Pear The Penguin

A Simon's Town Penguin - South Africa Feb 2012

Because my day has been jammed packed so full -  I don’t know where to start so I’ll skip to the end instead....when my husband made me laugh and then cry...

We have finished our supper - long sweet strands of allotment asparagus dipped into soft poached eggs, yolks the colour of marigolds -  and my husband says,

Do you fancy a penguin?

I can usually guess what he might mean but this time I have no clues.

I don’t mean a penguin - but it starts with P...

Then he remembers 

A pear.

I tell him there used to be a chocolate biscuit called a Penguin - maybe there still is - but he just laughs.

Then I realise he doesn’t know what a penguin is so he doesn’t know why it’s funny. That’s when I want to cry. I explain with prompts - The Antarctic, black wings white chests - look like waiters, birds but swim don’t fly, lay eggs on feet, fathers huddle in freezing temperatures to keep babies warm while mothers go off to hunt fish, we saw them in South Africa.... Happy Feet, I even do a penguin walk. But he doesn’t have a picture. 

Then I say,

We printed off lots of pictures of Emperor Penguins from the computer because you were going to make one in your ceramics class.

Oh that, he says. I’ve made one already. It’s waiting to be fired. Is that a penguin? 

What are you going to call him? Percy? Peter? Peppy?

I don’t know.

I think you should call him Pear the Penguin.