Little Duckington Episode 1 - Oh la la!

Welcome to Little Duckington, Dubby and Dilly’s home town.

Little Duckington, in the county of Duckinghamshire, right in the middle of the English countryside, an ideal place for ducks – it rains a lot and there are plenty of ponds.

Yes, an ideal place for any duck family; but things are not always as they seem. Strange things have been happening in Little Duckington recently; clandestine meetings, whispered conversations, speculation and gossip. Some ducks have been acting out of quackater, and others seem to be turning a blind eye to whatever is going on.

It’s all a bit of a mystery.

Maybe over the next few days the truth will out; after all the truth will always out even in a town as sleepy as Little Duckington.
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Remember that telephone conversation Dilly had a couple of weeks ago, the mobile phone telephone conversation to France, the conversation with her cousin – Colette Canard? Well, it looks like Colette has finally arrived from Paris along with her daughter Claudette. Doesn’t she look grand! Apparently rainbow pillbox hats are all ‘la rage’ in Paris this year. French ducks have a ‘thing’ for hats, won’t go out without one - and just look at the size of that ribbon… how very French!

Claudette is about the same age as Debby, but there is a world of difference in sophistication terms. Red beret, San Tropez sunglasses, and this season’s new look around her neck – le Frère Jacques. It makes Debby’s silver scarf look very last year, doesn’t it? If only Debby had accessorised her scarf with a bell or something, had worn a pair of sunglasses, or maybe a beret would have helped – even a small one.

Oh well… ‘c’est la vie’.

I’m not quite sure why the Frère Jacques look is ‘la mode’ this year, but it really has become ‘de riguer’ all over France and the song has gone to number one in the French charts sung by Quacka Distel, the French singer. You hear it wherever you go; ‘Frère Jacques, Frère Jacques, Dormez vous? Dormez vous? Sonnez les matines, Sonnez les matines, Din, din, don! Din, din, don’! Of course it has been given a new treatment ‘dans le style de rock and roll’, but it’s basically the same tune with a new beat.

Colette’s husband hasn’t traveled across with them. He’s very busy on the ‘Oriental Duck Express’; he may be joining them in a couple of days though, it all depends if he can find out who killed Sammy Smew, yes they found a dead duck murdered on the train. It’s been in all the papers: ‘The Daily Pond’, ‘The Quack Call’, it’s even been in ‘Webs and Bills Magazine’. Colette’s husband is famous in France; ‘Le Canard extrordinaire’ they call him.

Claude Canard - he’s the duck equivalent of Hercule Poirot, a private investigator, a kind of anatidaen (of the duck family) sleuth. Of course Poirot is Belgian, not French, and he doesn’t have a bill or webbed feet, but apart from that they are incredibly similar - very smart, very clever, and very arrogant. I don’t quite know what Dubby is going to make of him though. Mind you, Dubby is so distracted these days… perhaps Claude can get to the bottom of what’s going on.

So here are Colette and Claudette in Little Duckington. They’ve never been to England before, I wonder what they’ll make of it after Paris… and I wonder what they’re here for?