Birdy, you're the best host ever!

[Linda]

threeb, hubby won £70 last week on scratchcards!  Not quite enough for a flight to the US or Australia, but going in the right direction as most weeks we get zilch!! 

Hobbit, my son lives in Headingley!  Small world.  I sympathise with your fear - I once worked in a castle and the owner was mad keen on rare breeds of farm animals and BIRDS!!  Every day I had to walk up a very long drive literally teeming with geese, ducks and peacocks!  In the end, I had to ask him to remove the geese to some remote corner of the estate so that I could get to work without having an attack of the heeby jeebies!!  To make matters worse, as he was a bit of an eccentric, he used to walk round with a cockatoo perched on his shoulder!  Horror of horrors!!

[pat]

To make matters worse, as he was a bit of an eccentric, he used to walk round with a cockatoo perched on his shoulder!  Horror of horrors!!

Titter. Sounds like something out of Monty Python!

[Linda]

Yes, pity it wasn't a deceased cockatoo though!! 

[pat]

Linda!

[biggerbirdbrain]

Oh, Linda -- you crack me up!! I've missed your smart wit and stories you tell. How is your son, BTW? I bet he's become quite the grownup now. Do continue to encourage your hubby to keep playing the lottery, and congratulations on his windfall, which is no mean feat. I've been playing for years -- nay, decades now -- and have barely scraped up enough altogether to buy a dinner for two at Olive Garden!

[Linda]

Ha ha!! I will take any chance to have a pop at the feathered community!

Son is doing well, thanks, threeb.  He is living in Leeds and is a support worker for people with learning difficulties.  Am v. proud of him as it's a job requiring empathy, humour and more patience than I have been blessed with.  He works hard and parties hard which is how it should be for a little boy!! (almost 23!!).  Glad I still crack you up - don't know why as I was deadly serious about the cockatoo comment!! Sorry, Pat (not!) 

[pat]

Actually, Linda, I expect you'd have been even more horrified if the man had been walking round with a dead bird on his shoulder! Or at least more disgusted!

[Hobbit]

I keep trying to win the blasted lottery but all I get is the odd fiver or £3   I agree with threeb it would be great to meet up with all the Formites, especially in Oz.  Prob is by the time I'd sailed there on my luxury P&O or Cunard cruise liner you would all have flown there, had a lovely (re)union and flown back to all your respective countries!! Still a lovely thought though.
Linda - your story cracked me up - sounded like a cross between Long John Silver and Monty Python