking me in the mornings’. Now, how dare jungle animals live in the jungle and make noise? It’s about time someone put a stop to that!! Oh, - hang on - lots of people already are… Anyhow, he’s in the excellent care of Natalie at CASA so hopefully he will be back up and annoying asap. I may have to take him out into the real jungle – he obviously can’t keep out of trouble without help.

And what of the fantastic new aviary? I would LOVE to tell you it is finished, but we have one more day of welding, and about a week of perching, planting and primping to go. So close…

We’ve also had to build a 5-man quarantine unit to house the newbie’s. That was an interesting exercise – I informed the carpenter that I wanted 5 units, each 4 feet square –that’s 20 feet in all. Due to the rain he decided to build it in the garage. In one piece! Then he went home to leave us to just “pick it up and pop it into place”. The bl**dy thing must have weighed several thousand tonnes. Thanks for that. I’m roping in all and sundry, including a shell-shocked, but willing son-in-law to help me finish the flooring for that that this week and then we should be in the quarantine business.

Speaking of which, we’re up to three on the yellow-head count. Not quite a breeding programme, but it’s an interesting start. One is beautiful and has gone from ‘600g Chunky-Monkey Too-Fat-For-a-leg-Band” to a svelte 503g. Another is still in love with a red lored, which is going to end in tears, and the third is so nasty we called him Norman (…Bates? …psycho?…get it??) I dread to think what the previous ‘owners’ used to do to him, but he hates women, will tolerate men, but generally speaking wants to kill everyone. He calls himself an animal. There’s a nice way to raise a parrot.