Robin Robinson

Robinson

Once upon a time, on a little farm near the seaside town of Bournemouth, lived a robin called Robinson. He was given his name by Sara, the farm owners' young daughter.

The little red-breasted bird really loved his life there. After all he had plenty of worms and lots of seeds to eat. The worms came from the ground, but the seeds were placed in a pot every morning - right next to his very own tree - by Sara and her mother. Yes, you read that right, Robinson had a tree all to himself. And it had a very special name: Vitality Tree.

To understand how the tree got its name you have to know something about the family. They were - most of them, anyway - quite simply, football mad. They lived near Bournemouth, home to A.F.C. Bournemouth, which in turn had its home in Vitality Stadium.

All three went to every home game, and by all three I mean father, daughter and the bird. While Sara's mother stayed at home to enjoy the peace and quiet and read a book, Robinson would fly above the farmer's car as he drove his daughter into town.

You see, the little bird was very unusual. Not only did he love watching the games, he particularly enjoyed listening to the chanting supporters. In fact, he knew all the chants by heart and would always whistle along with them from his perch high up in the stadium roof.

But the little feathered football supporter's adventurous nature didn't stop there. In fact he was quite the seasoned traveller, regularly flying to nearby cities and towns and on some occasions making the 100-mile journey to London. There he would meet his many friends and after a tasty wriggly worm or two they would all sit in the branches and have a sing-song.

He also liked to visit some of the nature reserves in the area. His favourite was Studland and Godlingston Heath Nature Reserve, not only because it was near the sea, but because its lake attracted lots of different kinds of birds visiting the country from abroad. It was a quite tough journey for Robinson, in fact all journeys were. Robinson's problem was that he was the roundest, fattest little robin that anyone has ever seen. To blame was the never-ending supply of nice, juicy farm worms and, of course, the daily servings of seeds. His weight meant he nearly always had to stop at least twice on even a short journey, and that was in good weather. If it was rainy and windy, it was at least three times.