Rosey, a bird and a bench!

So there we were in the Bicycle Arms, my friend Rosey, Jonni, Helen and me, enjoying a beverage as you do. We were gathered around the fireplace. Not sure why because it was a lovely spring evening and the fire hadn’t been lit for weeks. Suddenly there was a flapping sound accompanied by a bit of squawking, then a large bird made an unceremonial entrance into the grate with its wings outstretched, accompanied by copious amounts of soot. Jonni squeaked, Helen let out a miniature scream, Rosey looked stunned and I had a quiet chuckle to myself. Rosey was the first to take a closer look at the poor little creature lying belly up in the basket. ‘I think it’s dead’ Rosey said ‘I can’t see any signs of life. Poor little blackbird’. Jonni then chirped up. ‘It’s not a blackbird Rosey, it’s a pigeon covered in soot’ I suggested she might practice her first aid on it.; a good chance to put her qualification into use. It was met with a stony silence.
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Rosey continued to study it at very close quarters for a while then starting bouncing up and down on her knees. ‘Its eyes - they blinked, they blinked!’ she yelled. I suggested that birds don’t blink, and resident geek Jonni immediately Googled my remark; any excuse to fire up the i Pad!  With obvious delight he said ‘Wrong .They blink very quickly. It says so on Wikipedia so it must be right'. We all looked but said nothing.  ‘Now I can see it breathing‘ said Rosey. By now the excitement was too much for Helen who sighed and strolled off to the bar for a top up. ‘Arise little blackbird’ said Rosey in her sweetest voice which she saves for such occasions. ‘Pigeon, it’s a bloody pigeon’ shouted Jonni. Rosey slowly turned her head and glared. No words necessary!

She turned back to her patient, her nose just inches away from it. Then suddenly it started to flutter in a somewhat frantic fashion sending a cloud of soot into Rosey’s face. She shot upright and turned to look at us. She was not amused. ‘Ha ha ha’ chortled Jonni. ‘Now there really is a black bi…’ ’Jonni’ yelled Rosey ‘That’s bordering on racism’.
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Anyway, the sad creature calmed down again and Rosey who was unfazed by her newly applied makeup carefully lifted it, cradling it her in hands. 'I’m going to free it into the night’ she said. I followed her out into the beer garden. She sat on a bench and gently lowered it onto the ground. With that it waddled off into the long grass. ‘It will probably wait until it’s light to fly away’ she said.

Then a moment later in the way only Rosey does, she suddenly changed the subject. ‘When I’m dead and gone’ she said ‘I want to have a bench placed in front of the public toilets and it will have a sign on it saying ‘In Memory of Rosey Anne Pinkerton who loved this place’ 'But you don’t love that place’ I said. ‘I will’ she said, ‘because I’m going to have some little nails pointing up from the seat, and I’ll be watching whilst anyone who sits there will feel a bit of a prick’. With that she stood up and headed back inside leaving me to ponder on what I'd just heard.

To read loads more stories about My Friend Rosey click HERE