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?

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.

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.

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.

For one day only though, I am Dad.

One must make the best of the opportunities life throws one’s way?

I forgot, but seeing as Herself forgot too, it didn’t make much difference.

Thirty six years!  Fuck!!

Nelson Mandela only did twenty seven years on Robben Island, and he got a Nobel Prize.

I did longer than that and what did I get?  Grief.

Nelson Mandela only did twenty seven years, and he became president of his country.

I did nine years more and what did I get?  Earache.

Nelson Mandela only did twenty seven years, and he got the adulation of the entire world.

I did a lot longer than that and what did I get?  A hole in the credit card.

If I had a chance to go back, would I do it all again?

Probably.

I’m a pushover.

I couple of days ago, for no reason at all, I began to think about our guinea pigs. Our K8 looked after them while we were on holiday in June, and I sort of, kind of forgot to collect them again. So she has been happily looking after them ever since.

Shortly after that, I got a comment on one of my musings from Sighs, of Guinea Pig Sighs fame. I hadn’t heard from him in a while which saddened me as I like guinea pigs with attitude, and I like having a guinea pig commenting on my site.

I thought it was a strange piece of coincidence that Sighs should comment on the very morning I had been thinking about our wee rodents, but dismissed it as just that. Coincidence.

Later on that afternoon, I had a phonecall from our K8. As usual, she wanted to borrow something and said se was calling over. I said that was fine, as I wasn’t doing much anyway. She then coughed quietly and asked if she could hold a funeral in the garden. Somehow, I knew what was coming next.

Poor wee Fizz kicked the bucket that morning.

Our garden is becoming quite a respectable graveyard. There are dogs, a cat and a rabbit buried there, and now a guinea pig has joined them. It was a moving funeral. Our Puppychild did a rather sweet oration at the graveside and then went off and played in a tree house I had built her. Kids are fierce resilient.

I’ll miss Fizz. Of the two, she was probably my favourite.

Sleep well, little Fizz

Not being one who believes everything she says, I went on the Interweb to check.

Fuck me but there is a lot of confusion about it. Some say that Grandparents Day is [was] the 3rd of February. Another says it was the 4th of March. The Irish Times claims it’s this month but don’t say exactly when. The Catlick Church claims the 25th of July. However a few places say that the 26th of September is National Grandparents Day. That happens to be today, so I’m quite happy to run with that one.

The day is getting on a bit, and I haven’t seen a hair of the grandkids yet. I can only assume they are preparing a nice surprise for me. I hope it’s something nice like a voucher for free booze for the year in the local. Or maybe they are going to announce that they are going to do all my gardening for the year?

I don’t normally go in for all this shite about Valentine’s day and Mother’s Day and all those other fucking days that were invented by greetings card companies. I am prepared however to make a generous exception for Fathers Day and Grandparents Day. Those two are definitely days worth celebrating.

So now I am waiting for the offspring’s offspring to arrive.

I hope it’s something nice and useful and not just some old stuffed toy or an engraved mug. Mind you, if the mug is silver, I will be able to melt it down and flog it, which wouldn’t be too bad.

I wonder what my surprise is?

I am waiting.

…

Still waiting.

…

…

Still waiting.

He came to live with us a few years ago.  He just turned up one night, and has been here ever since.

He’s an extremely quiet chap.  In fact, Herself has never even seen him, and I only see him occasionally.  He pootles around the place at night, and I have never seen him during the day.

The only time I know he is around is when Sandy finds him.  I put her out for her last piss of the night and next thing there is an almighty racket from the garden – a sure sign that John is on his nightly perambulations.

Sandy is an extremely intelligent dog, and quickly cops on to most things in life.  John however has her baffled.  She sees him as a tasty bit of prey and goes on the offensive.  John, being also quite intelligent, goes on the defensive.  And when John goes on the defensive he is pretty much indestructible.  Sandy hasn’t learned this yet, so she dances around him and then lunges.  The resulting sound is a sort of “woof woof woof YIP!”  This is repeated ad nauseam until I go out and rescue her.

You see, John is a rather large hedgehog, and when on the defensive, he is essentially a large ball of pricks.  Pricks don’t feel very nice to a sensitive nose, apparently, hence the YIP part of the bark.

I tried to photograph him the other night.   This wasn’t as easy as it sounds as it was pitch black out there, and it was a case of shooting off the camera in the general direction and hoping I caught him.  After several attempts, I eventually did.

Now, I know the photograph looks a bit like one of those colour-blindness tests, but I can’t help that.  If you are colour blind you probably won’t be able to see him, but take my word for it – he’s there.

Why do I call him John?

Well, I was all for calling him Sonic, but he took grave exception to that.  He told me his name was John, and who am I to doubt him?

So John he is.

Maybe I did, and maybe I didn’t.  It’s not important.

Anyhow, she started complaining and coughing a few days ago.  I ignored it, but then the neighbours started complaining that her coughing was keeping their children awake at night when she was working in the garden.  I brought her to the doctor.

Now, Doc is away on holidays and there was some stand-in replacement at the surgery.  This replacement obviously wasn’t very good as she immediately gave Herself some tablets and told her to take things easy.  Take things easy?  For fuck’s sake!  It’s no wonder the replacement doesn’t have her own practice if she is dishing out namby pamby advice like that.

Anyhow, yesterday the coughing was getting on my nerves so for once, I told her she could have a day or two off and have a lie in in her shed.  The potato crop can wait for a day or two.

For those of you who have never visited the Manor, the shed is quite a distance from the house.  It’s in the far corner just behind the nettles.  This presented a problem.  How was I to stay in touch with her?  I could have used my mobile phone, but she has a habit of switching hers off for some reason.  I didn’t feel like shouting so I was in a bit of a quandary.

Then it struck me.

The perfect solution.

Now, I like Skype in my laptop.  It’s a handy little programme and is great for keeping in touch with people.  I installed it on her laptop, and brought it down to her.  That cheered her up because she likes playing on the Interweb.  I showed her how to answer Skype and I left her to it.

Now, if I want to talk to her, all I have to do is Skype her. 

I think I’ll Skype her now.

My mug of tea needs refreshing.