Parrots and Cats!

There is a surprising similarity between cats and parrots. Cats are known for their fickleness. One day they will decide that this is their most favorite food ever, only the next day to freeze with horror that anyone could dare to give them such muck. Parrots, or at least Larry, appear to be much the same. Although, admittedly it is difficult with Larry as we’re never sure if his squawks are of sheer delight or dismay. He seemed to great a celery stick with enthusiasm, only to then, when presented with  a new one, spent much of his time nibbling bits off and spitting them out of his cage. One thing that does appear to be a success is a pomegranate. He can alternately attack it and kick it round his cage, and peck at the seeds. We lined the base of his cage with paper to make it easier to clean, however Larry then spent his time pecking at this and shredding it into what looks like snow. I think he was trying to get into the festive spirit.

Larry’s cage is full of toys for him, even the vet commented on how many things he has to play with. We are hoping this is a good thing. In his previous house, he was in his cage on is own with nothing to play with, just a sad little budgie to stare at – we just hope that he didn’t enjoy the minimalist life and wonder why we keep cluttering up his cage with rubbish (which is a good point as anything cardboard and peckable gets put in his cage rather than the rubbish bin).

Ian has started work on the house, getting it ready to sell. We’ve promised ourselves that we’ll do this work in the next house before we move in, rather than waiting until we sell. It’s not particularly big things – but useful things like getting proper lights hung so we can see things and having a hook in the pantry for the rubbish bag.

I’ve been asked to do some illustrations of the signs in American Sign Language, so I have been researching this. I was interested to see that it is completely different from British sign language. American letters can be signed with just one hand, whereas you need two for British sign language. For some reason, American sign language is based on French sign language.

We are going to join the craft association of Extremadura this week. We’re going to sign up in Ian’s name and use the brand name Disfrutes which means ‘enjoyment’ in Spanish. We own the website address disfrut.es so it makes sense to use it.

We appear to have the beginnings of quite a bumper harvest of mushrooms on the way. Could be Christmas dinner sorted…