Christmas Day – walking around to three North London parties in a row.
One delicious afternoon dinner in Crouch End at the home of Miriam Miller, with Charley S and Matthew R. Lots of wine.
One teatime dinner chez Claudia Andrei in Upper Holloway, while watching Doctor Who. More wine.
And earlier, one gathering at the duck pond in Waterlow Park with Ms Silke. She brings yet more mulled wine in a flask, I bring the Professional Duck Food in a tupperware tub.
On Christmas Eve I’d gone idly online to check whether it was better for ducks to eat brown or white bread. Turns out that throwing them bread isn’t actually good for ducks at all. That it’s not nutritious enough, and that if the ducks leave it to sink into the pond bed, it rots and clogs up the water. So there goes the bread idea for good.
Thankfully, the pet food shop in Junction Road, the one opposite what will no longer be Woolworths, has a professional duck food product in stock – and the shop’s open on Christmas Eve. No idea what’s in the food, as the bag has no ingredients list whatsoever, but it’s convincing-looking little dry spherical nuggets in a bag with a picture of a duck on the front. That’s good enough for me.
The product is called Wild Things by Spike’s World. They appear to be a hedgehog food firm who have branched out into the duck sector:
http://www.spikesite.co.uk/product.asp?pID=6&dID=1
The idea is that apart from providing a decent amount of nutrition, the food also floats on the water. So if the ducks aren’t hungry at the time, they’ll just come back and eat it later. No pond pollution, plus happier and better fed ducks.
It makes for a more smug and self-righteous duck-feeding experience on Christmas Day. Hey, park walkers! Get me! I’ve got proper duck food. Probably.
Tags: christmas day 2008
