I’m sure that most people have heard of the “Birdman of Alcatraz”, but here in Crawley we have the “Birdwoman of Atlantic House”.
Despite the fact that we have been told not to eat at our desks in our office because we may drop crumbs and those crumbs attract mice, our local lunatic cleaner had thrown out all sorts of bread, what appeared to be mini chicken kievs and god knows what else for the local creatures. Squirrels, mice, rats, pigeons, crows, they were all out there on the grass feeding themselves. Coexisting very nicely thank you. Until the seagulls arrived and started muscling in on the food source.
At which point the maddest and biggest bird of them all, blue with purple plumage on top, comes flying out from who knows where, waving her arms and squawking with more decibels output than the passing cars, trains and planes could muster. So loud that it could clearly be heard inside the building through the triple glazed windows.
This mad old bird then pulled a wheelie bin all the way down the car park with one arm, whilst waving the other frantically and still squawking at top volume. Once she had exchanged the wheelie bin for another, she back up the other side of the car park doing the same thing but with the other arm, only finally stopping squawking once she was back in the building.
Noe, this is by no means her first mad five minutes: sleeping stood up in the corner of a meeting room, eating leftover curled up sandwiches from the day before, and sweeping all the way down to the main road (well outside of the office grounds). Yet despite it all she has the cheek to moan about other people going about their normal business.
Only ten minutes after doing her birdwoman impression, she spent a couple of minutes tutting and sighing theatrically because someone happened to be having a telephone conversation on the landing near her cleaning supplies cupboard. When this huffing and puffing along side intense glaring didn’t stop the telephone call, she slammed the cleaning supplies cupboard door and angrily stomped off down the stairs muttering curses in some language no one else understands.
There’s nowt as queer as folk.