Seagulls Bully Ducks

My last blog post was crap and I’m gradually coming to terms with that fact.

I’m not going to apologise for it though because doing so would be something like admitting I might have gotten it wrong and we just don’t do that on my planet.

Today I realised that a lot of sweetie wrappers have competitions on them, so I’ve promised Gail that I’m going to be far more attentive to my chocolate-bar rubbish from now on in the hope that I can win an iPod or a Ford Focus in the future. She just laughed. I think she thought I was kidding.

Last night Team Patterson dined 76 of Clarkston’s finest citizens in St Joseph’s church hall to raise funds for Bethany’s nursery (Gail’s idea)! Gail and the team of mums at the nursery produced a belting “Come Dine With Me in Italy” night and raised over £2500!!

12 The Oval Masterchef 2011 champion: Gail Patterson

…Aye I know!!

So me and my super-chef mrs headed to Fenwick’s Cafe this morning for some brekkie but it was closed so we went to the Morrison’s in Giffnock instead. It were rubbish. Don’t go.

Once I was sure of my ability to contain what I had actually managed to masticate and then eventually swallow, we went to pick the chimps up from the maw-in-law at Lochlea heights and Gail and her wee mammy treated everybody to the usual unintended episodes of sporadic slapstick hilarity. They work unwittingly well as a duo but it is difficult to describe their calamitous capers with mere written words so I’m thinking of following them around with a video camera as it would make fantastic TV: I love their tandem puzzled expressions as their faces wait for the punch-line of a joke to be realised…it’s like that interval between when a fire work takes off and when it actually goes off. Of course sometimes it doesn’t go off at all. That’s wouldn’t be a main highlight but “Punchline Conundrum Time” would probably be a recurring feature of the show.

Anyway I might not.

Every time we go to Rouken Glen park to “feed the ducks” Bethany witnesses greed, theft, assault and brutal racism.

It sickens me.

And this park is supposed to be in one of the ‘better’ neighbourhoods in Glasgow too. Seagulls bully ducks and I don’t think its fair. Did you know that if you pretend to throw bread for seagulls they will follow the phantom food much like dogs do with sticks? Ducks don’t though. So I’ve developed a technique which makes “feeding the ducks” a much more feasible endeavour. It is called the Cobra Strategy but is sometimes referred to as Operation Mallard. I have honed it into a simple 5 step method and I am now going to share it with you:

1. Hold the bread in your best hand and address the inevitably mixed congregation.

2. Select a hungry looking duck that you’d like to feed.

3. With your weaker arm perform a convincingly paced ‘lob’ type action to an imaginary marker well to the left or right of your intended target duck. (The majority of the feathered harbour-vermin will follow the ‘dough’).

4. Just after you have ‘released’ the decoy ‘bread’, perform a whip-crack like insertion of the actual bread into the pond space immediately adjacent to the target duck. This must be performed at a lightening fast pace. Think “COBRA”.

5. Revel in the success of the Strike.

6. There is no 6th step but you may be able to repeat the above 5 steps with releative ease for almost 10 consecutive minutes.

During the recession we have been visiting the park more often and will continue to do so until the Tories implement their ridiculous Park-visiting Taxation For Earners Under The £100K Threshold Policy, so if you want to see the above methodology in live demonstration visit the pond at Rouken Glen a couple of Sundays every few months until our paths cross.  I am an able tutor; my 4yo daughter Bethany showed mild interest in the bread and also in the ducks, while my 4mo son Thomas feigned a vague response to my technical demonstration…but you know what kids are like.

Bethany successfully feeds ducks

If not then practise, practise, practise, and good luck.

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