She was sold to us at a knockdown price in 2009 because she was very bedraggled and could never be used for breeding or exhibiting. She was the replacement for a budgie that had died from a very large tumour and had been the companion of a cock bird. We had been given this pair some years earlier by a lady who was going to take them to the vet as her son had become allergic to them.
We therefore gave them a home. The problem was that they weren't tame, unlike a previous bird I had had in my youth, and wouldn't come to us, although we let them out whenever we could. Lucy, on the other hand, was tame but we soon discovered that she couldn't fly.
To begin with, she would come out regularly but she soon became frightened as she just flopped onto the floor, so she took to just sitting in her cage, only venturing beyond her cage once every few months. And neither would she eat her greens, but lived only on birdseed - and millet spray - which can be quite fattening.
I noticed that leading up to Christmas she had been quieter but I didn't really attach any importance to it.
Despite the theft of my smartphone 12 days earlier, we were having a lovely Christmas. We spoke by Skype to our son, who is serving a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Spain, and invited four missionary elders and a missionary couple to Christmas dinner.
But Lucy somehow managed to get out of her closed cage, I think through a feeding tray, and flopped down onto the floor. She squawked as I picked her up but was much more docile than usual. After a while, we passed her around the table and here is Elder Wu, one of our two Chinese elders, entertaining her.
Later last night, after taking the four missionaries home, I rang a friend who is a vet, while Lucy lay in my hand. He said I should give her heat by putting her in a cardboard box with holes in it and putting her in the airing cupboard.
However, she died in my hands before I could do that.
The consolation is that if she had stayed in the aviary she would have been pecked to death by the other birds, whereas we gave her a loving home. As the runt of the litter she was never strong, and as she couldn't fly she just couldn't get the exercise all birds need. So getting on for 5 years isn't really too bad.
You might say I've had a rotten Christmas, but that's not true!! Although I was robbed of my brand new smartphone, and at the moment can't afford the £50 excess payable before I can replace it, and the budgie died on Christmas day, it doesn't change what we are celebrating:
The birth of a baby who went on to atone for the sins of the world.
"Peace can come to all who choose to walk in the ways of the Master. His invitation is expressed in three loving words: "Come, follow me.""—Russell M. Nelson, "Jesus the Christ--Our Prince of Peace"
And in particular we must be thankful that the Restored Gospel of Jesus Christ in now on the earth and is to be found in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Of course, I am anxious for the police to track down the youths who robbed me, particularly as they could target someone much frailer than I am, so await news from them, but it's worth pointing out that frontline police are being reduced all the time, when it's bureaucracy that needs to be cut.
