Birds

So I had forgotten that my sister is REALLY afraid of birds... not birds at a distance but birds that can flap and fly at your face, and poo on you.

So it was a brilliant plan of ours to take her to a few european cities - where pigeons live EN MASSE.

We both seriuosly had broken skin where her nails had punctured our arms as we had to cross large squares (I think San Marcos in Venice was the worst) or when a lone pigeon seemed to be flying our way.

The strategy in the end was either to edge around the flocks of birds, or for us to be on either side and propell her through...

Susan's usual strategy to avoid large flocks of birds and to never walk where their is poo on the ground so that you too don't get pooed on.

One day in Florence, after finally finding a very rare public toilet, which we of course had to pay for, she failed to follow the second of ther rules... and man did she pay the price...

I have never seen anyone get quite so thoroughly shat on. The loud shriek told us that something had happend, and apparently she felt that something had hit her with force, and she knew imediately what it was...

She had been hit across one boob, across the back of one sholder, on her foot (she was wearing thongs) and on her forhead.

(I am giggling as I write this)

As I attempted to clean her up with a tissue she shrieked at Brett to help her and get the poo of her foot. He responded with 'I can't' and a dry heave...

Considering her fear of birds and being pood on she actually coped really well

After getting her somewhat cleaned up we made our way back to the toilet where we explained to the man that she had just been pooed on so that we could reenter with out repaying. He was highly ammused and let us in. While we were in thrre a friend of his came to vist him and obviuosly got the story beacuse he kept looking at us and laughing, and as we were leaving he told Susan it was good luck ... :-)

but dispite all the warnings we had nothing stollen in Itally, so perhaps it really was good luck.