Susan Hated Literature

Look, look, Sharpe will be back on our screens this year. Mmmmm. Sean Bean.

Went up home to Sligeach on Fri. Twas de gasúr’s birthday recently so brought pressies with me, which he got on Sun and much enjoyed. Bob the Builder = success with 2 year old.

On Sat I left Sligo and headed all the way to Athlone to watch de brudder play rugby. They won, which was nice. I’m so used to supporting losing teams that it was quite surprising Final score was summat like 41-3 to UL Bohs. Trifficly exciting photos on facebook if you know me there.

In other news, nothingness continued.

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Well, obviously enough, with the weekend just gone my first topic of this post has to be… the role of the Catholic Church in the political life of Ireland.

Or maybe not.

I’d much prefer to ramble on about the rugby. I didn’t catch any of the England-Scotland match, though I hear Wilko was fabtastic, but his try wasn’t one. I am a fan of Wilkinson, and in one way I do hope his road to recovery is straightforward, but then again, we play England fairly soon and I really want to win.

I didn’t see much of the France-Italy game either. Was at the aunt’s having lunch. But I’m very disappointed in Italy. This was to be their year to win a game, but they played horrendous rugby^[1] and it’ll be the Wooden Spoon if they continue on like that.

And so on to our match, and could you get much more intense than that?
And yes Ireland were lucky not to have O’Callaghan penalised, but there were more than a few occasions when I saw Wales not releasing the ball when tackled. Turns and roundabouts. Three tries to nil means we finished better on the day. And on a day when O’Gara had a horrible first 40 minutes that says a lot.

Injuries now are the big worry for Sunday against France. Darcy is supposed to be fine, O’Driscoll may make it. Although that might just be talk to keep the French guessing. The big worry is Stringer, who has a hairline fracture in his hand.

We’ll see what happens.

In today’s weather update it looks like winter has finally arrived now that it is spring. Bloody freezing out this morning so it it. And the last half an hour or so on the drive home on Saturday was through freezing fog so dense that you couldn’t see nuttin’.

Still the trip home meant I was finally able to stick all the music on the mp3 player. Only around 2,500 songs or so, but while I was adding them I also spent a few hours^[2] deleting all the duplicates from the PC. I’m not really sure why we needed ten copies of some songs on the hard drive, though I’m sure there was a very good reason for it.

And you’ll all be pleased to know that the newest cat is still alive. And as stupid as any cat. Put out by the mutt leaping about the sitting room chasing a ball she decided to leave the room, but as she jumped down from the chair she slipped on the wooden floor and smashed into the ironing board, but instead of realising that she was the cause of her collision she promptly turned and blamed the innocent hound. Spitting at him until he nosed her out of the way.

The gasúr had his birthday while I was away. He is a whole year old now^[3] and taking a few steps, though he prefers to crawl.

How was everyone’s weekend?

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Feels like its been ages since I wrote anything for this thingymeblog.

And this isn’t much of an entry either, just a quick note to say that I’m off home tomorrow, not sure when I’ll be online after Christmas, d’internet is far to slow in Sligo to make it likely that I’ll be posting from there. So while I’m gone have a Merry Christmas and a happy new year and all that sorta stuff.

I’ve been out doing the last of the present buying this morning. Back by two which great as it meant I missed the huge ginormous crowds. Course then B#5 rang to say that he couldn’t pick up the present we were getting for the gasur, so I had to head back into town and pick it up.

And then remembering that I had no wrapping paper I grabbed some in Penney’s^[1] but I was in a rush and and didn’t look to closely. And guess what… yeah, I bought Birthday wrapping paper instead of xmas stuff. Don’t think I’ll bother to get proper christmas stuff though, just couldn’t be arsed and sure it all goes in the bin by the end of the day anyways.

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The gasur,
originally uploaded by Fence.

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Not too long ago, a certain someone left a comment asking about why my various brothers should never, ever be left with anything vaguely resembling explosives.

My quick answer would be, have you met my brothers, but then just as quickly you all would say No. No we haven’t^[1]

I’m not sure how the conversation began, I was in the pub teaching de gasur^[2] all about the flashy lights of pub quiz games. But when I came out B#2 was reminiscing about the time he gotten a tube of some pipe or other, and filled it with the heads of thousands of matches, as well as some other form of explosive. To which [tag]B#1[/tag] commented, “That’s a pipe-bomb.” B#2 nodded, as though it is the most natural thing in the world.

And of course once the stories of explosives began they had to continue. B#1 has gotten some sort of souvenir from an uncle. He had served in the Lebannon^[3] and had brought back some presents. As you do, you know the sort of thing I’m talking about. Amour-piercing shells^[4] and the like. It’s still around, although at one stage B#1 was going to take it apart. For once sense seems to have intervened and he didn’t.

Then there were the stories about the potassium. And how easy it was to remove from chemistry class, and how he wondered exactly what’d happen if he threw it in a puddle. And how a first year came out just as the water began to fizz, and jumped over the puddle just in time. Not to mention the neat trick of getting repeating banger type things^[5] and sticking them in someone’s schoolbag to watch them hop about as they tried to escape.

And those bangers prompted B#4 to recall the time he and the cronies had rolled up 100^[6] of these repeaters and stuck ‘em in a tube to see what would happen^[7]

Remember Homer Simpson and the hose incident “Hmm, it doesn’t seem to be working. I’ll just raise the pipe to my eye -” Yup. That is exactly what the ever so smart B#4 did. Luckily enough it was after he had taken a glance and then left the pipe down again that the last of the bangers exploded.

Such a surprise, as he was never a pyro as a kid, and never ever used to light almost every match in the box just because. Or have fun putting his finger through the flame, or messing with aerosols and flame^[8] And then of course he had the story of how, when setting off some fireworks, decided to light one in his hand. All was going well. Fuse lit, he was looking away so it wouldn’t blind him, and he let go. Only then he heard something funny. The firework had gotten caught in his sleeve and was still hanging there, by his hand.

How on earth he still has his hand I don’t quite know.

So B#1 comes back with his story is sitting in the back of class one day, scraping the gunpowder out of a shell^[9] So, the busy little bee is using a metal something-or-other^[10] to scrape out the [tag]gunpowder[/tag]. Has almost all of it out when oops, scraped a litte too hard and bang! Cloud of smoke over his head.

B#5 had no stories to share. A point that B#4 was keen to point out. Saying that the younger generation of locals^[11] are too into their sport to drink and mess about.

My brothers, suspended? Never. All as good as gold they were.

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As you know I was home in Sligo for the nephew’s christening. Went well. Sat was a bit rainy and windy, but Sunday was a lovely sunny day. Blue skies and everything^[1] and the priest was quite nice. Of course I lied and said I do when asked about the whole Catholic belief thingy, but you know, being a god parent is more about giving gifts anyways, isn’t it?

That’s an leanbh there, and that teddy is one I bought him. He’s now 3 and half months. The christening gown he’s wearing was knitted by de mudder way back for my christening, and all younger ones have worn it since. So the nephew is the 7th to wear it. He didn’t even cry when the priest poured the water on his head, though he did need a bit of bottle at one stage.

As we were leaving the mourners for the following funeral were just arriving. Talk about your circle of life.

Met the in-laws, all very nice. And there was a good spread laid on, even B#3 was stuffed by the end, and he can eat with the best of them.

But I swear, modern technology is mad. I don’t know how many photos were taken, but it seems like almost everyone there had a camera, and B#1 had a camcorder thing going as well, so there is plenty of record of the day.

And of course Sunday was also rugby day. But I’ll leave that till tomorrow. After the match, myself, de mudder, the sister, the granny, and the cousin headed for Strandhill. All squashed in the little car with the dog in the boot.

And it was packed. That’s what the slightest bit of sunny weather’ll do. Everyone heads for the beach. We wandered along the show for a while, then while granny and Mam went back I took the kids and mutt up along the dunes. Which of course meant the dog got lost constantly. We kept going though, and he eventually tracked us down Teaches him to pay attention to us.

But it also meant that he covered at least twice as much distance as us, and by the time we started heading back he was wrecked. And headed out to sea looking for a drink^[2] only to get half knocked over when a large wave came along. Lovely, wet dog for the journey back. I was glad he was going in the boot.

We eventually made it back to the car, and after the ice-cream we had to persuade the hound to get into the car. He doesn’t really like them at the best of times, but definitely not when he has to climb into the boot. But eventually I got him in, and headed for the back door, only to find him sitting there, a big grin on his face and the kids laughing their heads off.

Yup, its a hatchback-type and he’d decided the boot was not good enough for him and had hopped in the back seat.

So I had to take him out and persuade him to get into the boot all over again. This time though I got the two in the back to make sure he stayed put.

But, with all the excitment of the weekend I totally forgot to get B#1 to take a look at the laptop and so Pavlov’s disc drive still aint working. Maybe I’ll persuade IT guy at work to take a quick look.

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What does one wear to a baptism? Cause that is where I am now^[1] at B#1’s kid’s christening^[2] and not only are clothes an issue, but also gifts. What does one buy a 3 month old baby? Not like he’s going to remember is he? And seeing as I’m to be godmother there’ll be plenty of time for future purchases.

I suppose I could name a star for the baby, but wouldn’t it be a lot easier to name a baby for a star? Or a constallation^[3]

B#1 is 3 years or so older than me^[4] and when we were kids he was definitely the leader of our little gang. This is when we lived in Dublin and hung around the estate and park. There was B#1, B#2, the boy next door, the boy across the street, and boy around the corner and me. Yes, being surrounded by brothers I was a bit of a tom-boy. And as the oldest B#1 was responsible for all our entertainment whether that was climbing on shed roofs^[5] messing about, or invading the nearby building site^[6] He was also responsible for the yellow reg game. We used to travel between Dublin & Sligo quite a bit, and being squashed in a car for over three hours mean you need to play games. Or read books. Anyone else play yellow reg? Back in the day^[7] the only yellow license plates were those furrin English ones. So not a whole lot of them around. When you spotted one you’d thump the person next to you saying “Yellow reg, touch my foot” and then touch your foot, meaning they couldn’t hit you back. Course B#1 figured out before all of us that any car that had a single letter, then some numbers and then more letters^[8] was a British car, and so would have a yellow rear plate. I’m not sure why they didn’t/don’t have them at the front, but they didn’t. So obviously once he learned this he got really good at spotting yellow regs.

Anyways, despite the fact that none of the family read, or know about the blog^[9] this is to congratulate B#1 on the birth of his son.

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