An abandoned egg
The zoo was growing quite quickly at my parents’ house in North Devon. Mum didn’t like to shoo away visiting racing pigeons as they decided to nest with the doves and so a new breed emerged. Sons and daughters of Rory the racing pigeon and his dove friends perched on the rooftop. The calling ducks continued to run about with a few little friends that had to hop and flap to keep up. The goats were producing milk and the tea and coffee was just not quite the same … but it was home produced, so we smiled and said thank you before tipping most of it away. Sorry Mum! A few broody hens were constantly nesting and a couple of fierce ginger cockerels kept everyone in line, including the cats and dog. I think my parents had probably been in their home for about a year when they acquired a couple of hilarious looking Appleyard ducks which waddled in a particularly delightful way. The female Appleyard duck laid regularly but wasn’t broody at all and so mum decided to pop one of the eggs under a broody hen, as she quite fancied a few more of these amusing birds.
I guess she should have researched it a little better. The hen did a wonderful job at hatching her brood and a baby Appleyard hatched out. What mum hadn’t realised was that the duck now thought he was a chicken. It was quite a funny sight to see this Appleyard waddling up the chicken ramp each night to go to bed with his chicken family while the other ducks slept in a duck house by the pond. The little Appleyard was loved and accepted by those hens but the sad part was he never went in the water. He never learnt the joy of swimming.
It was this little story that led me to write ‘You’re Perfect.’ The story actually started off about a duck and chicken family, but after a few revisions I turned the duck into a peacock. I loved the fact that the Appleyard was loved unconditionally by the hens. There was no ‘Ugly Duckling’ story here. This is the same in ‘You’re Perfect’; Peter the peacock is loved, accepted and celebrated for being unique.