happy xmas Neil

and all on the forum

Geoff

Happy Christmas all!

Season's greetings and felicitations from me too…Hope everyone has a great christmas and a prosperous and healthy new year….

Merry Christmas to all. Thanks for all the help this year. Just been called the man Ed from movie UP by the kids next door as I delivered their presents (they were watching it) makes you feel a bit older.

David

Seasons greetings to one and all

Roy

Merry xmas to all

A merry Christmas and a safe and happy new year to all the forum members

Some local Welsh knowledge this Christmas.



Part way between Welshpool and Oswestry is the small village of Pant. You can find it on any map – as they say Google is your friend. Pant sits on the border between England and Wales and that might be why health authorities gave it little priority.



There's an interesting character that lives there, Jack the odd-job man. It;s rumoured that Rowan Atkinson modelled his character of Mr Bean when he met Jack because he;s one of those guys who doesn't really think things through before he acts.



Jack is a deaf mute. It's a genetic problem around Pant and because of the poor decisions as to responsibility of health authorities the Pant mutes never got the help they really deserved – which is sad. They did however develop their own form of communication mostly by demonstrating actions in a very visual manner which is probably what brought them to Rowan Atkinsons' attention.



Anyway the story I want to tell you is one that Jack told me while he was helping on the farm. He came back one evening wanting my help with his Budgie that was egg-bound. It turned out that the budgie had escaped from it's cage the day before and flown off. Now Jack was very fond of his pal and ran along under it's flight path calling it's name.



He got a bit worried when it flew into the grounds of the manor house because the owner of that was known to be an aggressive bugger and was a big man with a foul temper. So jack got quite concerned when he saw his bird fly into one of the open windows on the upper floors. He figured that knocking on the door and asking for his budgie back would just be met with the usual verbal abuse the owner was known for. He took a chance and climbed the ivy clad manor house walls and went in through the window that his budgie had flown in by.



Of course trying to catch the budgie was a different matter. He'd taken his jacket off and tried throwing it over the bird but inevitably there was some tripping over of furniture and noise. And inevitably the manor owner came to investigate – with his shotgun shouting “Thieves, freeze! I've got me gun.”

Jack spent along time lying down under the bed waiting for the guy to give up and assume it was just something that toppled over.



To cut a long story short that's what happened and after an extraordinary wait Jack finally got the chance to catch his budgie, stuff it under his hat and climb back out of the window. Anyhow when he got budgie home it looked unwell and knowing I'm a retired vet he was asking my help.



It turned out that budgie was egg-bound as I said and fortunately the old trick of holding it over a hot cup of water and lubricating the cloaca got the egg out. It was an odd egg. Instead of the usual pale budgie egg this one was a very yellow colour and quite heavy. Jack said I could keep the souvenir.

So that's the story of Jack Bean's talking the Pant Mime and the bird that laid a golden egg.

Oh yes it is!

Merry Christmas everyone.

pgk

Merry Christmas to all

Even though 2018 aint quite done yet –

I would also like to say a big thank you to all of the forum members who have posted in 2018 as you have made this forum one with the most diversified set of topics i have ever seen !

Also a big thanks to the moderators for keeping it all on the straight and narrow , after reading another post on the spamming that we usually never see it became clear to me that there is a LOT of work that goes on behind the scenes that we never realise ! Thanks to all involved .

Ian.

Merry Xmas one and all – and don't use your machinery until you have sobered up!

A merry Christmas and a happy and peaceful new year to everyone.

Of course I won't use machinery until sober! I never do, it's just the end result that LOOKS like I was drunk when I made it sometimes. 😂😂😂