It's fair-dinkum unbelievable

Categories: uncategorized

Date: 11 October 2005 00:10:40

We have a cockatiel (small crested parrot type bird) in a cage on our back verandah.
He (or she?) just flew into our garden one day looking very lonely and hungry. He had obviously been someones pet, as he wolf-whistled, so we advertised to see if we could find his owner. No interest, so we gave him a home and he's been part of our family for a few years now.
Tired of the constant wolf-whistling, last year I decided to teach him to whistle a tune. I remembered a simple little ditty, which I only know as “merrily danced the farmers wife” that my mum used to whistle when I was very young. Since the birds cage on the verandah is just outside our toilet window, whenever nature called, I spent some time whistling the tune.
Now if that conjures up an amusing mental picture..it gets worse.
It took a couple of months and the bird learnt that tune and whistles it beautifully, even to the tremolo on the last note. Sometimes when I hear the bird, I picture my mum in the vegie patch, with her big straw hat and apron on getting something for the family dinner, whistling away.
Anyway with the tune successfully mastered, I decided I might teach the bird to talk.
We had some family debate about a phrase to concentrate on and decided on “it's fair-dinkum unbelievable”. A phrase used often by a particular footy commentator, which I've never heard, but it's somehow got into our family “most used phrase” list.
Anyway, picture this... You're walking along the back verandah, past the toilet window, and all you hear is some bloke saying over and over “it's fair-dinkum unbelievable”.
It really is....