IN a seasonal daze? Still don’t know what to buy the one who matters to you most?
Well, for that traditional Christmas sweetheart’s gift a partridge in a pear tree is still indispensable.
It is easy enough to buy a pear tree from any garden centre – and so be able to dispatch it to your true love – but a partridge?
Well, let me tell you first off they are shaped like a well-rounded old aunty.
With their small head and plump body they look like they are one good plucking away from the oven.
They are among the slowest birds in flight and thus can occasionally confuse shooters, who are used to panicking pheasants.
It’s a risky business for a partridge to get caught in a shoot, but such is the price for hanging around with pheasants.
It takes considerable courage to flap heavily across the gunsights, don’t you agree? They are clever, too. It is the equivalent of hiding in full view or strolling across the M6.
But, having acquired your pear tree, you will find it difficult to purchase a live partridge nowadays, I’m afraid. The practice rather died out with mail coaches and lamplighters.
There are just no suppliers – I checked on Google – so you must go out and simply catch your own and very rewarding it is too. But be careful – do not alert the RSPB. They are pretty straight-laced about such things.
My advice is, secretly, track your partridge down to its lair in low-lying arable land and go for the full frontal assault, throwing a net or your coat over the bird.
You will find it squawks throatily, so remind yourself – you have a sweetheart it is just dying to meet if it only knew.
Now what you have got is a pear tree and a ground bird that would not be seen dead in branches. Total cost is less than a fiver, but partridges, whoops, don’t do heights. So obviously you will need copious amounts of Sellotape (any good stationers) to ensure the bird does not take off and lumber through the air during delivery. Not too tight round the wings, though.
Make sure you stick it down nice and firm. You don’t want your partridge to panic and fall out of its tree. A call on Boxing Day from your true love enquiring why on earth you have sent her a dead partridge is hardly conducive to romance.
Some people do prefer a cage and forcing your partridge through the door with a rolled-up newspaper is thought to be more humane.
Whichever method you use I recommend you enclose a copy of Teach Yourself Partridge Keeping (available at WH Smith) to ease your true love into their exciting new hobby. Once released from its packaging the bird will want to be looked after: a partridge is for life, not just for Christmas.
Don’t forget, your true love right now is expecting a present, but what you have planned will take her – or him – completely by surprise and, to make it a Christmas to really remember, and if money is not a consideration, you may not wish stop at partridges. Many people don’t.
French hens, calling birds, geese, turtle doves and even swans increasingly appear on that ‘must have’ list.
But, be careful, it can all so easily get out of hand.
- Post to:
del.icio.us
Digg
Newsvine
Nowpublic
Reddit