Complaints log: the terrible truth about the duckpond
- Trespassers won’t be prosecuted: do you have a right of access to the beach? - 25th March, 2024
- Why do boomers like minions? - 6th November, 2022
- Are you a true Isle of Wight local? - 30th October, 2022
Anyone working in public office will be familiar with the principle that whatever you do, someone’s going to complain. And it’s amazing what ‘The Council’ get blamed for. So today The Ranger’s office was sorry to receive a long letter from a disappointed holidaymaker. She’d travelled with her young family all the way from the north of England to a popular park pond which she’d visited earlier in the year. She was upset and angry with the council, because the ducklings she’d so much enjoyed feeding on her previous visit had all gone! Could the council assure her that it would be putting the ducklings back as soon as possible? Alas, the response has to be made with a straight face. Sadly for us all, cute little things inevitably grow up. In this case, no longer fluffy and peeping enchantingly, they swim stupidly around quacking raucously. You can’t have one without the other. It’s a lesson in life that this complainant may soon learn when her own little darlings stop asking for bread for the ducks, and start demanding playstations and lipstick…
Some people are really daft, however, we’ve had some late ducklings up in the dale. Unfortunately there’s always one less in the line whenever we see them. We’re down to one brown duckling out of about 13.
We’re sorry, but there are no ducklings because we donated them to a science class, where they were fed to boa constrictors and had the life sloooowly squeezed out of them – as their little ribs collapsed whilst making a slight crunching sound – to demonstrate that “might makes right” in the wild.
Due to a current shortage of ducklings, the council will be delighted to put them back next April.