1969. Nesting season

Squaggle Quack was a duck. More particularly, he was a drake. And what a fine drake he was! Mrs. Quack was known as Mrs. Quack, although her closest friends called her Seaxburh. She was named after Queen Seaxburh, an ancient Queen of Wessex. Her maiden name was Hrafnkelsdóttir. Very few know that.

The time had come for Squaggle and Seaxburh to start a family. The first priority was to choose a site for the nest. What a shamozzles! They couldn’t agree. Squaggle wanted the nest in the long grass on the side of a road.

“It’s dangerous,” said Seaxburh. “And there’s absolutely no view. What about on the side of that hill where I can enjoy the view of the valley as I sit on the eggs for four weeks?”

The discussion raged for several days. In the end, Squaggle won. A nest was made on the side of the road, with no view, and open to the elements.

“I think we should have eleven eggs,” suggested Squaggle.

“But I had my heart set on nine eggs,” said Seaxburh. In the end, Squaggle won. Eleven eggs were laid.

Seaxburh began the marathon of sitting on eleven eggs in a cold nest next to the road. It was the most boring thing she had ever done in her life. So uninteresting! So testing! And the rain! You’ve no idea!

In the meantime, Squaggle had flown off at the beginning of the sitting session and never bothered to come back. He’d done his part.

When the eleven ducklings hatched, Seaxburh told them that their family name was Seaxburhsdóttir or Seaxburhssen. Good on you, Seaxburh!

1666. Mrs Mallard Duck’s fine clutch

Mrs Mallard Duck had found the perfect place for a nest. It was not too far from the stream where she could go to stretch her legs, and it was close enough (although a good way back) from the road to give some interest and variation to an otherwise monotonous twenty-eight days of sitting on the eggs to keep them warm.

Mr Mallard Duck wasn’t a great deal of help, although he did offer a bit of company occasionally when Mrs Duck went swimming and feeding in the stream. But goodness me! Twenty-eight days is four weeks, and four weeks can feel like four months (in fact four years) when there’s little else to do than count the cars and trucks that whizz by on the road.

But it was all worth it! After those exasperating four weeks all nine eggs hatched. And what pretty babies they were! Mrs Mallard Duck would soon take them to the stream for their first swim. But first, she must show off her brood by waddling them slap-bang down the middle of the road.

617. Saving the duckling

© Bruce Goodman 19 June 2015

What an extraordinary dream I had last night. This duck – it was a quack-quack duck – it was all white. It had these little ducklings. About six of them. It took them underneath the house. They were little yellow ducklings. And then the cat followed them under the house.

I had to save the little ducklings from the cat, so I crawled underneath the house.

Then the cat caught one of the little ducklings and I tried to steal it back from the cat to save the duckling. But the mother duck was all protective and thought it was me that was attacking her baby. I had to grab the duck around the neck to save myself, because she’d turned into a great big ferocious mallard duck and she was pecking me to bits. I grabbed her neck and strangled it. I had to. I had to do that to save myself. The mother duck kept smashing me with her wings. Smashing me. Smashing me. And the more she smashed the tighter I squeezed her neck. Until she was dead.

And this morning when I woke up I found I’d strangled my wife.