Writing it down fills in pieces of the puzzle

I got nothing.

noreply@blogger.com (Willie_W) — Fri, 25 Apr 2014 17:59:00 +0000

Crowded canteen and as I put my tray back on the trolley I turn around to find a girl behind me.
"Sorry!" I say and dodge right, to get out of her way.
"Sorry!" she says, and dodges to her left to get out of my way.
Before I can say my usual quip in such situations, she dives in with:
"We're dancing!"
"Thanks for the dance!" I get in, late.
As she goes by, she adds the killer:
"I wouldn't have bothered if I'd known you were so bad."
Dang.

Vodafone makes the Mounties look like slackers

noreply@blogger.com (Willie_W) — Tue, 25 Mar 2014 20:03:00 +0000

If you've been wondering where I've been, and why this blog hasn't been updated in the past three years, I've been hiding from Vodafone.

I don't know when I first made it to their Most Wanted list. I have had two pay-as-you-go mobile phone accounts with them for years now (although the first one lapsed, and will probably now go straight to Hell as a result). They always respect the "Do Not Contact Me With Offers If You Want to Live" box when I tick it. But, apparently, not any more.

The first call came when Herself and I were in a state over the dog. He had some issues that required the services of a burly man and a heavy pliers. As a result, any phone calls received unexpectedly in the middle of the day could mean the dog had lost a limb, or put a man's eye out, or even eaten an Alsatian whole. Well, he is a Jack Russell terrier, after all.

Then the new-phone debacle coincided. This was the changeover from our much beloved small outdated brick phones to a pair of super slippery newfangled types that require the dexterity of a ninja on cocaine to operate. My pocket began making strange susurrating noises that I finally figured out was a ring tone. By the time the bar of soap I'd been told was a phone was in my hand and the right way up the caller had given up. I recognised a Vodafone Customer Care number in the missed calls register.

The next call came during a meeting at work. I hammered the device off a colleague until both fell silent. But it's no use. The damnable thing continues to haunt me. And always at the most inopportune time.

This evening while gaining the moral higher ground of dragging an unclaimed change ticket out of the ticket machine on the bus, Vodafone rang again. I tore the change ticket in halves in my red-mist rage and stood looking dumbly at the driver as he wondered why I was not pulling the now mangled journey ticket from the machine. I grabbed the shreds and went back for the change ticket after all and sat down. Vodafone again.

Because I'm not going to answer you at work, while berating a customer for being a customer, nor in the toilet, while chinning my phone out of my trouser pocket as my two hands wave under the drier, nor even when I am made to sit bolt upright in bed like a human right-angle, Vodafone, please stop ringing me.

It's your own time you're wasting.

Keeping cool under pressure

noreply@blogger.com (Willie_W) — Tue, 05 Jul 2011 22:25:00 +0000

Our freezer has a mind of its own. And not always on the job in hand. Tonight as we're sitting watching television in the other room, the warning ding starts up on the freezer.
"You must have left the door open," I say, starting up. The noise immediately stops.
"I don't think so," Herself says, swirling the ice cubes about in her soft drink.
As soon as my bum hits the seat:
"Ding...! Ding...! Ding...!"
We go out and inspect what little there is to inspect.
The digital readout says -16C for the freezer and 1C for the fridge, like it's supposed to do. But the whole thing is ominously quiet.
I poke it. Herself moves bottles from the floor in case the feng shui is being upset. I open and close the fridge door. I open the freezer door. It has a disturbing slick look that speaks of malfunction.
"I think it's defrosting."
Immediately Herself falls back on 100,000 years of female evolution in the face of imminent calamity by asking as many questions within 60 seconds as it is possible to ask.
"What's wrong?
"Is it broken?
"Should we get another?
"Is the fuse gone in the plug?
"Shall I move another bottle?
"Should we start putting things in the other freezer?
"Is it safe to use ice that defrosted?
"Was it the weather?
"Was it the cats?
"Is it broken?
"Shall we buy another?
"Is the fuse gone in the plug?
"Why are you choking me?"
We ferry geriatric cuts of meat in their papyrus wraps to the small freezer in the ultilty room, in turn emptying from it the store of bread Herself squirelled away in there last Christmas when the snow levels meant we would obviously soon have 100 extra guests all eager for toast. In between trips, I press some buttons experimentally on the wonky freezer. It's now reading a balmy 9C in the freezer. I press a button labelled "Turbo Freeze" and a second later the motor starts to run again.

"It's fixed!"

We do a little dance then retrieve all the "we'll never finish that" stores that we just binned, plus Santa Claus's sliced pans, and shove them back onto the empty shelves. In a few moments, the temperature is 8C and we're on the way back to peaceful TV watching.

In ten minutes time, the dial indicates minus figures. Grand. Everything going in the right direction.

Half and hour later, during an ad break, Herself shouts from the kitchen:

"It's minus 25! It'll EXPLODE!"

I rush out and open the freezer door.

The Bird's Eye Polar Bear isn't so fucking chatty about the standard of my fish cakes any more. He's lying very, very still, a look of mild surprise on his clothy white face.

In fact, I didn't know that fish cakes could chatter like comedy false teeth, but the din is rattling all the salad dressing bottles in the fridge next door.

Bela Lugosi appears from the gathering white mist flowing about the kitchen, sinks his teeth into Herself's outstretched neck, then makes like a bat. I ignore the constant thumps of his dashing his head against the closed Velux ceiling windows in the dining room.

I undo the big fat freeze button and we head off to bed, content in the knowledge that the temperature is on its way back up.

I expect a tropical jungle to greet me in the morning.

Christmas 2010

noreply@blogger.com (Willie_W) — Thu, 06 Jan 2011 00:00:00 +0000

We're standing in Boots, looking at the makeup. Well, I'm not. But Herself is talking some coded talk of reference numbers with some young wan in black and teeth and nail polish about foundation and breeze blocks and mortar and the like. My brain is on "Idle" and it's making a slight "blid-de-poodle-do" noise in my head.

"Now," says Herself, as we're thanking the young wan for serving us whatever it was in a very small bag that cost a very large mortgage. "I'd love to know how much that bottle of perfume is. I used to wear it when we started going out. Do you remember?"

"Of course I remember!" I retort, rolling back my male nasal memory reel. Let's see... Bacon, cat poo, Brut aftershave, toilet cleaner, air freshener and peanut breath. "I'm surprised you have to ask me!"

I make a very small mental note of the bottle shape, size, colour... but something shiny or curvy or stamped with the words "Black & Decker" immediately wipes it from existence for me.

It's around 4pm on the very last day of the week that I am ever going to go out of the house again before Christmas and Herself announces by SMS:

"You remember the new mobile phones we got each other? Well I got you something extra. Because I wanted to."

"Me too" I text back with that sinking feeling as memory cogs shear off teeth in my lumbering brain.

I text Herself's Second Daughter.

"Is Slumbering Nettles the perfume yer Ma used to wear when we started going out?"

"It is," she sends back.

"Thank feck! I'm just within range of the chemist's and I wasn't entirely sure."

"It's a stressful time for men," she sympathises.

And so on Christmas day we exchange our new mobile phones and I get my extra pressie excitedly and totally unexpectedly Herself unwraps a bottle of Slumbering Nettles.

She takes a whiff.

"It's given me a big whoosh back! Why did I ever stop wearing it?"

"Me too!" I grin.

Herself dabs a bit on and we enjoy the next ten minutes of pressie opening.

Then she starts to sneeze.

Than I start to sneeze.

The cats sneeze.

The birds on the bird feeders make little "tichoo!" noises out in the garden.

We watch Indiana Jones through gritted teeth and with the aid of boxes of Kleenex. I don't remember the Temple of Doom being a weepy before, but in our house it is.

The cats refuse to come into the sitting room, as they can't sleep for the microscopic sneezes coming from the mites living in the carpet.

"Do you like you pressies then?" I ask, though Herself is now just a blur through tear-filled eyes.

"I do. Lovely!" she says, dabbing two handed at her face.

"Me too!" I say with no end of enthusiasm.

Ah, love!

There's always next year's pressie to think of.

Crazylegs

noreply@blogger.com (Willie_W) — Tue, 05 Oct 2010 22:25:00 +0000

They teach it to the females from the earliest age

noreply@blogger.com (Willie_W) — Tue, 05 Oct 2010 22:19:00 +0000

Herself's Second Daughter instructs Herself's Second Daughter's Daughter thusly:

"This is Nana and Will's house. That means Nana is in charge. Okay?"

They never call here

noreply@blogger.com (Willie_W) — Sun, 22 Aug 2010 11:45:00 +0000

"Hands Down Research", says a nervous-looking woman on the doorstep. Because she's looking nervous and the alternative to taking her survey is to resume carrying furniture upstairs, I say:
"Oh, go on then."
She brightens up a little.
"I have to tell you, it will take maybe 15 minutes."
"Oh yeah?"
"That's me," she says, pointing to a picture of herself, looking nervous, on an identity card.
"Correct," I answer helpfully. "Have we started yet?"
"Do you have a mobile phone?" she asks, squinting at a list of questions on an electronic notepad barely visible in the glaring sunlight.
"Madam, you haven't even offered me dinner and drinks yet."
"Have you heard of Vodafone?"
"Yes."
"Meteor?"
"Yes."
"O2?"
"Yes."
"Tesco Mobile?"
"Yes."
"This other one whose name you'll not remember when blogging about this later?"
"No."
"If I was to hand you this piece of paper with ludicrous statements on it, which would you use to describe your current mobile phone service provider?"
I read through the list. Finally, I say:
"I would choose 'Elephantine liquorice sticks hold up my house of minuscule beans' to describe my current mobile provider. That's number six on the list."
She ticks a box on the screen.
"If I gave you this pen, would you hold it?"
"Yes."
"If I struggle using one hand to turn the piece of paper over to display a number of commercial logos, will you wait while I do so, in the meantime, trying hard not to look down my blouse?"
"Yes."
"Do you recognise these commercial logos?"
"Yes."
"How many of these commercial logos have you seen on television or on bus shelters or in other places in the past fortnight?"
"This one, that one, and those ones hiding in the corner."
"Who sponsors the Meteor awards?"
"I don't know."
"Who sponsors the venue formerly known as The Point Depot, now known as the O2?"
"I don't know."
"Have you read any newspapers or magazines in the past fortnight?"
"No."
"Have you done any of the things on the next page of the list in the past fortnight?"
I read out:
"Got out of bed... Emailed... read blog... used social networking site... used the searching thing named Google... returned to bed."
"Do you own a spoon?"
"Yes."
"Do you know your own name?"
"I do."
"What is your telephone number?"
"I don't know."
"Finally, where am I?"
"You are here."
She stabbed a little electronic box with her stylus and handed me a printout informing me I had just taken a survey and that someone might call me about the answers.
I returned to lifting furniture.

Tale of Invisible Cat

noreply@blogger.com (Willie_W) — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 21:44:00 +0000

I struggle in the door from Down the Country, arrows still sticking from my hat, the leather mail satchel shot through with renegade bullets. But instead of the hero's welcome with which I am accustomed to be greeted, Herself announces:
"The cat's gone missing."
"Again?" I ask, throwing my gun belt over the hat stand and feeding the pony a sugarlump.
I say: "I bet he's in next door's shed."
"He's not. I checked."
"Where's his sister?"
"All locked up. She doesn't seem to miss him at all."
I go outside and clap my hands loudly, startling the pleasant African child next door who waves at me a little uncertainly. I wave back and retreat indoors.
"He'll turn up. Fish fingers for dinner?"
We sit and eat. Herself's heart isn't in it.

After some discussion of who's turn it is to knock on the neighbour's door, I draw the short straw. It's like being the one elected to go ask for the ball back. I'm a bit relieved when the neighbour doesn't answer her doorbell.
Herself hops the fence anyway and opens the shed door, calling. Still no cat.
"He'll turn up," I say again. "Wait and see."
Herself rings me from her walk.
"Any sign?"
"No," I say.
"Why do you sound so muffled?"
"I'm on my hands and knees in our shed with my head stuck half-way under a shelf trying to get a candle to shine in a reflection made by your makeup mirror to see if the bloody cat is inside the kennel I said I'd dig out from under all the junk and didn't do."
"Any sign of him?"
"No. But I have a great view of his sister, making fetching cat faces at herself in the mirror."
Herself moons about for the evening, mentioning where we'll bury the cat when we come across it dead in the ditch. Or how lonely it must be in whatever attic it has become trapped in.
About a quarter to nine there's a thump from the back door. The cat galumphs in, throws his briefcase and cap into the corner and marches about, tail high, telling us what a crap day he's had and how the market went today (starlings down; a good day to put money into sparrows).
He then had the cheek to ask me why he was being fed so late.
His sister didn't even say a word when I dropped him off at their feline condominium.

Unhappily, they're still rearing (more of) them...

noreply@blogger.com (Willie_W) — Mon, 31 May 2010 21:44:00 +0000

Friend of a friend who sells stuff at a stall in town is approached one afternoon by a junkie.
"Excuuuuuse, me Bud," says yer man. "What time izit?"
"Two o'clock."
Yer man looks wide eyed:
"In de daaaay...?"

For guns, for some reason we shouted Dar! Dar! Dar!

noreply@blogger.com (Willie_W) — Wed, 12 May 2010 22:24:00 +0000

War, the natural sport of young male kind, was also the natural non-football game in which we indulged as kids. We happily had a small country of hedgerows, streams, trees and open fields to roam around. Even a derelict house or ruined castle, if we felt energetic enough to go that far.

Mostly, we stuck to some well-trodden parts, where a short hike through the lengthening shadows of a darkening evening led to safety, supper and the shelter of home.

I didn't really realise until lately how imprinted I'd become on our fields and hills and ditches. It only sunk in when I started toying again with the process of outlining a Dungeons & Dragons scenario and I knew it could be a good one because I could "see" the main adventure area as a particular spot in a corner of our shared childhood. How strange, so many years on, to lift the imagination out, dust it off and find the mind's eye still focused on the hill running down to Hedge Camp, a hollow under an ivy-covered half-dead tree under which we loaded imaginary guns, choked on pilfered cigarettes, or shared out the spoils of pocket money swapped for brightly-wrappered sweets from Mrs. Elliot's shop.

This very week I can see the first cloudy images of a new back story hovering over the stunted wind-bitten grass of the old farmlands. The scene feels vivid enough to me, waiting as it does a few extra touches to change and explain the logic of the game that I hope to make of my first few frames of other-worldly action. The scenario is layering itself over my remembered landscape bit by bit. Sure, it won't look remotely like the physical geography of the place, but the feeling of stalking through the tussocks, dipping down to hide from the line of sight of war-game enemies, or rushing forth to shout out retorts of broom-handle WWII machine guns is still there.

If I can see it, it's generally a good one. I just hope the feeling carries on through. I think it will.

Wish me luck.

Happily, they're still rearing them

noreply@blogger.com (Willie_W) — Wed, 12 May 2010 21:51:00 +0000

There's an obviously gifted child of about six on the bus this late afternoon, her long-suffering Daddy bringing her on home as best he can.

She's fizzing with light and life and insists on sitting at the upstairs front window looking out onto the roadway ahead.

Two things strike me right between the eyes as she looks out on the world.

"Daddy," she says happily, as the bus slides along over the painted ghost islands and traffic lanes. "The bus is eating all the lines...!"

She's full of talk, her mind alive to possibilities. I'm fascinated. Then, at the bottom of the road, where the Council's trees are springing into first late leaf of the season, she gasps:

"Daddy! The trees all have lots of hands!"

"Branches," says Daddy.

"No, Daddy. Their leaves are hands."

And they were. All pointing upwards at the sun in little finger clusters.

Unhappily, they're still rearing them...

noreply@blogger.com (Willie_W) — Wed, 12 May 2010 21:44:00 +0000

Pal Darren tells me a tale told to him by another pal which is too funny to be untrue.

Chap is looking warily at an obvious junkie on the double-decker bus, especially when he gets up to follow him off the bus at the chap's stop.

They both alight and Junkie stops on the pavement as the bus pulls away behind him, Junkie slowly patting his pockets fruitlessly.

"Awwwwwwwwwwwww....!" he says in that fine slow-motion voice. "I've left me bleeeeeee-din' phone on de buuuuus!"

A single deck bus pulls in and opens the doors. Junkie climbs on and stops suddenly in confusion.

"Where's the bleeeeee-din' stairs gone...?"

Another commuting adventure

noreply@blogger.com (Willie_W) — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 18:49:00 +0000

In the manner in which all roads lead to Rome, all strangenesses are led to travel on Dublin bus...

To nosy people like myself, it is a tragedy when the bus thunders into the car park of The Square at breakneck speed, its return journey information already up, its passengers all-but flung to the pavement in the driver's haste to get starting again. It's a tragedy when in the middle of all this a little white-haired old lady walks up to the driver from her "Give up this Seat" seat, remonstrates with him and is angrily rebuffed. Tragedy indeed because I couldn't hear one word of the exchange over the revving engine noise and had no idea of the cause of the argument. The mystery only deepened when the little old lady returned to her seat, obviously intent on being brought back the way she'd come.

I have seen bus drivers on very rare occasions who have turned the bus into a mobile creche. Once a sulking boy of about 10 years and a happy little girl of around seven did not alight at the last stop, the first stop for we waiting at the terminus, but instead rode back into town with Daddy Driver. The little girl couldn't keep the evident secret and spent half the journey waving and smiling into the driver's rear view mirror. The boy stared irately at the passing road surface through the grimy windows.

I wondered if today this driver had borrowed his granny for some outing. Maybe she had especially waited in the nursing home to be collected by a favourite grandson, only to find herself condemned to perpetual motion in the special seat of the swaying double-decker. She sat, a tiny figure in the big green seat, occasionally peering over the top of her glasses, craning up to see where the bus now was.

An Asian lady with a girl about three years old, stepped on wheeling a buggy. She shifted about to make room when the bus started filling up. The youngster started an impressively accurate rendition of "Molly Malone" as the crowds pressed in.

"She wheeled her wheel... BARROW...!"

The little old lady bounced up and down wordlessly in the seat behind her.

"Through streets broad and... NARROW!"

"That's a GREAT song," another woman sitting nearby said to the child. "You're a GREAT girl!"

Not be put off, she sang:

"Crying COCKLES and MUSSELS...
Alive, alive-O!"

There was all but a cheer from the captive audience, until she started the whole thing off again from the beginning. Getting off at Old Bawn, she gave the driver a big wave and a "Thank You!" before being pushed off home.

One time I recall the commotion of a drunk clambering on somewhere around Tallaght Village, slapping some random coins into the machine, ignoring the driver's shouts of protest, then collapsing, unconscious, into a seat near the back of the bus. A large, jolly-looking Italian man, looked over at him, then started to laugh out loud with big "Har! Har! Har!"s. The reason for his mirth soon began wafting its way about the back of the bus.

"Jesus!"
"Feck's sake!"
"Was that you?"
"NO! It was yer man!"
"Ah, Jaysus...! He hasn't has he?"
"He has!"

A young teen in charge of her younger sister reached into her bag and started spraying the oblivious one with Impulse. This caused huge bellows from the Italian.

"Har! Har! HAAAAR!"

He started turning purple, waving his hands in the air.

When I got off, there was a bubblelike barrier of scent around the sleeper, clawed by desperate hands from every handbag and knapsack. The echoes of the Italian in the seat opposite rang loudly down the Firhouse Road as the bus sped off.

Today, there was no satisfactory explanation for the mystery of the white-haired lady. She stayed ladylike, upright, quietly demure in the middle of her seat. Sometimes she popped up in the air as we went over speed bumps. Otherwise she was still.

I left the bus as usual and rambled home, wondering.

Spring Sprung

noreply@blogger.com (Willie_W) — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 19:08:00 +0000

4am.
"I'm a pretty birdy! I'm a pretty birdy! I'm a pretty birdy! Yes I am!"
As misery likes company, Herself ensures that my half-awake state is nudged to fully woken by a deftly-placed elbow.
"Will?"
"What?"
"Do you hear that?"
"Yes."
"What is it?"
"It's a bird."
"But what type of a bird?"
"I dunno. Maybe the wren we saw the other evening. Go back to sleep."
We lie there, each aware that the other is awake. Some far off chirps and tweets are answered by a megaphone rendition of:
"I'm a pretty birdy! I'm a pretty birdy! I'm a pretty birdy! Yes I am!"
"Where is it, do you think?" Herself asks.
I mumble something negative from beneath the pillow trying to drift off again. Three-and-a-half hours before I have to get awake and more than a passing self-inflicted headache are not improving my humour.
"It sounds like it's in our gutter."
"Bugger the gutter..."
The alarm goes, in what seems like about five minutes time. Bleary eyed, I wash, shave, dress, open the curtains and see a thrush marching up and down our front lawn. It's pulling big wads of moss out and flying off to a tree in the field opposite.
"Ah crap."
The new resident has woken us up each morning for the past week. Herself thinks it's great.
"When do you think the dawn chorus starts?" she asks brightly as I'm staring into a bowl of cereal and thinking of blackbirds baked in pies.
"Dawn, maybe...?"
"Don't be like that..."
"I dunno. A couple of hours before the sun comes up, maybe. Why?"
"I'd love to hear it all.... Right from the start, I mean."
Oh brother.
Maybe I can find her a CD and some headphones.
Earplugs. That's what I need.
Zzzzzzzzz....!

Just Whoosh!

noreply@blogger.com (Willie_W) — Sun, 18 Apr 2010 21:47:00 +0000

"Do you smell gas?" Herself asks, each time she walks by the nook where we keep the central heating boiler.
"No," I say, barely looking up from my latest paperback novel, or history, or comedy. It's become a reflex action for me, like shaking my head triumphantly through the impermeable window of the sliding door on the porch at desperate, commission-only direct sellers, or the grabbing up at work-day's end of another leaflet for fake third-world charity clothing collectors from the doormat and flinging it unceremoniously into the kitchen bin. Herself put a "NO JUNK MAIL" label on the window this weekend. It will be interesting to know how well it works.
Anyway, in the later summer season of 2009 we purchased a new patio heater, those monstrous, "War-of-the-Worlds"-like constructions that stand in other peoples' gardens and put forth warmth at the day's end when just enough wine has flowed that it seems unfair to have to go back into the house, but just enough cool air has descended that it's too cold to sit outside without some artificial heat. The monster lay in its cardboard box the whole winter through to 2010 until I finally put it together last week and stood gazing in wonder at its green, giantish frame. It's heat lamp, promising many kilowatts of butane-powered comfort, must be a couple of feet in diameter. I wondered if a standard gas cylinder would survive for more than 20 minutes work.
The instructions were printed on a big silver label stuck at eye level on the eight foot high steeple.
"One," I read. "Turn on the gas at the Regulator."
I lifted the Part A slotted into Part B and secured with several Number 3 nuts, bolts, washers and split washers and turned the valve to "On".
"Do you smell gas?" Herself asked mildly, passing by with a bowl of summer salad.
"No," I said automatically.
"Two," I read. "Ensure that the parabolic reflector (F) is aligned in the correct bracket (Q) for optimum heat efficiency."
I pulled experimentally at the wooden and chrome handle to tilt the monster's high-hat into the correct angle.
"Do you smell gas?" Herself asked, putting two wine glasses and a platter of garlic bread on the garden table.
"No," I said, moving on.
"Three," I read. "Turn the red labelled knob (P), to the start-up position (D)."
I twisted the penny-sized black plastic disc a little left and right until it engaged satisfactorily, then went back to my reading.
"Do you smell gas?" Herself asked, putting cutlery and some serviettes out.
"No," I said automatically.
"Four," I read. "Press the red button igniter (K) two or three times to ignite burner."
On the second click, there was a flash. Not a little "Voomph!" noise that one associates with the start-up of a toasted cheese sandwich under the gas grille, but the "RAWER-OOMPH" of a titanic, high-orbit achieving rocket motor.
Molten wine glasses, red-hot cutlery and charcoal garlic bread disappeared upwards into the stratosphere with the speed and sudden all-embracing sound of the creation of a universe. A huge pillar of flame beckoned the last tardy Israelites out of the wilderness into comfortable suburbia. Dogs fifteen back gardens away were unaccountably singed of every vestige of winter fur. My standard spectacles were wonderously changed to a pair of trendy reaction lenses, matt blackened with a hint of Roy Orbison around the edges. My face was changed forever into a negative image of a racoon's.
The only things surviving were three salad leaves and the serviettes, the latter jauntily yellow for the recent easter season, they flapped down from on high like juandiced doves dispensing the holy spirit on 11 quaking apostles.
After a quiet, cold time Herself said:
"Do you want the wine now, or later?"
I said:
"Now would be good."
We drank wine.
From the bottle.
With the gas clylinder turned firmly off.

Debris falls in Ireland all the time

noreply@blogger.com (Willie_W) — Fri, 16 Apr 2010 16:26:00 +0000

Further to the recent and ongoing volcanic eruption in Iceland, which has been of severe disruption to air travel over Britain and the northern part of Europe, reports have been coming in of cars in Ireland acquiring a fine coating of dust attributed to the distribution locally by strong northerly winds of fine particles from the event.

It is not unheard of for similar phenomena to be observed here. Some years back a particularly energetic dust storm in Africa resulted in red Sahara Desert sand being deposited in some areas.

My own neighbour reported only three or four years ago, a coating of pale dust on the bonnet of his car which we traced to the two Lithuanian men working a circular saw in my front garden. Indeed, the neighbour on the other side reported deposits of stones and topsoil on his car which investigations revealed had come from the operation of a tree-root shredding machine by a gobshite.

In February 2003, a piece of chewing gum from the space shuttle, Columbia, got stuck in my hair as I was passing through Tymon Park. This mirrored an earlier incident when I was 13 years old and my best friend was skewered by a red hot screwdriver that had fallen out of Skylab.

My father informed me that he saw at least two Cubans on the windshield of his Commer diesel lorry following the Bay of Pigs invasion of 1961.

His father maintained that a Filipino gentleman landed on his dung cart following the Taal volcano eruption in 1911.

The list goes on.

Isn't the weather great?

noreply@blogger.com (Willie_W) — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 21:42:00 +0000

A bit of sunshine and all of female Ireland goes absolutely manic, like an anthill that got an unexpected kicking.

Lawnmowers are being beaten, screeching into life and bellowing to each other across back walls. There are multi-coloured looters in the garden centres. There are runs on Ladyshaves and strange wear on Hisself's good electric razor. Aul wans and young wans are digging through the wardrobes to find last year's skimpy teeshirts and slathering the Bisto onto milk white thighs. Old hounds that haven't stirred from contented kennels since last autumn are being hauled up roads and across parks by the neck. Sleepy aul lads and dopey young lads are gawking through bus windows at the strange Meccano set structures now visible through the clinging clothes of marching hoards of winter crazed stubbly womenfolk. The heat is savage. The air electric.

I'm staying out of it. Sure you'd be trampled!

A Definite Liability

noreply@blogger.com (Willie_W) — Sat, 10 Apr 2010 09:15:00 +0000

So then our home insurance renewal notice comes in and is chucked into a corner until there's nowt of interest on the telly. I'm sipping whiskey as I read how underinsured we are. Must do something about that. Then something catches my eye and whiskey is spat out onto the floor. I make an urgent telephone call.

"Hello, I'd like to change one part of our home insurance, please?"
"Okay, sir. Which part?"
"I'd like to change the death cover from the dog to two cats and a goldfish, please."
"Pardon?"
"You have €260 cover on the dog on the policy. But the dog is dead for years now and we never claimed. So I reckon two cats and a goldfish take up less space than a dog. So please cancel the dog cover and change it to cat and fish, please."
"Are they pedigree cats?"
"No. Definitely Heinz variety. One's a tabby and the other's black all over, if that's any help."
"And the fish?"
"Well it lives in a tank. Doesn't get out much. Definitely not risky."
"Er.... I'll have to speak with my supervisor."
"No problem. Oh, and the €3,000,000 public liability insurance?"
"What about it?"
"Would someone be able to make a claim on that if, say, the goldfish got out of its tank one day and fell on the floor and someone slid on it and hurt themselves?"
"I'm really not sure, sir. If I could just speak to my super...."
"Or, say, if the cat saw the fish on the floor? And on trying to pick it up the cat ran over and tripped someone up and they hurt themselves? Would they be able to make a claim for some of the €3,000,000?"
I could hear voices on the other end of the line, the kind made when someone is approaching the phone after being waved frantically over.
"If someone tripped on a cat, slid on a fish, hurt themselves... Could we or they claim for replacement fish cover, cat cover, and public libility cover? And what about the second cat?"
"We'll have to phone you back, sir."
They haven't, yet.
I don't think they have my number.

Just when we got used to the clock...

noreply@blogger.com (Willie_W) — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 08:18:00 +0000

So, then the salesman informs us there's been a mix up and the car alarm won't be installed into our 2010 Nissan Note until next week.

"I suppose we'll just have to mind it until then," I say. So off we go, pushing occasional buttons and trying to get the windshield wipers to stop working.

At SuperValu, Herself goes in to buy some groceries while I mind the car from the passenger seat. I'm checking both side mirrors and the reflection in the passenger side window. It's a busy car park. A car drives right at me before swerving at the last minute into a space. I lower the window and start howling:

"Ahhh-rooo...! Ahhh-rooo! Ahhh-rooo...! Ahhh-rooo!"

Yer man from the car looks at me kind of funny.

"Sorry!" I say cheerfully. "Sensitive car alarm!"

The man walks off towards the shop, shaking his head. Herself appears at the shop door.

"Is everything alright?" she asks.

"Oh yes," I say. "Everything's fine. You carry on."

She goes back inside. I go: "Cheep! Cheep!" and return to my vigil.

A few seconds later, I'm off again:

"Ahhh-rooo...! Ahhh-rooo...! Ahhh-rooo...! Ahhh-rooo...!"

"What now?" Herself says. "I've lost my place in the queue!"

"Bit of a breeze came up. Rocked the car a little."

She goes back inside and I go: "Cheep! Cheep!"

Shortly, it's "Ahhh-rooo...! Ahhh-rooo...! Ahhh-rooo...! Ahhh-rooo...!" again.

Herself appears with a half-packed grocery bag.

"Well?"

"Woman looking at me funny."

"Okay."

"Cheep! Cheep!"

And then:

"Ahhh-rooo...! Ahhh-rooo...! Ahhh-rooo...! Ahhh-rooo..."

"Yes?"

"I'm lonely.... Cheep! Cheep!"

It turns out to be cold and frosty after dark and we decide we'll risk the car on just the immobiliser for the night.

I couldn't find my thermos flask anyway.

O! Grandmother's Clock! I salute thee!

noreply@blogger.com (Willie_W) — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 19:24:00 +0000

When my grandmother's mantlepiece clock was repaired, the nice man who fixed it was a clock enthusiast, who was able to tell me a lot of the history of clocks and of the way in which this one had likely come into the family from its origins in Germany.

It's great to hear the busy ticking of the clock again after all this time and its tuneful striking on the hour and half hour.

In honour of its repair, I thought one should mark the special occasion of its hourly and half-hourly labours by a little ritual. Not something that involves shining up the silver tea service (were we to have one), or anything involving a seventeen-syllable poem. Just a little flicker of recognition.... like raising one foot off the ground, perhaps.

So, on the first afternoon after the clock was returned to us as I was sitting watching the start of the News, the clock struck one and I politely raised my left foot.

As the weather girl was pointing at her isobars at 1.30, the clock bonged proudly and I lifted my right foot while sticking my lunch plate into the rack of the dishwasher.

And so it went on, each hour and half hour quietly marked in its dignified way.

One Saturday at two Herself and I sat at the dining room table with the builder, telling him our plans and listening to his estimates for our new extension. I lifted my left foot unseen beneath the table, and twisted my right ear-lobe without comment.

The builder paused and looked at me. Then he went on more slowly with his facts and figures.

At half-two, as we were looking at the drawings and deciding where to put plug sockets, I stamped my right foot loudly on the wooden floorboards without a pause in my conversation.

The builder looked nervously at Herself, then back to me.

"Everything okay?" he asked.

"Oh yes, " I said.

We parted around a quarter to three and he went off muttering.

While having a coffee at the top of the hour I lifted my left foot, tugged my earlobe and winked my eye. A female pedestrian passing outside did a double take through the livingroom window then huffily power-walked up the road, the leads of her iPod swinging angrily left and right.

At three-thirty, Herself being on the phone to Herself's Second Daughter, I lifted my left foot for a moment while settling on the loo.

Just before four, the builder phoned me with some prices. As the clock chimed out merrily, I stood on one leg for a moment, twisted my earlobe, winked one eye and shouted "Bucket of Fish!"

He hung up. Quite abruptly, I thought, too.

At five, Herself put a plate of steak, onions and potatoes in front of me, then whipped it back up as I stood to attention, lifted one foot, twisted an earlobe, winked an eye, shouted "Bucket of Fish", then turned three times around. It was a lovely meal. The steak was just cooked, in that rare kind of way I've learned to enjoy over the past year or so.

The five-thirty news was punctuated by one loud, sharp "Harrrumph!"

As the Angelus bell rang out a half-hour later, Herself and I formed a very fore-shortened conga line that "Hey!"-ed three times in and three times out of the dining room.

My evening cup of tea paused mid-way to my lips as I snapped off a quick "Harrrumph! Bucket of Fish! Garbalbaggle!"

At seven, as Emerdale's theme tune was drowned out by the melodic bongs from above the fireplace, I stamped my left foot and my right, winked at the neighbour, "Harrumph!"-ed, tugged an earlobe suggestively, shouted "Bucket of Fish!", and slapped myself once on the back of the head.

Corrie was welcomed by one slam of the door. It usually is.

"You never watch Corrie with me!" was the plaintive refrain from the living room.... Mostly, I would rather pull my own eyes out than watch that claustrophobic, studio-bound old-fashioned soap opera... I retreated to my little oasis of Internet in the box room.

Anyhow... At eight, in case, by now, I was taking things too far, I stayed upstairs looking through the Facebook staus updates of my electronic friends. Although I was aware of the possibility of getting too hung up on this old clock, I nevertheless quietly:

Politely raised my left foot...
Lifted my right foot...
Twisted my right ear lobe...
Winked one eye...
Very quietly whispered: "Bucket of fish..."
Turned three times around on my swivel chair...
Made a coughing sound somewhat like "Harrrumph!"...
Expressed the word "Garbalbaggle!"...

At eight-thirty I checked Facebook and slapped the monitor once for luck.

We are lucky to have a digital box for the television, which means we can pause live telly and play it back later, because otherwise we wouldn't have heard the news headlines in the tumult of....

Stamping feet...
"Harumphing!"
Lobe tugging..
Comments about fish...
Extraction of a stray eyelash that had come loose from all the winking and blinking...
Head slapping...
Craw-thumping...
Standing up...
Hopping awkwardly...
Sitting down...

Nine-thirty was my evening tea ritual, accompanied by a discreet rattle of the cup on its saucer.

At ten, as I cleared up in the kitchen and loaded up the dishwasher, I rattled one dinner plate, one side plate, one saucer, one soup spoon, one dessert spoon, one teaspoon, one teacup, one fork and one knife in the tray.

At ten-thirty, I found the mug I had missed in the living room on the little side table. It went "Whack!" on the tabletop.

At eleven, I took off my left boot, my right boot, my left sock, my right sock, my trousers, my jumper, my shirt, my gold ring, my other gold ring, my hair bobbin and clicked off the bedroom light.

"Did the builder call you back?" Herself asked in the darkness.

"No," I said. "But I got an email from him saying he would call around tomorrow."

"What time?"

"He said he'd be here around twelve..."

"Ah."

"Quite."

"Do you think I should ask him to make it half-past... or maybe one?"

"It might be for the best..."

"I'll do that then. Good night."

"Good night."

Okay, I'm up... I'm up!

noreply@blogger.com (Willie_W) — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 19:59:00 +0000

Mornings on the bus again. The other day must have been exam time in the Tech, cos the upper deck was packed out with satchel carrying scarecrows of the type I used to be before I mysteriously found a briefcase in my hand.

"Audrey doesn't like me."

"Yeah, man... Two goals in two minutes. I have Spurs in the Fantasy Football...."

"DintsDintsDintsDintsDintsDints!"

"Ya bollocks."

Only DintsDintsDints can't hear Ya bollocks, because DintsDintsDints has one of those mobile phones cum music players plugged into his two side orifices, going DintsDintsDints all along the bus route.

Ya bollocks is a non-descript looking chap whose outbursts come at random moments and to no-one in particular.

Downstairs, a man in his twenties who I take to be on his way to some kind of training workshop, is hanging into the driver's compartment.

"Do you... do you... do you.... do you... do you... follow soccer?"

Audrey doesn't like me waffles on in the Champion Shallow Stakes.

I resist the urge to lick the condensation on the window pane and die.

"Ya bollocks."

"DintsDintsDintsDintsDintsDintsDintsDintsDints!"

"Ya bollocks."

Ya bollocks.

In the Square, I meet the training workshop chappie walking backwards by the cinemas. He's almost in rapture at the sight of a photo in the sports pages of a tabloid he's just bought. He grabs a random stranger and pushes the paper and its picture into his face:

"Isn't he just a big cry BABY...?"

I pass on by and go to work.

Ya bollocks.

Me Ma would be proud.

Okay, Vodafone...

noreply@blogger.com (Willie_W) — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 21:51:00 +0000

I know I don't use my phone much, except for texting replies to Herself asking if the meeting I'm in the middle of is over yet, or if I'm having a nice day when I'm having a horribly bad one... I know you'd probably not be pleased that I haven't bought a fone with shiny new things on it from you in quite a while. BUT... sending me a text advert at six in the morning -- especially a morning after I'd had a particularly restless and broken night's sleep -- is NOT the way to win me over. Nor Herself, either, you twits. (She got one too.)

I mean it isn't even like I have any notion whatsoever now what it said.

Okay, then. Just piss off.

Right?

Right.

How Herself lost the toe of her sock

noreply@blogger.com (Willie_W) — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 16:21:00 +0000

Grandchildren... You love 'em... Both the ones who made slippers of the cat... Or the ones who parachuted from the shed... Or the ones with the waggily tails...

"Time to get up," Herself says from the side of the bed. I grumble my eyes open and stare at the ceiling for a moment wondering what planet I'm on.

It's been a tough last half week, getting up a bit of energy to go back to the day job. But I reckon I may be up to it. We'll see this morning if I can ease into it quietly. Peaceful like. Without any fuss or bother. That's the plan I intend sticking to.

So, as Herself is wrestling a foot into a pop sock, I tumble out my side of the bed and innocently switch on the radio.

It wasn't my fault Morning Ireland was turned up to Maximum on the dial.

HUGE waves of bad news ROARED out of the speakers as I stood there blinking, my brain only half awake and totally unaware of why my hair was flapping backwards like the ears of a basset hound puppy dropping down a well.

Over on the other side, Herself's foot rocketed through the pop sock, through the slats of the wardrobe door, through the stud wall and kicked the teddy bear on the spare room bed neatly in the arse.

I tottered to the volume control and blindly turned the damn thing down.

"Grandaughter toddled into here yesterday, by any chance?" I asked.

"Yep."

"Ah."

At least I now knew how my day was likely to go. And it did.

Blog and more blog

noreply@blogger.com (Willie_W) — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 23:00:00 +0000

"But you're very young in that picture," Herself says, looking askance at the new Avatar image I've posted.
"So?" I ask.
"What about the one I took of you in the garden? That's a better picture."
"Yes, but I have that as my Social Networking avatar at the moment."
"Why can't you have it on your blog as well?"
"Because someone might visit here and recognise themselves in the story of the Smelly So-and-So on the bus and give me a slap the next time they see me."

She's not convinced.

Anyway, I went and started another Blog, called Our Daily Junk Mail which is going to have nothing except unsolicited items from our letterbox in it. I started with a Clothing Collection Label. In some years time I am sure it will appear quaint and interesting. There's an inexhaustable supply coming in our letterbox, so it will have more material if you check back later.

Writing it down

noreply@blogger.com (Willie_W) — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 22:07:00 +0000

Health, death, mental health.... probably everyone is sick of me writing about these now, but here I go again anyway.

I was thinking of my father a lot when I was lying around in hospital and resisting the urge to count the ceiling tiles, or the number of reflectors in the light fitting, or any number of other things to pass the time. In particular, I wondered how he managed to keep his cool, for he had a temper, when told he had to stay in hospital for a couple of weeks at a time. I was not a good patient by Day Three and the notion of staying any longer just wasn't winning any favours from me at all. Lucky then they managed to get the results and reports they wanted in time to send me packing that very day. They didn't have to: I was already packed!

To make up for getting out of hospital, I dreamed about it every night for the first week home. I would dream I was lying on my hospital bed and that I was staring at those hospital roof tiles and I would half awaken and see my own old ceiling and my own curtains and wonder what the hell had gone wrong and why were my familiar things in the Unit and why was Herself beside me? And finally I'd wake a little more and shake it off and try to sleep a deeper sleep.

When I did, I'd drift off into dreams of snow, or great hills of newly ploughed earth. There were buses to catch that drove along the Tymon North Road near my father's house. Generally they took me places I didn't wish to go and I'd spend the rest of my dream returning on foot, not lost, but out of place, inconvenienced rather than panicked.

In one dream, my father and I were walking together somewhere on the Northside in a baked summer housing estate, on our way home through unfamiliar territory. We stopped to join a house party after a funeral and soon were separated inside a house that became a pub, whose garden became a car park in the strange way of dreams.

In another, I crossed Tymon Park alone in winter, a wet winter with exaggerated hills and hummocks. Machines were working in the rain to construct banks by the lakes and people were coming and going in little knots on unknown errands.

I remember back in the real world, away from dreams, how my father had been told he had a tumour in his bowel and how he'd undergone surgery to remove that tumour, how he'd asked that I be informed of the outcome so I could explain it to him slowly and in terms he could understand. I told him all that has been told to me: how the surgeons had opened him up, taken out the tumour, been satisfied that they had caught it in time before it spread to his lymph nodes, and how they had taken some nodes away to test to ensure he hadn't any other problems.

He listened carefully and asked me to repeat everything to him so he could let the realisation sink in that he was going to survive. He was discharged from hospital, attended to by the district nurse for a number of weeks, then reported dutifully to the oncology unit of St James Hospital each appointment for chemotherapy.

One day he said to me: "Did I have cancer?"

I was taken aback. It transpired that no-one, myself included, had mentioned the word at all until he had seen the Professor and the Professor mentioned it in passing. Cancer, to my father's generation, meant a one-way ticket and he was aghast that the word had come up.

I was shaving the other morning and recalled him asking: "Did I have cancer?" I remembered my own doctor, a couple of weeks ago, looking at me and saying: "You were a very sick man."

I can sit and write the details of my infected salivary gland and how it swelled up and ultimately started pressing my tongue into my airway. I can relate how in another hour or two I reckoned I would have choked to death without medical attention. But somehow I'm still like my father, hooked up to his chemotherapy drips week after week (or fortnight after fortnight, I now no longer recall accurately the intervals involved in his case) wondering, after all that he'd gone through, if he had had cancer. It must be some kind of mechanism we humans have to get through a tough time, to see the creature leaping towards our jugular and still find a way to duck, roll, run away and at the end think: "Was that what I think it was?"

How strange.

Early this morning I dreamed my father was in a similar ward to the one I'd been in and as I was passing I called into him. I realised his only trouble was that his diabetes medication was acting up and that a little sugar would help him avoid a crisis. I wandered corridors looking for a sugar bowl and when I found it I was again on the Tymon North Road on my way to him. He was waiting near the bus stop, 100 yards away. As I walked towards him I awoke, an old feeling of worry about him heavy on me. I decided to get up and start my day rather than return to the dream.

Tonight I'm trying to stay up longer to maybe tire myself into a deeper sleep. But I think by morning I'll be visiting with him again, worrying for him.

It's strange -- I never dream of him dead, lying on the cold floor of his kitchen. You'd think I would but I don't.

Ah, sure...