Head Rambles

Archive for the 'Around the town' Category

The old tricks are the best

Grandad March 20th, 2007

Ron and I went for a few pints the other night.

All differences have been forgiven and forgotten.

Ron and I have been pals for years. I am the quiet one. He is the one most likely to cause trouble.

He is the kind of bloke who will get a full pint of water in a pub, put a beermat over it, turn it upside down, put it on the counter and then whip the beermat away. He does it for the hell of it. We’ve been thrown out a few times for that one.

Anyway, we were having a few. It was a friendly night, but the cash ran low.

“Fancy one for the road?” says Ron.

“No cash” says I.

“Don’t worry about that” says he. “There are always ways and means…”

He called the manager over.

“Excuse me” says Ron “but my friend and I are having a bet. He says there are four pints in a quart, and I say there are three. Could you set us straight?”

The manager laughed. “Yiz are both wrong. There are two”. He went away.

Ron called the barman over.

“Same again” says he, “and it’s on the house.”

“Yiz are joking” says the barman. “No-one gets free pints here”

“Well, the manager just said we could. Hold on. I’ll clarify this” says Ron.

“How many pints did you say” he yelled at the manager.

“Two” the manager yelled back.

“Funny” says Ron to me, “but they always fall for it. Even after all these years”

“Cheers” says he as two fresh pints are placed in front of us.

Today is cancelled

Grandad March 17th, 2007

All right people - you can go home again.

Saint Paddy isn’t a saint after all.

It transpires that this is just an ordinary day. The festivities have been cancelled.

The whole thing was getting out of hand anyway.

On March 17^th all Americans become more Irish than the Irish themselves. And the real Irish go out and watch American marching bands in every backwater in Ireland.. It is getting confusing.

I remember the good old days when we used to sit for hours waiting for a pipe-band to march past. That would be followed by a tractor pulling a trailer with someone all dressed up sitting on it. The bits of shamrock would blow past in the gutter like tumbleweed, and we’d all freeze to death. But it was worth it.

Now it’s crazy. We have to have the ubiquitous marching bands and cheerleaders with characters floating around like refugees from a New Orleans Festival [maybe they are New Orleans refugees?]. The parade is so long now that the front end has reached the tail end before the tail end has even started. So it forms a vicious circle and goes on forever.

And just when the frostbite is nicely settling in, they start the fireworks. Some head off to the pubs where they traditionally get out of their heads and maybe start warfare in the streets, or just collapse in a coma. The rest stay to watch the fireworks until rigor mortis sets in.

Oh how the pubs must love today! The one day of the year they are guaranteed to run out of stock. Then the hospitals fill up with the injured and the drunk. Oh joy!

Everyone is going around wishing each other “Happy Saint Patrick’s Day”. Why pick today to wish happiness? Do they hope you’ll die of Galloping Knob Rot the rest of the year?

Aw f*ckit! I’m off to the pub….

That takes the biscuit

Grandad March 15th, 2007

Yesterday we had to take a trip.

Herself had an appointment to have some tests done. I think they were checking her for Mad Cow Disease or something.

And with typical Health Service efficiency, the test was in Arklow. Now I have nothing against Arklow but it is a hell of a long way away. Why they couldn’t have picked somewhere closer, I don’t know.

Anyway we got to Arklow, and found the test centre. A caravan, for God’s sake!! And in a Tesco car park!! So Herself toddled off, and Sandy went to sleep in the back seat, and I went to sleep in the front seat. She came back an hour later and woke us.

“I’m just nipping into Tescos for a packet of biscuits. I won’t be a minute” says she.

I wasn’t fooled. I know Herself of old. So does Sandy. So we resumed our positions and tried to go back to sleep. But we couldn’t. So we chatted for a while about the state of the world. We counted how many SUVs were taking up two parking spaces [most of them]. We listened to the radio and to some CDs. People came, went into the supermarket, and came back later with full trolleys and went home. We memorised the ads around the place “Tescos - we save you money”. Hah! They don’t know Herself. We waited.

After about an hour and a half, she rang me. Well, she tried to ring me but she hasn’t got the hang of mobiles yet, but I knew it was her.

I left Sandy in the car and went in. I eventually found her [having searched every inch of the rest of the shop]. She had two overflowing baskets.

In the middle of the aisle, she started to unpack them to show me what she’d found. Mountains of children’s clothing. Books. DVDs. Kitchenware. Flowers. I managed to slip the DVDs out when she wasn’t looking [they were films we'd seen ages ago] and suggested we check out.

In the middle of the check out process, she suddenly disappeared. She came back a minute later.

“I forgot the biscuits” says she.

The bill came to €125. Not bad for a pack of biscuits!

We unpacked at home.

“Why did you get so many children’s clothes?” says I.

“They are for birthdays” says she.

I pointed out that the grandchildrens’ birthdays aren’t until July and October.

“And why did you get a sauce boat?” I asked. “We already have one”

“I know” says Herself, “but it doesn’t have a saucer. And it will be nice on the table next Christmas”

When we came to the flowers, I restrained myself from pointing out that we have a lot of flowers in the garden at the moment.

There were a few other things that we will probably never use. We certainly didn’t need them.

I was very good. I didn’t point out that the whole thing cost us a fortune. I didn’t point out that we’ll be having mince for the next month. I didn’t complain.

But she saw the look on my face.

“Look” Says Herself “We needed these things. Stop sighing. You just don’t understand”

She got the last bit right.

P.S. I just had to add this……..

The day of the Eclipse

Grandad March 4th, 2007

Herself dragged me into the local town yesterday.

We don’t go there that often, because it is noisey and the parking is difficult.

Normally you would find the normal mix of people walking the streets, but yesterday was different. It took me about a minute to realise this. I also noticed that there were massive traffic jams trying to get out of the town. I had wondered why I found parking so easily, and why the traffic going into the town was so light.

The entire town seemed to be populated with a sort of sub-culture.

The males all looked as if they had just popped out of the bookies after a twenty year stint of staring at the screens. If they were American, they all would have been called Cletus. They had a Neanderthal, in-bred look about them - slack jaws, bulging eyes, knuckles dragging along the ground.

There were quite a few younger specimens too. There were all Gurriers and Snot Gobblers. They all had the mandatory mobile in one hand and a can of drink in the other. They communicated by whistles and by shouting at each other in an accent so thick even I couldn’t understand it.

The females were the worst. They all seemed to be in their teens and all had the mandatory mobile in one hand and a pram in the other. And they all chewed gum with their mouths open. They were all dressed to look like Britney Spears [with hair]. It seems to be compulsory to have at least one child by the time they are entering their teens. My theory is that, on entering puberty they practice at home with the family. Either that or we have the highest rate of virgin births in the world.

The women were all eying up the talent. There was one who eyed me up. She was built like Mary Harney, but was wearing a mini-skirt and a top that was vary low cut. The sight of that cleavage was as sexy as a plane crash, but just as fascinating. It was like two shaved pigs fighting in a hammock. I broke out into a cold sweat, but she passed by. Thank God.

I thought we might have wandered onto a film set, but there were no cameras around. It was strange. It was surreal. It wasn’t threatening or anything, but I felt uncomfortable. Herself didn’t notice, but she had been into a couple of shops and was more interested in her purchases. I had stayed outside the shops and this is how I had had a chance to observe what was going on.

We got out of that town as fast as we could, which wasn’t very fast as all the exit routes were still jammed with traffic.

Then it dawned on me. I wonder if the impending full lunar eclipse had anything to do with it?

There are limits to my patience

Grandad February 13th, 2007

Herself has been nagging me to go to the library.

We got the books out in the middle of December, and I’ve been renewing them by phone.

So yesterday she told me to get over there, as the library are holding onto a book she requested.

It wasn’t convenient. I had a busy day yesterday, between blogging, cutting my toenails, doing a bit of sudoku, trimming my bonsai and the rest. But Sandy and I got in the car and off we went, on our ten mile round trip.

It was one of those irritating journeys. It started when a 4WD cut out in front of me causing Sandy to collapse into the footwell. Then I got stuck behind a woman [it's always a woman] doing 40 in an 80 zone and driving with her foot on the brake pedal.

Then there were the ubiquetous temporary traffic lights that held me up for ages.

I made it into the town after several more brushes with 4WDs.

My luck changed - there was a parking spot right outside the library. So I parked. And then I saw the notice -

“The library is closed today for staff training. We apologise for the inconvenience”

Inconvenience!!!!

So we made our way home through the 4WDs, and the crap drivers, and the speed bumps that make Sandy’s teeth rattle and the temporary traffic lights.

“Did you get my book?” says Herself.

“No I didn’t” says I, “the f*cking place was closed for training”

“Oh, that’s right.” says Herself “I saw a notice in the local paper that it would be.”

I went off to get the baseball bat.