Polly finds his family. by justjoy

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· @justjoy ·
$1.74
Polly finds his family.
We are on a long gypsy holiday with friends. We are wandering around South Africa without an agenda enjoying being footloose and fancy free parking our caravans  wherever the mood takes us.

The best time for me has to be our evenings around our campfire (we know the price of braai wood from Pofadder to Naboomspruit)
The chat with fellow campers under the stars with the flames twisting purple and orange into the stars is magical. 

The stories are legend.

Doug and Marie are camping next to us with their parrot, an African Grey in the vicinity of East London at a wonderful spot called Yellow Sands.
They told us, as the boerewors sizzled on the coals, that Pretty Polly had found them!

https://i.postimg.cc/fb3Q8ymh/parrot.png
Pixabay

She flew into the tree next to their pool one day and screeched ‘blue murder’ until they could stand it no longer. She hopped onto Doug’s finger happily and was obviously hungry. “Pretty Polly, Pretty Polly,” she warbled , introducing herself prettily.

An expensive visit to the pet shop later Polly was installed in a state of the art cage with a container full of seeds and crunchy bits that had Polly busy for quite a while. Sunflower seed husks flew!

 They put up notices in their local shopping centre and at the vet’s but to their undisguised relief no one came to claim her. Months passed…. Then it was a year……

Gradually they realised that she had  lived with an Afrikaans family who owned a dog named Boet. Polly would whistle loudly, imitate the dog in a deep voiced bark and yell “Boet! Buite!(outside)” in a woman’s voice.

Polly soon picked up phrases that Doug and Marie said. Her favourite was Doug singing “are you lonesome tonight?” followed for some reason unbeknown to them by raucous laughter.

She loved it when the children from next door visited. She strutted her stuff for them and called them three names that they surmised belonged to the children where she had lived before. “Basie……… Giepie …..klein (small) Nettie,” she would croon. 
They felt very sad for the family who had lost her.

One day Doug and Marie drove further afield than usual to visit friends and on the way home dropped into a small, foreign to them, shopping centre to buy some groceries on their way home. 
Marie sat on a bench to wait for Doug as he went into the shop to buy a bottle of wine.

Suddenly and to her amazement she heard Polly’s voice calling “Basie, Giepie, is Nettie by julle?”

She switched around and a few metres from her were 3 children with a big fluffy red dog on a lead.
“Ja ma, sy is hier by ons. (Yes mom, she is here with us)”

As Doug came out of the shop smiling he stopped short at the expression on Marie’s face. “What on earth is the matter Marie? Are you alright?”
“No I’m not,” she replied, her hand to her head, “look over there.” As he did so looking puzzled, she rocked his world completely when she said, “those kids are Basie, Giepie and Nettie! And if I’m not mistaken, that dog’s name is Boet.”

Flummoxed to say the least they located the mother and went up to her and spilled out their entire story.
“You must come over and meet my husband,” she said, “that bird was his ‘best girl’….. I came a sad second,” she laughed. “He will be delighted to know that she didn’t just die in the great outdoors.”

They did of course the traditional ‘Braai thing’ that South Africans love so much and Basie, Giepie and Nettie’s dad reunited with Pretty Polly, the 'girl' of his dreams.

When we stopped gasping with amazement as Doug’s story unfolded, the obvious question on all of our lips, was…….”what happened to the parrot? Who got custody of her?”

That family was in the throes of preparing to emigrate to Australia in the next few weeks. 

Not only did Marie and Doug get to keep Polly but they became the adoptive parents of Boet their beautiful dog.

They exchanged Christmas cards at the end of that first year showing Doug and Marie seated with a ‘smiling’ Boet lounging next to their chairs and Pretty Polly perched in pride of place right on top of his furry head. Her feathers were ruffled in excitement as she screeched “Boet……buite!”


https://i.postimg.cc/VLxz2jsk/signature-1.gif
Image Source
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vote details (199)
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@justjoy ·
Thank you.
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