My Dad Says .....

My dad calls me Poops.  He says it's what I do really well.  I love my dad!  Do you know my dad?

I'm an Aussie born-and-bred girl cockatiel, a Queenslander, living in the best state in the lucky land 'down under'.  That's what my dad says.

My dad goes away from our house a lot.  He works in another place, somewhere in town, three days a week, and takes his car with him.   My mum says I'm so clever because I know when he goes driving and when he comes back. I can hear his car coming a long way away, even before my mum who has 'cloth ears' (that's what my dad sometimes says) can hear him coming, and I start to shout out really loud and jump up and down on my perch.  I love my dad.

Sometimes my dad goes on a trip up north or to other states, and then he flies because it's a long way and too far to drive.    My dad has long arms, but he doesn't have feathers like me.  I don't understand how my dad flies.  Do you fly?

I love to watch TV with my mum and dad.  My mum watches a lot of cooking programmes and she tries out some of what she sees on my dad.  I think some of it smells yucky, but my dad likes all mum's food.  It doesn't stay long on his plate.  My dad eats really quickly.  How quickly do you eat?

My dad has been watching a lot of what he calls politics on TV recently.  He says that we are in the middle of a general election.  That's when all the people in Australia are allowed to choose politician people to represent them in the House of Representatives (which he says is a green house and is called the Lower House) and also in the Senate (which he says is the Upper House and is red). I think it would be better to sit in the Upper House as you would get a better view from there.

Only these politician people are allowed to sit in these houses.  Both houses are in a big building called the Federal Parliament in Canberra.  This building must be really big if it has two houses inside it.  Is your house really big?

My dad says that these politician people in the green house sit on different sides of the house. Those on each side have to 'toe the party line', which my dad says means they have to agree with what the boss of their own side of the house tells them.  Then they argue a lot with the other side and call each other nasty names sometimes.  My dad says they spend more time arguing than they do looking after the country.  I don't understand why clever people, who other people (like my dad) choose to decide things, spend all day fighting with each other.  I bet you don't fight and argue with people who sit in your house, do you?

My dad says these parliament people are able to sit in the parliament building for three years, before they have to go back to everyone else in the country and ask to be chosen to sit again for another three years.  Sometimes parliament people who have been sitting on one side of the house for three years, then have to go and sit on the other side of the house for their next three years.  Three years is a long time to sit in one house.  Do you sit in your house for a long time, or do you get out a lot and meet people?  

Also, I don't understand why these politician people, who, before they go away and sit for three years, promise to do what the choosy Australian people want, later have to do what their house boss tells them and not what the choosy people asked them to do.  My dad says that a promise is a promise and that once you make a 'cross your heart and hope to die promise' you shouldn't change your mind because it means you're telling lies.  My dad says that your pants will catch fire if you tell lies.  Have your pants ever caught fire?

Sometimes, when my mum and dad go away together on what they call a 'holiday', they take me to visit my Auntie Maureen.  I love staying with my Auntie Maureen as she has lots and lots of other birds there.  My dad says she's a breeder and that mum and dad picked me from Auntie Maureen's place when I was very little.  They say they chose me from many, many cockatiels and other birds because I am very special and because mum liked all the spots I've got on my body.  That's why my proper Sunday name is Spotty.  What's your proper Sunday name?

My dad says that, if you like me, you can write to me with special 'comments' and that you can 'share' what I have said above with lots of buzzy bee people, who sit in hive houses.  I hope you do because I really like people, even buzzy bee people, and really like it when they scratch my head.  My dad's a good head scratcher.  I love my dad.

Will you write to me soon?

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When not researching the weird or the wonderful, the comical or the cultured, the sinful or the serious, spotty's dad chases his creative side, the results of which can be seen as selected photographs of his travels on his website at:

http://ken-boddie.squarespace.com

Spotty's dad, Ken Boddie, besides being a sometime poet and occasional writer, is an enthusiastic photographer, rarely leisure-travelling without his Canon, and loves to interact with other like-minded people with diverse interests.

Ken's three day work week (part time commitment) as a consulting engineer allows him to follow his photography interests, and to plan trips to an ever increasing list of countries and places of scenic beauty and cultural diversity.