Cross Hatch

Sunday being a day of rest (historically, if not always in actuality these days), I'm giving my little grey cells a rest from coming up with vaguely relevant woodworking topics. That's my excuse...

Although, it didn't work, because instead I was wracking my brains to remember when PJ's hatch day was (PJ being the pre-owned, occasionally homicidaly-inclined Senegal parrot who dwells with us here at The Towers).

I knew she was 15 this year (15! Yikes!), but couldn't recall whether her hatch day was the 7th or 9th of December. Eventually I had to give in, go through The Drawer of Doom where all the important stuff goes to get lost, and find the scrap of paper that told me... it was the 4th, and I'd missed it. Again.

PJ tends to feel things deeply, having had a somewhat troubled chick- and early bird-hood, so it's just as well she can't read a calendar or I'd have to be counting my ears and checking I still had two. So, to make up, here's a blog entry all her own to mark the occasion.

Okay, not just her. What can I say? She has a magnetic attraction and just draws certain people to her... Lucy, the cat, no longer does nerve-wracking things like this. She's developed a healthy respect for just what a beak can do to soft paws and delicate noses, so all communication tends to be at a safe distance now. Thus, when she can resist the lure no longer, she sits four feet away and mews her desire to eat PJ. PJ glares back with an aura of "Come on then, pal. If you think you're hard enough" and metaphorically breaks off the end of a bottle on the bar. Stalemate ensues.

And finally, PJ with her best-beloved, Bertie. Talk about an odd couple; she has all the brains, and he... well, he lets her do anything she wants, as long as he doesn't have to lift a claw. It's like they were meant to be. Indeed, this touching scene is actually PJ just about to pluck out yet another one of Bertie's head feathers. He is, quite literally, hen-pecked. Bald, but happy.

There ya go, PJ. Happy Belated Hatch Day. Yeah, yeah, okay, I'll shut up now and get you a peanut. Sheesh.