I had to delve into the recesses of my memory, but I’m fairly sure we got married in ‘75. 

Holy fuck!

Thirty five fucking years!!!

It’s hard to believe. 

During all that time, I am proud to say that I have remained faithful loyal married, which must be some kind of record.  If I were American, I would be onto my fifth or sixth by now, and sunning myself on a beach in Florida with a nice young twenty-something.  But I’m Irish, so I’m stuck here in the mountains with Herself.

Apparently it’s our ‘jade anniversary’ which means I am supposed to buy her something to do with jade.  She can fuck off.  I know of a slapper called Jade who works in a nightclub in Skobieville, so I might make myself a present of her for the night, but that’s as far as it goes [apart from the follow up trip to the STD clinic?].

Thirty. Five. Fucking. Years.

I can’t get over it.

Half the population of this Godforsaken country wasn’t even born, thirty five years ago.

I’m not going to mention it, of course.  With a bit of luck she’ll forget.  And if she doesn’t, she had better get me a damned good present.

It had better be a fucking medal.

Two years later, Grandad V2.0 [Puppychild] came out.

Some of the more astute of you may have noticed that there is an impending release of Grandad V3.0. 

We are currently at the Beta test stage and are ironing out the wrinkles, so to speak.  Final release is expected some time in the Spring of next year.  As yet, the new release is unnamed, and is currently referred to under the code name of “The Bump”.  I would of course like to officially pass on my congratulations to the team who have worked so hard [?] on bringing about this momentous occasion.

Apparently the ceremony is full of new traditions.  Now I always assumed that a tradition was something that has been done for generations, but it seems that the modern wedding ceremony is full of traditions that were dreamt up in the last week or two.

I don’t know whether it is a modern tradition or not, but I was a little surprised when in the middle of the proceedings, the priest gave a Nazi salute [complete with a ‘Heil Hitler’] and then went on to extol the virtues of the Third Reich uniforms.  I don’t remember any mention of that being introduced into the wedding ceremony, but who am I to argue?

A few minutes after that, I swear I heard the priest signing the happy couple into the Roman Legions and pledging allegiance to the Emperor, but I may have been mistaken.

The main thing though is that TAT finally signed that bit of paper.  It has taken a few years, and a lot of persuasion, but he has finally done the honourable thing, so I suppose I can give him those negatives now.  I have no further use for them, though I have kept a couple of copies, just as proof that it is possible to do that to a goat.

There were a couple of anxious moments where the whole thing went belly-up, such as the time near the beginning when TAT did a runner.  Our K8 was a little anxious until we managed to find him hiding in the graveyard.

The bridesmaid was TAT’s sister, Loopy Loo.  She was a bit hyper before the wedding but we managed to get her sedated and sobered in time, so that was all right.

For some unknown reason, TAT and the Best Man turned up wearing skirts.  I think it may have been a ploy to allow him to run faster, but that didn’t work.  I had to ask The Question though, and apparently they do.

TAT’s biker friends all behaved themselves impeccably.  Until they got drunk, that is.  When we left the pub, it was burning merrily and even as I write, I can see the smoke rising beyond the hills.

Herself took a photograph of me after we got home.  I was proud of the fact that I managed to drive that distance with a pint of Guinness in my hand, without spilling a drop.

Incidentally, she has asked me to point out that the underwear belongs to Cousin Stacey and not her.

But seeing as we don’t have a Cousin Stacey, I think you can draw your own conclusions.

Having successfully traded my daughter on the open market, I’m off to the signing off ceremony.

Major celebrations.

She is TAT’s headache now.

He has been hanging around the house quite a lot and I have been enjoying the comfort of familiarity.  Those expressions of movement, the mannerisms, and the general deportment that I remember so well from times gone by.

You must realise that my father passed over nearly thirty years ago, but I am not cracking up.  I am not seeing ghosts.  What I am seeing is as real as you or me.

It struck me earlier today that I was seeing him vividly.  The only thing was that I was seeing him from inside, not outside.

As I grew up, in common with most children I felt my father was ancient.  In my case, he was in his late forties when I was born so he always was pretty old compared to me.

As I grew, he was the solid rock of dependability that steered us through life, and I always felt that once my father was around, that all would be right with the world.

Now what I am seeing is his mannerisms that I have subconsciously adapted.  I see his walk, his distinctive movements, almost his thought patterns, for I have reached the age that he was at when I remember him the best.

It is quite comforting really.

I am become my father.

After getting up and having my morning mug of tea and a grand pipe full, Herself switched on the radio.

It was non-stop whinging and moaning about Swine Flu, and the government who apparently have decided to extend their bank holiday by an extra day and a half [fully paid, of course].  It was gloom, doom, political incompetence and was generally pretty depressing so I fucked the radio out the window and settled back to enjoy a nice peaceful Saturday.

The sun is shining and it is warm out.  I contemplated mowing the laws, as it is a couple of months since I last did it, and Sandy is beginning to find it difficult to find her way back to the house after I have let her out.

I decided that the Interweb can manage without me for a day so I brewed another mug, lit the pipe and happily contemplated whether to start the lawn with the lawnmower or a scythe.  I also calculated how much Paraquat I would need to kill the lot to save me the trouble of mowing it in the future.

The phone rang.

It was our K8.  Could I possibly do some emergency babysitting?

So now I’m stuck indoors.  I brought the laptop with me, but the little wagon has encrypted her wireless network. Luckily she is only using 128 whatsit security so I soon cracked that.

Now I am stuck here with a television blaring out children’s programmes which seemed to be designed to delight the children but irritate the hell out of grandparents.

The television is about to go out the window.

Puppychild has just climbed on my lap.

It’s not a bad Saturday after all.

For those of you who are not married, wedding anniversaries area time to dread.  They are a minefield more deadly than any in Africa or Bosnia.  One wrong step, and the poor husband can expect months of misery ahead.

Of course the biggest mine that any bloke can step on is to forget the damn thing altogether.

I did remember a couple of weeks ago, and made a mental note to Do The Right Thing.  The Right Thing is to buy something ludicrously expensive and to make a big fuss of Herself on the day.  Usually what I do is to find something at the bottom of her jewellery box and polish it up.  If there is nothing there, I usually nip down to the Pound Shop or Oxfam.

Of course, making mental notes at my age is fatal.

I forgot.

The day dawned and I remembered.

There was that horrible sinking feeling – that sword of Damocles hanging over my head – when would she remember?  I tried some damage limitation by rifling through her jewellery, but she had been to the pawn shop again, and the cupboard was bare.  Bollox.

It was a long day, as any minute I was expecting the explosion.

But it never happened.

I realised that Herself had forgotten too, so I relaxed and enjoyed the evening in peace.

As the days subsequently passed, I knew I was completely in the clear.  She couldn’t accuse me of anything, as she was just as guilty.

I mentioned it the other night.

‘We forgot our anniversary,’ I said breezily.  [Note the use of the plural]

‘Did we?  When was it?’

‘Last week.’

‘Oh!  I forgot about it.  How long are we married?’

I whipped out a pencil and did some calculations.  ‘Thirty four years,’ I said.

’Is it that long?’

‘No,’ says I.  ‘Much longer.’

She gave me one of her looks.

‘Who needs anniversaries anyway?’ she said.  ‘Don’t I know that you love me without any fancy gifts or anything?’

‘Do you?’

‘Yes. Sure, aren’t you letting me sleep indoors while the snow lasts?’

‘True.’

I’m over in our K8’s house as she has some business to attend to.

I did an inventory, just in case I should lose anyone or any thing accidentally.

One budgie – Check.

One cat – Check.

One kitten – Check.

Two guinea pigs – Check.

One dog – Check.

One granddaughter – Check.

One grandson – Check.

One TAT – Check.

Hold on a minute…..   A TAT?  What the fuck am I doing babysitting The Accidental Terrorist?  Isn’t he old enough to look after himself?

No.  I suppose not.

Everyone and every thing is asleep now, including TAT.  Except for the kitten.  The damned kitten is trying to climb into my beard.  And when she isn’t doing that, she’s digging her claws into my leg, and having a swing.  It is painful.

Who’d be a Grandad?

*sigh*

They have this inscrutable expression all the time, like Japanese, so you never know whether they are happy or not.

I have learned quite a bit about them since MinniePig came into our lives. 

For a start, our Minnie’s favourite items are Romaine lettuce and the Irish Times.  She is very fussy about her reading matter and it’s a race to get the Irish Times read before she has eaten it.

Having devoured Roisín Ingle, she will happily sit there producing loads of poo.

Guinea pig poo is strange stuff.  It always seems to be fairly dry and hard, and it is always exactly the same size.  The size looked vaguely familiar, so I measured it. 

I was right.

Minnie produces .177 calibre shit every time.

I have an old air rifle that I am very fond of.  It was my first gun, and I got it for my fifth birthday.  I still remember the joy of my first kill.

I haven’t used the rifle much lately, but I dug it out of the attic and tried out Minnie’s poo for size.  It was perfect.

Last week, I brought it out to do some hunting.  I had forgotten how good an air rifle can be as there is no sound to scare any other tourists in the area.  I racked up a good score.

I would be very interested to see the pathologists report.

“Cause of death unknown, but guinea pig excrement was found in the heart”

I think Minnie and I have a long and fruitful symbiotic career ahead of us.

Life has moved on a bit since then.

He was captured, and became a she.  This was not one of your operations that we don’t discuss publicly; it was more a case of discovery.

The problem then arose as to what we were to call this little turd on legs.  The honour fell on Sixty who suggested ‘Minnie Pig’.  This was rather appropriate, as Puppychild calls them mini-pigs as a generic term.

The general idea was that Minnie was to go and live with our K8’s pair [of guinea pigs – no smart comments, please].  This however didn’t work out.  The vet says that K8’s pair should eventually make a reasonable physical recovery, but he can’t answer for the aftermath of the trauma.  So Minnie is now living with us.

Apparently guinea pigs are social animals and like company.  We had notions of getting a companion, but I just couldn’t bother my arse driving around looking for a petshop.  She’s only a fucking animal after all.  So she now lives in splendid isolation in our kitchen, so that she is nice and handy should we run out of meat.

Things have developed since then, however.

We got into the habit of letting her out for a couple of hours for a bit of a run around.  This would be fine, but Minnie seems to have taken a bit of an aversion to Herself.  There is no violence involved, but frequently my evening nap is interrupted by a shriek of “Jesus! The little fucker has pissed on me again”.  Minnie is quite subtle about displaying her feelings apparently.

What about Sandy, you ask. 

Here is where the new development comes in.

There was a bit of curiosity when the two first met, and I had the tranquiliser gun at the ready.  I didn’t need it however as Minnie came to a decision.  Having already gone through a gender reassignment, she went through a species reassignment.  She has now decided she is a Minnie Puppy.  She has adopted Sandy as her mother.  Fortunately, Sandy has adopted Minnie as her long lost daughter, so the two now spend the evenings in mutual admiration.

There is a ritual now.  Sandy will curl up on the couch, and Minnie will run over.  Sandy then proceeds to wash Minnie, until she is wringing wet and all her hair is standing on end and glistening with slobber.  Minnie then runs over for a quick piss on Herself and then returns for another wash.  A very cosy scene.

I’m very fond of Sandy, so all this has disrupted our gastronomic plans.

I could never eat Sandy’s daughter.

Not yet, anyway.