Number games and dragging knuckles home

Yesterday was a fine day for walking short distances, so I naturally chose to walk a fairly long one. I thought brownie points would surely be in the offing if I bought the correct drill bit to make those round holes for hinges on non-standard cupboard doors and if the end result was another door in the integrated kitchen... this time a door on the washing machine. I was right on the idea of the brownie points, but boy was I dog tired when I finally got home the long way via the DIY store.

"One!" somebody shouted up above in the building site which is the Arena by the Tower Hotel in Tallaght.

"Two!" someone shouted back.

"Three!"
"Four!"
"Five"
"Six!"
"Seven!"

I have no idea what was going on, but the two gurriers walking in front of me did what any self-respecting mischief-maker would do in the circumstances: one of them shouted:

"Eight!"

"What?" came the reply from Number One.

"Eight!" shouted the gurrier pretending to be walking lamely along on the crutches. Answering calls came from Numbers Two to Seven until the whole lot were in a babble of constructional confusion somewhere in the lofty heights of the partly-glazed building. Finally, someone shouted:

"One!"

and the whole lot of them resumed their collective task. Whatever it was.

On the new Firhouse Road I was struggling. It was a hot day anyway, but walking the type of road that has no bloody turning is bad at the best of times. I had pictures in my head of walking from town in the days when the last bus left at 11.00pm and the beer was still unfinished. Then that long road by the Spawell, which one hit just as the three-hour walking fatigue was setting in, looked endless.

When I flumphed into the driveway the black cat flattened himself on the top of the wall and looked at me with inky black eyes. I couldn't be bothered. He only recognises me if I follow his rules and I was not in any humour to play.

The door fitted well in the wind up. I suppose the mere stiffness in my legs this morning can be credited to crawling about on hands and knees on a kitchen floor looking for dropped screws: one way of coming down gently from exercise. This morning I was a pound and a half down. It occurs to me that if I wish to avoid the diet pills now, then the only way to lose weight is to exercise along that kind of scale. Bugger that. I gladly accepted a lift from a workmate today.

What to do and why to worry anyway?

I'm off to bed.

Goodnight.

Five legs good! Two legs bad!

A colleague ended up -- by a convoluted path -- owning one brand new telescope and two brand new tripods, so I (naturally) bought one of the tripods from her.

"Sure, that screw-in yoke will fit my camera. No bother," I said, as she handed the box to me in the job car park.

I wonder what the security people made of it all. A plain white package emerges from the boot of car and is passed to the fat guy with the ponytail who waltzes nonchalantly back into the building with it turcked under one arm. I'm sure someone was electronically marking the security videos for future reference.

Anyway, the tripod is about six feet tall extended. My camera is about a first-class stamp in size, all ready for action. But the screw-in bit DOES fit, so I'm happy.

When out in the garden yesterday afternoon (see this post), I figured I'd use the tripod to capture old Hover Boots in action. So I unwrapped it from its canvas satchel, unclipped its upper leg lock clamps and extended its telescopic legs. Then I unclipped the lower leg lock clamps and extended the telescopic legs of the telescopic legs. I unclipped the camera plate and screwed it into the base of the camera. I fitted the camera plate back into its groove on the tripod head and locked it in place. Then I loosened the tilt nut and using the pan handle I angled the camera until it was roughly horizontal. Then I tightened the leg lock clamps, which I should have done before anything else. I grabbed a classy, white plastic garden chair and sat down on it. Then I was ready. For anything. I thought.

The subject was hovering about twelve inches from the camera. I could see him flitting back and forth in the viewfinder. Not having many manual controls on the focus, I started tapping at the autofocus until he appeared momentarily in the middle of the viewfinder.

Click.

"Bugger!"

He had buzzed off to the right. I grabbed the pan handle, loosened the lock and panned slightly to the right. A blurr of wings hovered in the middle of the viewfinder. I tightened the pan lock and tapped on the autofocus.

Click.

"Feck!"

I peered over the camera at the hover fly. It stuck out an insect tongue at me and went on hovering.

I picked up the tripod and moved it forward a couple of inches. I looked through the viewfinder. Nothing except green leaves.

I craned my neck around to the right. No sign of the fly.

"He'll be back."

A couple of minutes later, he pinged into view in the middle of the LCD screen.

"Focus... focus-focus-focus-focus-focus-focus focusfocusfocus... Feck!"

The tripod and I marched back and forth across the garden for half an hour until both me and the fly sat panting and wasted.

"Okay," I said. "You don't like formal shots? I'll try informal then..."

I grabbed the camera off the tripod and started stalking about the bushes. In ten minutes more I had 50 or so shots, two of which were really good, the rest useable. My neighbour and his family took turns at looking at me through the back bedroom window. No doubt ehy'll say a little prayer for me on Sunday.

None of the shots taken with the tripod were any good. There were a couple of blurry smudges in the middle of each photo which could have been anything.

The tripod is presently resting back in its satchel. I may take it out for a walk another day.

I didn't know a nose got indigestion

Fellah on the bus in front of me with long legs looks at the generous amount of space for the legs between the seat in front of me and the seat in front of him, decides, like me, that the back of the seat in front of me is obviously broken which is why it is leaning back on me, sits down and squashes my patient leg.

A patient leg, by the way, is the leg you have to have when you know you are too lazy to move to another seat and you have only started your journey, so its better to stay patient when a long-legged fellah is inadvertantly pushing the back of his seat into your kneecap. Eventually, I managed to crab the leg sideways into a kind of deformed Elvis on stage position which meant *no-one* was likely to sit beside me, although, to be fair, a kind of scarecrow female person (an I.T. student) did sit down briefly on my outside before she figured out a window seat was available elsewhere and moved.

So Daddly Long Legs turns out to have a hair treatment on which, when combined with the fumes from the open window, smells exactly like raw hamburger. A very raw hamburger, bloody and fresh. My nostrils sucked it all up as I sat in my contorted state on my seat.

(Lately, I am beginning to think that the part of my brain which deals with my sense of smell has been entirely overcome with alcohol. I have strange tastes and smells at different times of the day which to me is a reasonable indication of some kind of brain damage.)

To get back to the tale, I actually *like* the smell of raw hamburger, although I would not choose it as a variety of cologne, worn in the hair or otherwise.

It was no surprise to find four Dunnes stores hamburgers defrosting in a microwave oven when I got home then.

But, alas, one at least is trying to make its way back up my neck as I type this. Perhaps it was the association with the bus and the scarecrow person and the hair treatment, because I enjoyed the cooking and eating of my share this evening. Dunnes Stores hamburgers tend not to lodge in my throat, so this is something of a surprise.

I may revisit said burgers later in the night. I hope not.

In any case, I think I may have some colourful dreams because of them. On Sunday night last I ate some cheese before bed and dreamt I (and many people I work with) was called up to serve in an army unit in some kind of national emergency. I liked the camouflage gear and the hand-held electronic device that didn't seem to do anything. I had no idea who the enemy was and when I woke up I found I still don't. Not so much a dream as a general observation then.

I'm off to see what state my sleeping mind is in in the circumstances.

A fit of turning right.

I occasionally suffer from those muscle spasms in the dead of night when you stretch and forget that unlike a pussycat you can't actually stretch your leg muscles that far and you end up with a passable impersonation (in the dark, if you're lucky) of someone doing the old soft shoe on the bedroom floor while cursing the universe quite roundly.

Last night, while lying on my back in bed, I commanded myself to turn over to the right and nothing happened. Well, that's not entirely true, because my right leg obeyed the command while nothing else did. I had the most peculiar sensation of the sinew above my right knee operating without effect. Naturally, I hopped out of the bed to find to my astonishment that my leg was still receiving the command to turn right. My right foot was quite definitely turned right. And the rest of the leg, which hadn't received the right-hand-turn command, was steadfastedly pointing to the front, no matter what everything from the knee down was doing!

Climbing upwards on the chest of drawers, I decided the best thing to do was hobble out to the bathroom, empty my bladder, and try to get the whole of my body working off the same game plan. I was not entirely sure that, standing over the lavatory bowl, I was not about to pee on the curtains (which, for your information, are [of course] to the right), but I concentrated and everything passed finely.

I figured that the most of my limbs were awake, but that my right leg was probably sleepwalking on its own. Maybe it would wake up if I gave it enough exercise between the bedroom and the bathroom and back again.

By the time I returned to bed, all limbs were again co-operating. I was very circumspect about any commands to change direction for the rest of the night.

Thank God I don't have four legs. I have trouble enough with the two.