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.

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?

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.”

“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.

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.

The letter contained a form that I had to fill in to prove that I am alive.

Why are they writing to me if they think I’m dead? Fucking idiots.

Anyhow, I was about to sign it when I noticed that I had to have the signature witness by a Garda.  Now the signature is no problem.  I am getting damned good at forging my own signature and have reached the stage where it is almost indistinguishable from the original.  Getting a Garda to witness it could pose a problem though, as Sheriff can be an awkward bugger to find when you need him.

I had to go down to the village this morning, so just on the off-chance, I called into the Garda station.  As luck would have it, there was Sheriff having a quiet smoke and a read of the paper.

I showed him the form and asked him to put his X at the bottom of it.  He refused.  I asked why.  He said that he never put his signature to anything unless he was ‘in possession of all the relevant data’.  Sheriff can be a right bollix sometimes.  I asked him what the fuck he was on about and he replied that he couldn’t sign it as he didn’t have conclusive proof that I was alive.  I told him that that was fine by me, because if I were dead, he wouldn’t be getting any of the pints I owed him.

He signed the form.

On the way to post off the form, a car with German registration plates pulled up beside me.  The driver wanted to know the way back to the main road as he wanted to get to Dublin.  I sent him up the Bog Road to the mountain tops.

My first tourist of the season.

Spring is definitely in the air.

Usually by this time I have schlobbed something up onto the site.  Today being Election Day, it turned out to be a very busy day however and my time was sorely stretched.

It was an early start as I had a load of Polling Stations to get through.  I am a great believer in the old philosophy of ‘Vote early – Vote often”.  By late afternoon however I was beginning to feel my age, and decided it was time for a coffee.

Today was my first visit this year to the coffee shop, and I must say it was very pleasant with bright spring sunshine and not too cool.  The birds sang their hearts out and Sandy chased a cat.  Perfect Spring Peace.  It really felt like winter is finally behind us and we have a bright new future to look forward to.

The only blot on an otherwise spotless day was when a passing personage greeted me with a loud “Howya Mick”.

Who the fuck is this Mick?

Something will have to be done about him.

While I was down there, I thought I would drop into Doc’s surgery.  Don’t worry – I’m not sick or anything – it’s just that he owes me a few bob after a poker session the other night.

Before I go any further, I should explain that Doc insists on locating his surgery upstairs.  This is apparently a deliberate ploy on his part as he says that it cuts down drastically on the number of patients [such as those with broken lower limbs or those with arthritis] so he has more time to himself.

Anyhows, I entered the front door, and there were two old dears coming down the stairs.  As they were both old enough to be my granny, I stood to one side to let them down.  They took ages.  Finally they reached the bottom step and the younger of the two realised I was there.  She squinted at me, and I saw a flash of recognition on her face. 

“Howya Mick!” says she.

“Howya!” says I in return, just to be polite.

The older then peered at me which was slightly unnerving.

“Ah, hello Mick!” the older one said.

“Hello!” says I.

They made their way out the door, presumably wondering why Mick wasn’t very chatty today.

I saw them again a wee while later when I entered the grocers.  They both glared at me and one remarked to the other that Mick turning very rude in his old age. 

I don’t know who this Mick is, but I’ll have to find him.  I can’t have blokes wandering freely in the countryside if they look anything like me.  That is just not on.  I have a reputation to upkeep.

This village is only big enough for one of us.

While I was down there, I thought I would drop into the Drugstore [or pharmacy or chemist or whatever it’s called these days] as I was running low in tranquilisers for Herself.

As I was waiting in the shop, I noticed a wee typed sign standing on the counter.  It was a reminder of all the things you need to bring on holiday.  There was the Basic Pack which was fair enough.  It contained all the usual shit that people bring.  Then there were other subcategories like Sport and “Bar and Restaurant” which required additional stuff on top of the Basic Pack.

Bar and Restaurant?  I was intrigued.  I read it to see what I should be bringing if I intended to have a jar.

They advised that I would need scissors, burn lotion, splints, bandages and a load of other stuff, including an eye patch.  No mention of headache pills though.  Maybe that was in the Basic Pack?

I’m not quite sure what use an eye patch would be?

Leastwise, it looks like they drink in my type of bar…..