Saturday afternoon with a freshly elected EU parliamentarian and a yellow budgie
My parents were at a wedding and I invited Damian to come stay for the weekend. I was very happy when he accepted my invitation which was on quite short notice. On the previous Sunday, Damian was elected into the EU parliament as the only member of his new pan-European party Volt.
Damian and I are very close friends and have known each other for at least 17 years now. After finishing school — we went to different schools — we travelled through South America. This journey and experience really deepened our friendship. Also, through lots of common friends we have often spent time together at parties, holidays etc.
And now the very same Daman is a born-and-bred EU parliamentarian who will sit in Brussels for the next five years, representing the 250,000 voters that elected him!
We were just having a late brunch on Saturday, when all of a sudden a budgie turned up! It had a bright yellow plumage and a beautiful appearance. On top of that it wasn’t scared or shy at all. It hopped onto the table, onto the several plates and stuck its beak into everything. It seemed to love especially the raspberries that turned his beak raspberry-pink… It seemed to know what’s good!
Damian prepared a little bowl with water and brought some lettuce, not knowing what such a tiny creature eats. But it sprang immediately onto the vitamins, so it couldn’t have been that wrong. After it had eaten its fair share of the lettuce it wanted to check Damian’s coffee mug and fell right into it…
It flew on my white sneakers, then up on my lap, and finally onto my shirt. When it tried biting in my neck and ear, Damian gently took it away. It immediately tried doing the same with him, seems like it is a very affectionate little yellow budgie, although I must admit that I have no comparands when it comes to yellow budgies!
We called our neighbours to find if anyone was missing his bird. A very friendly lady that lives pretty much next-door offered us to bring her old birdcage, which of course we accepted. The lady came with her daughter who of course also wanted to have a look at the budgie. Their cage is beautiful, old-fashioned and a bit rusty… But our little yellow friend didn’t seem to care and jumped right inside!
Because of this excitement we were totally distracted. Before, we were discussing Damian’s future in the parliament and controversial content of the party program of Volt. I don’t want to go into too much detail, because I am scared that I won’t manage to put all facts and details correctly. But we had very interesting and controversial discussions together and I enjoyed having such an intellectually challenging conversation!
Meanwhile, the budgie seemed to be seeking attention and started to twitter, so we hung a blanket over its cage in order to calm it down. We decided to go have a pizza in a restaurant down the road with the sympathetic name “Das Leben ist schön — Wie bei Omi” (Life is good — Like at Granny’s). Damian and I talked about the weird day with the yellow budgie, that he wanted to take the next morning to an animal shelter. We talked about loads of other things, too — Damian and I always find something to talk about.
After finishing dinner, we decided to walk around the blocks a bit, the pizzas had a lot of cheese and our stomachs were completely full… In those situations, I miss extremely not being able to move my legs in order to be able to better digest. So, while Damian was able to stimulate his digestive system, I had to go to bed with a felt kilogram of cheese in my stomach.
The next morning, I asked Damian to check with the bird. He carried the cage inside the kitchen, and we discovered our pretty bright yellow little friend lying dead in the left corner of this beautiful old-fashioned cage. What a sad end after having spent such a wonderful Saturday together!
While Damian had to do some calls and work on applicant profiles for his new MEP office, a friend came over and helped me proofread another blog post. Then, my parents, my sister and my brother-in-law came back from their wedding and we told them all about our exciting weekend with the damper this morning. Damian and I were both still really sad, somehow the yellow budgie became dear to our hearts!
