Two Little Men In a Flying Saucer

This story starts many years ago when I was a little boy, sadly my parents had divorced and my father who had custody of us children was struggling to cope with a full-time job as well as looking after us. In the end what he decided to do was reluctantly put us all in care, so off we went to what I now think was a reception centre, that I vaguely remember was full of adults and children all in one great big room.

People talk about false memory, but the one thing I remembered about the place was a song that kept being played the title which is “Two little Men In A Flying Saucer” which was a catchy little song, but seemed to be totally unrelated to anything going on in the place.

Years passed and I never heard the song again, although occasionally it would pop into my head and as time went on I could become quite boring on the subject, I was tempted to contact the BBC, because the memory of the record never went away and it would have helped if only they could have confirmed that the song existed.

Well now it's 50 years and more since that experience and the song was still niggling at the back of my mind, so now having some computer experience, and within my limitations an ability to search the Internet, at long last I googled it, guess what there it was I wasn't dreaming, even more interestingly it was for sale at Amazon, so I quickly went to their site, found the link to play as short piece of the song and there it was just as I remembered, I finally discovered that it had been sung by Ella Fitzgerald.

Straightaway I ordered the CD that had the song on, uncertain because it was coming from America whether or not it would be a good copy or even arrive, but good old Amazon, I received an e-mail from the company confirming delivery.

Finally the day came and a small package arrived so I rushed to my CD player and tried it out, there it was the funny little song from all those years ago, and quite catchy as well.

Well is there a moral in this story, firstly if we remember something, carry on believing that it was true, don't waste time go out and prove you were right, and finally its strange in life that something so unhappy is going into care can have such a lovely link, if I could work out how to put the music somewhere that you could find it I would do, maybe some bright intelligent person will tell me how I can put it on my other blog.

Just in case I have tempted you, sadly Amazon no longer have the record listed, if people really wanted to hear it maybe I will be encouraged to put it on the blog, I hope you enjoyed the read

Two Little Ducks

Well this is the story of too little ducklings and the adventures they had in their time they shared our home.

It all started one day whilst walking Katie our dog, suddenly there was a large sound of quacking on the route to the fields, looking over the fence there was their family duck accompanied by a group of tiny chicks.

We said to the owner how cute we felt they are all were, his response was to offer us one because sadly he wasn't able to keep them all, our response was to say yes please, but that unfortunately we were going on holiday that day, he was quite happy to keep it until our return.

After the holiday we went round to have a look at our duck, also we had thought it would be nice if we could have two, well what a surprise all the ducklings had grown very rapidly in the short period, but also we were told there was no problem with us having two ducks.

While the next task was to rapidly create somewhere for them to live, plus a run to protect them from any other animals, this was done so we went to collect the ducks that were both males, we named them Gilbert & Sullivan (not very original).

A neighbour provided a pool for them to go in although they always preferred their water dish to flap about in & they gave a lot of pleasure to us and the neighbours over the next month or two, they also enjoyed watching me chasing them round the garden as they continued to grow in the evening when I was trying to get them in the run at night.

The only problem was that in their search for worms they ate a lot of soil which then came out the other end, smelling rather strongly, so we moved their home & run onto the concrete.

We had always said we would not clip their wings so that if ever they wanted to leave home they could, they had also educated us to their needs, by tapping at the back door with their beaks if we were late feeding them.

Well one morning whilst chasing them to pen them up, one actually managed to flap its wings sufficiently to get into the front garden, well as I chased it, now it had a good line of sight, on the next flap, up into the air we went, out of sight.

I spent some time searching & eventually found the errant duck, and pounced, well I was to late off into the air & across the gardens it went out of sight. So I returned deflated, hoping that when the duck became hungry it would return home.

Sadly after a week it still had not come back and the remaining duck was becoming more dejected by the day, so finally we felt it was better to give it its freedom and to take it down to the local lodges in the hope that being with the other ducks there it would settle in.

Off we went to carry out the task, well would the duck leave, no until finally I coxed it out & off into the water it went. A local fisherman said what a coincidence, only the other day, a couple had come with a duck that had arrived at their house and would not leave. At first it had been a novelty, but they got fed up with its constant tapping at the back door.

A happy ending at long last the two duck could get back together and exchange their adventures over the last week and get to meet the new friends down there

Katie Jane My Doggy Friend

Well we first came to meet Katie we were on a trip to Birmingham, to visit relatives, it was mentioned that there was a young dog called Fluff, a female cross border collie, who if she was not found a home soon, would be going to the dogs home where if she was not homed, she would be put to sleep.

We went to look at the dog, who was a rather odd looking sort of dog, with the head of an Alsatian, and the body of a collie, she looked very frightened and anxious but at the same time affectionate.

How could we have not taken her, but here was the problem, how to get back home to Manchester with her, because at that time we did not have a car, and had in fact travelled down by train, well we found a lead somewhere, and off we went to the station, where the first surprise was we had to buy her a ticket.

The trip up to Manchester was uneventful, and on the way home we bought a new collar and lead, as well as dishes for water and food, not forgetting the food itself. When we got home, we showed her around the house and got her settled for the night.

We quickly decided that fluff was the wrong name for her and for reasons I can't now remember we changed her name to Katie, the next task was to go and see the vet, which we did quite quickly, he said rather than the young puppy we thought she was, she was actually 18 months old, but in good general health, he did her injections and off we went.

One of the problems we discovered with her, was that she was frightened of men, although she seemed to have no problem with me, but that might have been to do with the walks I took her on, one of the things she never ever came to terms with, was being in the car when the windscreen wipers were on, after a time we realised that this was because she identified the wipers as a stick coming down on her, which would be consistent with her having been beaten in the past.

I found she was a lovely companion, and when I wanted time on my own I used to take around the fields and I would chat to her as my best friend, during these times I taught her to retrieve objects in particular her lead, which she would happily chase them bring back to me, with her ears up, foolishly waiting for me to do it the next time.

One day whilst we were out with her, I threw a stick as I had many other times, but sadly on this occasion she pounced on the stick, but it had landed upright in the soft earth, and because of the speed, it went down her throat, we rushed to her because she was in so much pain and took her straight away to see the vet, fortunately she had not done too much damage and was quickly back to her old self.

As a result we learned never to do that again and instead bought her rubber ring which was bright orange so that we could see it if it was dropped, or lost any time.

One year we took her down to the lodges and I threw her ring a little too far and it went in the water, sadly it could not be found so we had to buy a new one, the following year there was little rain and one day when we went down to the lodges lower and behold there was the ring which we quickly retrieved, cleaned up and continue to use for her pleasure.

She was a lovely dog who was kind affectionate and very loving, she was also bright and intelligent and quick to learn and generally just happy to be in our company, having said that, she did have some strange traits, in that although she was a female dog, on occasion she would attempt to mount the cat, which we could never ever understand.

Sadly over a period of time her health deteriorated and one day she seemed to lose control of her legs so again we took her to the vet, but this time there was nothing could be done, we therefore asked that he put her to sleep so she would not be in pain or distress. She is still missed even now.