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Aftermath

Grandad December 26th, 2011

So that’s another one over.

I confess that memories of yesterday are a bit vague.

I know there were about fifty children in the house setting my head spinning. OK. Maybe there were only a couple but Puppychild and Sir Fartzalott can make it seem like fifty.

Then there was TAT who spent most of the day snoring on the couch. That fella could snore for Ireland. Each snort induced a sympathy vibration in just about everything so the effect was weirdly cacophonous. I was going to record a blast of it to stick up here but I didn’t want to damage my microphones.

Our K8 spent most of the day in the kitchen [which is only right and proper] doing the cooking and getting drunk, while Herself vanished quite early in the day. I haven’t a clue where the fuck she went but we must all be grateful for small mercies?

Judging by the mess, we all had a good time.

I have just spent an hour or so collecting empty [and some not so empty] beer cans, bottles and various assorted vessels and the recycle bin is just about full, which means a trip to the landfill later. I can also report that I haven’t a trace of a hangover which just goes to show that all those months of training paid off?

There is only one thing though that has me baffled.

How the fuck did the Christmas tree end up in the pond?

Around the house , Rambles , The Family
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Willying my computer

Grandad November 25th, 2011

I was called upon to do a drop of babysitting yesterday.

Our K8 had to feck off on an urgent errand, and as usual, TAT was nowhere to be found so I was asked to look after Laughingboy and Sir Fartzalott.

For those of you who haven’t been around long, TAT [The Accidental Terrorist] is married to my daughter and therefore presumably is my son-in-law, but let’s not go there for the moment.

I’m not used to little boys running around the place. God bless him, but our Laughingboy never did much running around the house, being confined to a wheelchair from birth. Little girls are no problem as Puppychild has stayed here many’s the time and of course I had all those nightmare years bringing up the daughter.

You may ask what the difference is in a child that hasn’t even reached their second birthday, but there is a difference, and Sir Fartzalott has found it.

Obviously he has seen his sister running around in the pelt and has noticed that there is a distinct difference. He has discovered that he has something that she hasn’t. He has also apparently jumped to the conclusion that the reason they are different is that she is older and that therefore hers has fallen off.

Now Sir Fartzalott is worried about this. If hers has fallen off, he has concluded that his is about to follow suit and he is determined that that isn’t going to happen. As a result, he maintains a firm grip on it at all times. He has become single handed, as the other hand is maintaining a firm and unyielding grip on his appendage. It brings a whole new meaning to “getting a grip of yourself”.

At one stage during the evening he decided to climb onto the couch. Now when you are a pint sized nipper this requires a bit of effort and is normally a two handed job. Sir Fartzalott had a problem, because he only had one available hand. He thought about it for a moment and decided that the best way up was to lean his top half against the couch and then to give a mighty pull to his willy to haul the lower half up. It was a classic example of pulling oneself up by ones bootstrap.

I don’t know if you know this, but the expression “hauling up by the bootstrap” is the origin of the word “boot” in computers. I bet you didn’t know that? Someone obviously decided that “bootstrapping” a computer was a bit cumbersome so they shortened it to “boot”.

It occurred to me last night that but for a quirk of fate, we could all be re-willying our computers.

It makes you think.

Education

Grandad October 10th, 2011

Things were sort of hectic here yesterday.

For a start I couldn’t get onto the Interweb because the Other Fella was trying to fix it. He had cables running all over the shop, and he kept flitting between the laptop and the wireless thing and the language out of him was pretty terrible. Frankly I was a little shocked at his language – when I say it was bad, it was really fucking atrocious.

On top of all that, a couple of the nippers were here. We had to look after Puppychild and Sir Fartzalott for the afternoon. Puppychild was no problem. She found the Other Fella’s language quite intriguing and a couple of times I heard her gently repeating the words as she consigned them to memory.

Sir Fartzalott was a slightly different kettle of fish. He’s not quite talking yet, though he does have a remarkably large vocabulary of his own words and noises, so he wasn’t particularly interested in expanding his linguistic range. A missed opportunity, if ever there was one? So I had to entertain him. He was very interested in a pack of fags that Herself had left lying around so I took the opportunity to teach him to smoke. After a few coughing fits and a couple of green faces, he took to it like a duck to water.

Today is relatively calm by comparison. The Interweb is back up and running. All we have to mind today is Woodja the dog. He’s rather simple-minded and a bit of an eejit so he’s no trouble at all. He’s out in the garden at the moment trying to make friends with a rock. Our K8 dropped him up today as her house is full of kids for Puppychild’s seventh birthday. God but that makes me feel old!

Our K8 was a bit annoyed with me, actually.

Apparently this morning, Sir Fartzalott’s cot was full of ash and cigarette butts.

I told her that would stop in a couple of months when I wean him onto the pipe.

Spoiled

Grandad August 6th, 2011

Herself didn’t get up until seven this morning.

Today is her birthday so I let her have an extra hour’s lie in.

She doesn’t know it yet, but I have another treat for her later. I bought her a can of Guinness to enjoy while I’m down the pub tonight celebrating the day that’s in it.

I have that woman thoroughly spoiled.