'There's a parrot on his shoulder'

I was ironing a sweatshirt today which I bought when we were touring British Columbia and Alberta, Canada last year and was reminded of our brief stay in Kaslo - a very fine wee town and we loved every minute of our stay.

We had breakfast in a wee coffee shop which was very busy. As ususal the Canadian breakfasts were hearty and I was tucking into some fresh fruit and looking forward to the cooked breakfast to follow when Mrs S said "There's a parrot on that chap's shoulder".

I heard this - but didn't quite believe what I was hearing so ignored it and dug my fork into the next strawberry.

Clearly unimpressed by my silence and not even a glance towards Mrs S, she repeated her statement 'there's a parrot on that chap's shoulder'.

Now I took the first of her statements to be some form of random means of making conversation hence my ignoring it. I ignored the repeat on the basis that (a) the food was too good to be interrupted by even such wild statements as this. It was Canada after all and the notion of parrots on shoulders in a sleepy town in wilderness Canada just did not compute in my brain (I should have known better as Mrs S is not given to extravagent or wild statements) and (b) a belief now forming in my mind that whatever was in Mrs S's coffee I was going to have some of that too even if it resulted in some whacky car navigation later.

Ignoring Mrs S twice was an error. The third time she said 'there's a parrot on that chap's shoulder' was now sufficiently insisting that I raised my eyes to look at her then looked over my shoulder and yes, there was indeed a man at the food counter waiting to be served and he had a very nice green parrot on his shoulder. Amazingly - to me at least - absolutely nobody blinked at this event and no fuss was made. I guessed from this that he and his parrot must be well known in Kaslo.

So when I put on my Kaslo sweatshirt I am reminded of the many magnificent grizzly bears we saw in the wild in BC and of a green parrot in Kaslo.