Birds From Hell

It is really time to resuscitate this blog. I have been busy the last few months with work and university (that's no excuse, I tell myself sternly), but now I'm going to get back into it. Otherwise I will have no record of my life, and there's a good chance that I'll forget everything.

So I have been thinking about blog posts, and what I could put in them, and have created a list of possible topics. The first topic is the Escalators of Doom. The second is my weekend out of Sydney, up the coast with the Pirate Pianist (who has returned from Germany, and is living there with Pirate Boyfriend. And I'm really not kidding about the pirate bit. He has a cutlass), and the third is Birds From Hell. Then there's also probably the International Fleet Review, and Oktoberfest on the Beach.

I think I shall start with Birds From Hell, as you may have guessed from the title of this post.

So I was minding my own business, walking to university one day, when I passed under some trees and was hit quite hard on the side of the head. I jumped and ducked and looked around, but couldn't see anything that might have hit me - no pinecones, no balls. I'd walked past a girl a few weeks before who'd just been swooped and who warned me about magpies, so I guessed it might have been a magpie. When I put my hand up to my ear, it came away with a spot of blood, so I walked the rest of the way to uni and went into the library to ask where the nurse was.

One of the librarians was very enthusiastic and got out her first aid kit and patched me up, and I went up to the research room and decided to go a different way next time.

Five days later, I walked a slightly different way, which would take me on the other side of the road to the trees. I wore my hair differently. I wore different clothes. And I had just turned onto the footpath on the opposite side when something black hit me on the side of the head.

This time, it was definitely a bird. Right, I thought, if I can't go on the opposite side of the road, I'll go through the park next to the trees, and follow the guy on the bike who isn't getting picked on by magpies.

So I followed the guy on the bike, rather quickly, but I had only just entered the park when something hit me again. I began to run. Something hit me again. I ran faster, covering my head with my arms. When I thought I was far enough away from the trees, I slowed a bit, but the magpie hit me again.

I ran right to the other side of the road, and here it seemed I was no threat to the magpie, and it stopped attacking me. I went, rather shaken, to uni, and as it was quite early in the morning I couldn't find anyone who knew where I could find a first aid kit. A lovely lady who volunteers for ambulances finally appeared, took a look at my ear and said I should go to the medical centre.

At the medical centre, a doctor looked me over, cleaned up the blood, patched my two cuts with special plasters and gave me a tetanus shot (I can never remember when I've had tetanus shots. So now, here, a record! September 2013!). She said it was the only time she'd ever seen magpies actually draw blood.

Yesterday, for the first time in months, I went underneath the magpie tree. I had an umbrella, and I was not attacked! A slight victory (probably because the magpie didn't know it was me).

And then last week, we had a party for Melbourne Cup day that I was late for, because I was doing a presentation for university. The presentation went well, but everyone else had had a good brunch and I needed food. I stopped at the Hungry Jacks (aka Burger King) at Circular Quay, which does two-for-one Whopper Juniors on Tuesdays, and decided I'd get the deal even though I didn't think I could eat both. Someone else was bound to be pleased with one.

I was a few bites into the first burger and walking along the quay when a seagull swooped down and tried to steal my burger, raking through the bun and dropping lettuce everywhere. I promptly dropped the rest of it in a bin and got out my second burger, then ate it under a roof with my shoulders hunched up.

I'm pretty sure Australian birds hate me.

Apart from the pigeon I saw the other day which looked like it was wearing spats. I don't think it hates me... it didn't try to attack me, at least.