My Life on a Plate

Duck Tales

For some reason I've been thinking about ducks today. They're one of my favourite creatures; don't you just love the way they waddle and quack and how those little ones scoot across water after mum?

My sister and I often visit places where we can duck-watch and although we can't own any real ones we have loads of furry, fluffy, rubber and pot ones. And here's a sad story. A few years ago sis and I had matching pairs of toy ducks. One set called Dingle and Dangle and another pair called Drunk and Disorderly. Whenever we met we always reunited the pairs of ducks and took them out on our visits. One fateful Friday afternoon I met my sister from the train here and the ducks went through their usual enthusiastic greeting procedure. Then we walked from the station to our parent's house with our ducks in our respective bags. On arriving at the house I was horrified to find Disorderly was missing. I retraced my steps, made enquiries, advertised in local shops but he never returned. I concluded he'd been ducknapped or decided to search out new ponds.

So our ducks were down to three and sis never stopped ragging me about how I wasn't fit to look after ducks and how she never lost hers. A few months later she took Dingle and Dangle to Austria. While she was taking a photograph of them sitting on a balcony, Dangle decided to jump off and explore the snowy mountains, so sis had to return to England with only one duck. So now, the orphaned pair sit in a plant pot above my desk and sis and I have had to buy a different pair of ducks to take out with us - Divine and Delectable.


Now, if you'd care to dry your eyes after that heartbreaking account, here's something to cheer you up. Does the driver in this joke remind you of anyone?

A man is driving a pick-up truck down the road with a bunch of ducks standing in the back. A police officer pulls over the driver, informs him he's speeding and then asks where he's going with all these ducks. The driver replies that he doesn't know what to do with them any more. The officer says,'Look, there's a zoo down the road from here and that's where you should take them.' The man thanks the officer and drives off with the ducks.

The next day the officer again sees the same pick-up truck barreling down the road. This time the ducks are in the back wearing sunglasses. The officer pulls the driver over and says, 'I thought I told you to take those ducks to the zoo.'

'I did,' said the driver, 'but now they want to go to the beach.'

Here are our original ducks enjoying a visit to the zoo.

Yes, I know I'm quackers.