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Like most parrot owners, I spend a fair amount of money on new toys for Alfie- whether that's to swap out old ones which have been destroyed or to try something new to mix it up a bit for him. This week I found a couple of old bathroom catalogues I got given when I was picking out new stuff for my bathroom. I popped one in Alfie's cage and he's been busy working away at it all week, turning it into confetti. He has ignored every other toy in his cage all week - even the new ones- to shred his catalogue. He's been so busy shredding it that a couple of nights this week when I let him out to play he flew over to his java tree and fell asleep. 😄 He tuckered himself out with the catalogue! Sometimes the best toys are the free ones!

Despite living with Alfie for 18 years, there are times when he still manages to surprise me. I'm having my kitchen, living room and dining room refurbished, which means we are living in a bit of chaos at the moment. Alfie has a second, smaller cage upstairs in my office, so he's living in that permanently for now as his downstairs cage is currently stashed in the garage. The cats are also shut out of the downstairs areas and I'm practically living upstairs all the time too. So we're all on top of each other and managing with less space than usual. Alfie still gets out of cage time, but he has a lot less space to play in upstairs, as I have to keep him in the office room instead of having the whole of the downstairs to play in. What's really surprised me is how well Alfie has adapted to all the changes that have been going on - as well as all the noise and commotion. I wasn't sure how well he would cope with the smaller cage, sleeping in a different cage/room and the space around him changing as well (we are surrounded by boxes and dining chairs!). I also worried about all the noise disturbing him but he hasn't seemed phased at all. He's settled into his space and routine without issues and none of the noises and moving stuff around seems to have upset him at all. We even ended up having the paths outside my house being dug up (unrelated to the above work - new fibre cabling is going in around the local area) and despite some of the work rattling the entire house, he hasn't been bothered by any of it at all. It's made me realise how lucky I am to have him. He's been taking all of this in his stride and thankfully none of my worries about how it might affect him have come to anything. I'm lucky to have such a boisterous and confident bird. 🙂 ...Although if I walk past with the washing basket he still lunges at it as if he thinks it's going to kill him... and don't get me started on how he still growls at wrapping paper.... 😂