Powerless
Grandad December 18th, 2011
I just went down the village for the paper and some batteries.
Came back with both.
That’s when I discovered I needed six, not four batteries.
Fuck!
I’m not going out again.
Herself will have to do without.
Archive for the 'Around the village' Category
The Lost Weekend
Grandad October 16th, 2011
It has been one of those weekends.
It all started innocently enough when myself and a few of the neighbours went down the pub for a few scoops of a Friday night. You know yourself how it is when the craic is mighty and the drinks are flowing? The idea of going home didn’t occur to us.
I don’t know what time I got home but I made it in one piece, even if I stall can’t remember where I left my trousers.
Yesterday didn’t happen.
Even today, things are a little flaky but at least I can see only one of everything. Of course my Puter insists on choosing today to act up and even the broadband has decided to slow to a crawl. It hasn’t done that before so I reckon it must be slowing down in sympathy with me.
What saddens me is that it looks like age is catching up with me. Gone are the days when I could drink solidly through Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights and still be up with the lark of a Monday. Gone are the days when I could safely sink many pints and still have a clear head in the morning. I can’t have had more than eight or nine pints on Friday but they had an effect on me that I have never previously experienced. The one drop of consolation is that one of the neighbours just dropped in looking for some Aspirin and he is a good deal younger than me. Young people these days just don’t have the stamina.
The one big problem is that I missed out on all that happened in the world yesterday. None of the neighbours knows either.
There’s only one thing for it.
I’ll have to nip down to the pub tonight to catch up on all the news.
Now if only I could remember what happened to my trousers?
Quote of the week
Grandad July 25th, 2011
I was down in the village last night for a few pints.
It was one of those very pleasant evenings where we brought our stools out even though we didn’t have to. The sun was dropping low in the sky but the evening was still warm. The air was heavy with the smells of the pine forest, heather and pipe smoke. It was a lovely way to while away a few idle hours.
Conversation in the pub tends to wander about a bit. It has on occasion been referred to as “The Parliament” as all the big decisions are made there. We decide how the government should be running the country and generally setting the world to rights. If the world’s governments listened to us rather than their various “advisors”, the world would be a much better place.
Yesterday was one of those sessions where the evening was too pleasant for serious debate and we just batted the breeze as it were, even though there wasn’t a breath of wind. Eventually the topic got around to a bloke who lived in a neighbouring village.
This bloke was remarkable for his lack of remarkability. He had only been in the pub once or twice in all the years I have been living here and was generally dismissed as being a “bit of an oddball”. The reason he cropped up in conversation was that he had finally done something that was remarkable – he had packed his bags and without a word to anyone had moved up to an apartment in the heart of one of those snobby towns that make up Dublin’s sprawling suburbs.
What baffled us last night was why the bloke had moved. Why would anyone move from the peaceful idyll of the countryside into the heart of all the noise and fumes that make up suburbia? He was in his seventies, so it wasn’t like he had to be near work. He didn’t have any family there that we were aware of. The only theory that made any sort of sense was that he wanted to be near the shops, but then why didn’t he just move into the town nearby? We were baffled. We threw various theories into the pot but each theory was dismissed as being absurd.
In the middle of this debate, Sheriff wandered along to join us for a sup. He got his pint and came out and sat on the window ledge.
“What’s the topic tonight lads?”
We told him we were discussing the bloke who had moved to the suburbs. Being a member of our illustrious Boys in Blue, Sheriff was the one bloke who could possibly know the answer to our little debate. He seemed to know everything else that was going on anyway. We asked him why he thought the bloke moved all the way up to Dublin when he could have just moved into our local town. What did Dublin have that our town didn’t?
Sheriff sat for a while pondering.
After necking a good two inches off his pint, he gave his verdict.
“Ah!” said he, “They have a much better class of a drug dealer up there.”
Five months to go
Grandad May 10th, 2011
I was down in the village yesterday and thought I would call in to Doc, as he owed me some poker winnings.
“Seeing as I’m here” says I to Doc, “I have noticed I have put on a lot of weight in the last couple of months.”
“You don’t look any heavier?” Doc doesn’t believe in new technology such as weighing scales.
I stood sideways and relaxed my stomach muscles.
“Ah! Yes. I see what you mean.” He thought for a moment. “You say this came on in the last couple of months?”
“Yup.”
“Have you been in your flowers lately?” he asked.
“What the fuck are you on about?”
“The Curse” he replied. “Have you noticed an absence of The Curse lately?”
“No. She’s still at home where she always is.”
“No, no, no. I mean your Period. Have you had a Period in the last couple of months?”
“No.” I wasn’t going to confuse things by telling him I had never had one.
“That’s it then” he said with a beaming smile. “You’re pregnant! Congratulations.”
I really wonder about Doc.
He knows I’m too old for that.
Westlife or whiskey
Grandad April 15th, 2011
I was at one of those table quizzes last night.
It wasn’t in the local pub so they fucking didn’t like smokers, but I suppose one must make sacrifices in the name of a good cause? It was in aid of Puppychild’s school so Our K8 and TAT were there too.
I like pub quizzes. I am one of those people who is not that well up on the trivial things in life, but am a fountain of knowledge when it comes to the important stuff. I haven’t a fucking clue who won the All Ireland Football championships last year, but I can tell you that a squirrel lives in a drey. I haven’t a clue who won what Oscar for what but I know for a fact that most of the African Continent is in the Northern Hemisphere.
As for who is the current world 100 metres champion…. well I suggested it was Brian Brady when he realised the last bus home was just leaving, but apparently that wasn’t right.
Needless to say, we didn’t win. But we didn’t come last either so that was all right.
At the end of the quiz, they ran a raffle. I never win at raffles, but I bought some tickets anyway. As I said, it was all in a good cause.
The very first ticket drawn was one of mine, so there must have been a blue moon last night. Actually there wasn’t as one of the questions was ‘if there are two full moons in a calendar month, then what is the second one called?’ Naturally I said it was a Blue Moon.
Anyhow, I digress.
I went up to collect my prize which was a very fancy crate of chocolate liqueurs [which should keep Herself happy and pissed for quite a while] and two fine bottles of vintage whiskey [which should keep me happy for a while].
Later, I was approached by the woman who had issued the prizes and was told there was a mix-up. She said I had won the first prize but had been given the second prize instead by mistake. I asked what the first prize was, and it transpired that I should be the owner of two tickets to see Westlife.
I will be honest here. I think the only thing worse than two tickets to see Westlife would be two tickets to see Jedward. So here I was being offered these two tickets in exchange for two fine bottles of whiskey. Westlife? Whiskey? Whiskey? Westlife? It was a tough decision and it mist have taken me at least two nanoseconds to decide. I kept the whiskey.
I didn’t know this at the time, but apparently two tickets to Westlife are like gold dust and I could have sold them for a fortune on the Interweb.
I don’t regret my decision however. As our K8 said at the time – if I had handled those tickets, I would have felt tainted for the rest of my life.
Our K8 can be quite astute sometimes.
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