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Birdwatching

One fine autumn day, last weekend, Kit and I spent a good deal of time dressing warmly. When we were so swaddled that we could hardly bend our limbs, due to an overabundance of sleeves and trouser legs, we took Milly, my bicycle out for a ride.

After shedding several layers to facilitate the crucial act of pedalling, we set off along the bike path winding along the Swan River.

The area is rich with bird life, and that day was no exception. From his vantage point in Milly’s basket, Kit enthusiastically wrongly identified a dozen species of bird. He says I am worse at bird watching because I think everything is a cormorant. In my defense, there are no less than three species of cormorant that live locally.

We cycled along bickering happily, me telling him that there is no such thing as a Rusty Spotted Fork Bill, and him accusing me of Chronic Geriatric Myopia.

Unfortunately, as we rounded a bend, a magpie swooped us threateningly. While it is well-known that magpies often swoop people during nesting season, it is less well-known that they don’t particularly like Kit at any time of year. This may be because he occasionally chases them wielding cutlery, and shrieking obscenities.

Kit was terrified, “Go, Mum! Go!” he squeaked, yelling obscenities, and scrabbling around for spare cutlery.  So off I pedalled like a bat out of hell, Kit shouting and waving a teaspoon from Milly’s basket as threateningly as possible (that is to say not very threateningly at all).

By the time we reached safety, poor Milly had sustained a puncture to her front tyre.

When we got home, Kit’s Dad offered to take her in to the bike shop the next day.

When he got home I asked him, “How did you go?”

Kit immediately answered for him, “We couldn’t fit Milly in Dad’s car, so we took off her front wheel, and just took that to the bike shop.”

Kit’s Dad coughed. “We?!” he asked, rubbing a bruise on his leg.

“Well, if you had only stopped screaming, ‘Ow!’ and listened to me, it might have turned out a lot better,” Kit retorted.

They glared at each other.

Kit turned to me and continued, “Dad took in the wheel to show the bike doctor, and asked him if he could fix it. Then the bike doctor gave him this funny look, and said, ‘Maybe, but I’m going to need a lot of parts!’”

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Where in the World?

We get so used to hearing certain place names that we often forget how they sound to outsiders and small children (or stuffed meerkats). So, I thought I would share some real life conversations I have had with Kit.

The first time we took Kit to visit his great grandmother, I told him to get ready for a car trip to her house.

“Where’s she live?” he asked.

Without thinking I answered, “Innaloo.”

Kit was very young then. As if it were the most normal thing in the world, he simply suggested, “Maybe she should come and visit us instead, because I don’t think there will be room for all four of us at her place.”

Another day I was musing about the possibility of bush-walking in Ellen Brook Nature Reserve.

“Where’s that?” Kit asked.

“Upper Swan,” I said using the common abbreviation for the northernmost part of the Swan Valley.

“Excuse me?!” he said indignantly, “I thought you just said, ‘up a swan.’”

“That’s right,” I answered, “Upper Swan Valley.”

“Well why didn’t you say so?” he exclaimed, “I thought you were being very rude indeed. Not to mention unkind to swans.”

“Sorry,” I muttered, suitably chastened, “I wonder if there’re any suitable walks down Rockingham way.”

“Stop!” he screeched, “Rockingham!” That sounds like a pig with an electric guitar! You’re making these up.”

“I am not,” I objected, pointing to the map.

“Oh, look, there are lots of others,” Kit said, excitedly flicking through the pages. “Manchester. That sounds like a very flat area.”

“How do you mean?” I politely enquired.

He explained, “It’s like something you’d call a woman with very small breasts. Oh, she’s a bit of a man-chester!”

“It’s what we call bed linen, here in Australia,” I told him.

“That makes sense!” he squeaked, “Flat as a sheet on a bed!” and he fell about laughing.  “What’s Manchester really like, then?” he added.

I was in the middle of a scientific response regarding my absence of knowledge of the topography of Manchester, England, when he suddenly exclaimed, “Winnipeg! Enter the competition with the worst prize in the world! Are there any good place names where you come from?”

“Well,” I mused, “You might be amused by Kilbirnie.”

“Kill Bernie! Just like the movie, Weekend at Bernie’s.”

“Oh, and there’s a spot called Happy Valley,” I added.

“That’s not especially funny,” he pointed out.

“It is when you know that’s the location of the local landfill,” I told him, “And I understand that lot of marijuana is grown there.”

Kit fell about laughing again.

I am seriously considering blacking out Cockburn in my atlas.

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Tinned Surprise

Kit enjoys being part of an interspecies family. (If you value the skin on your ankles, don’t ever call him a pet!) It enables him to feel superior due to all the skills he possesses that humans don’t. Like digging holes, and…..digging other holes in different places. He considers us disabled because we require tools to achieve this.  I consider him a tool (for digging holes, you understand; who needs a trowel when they have a meerkat?)  

Our opposable thumbs are something Kit is not remotely jealous of, explaining that they would only get in the way of digging a good hole. I said that they are useful for holding a pen. Kit said he prefers to use my laptop anyway. (How else could he read alarming misinformation on the web, and get the wrong end of the stick about virtually everything?)

Kit’s comprehension is much better than his writing. He says that this is because comprehension does not require his paws, which are tiny, only his brain, which is enormous! To illustrate how much more intelligent he is than me, he requested that I share the following story (something he would never have been stupid enough to do):

“One grocery shopping day, Mum couldn’t find any paper to write her shopping list on. Most people would use their smartphone, but she’s like, a hundred and twelve, so she doesn’t have one.”

“Excuse me?!” I interjected.

“In meerkat years,” he added hurriedly, and continued, “So, she tore the label off a tin of lentils and wrote on the back of it. She’s done it a few times since, so now we often eat tinned ‘surprise’ for dinner. It could be peaches. It could be baked beans. I made up this game where you shake the tin and guess what’s in it. Then she has to open it, and make dinner out of it. If you get it right, you have to eat it! Actually, even if you get it wrong, she still makes you eat it. The worst dinner was brown lentils and peaches.”

Kit neglected to mention that this only happened once, and I have since started writing on the tin in permanent marker if I feel the need to pinch the label. He is lying about the lentils and peaches. Kit says I am spoiling the story. So I’ll end there before I ruin it completely!