Syd, Sheila and Eric...

I’ve been thinking about koalas. They’re very cute, and soft, and woolly, but have these huge claws that you wouldn’t like to argue with, especially as they are said to be relatively grumpy (well, wouldn’t you be if you were trying to digest a bellyful of eucalyptus?). They eat a lot, sleep a lot, and the tiny percentage of time they have left is spent trying to procreate and not fall off the branch into the heat and dust below.

However, apparently they were once land-dwelling creatures, rather than tree-dwellers. This can be seen from their pouch. It faces backwards. How sensible is that for an animal which spends its life upright in trees?!
‘Oops, sorry honey, I dropped the cubs again’
Male goes down to rescue mewling blob before something eats it.
‘There, and don’t drop it again, (aside) stupid Sheila’
Half an hour later, ‘Syd…! He’s fallen out again!’
‘Sheila!’
Dad goes to rescue baby, let’s call him Eric for the sake of argument.
Eric, by this time, is fairly bewildered… Not to say stunned, but the repeated fallings from the tree.
No wonder they develop such strong claws, they’re for Velcro’ing themselves to mum so she doesn’t lumber off and forget that she’s dropped something!
Of course, by the time Sheila has dropped Eric for the seventh time today, Syd is pretty fed up with the whole business, chews a leaf and goes to sleep, in quite a foul temper.
Eric is developing the characteristic flat black nose of all koalas (Rudyard Kipling missed out on that one – ‘How the Koala got his Nose’) where he’s been persistently landing on it for the last week or so, and decides to give up on being carried and scrambles onto mum’s back, where it’s safer – he can pull her fur, jab her in the ribs with his new claws and vomit eucalyptus in her ear if she moves too fast. Most importantly, he can then choose not to fall off…

You can tell I missed my first bus to Fremantle this morning can’t you!
Ah well, next one soon – byee!

;)