The comedian and the parrot

No, that isn't a reference to today's online meeting of Cumbria County Council or a comment aimed at any of my fellow councillors, it refers to something which happened an hour or two after the council meeting finished.

I booked leave for part of today ending at 2pm when the council meeting was due to finish, and then re-started work.

I had just logged onto a call with a colleague to be told "Just a moment, Chris, there's a bird in my garden, I'll call you back in five minutes and explain."

The bird concerned was an escaped parrot.

He'd just had a knock on the door from a figure he recognised as the comedian Bill Bailey (star of Never mind the Buzzcocks, Hot Fuzz, etc, etc, etc) who explained that he was looking for a parrot which ahd escaped and flown into my colleague's garden, and asked permission to come in and recapture it.

With a certain amount of fuss they manged to do so.

Well, that was a pretty unusual excuse for having to delay the start of a call but it'll give him a story to dine out on for a long time.

Today really has been a strange sort of day ... 

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