I woke up to a ‘ticcing fit’ at 4.00am yesterday morning, and for several hours afterwards I struggled to get back to sleep. But I was still awake when the birds started chirping, and inevitably, my tics had something to say about it:

“Birds, I can hear your cockney accents.”
“Birds, I know you’re not penguins.”
“Birds, have you been raving with the starlings again?”
“Birds, have you thought about learning sign language?”
“Birds, your tweets would look good in Braille.”
“Birds, save the chat about astrophysics till later.”

And finally one that confused me more than all the others, either:

“Morning birds, is the lamp-post your sun?”

or

“Morning birds, is the lamp-post your son?”

Tics that include words with two meanings are always tricky, and I seldom know which is correct. And the birds didn’t give me any help either.