A Tale of a Parrot

The lovely market town of Uzès was an appealing place to spend a morning even though the weather had turned cool and dull again.  A lady in the Uzès craft shop told us about the Musee du Scribe, a fantastic museum with displays on calligraphy and manuscripts through the ages. It was in Alès, another 30 km in the wrong direction.  It was now drizzling and we’d not much else to do, so off we went.  When we arrived in Alès, we found that the museum is only open on the weekends at this time of year.  However, to amuse myself while Linz read the paper, I found a huge art shop with a very interesting artist/owner and an even more interesting parrot … he had owned her for 8 years and she’s a beautiful bird.  However, I noticed that she was trembling and he said she is ‘emotional’ (aren’t all females?).   Every time he was out of her sight, she would call out “Papa, Papa” – quite enchanting, but I’m sure the novelty would wear off rapidly.  She bites.  Hard.  I suggested he could put a glove on so that she could climb on his hand to be carried around.  He said she would go crazy because she still remembers being taken from the wild as a baby by people wearing gloves.  Isn’t that amazing – I didn’t know parrots had such good memories.