Serving the Community

Chugg! Chugg! Chugg! Chugg! Chugg! Chugg! Gobble-ee-umph-umph-rattle...!

The bus stalled. A girl laughed out loud upstairs.

Ping! Ping! Ping! Ping! Er-ree-ree-ree-ree-ree..! REEEEEE...!

The driver started the engine again. We were one stop from The Square on the 49, heading for town, and the driver was not impressed. I wondered if we'd make the whole journey.

Passengers got on. The traffic light went red.

Chugg! Chugg! Chugg! Chugg! Chugg! Chugg! Gobble-ee-umph-umph-rattle...!

It cut out again. The girl upstairs shrieked laughter.

Ping! Ping! Ping! Ping! Er-ree-ree-ree-ree-ree..! REEEEEE...!

We limped along from stop to stop. Each time the engine had to idle in the stationery traffic the engine worked for a while then died. The driver called the controller on his radio.

"I had dis boss YES-ter-day and it was cutting owt. I put in a docket. I was told it was fixed. It is still cutting owt. It has cut owt six time maybe from The Square to Old Bonn."

The heavily accented Dublin voice of the controller came back.

"Errrr....!"

Aggrieved, the driver waved to an oncoming bus which stopped alongside. He said:

"Tell them I had dis boss YES-ter-day and it was cutting owt. I put in a docket. I was told it was fixed. It is still cutting owt."

At the Old Bawn junction, the bus went "Chugg! Chugg! Chugg! Chugg! Chugg! Chugg! Gobble-ee-umph-umph-rattle..!" and the engine stopped again. An orgasmic wail erupted from the upper saloon.

At The Old Mill pub, the driver had had enough. He had repeated his speech another time to the controller. The public address intercom then said:

"Everybody off da boss."

So we got off da boss and walked. I don't think the girl upstairs could have taken any more anyway.

At least I have my health

Following on from cheesy dreams and toothache, I found myself on Monday suffering with stomach ache. And when a stomach the size of mine aches, that's a BIG ache!

There's a gastro- bug going around at the moment and I seem to have got a version. It seemed in my case to only exhibit cramps rather than resolving into anything messier. All the same, I was in bed shivering like a jelly by 9.30 and though I went to work yesterday feeling only a little sore, I decided to take today off to chase off the very last of the bug.

Update on the seagulls: Three of us were looking out the window at the puzzling seagulls on Monday when a small brown blob of fluff on webbed feet scuttled across the roof tiles! The pair evidently have at least one chick, possibly two. Yesterday the parents spent quite a long time away but came back in the late afternoon. I suppose they were out shopping.

Whoops of joy

It now being 10.32am on Saturday, I should be expecting around about now to be rolling over and wondering if I will make it to the bathroom on time if I stay just five minutes longer in the bed. Instead, I have already eaten breakfast, rolled up part of a gazebo and stowed it in its tote bag, cleared a moderate space on a dining room table, brought recyclables out the back and plomped them into the green recycling bin, spoken in various tones to one black cat and one tabby cat, and listened to a bunch of politicians and writers on the radio. The reason for this unusual Saturday morning activity is threefold:

1) I awoke to a ding dong. Followed by a ding............................... dong. Then a dingdong, dongdong, dongdong. Obviously someone was trying to get my attention at the front door. I pulled on a robe (as the Americans like to call them) and stumped off downstairs. My father usually calls early on Saturday morning, but I knew he was occupied with getting his new old car ready for an NCT test and wouldn't be visiting. The blue uniform of a post man blurred in and out of the frame of obscure glass by the front door. At least it wasn't a canvassing politician.

"Sorry about that," he said, scribbling on a registered post delivery docket.

"That's okay," I mumbled. "I was just having a wild man lie on."

"What's that?" he asked, still scribbling, then looking up.

"It's when you sleep looking like THIS!"

I thrust my head out the door in full unkempt medusa pose. His jaw dropped a little, but he recovered, gamely.

"Sign here, please?"

2) I returned to the bedroom, sat on the side of the bed, and heard:

"Shag-a-loop! Shag-a-loop! Shag-a-loop!"

Why do cats not move somewhere else when they decide to vomit? Why do they sit in the middle of the bed when they decide to vomit?

"GL-LOCKK...!

"For f**k's sake!"

The cat, having ejected the unmentionable onto (of course) the bedsheet, jumped onto the floor with a bump. Somewhere under the bed came a couple of final Shag-a-loops...

3. Cat puke cleaned up and bedsheet dumped into the laundry basket, I was considering getting back into bed with the top sheet under me when the cat sauntered over to her litter tray and completed the morning's digestive ablutions. This time from the other end.

I opened the window.

I didn't jump out. I didn't throw the cat out the window. I just let some fresh air in and got dressed. I know when I'm beaten.

Herself, who doesn't have to turn up for work today, greets me with:

"Isn't it great to be able to relax on Saturday?"

"Mumph," I said.

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.