Parrot fashion

Just returned from four days of cat-sitting in Camden Town. Many years ago – about 23, I think – I spent a week parrot-sitting in Windsor. Whilst there, I rang a radio phone-in prog about transport but the presenter was much more interested in the parrot and asked me to make it talk. Minutes earlier, it had been parroting my singing and guitar playing of the prevous night, but once on air, it got stage fright. Would the damn thing talk? Not on your nelly. I prompted it till I was Amazonian Blue in the face but it refused even to say, “Pretty Polly.” The moment I was off air, it flew out of its cage and soared about the room screaming, “Get your knickers off,” something it must have learned from its rather rampant owner. (Who, incidentally, on his return accused me of turning his parrot into a ‘woofter’, to use his non-pc phrase, as it was now singing soprano rather than baritone.)

Cat-sitting was a doddle until I sat down to a ham salad, when 40 claws and half a million sharp teeth did their best to swipe the ham before I did. Having turned their pretty pink noses up at catfood, they made short work of my ham, even though I lectured them about salt and additives not being good for feline health. I then went to Camden market and found a lovely Turkish lady who makes medieval velvet clothes for her stall. “They fit size 14-16,” she assured me, but when I got back and tried to pull the top over my head, all I could hear was stitches busting and the cackling of a ghostly parrot. The cats can have the ham. I’d better stick to the lettuce if I want to be a medieval maiden that gets some knight errant (I think I might prefer a knight errand to go to the supermarket for me) singing, “Open your drawbridge, I’ll enter your keep!”