13. HELLO POPPY

When my boyfriend visited me in Victoria, I caged Bernie the Budgerigar.
After becoming a companion bird, she made a lot of what about me chirps. Fixing up my pet with fresh seed, my main man was in the living room waiting to take me to dinner. Talking to housemates, I heard him call my budgie an: ‘F---ing sparrow.’

That boyfriend is now a husband who has never shared my big bird interest. After spending so many years with a bird-lover though, he’s changed. A miracle; he’s come to like Poppy the Indian Peahen. 

Honestly, what’s not to like about this strange, eccentric peafowl?

He says hello to Poppy every morning. He greets her even when she is sitting, possibly shitting, on the handlebars of his quad bike.

If husband reads this I’ll be in the shit. Whatever, I think he’s beginning to be into birds. And that’s all good.