Harvest

This is Harvest. She is French, so she tells us, a Rouen. Apparently her descendants came over from France about 200 years ago - about the same time as we were made!  She says she is the French equivalent of the Aylesbury and sometimes she lapses into her native tongue, but I don't think she realises it. We think she looks like a jolly big Mallard! (But we don't say this, of course). Mum and Dad bought her to keep Joshua company. He was a little white call duck. Joshua came to us to keep Jemima company when Lucy was eaten by the The Fox (Lucy and Jemima were Aylesburys). In fact the ducks go way back to Charles and Diana who had four babies that flew away. The babies were called after Prince William as they were born on June 23rd 1982 – two days after William was born.They were Mallards though. Of a sort. Anyway Joshua is no longer with us and we have Alice. She is Harvest’s only friend as her Mummy and Sister are also no longer with us either. Harvest is very, very old and enjoys sitting in Kizzie’s old sandpit – which is full of water – not sand, obviously. She and Alice dibble and Dad says ducks make a mess. But as we only have two now, it is not so messy. Harvest is very kind and everyone likes her. She squints a bit out of one eye, but I don’t think she misses too much that goes on. If  The Sparrowhawk zooms over, she is the first to spot him and turns her head comically on one side and eyes him suspiciously.
Alice is the daughter of Josephine, and Geraldine was her sister. Alice and Geraldine were called after two people in The Vicar of Dibley. I haven’t actually watched this programme, but Mum says it is funny. Alice is quite comical because she stands very upright and runs along. We try copying her sometimes, but we never look quite the same. Love Sylvia xxx

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