Bird Show

And so begins a second weekend of Sydney winter. It's enough to make a girl turn to chocolate, though it's coming to something when you buy a bar of Toblerone because there's nothing else edible. This in itself is a first because I've only ever bought Toblerone on cross channel ferries and I've never actually seen one in anyone's house except at Christmas, which leads me to think it's my season lag to blame, convinced that Christmas is around the corner.

This morning I stood at the window surveying our prospects while Ella listed aloud her plans for the day; park, swimming pool and beach. The rain came down in sheets moving south to north across the skyline; the palm trees bending, the parrots shrieking indignation, caught in the storms without their umbrellas. The Rainbow Lorikeet looks particularly pathetic when drenched to his skinny little body, afterall, who ever heard the phrase "water off a parrot's back"?

The ferries are cancelled since they sent one of the Manly boats out into the harbour to test the swell and watched him swirling around in the filthy cauldron that Port Jackson has become. It's whale watching season but I doubt they're doing much business.

Anyway, faced with the storm we took off in our waterproofs to a bird show advertised in the Southern Courier. We'd been expecting galahs and parakeets and magnificent cockatoos but were met with rows and rows of identical-looking budgies in cages, a smattering of finches providing the only variety on the theme. Then a man walked past with a painting of a budgie on canvas and I realised my life in Sydney has plummeted new depths - Saturday afternoon at a budgie-fanciers' convention in a wet Berghaus coat.

If there's nobody at our welcome home party, I'll know why.