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Duke attempts the Impossible

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duke3016:
I used to take walks in the fields at the back of the shop most evenings, before I found the delights of the two G's Guinness & Girls. I wouldn't walk further than the house to the car now.

Whilst on one of these aimless walks I was treated to a lesson in Mother Nature's survival of the fittest.

As I walked alongside the ditch with the sun beginning to lose its power on a beautiful summer's evening, a rabbit broke out from the ditch near my feet. It was a young rabbit and its gait was broken, not the usual skip of a carefree rabbit. I was no threat to it, so it wasn't me making this creature run, terrified to the point of death.

It broke past me across the wide open field and I heard it, quite literally, cry in a heart tugging way I had never heard before, as it ran across the field, aimlessly, not in any given direction towards any kind of freedom.

Then I saw the object of its terror, it was what I had always called a weasel, but was probably a stoat. It came from further away, out of the same ditch. It seemed to be in no hurry at all, as this deadly little predator closed in on its quarry. Now I knew that the small rabbit was already dead when it passed me by.

Rooted to the spot I saw that streak of ferocity close in on the rabbit in the middle of the field, even the birds seemed to have stopped singing. He went for the throat with his razor sharp teeth. I would almost swear that the young rabbit died of heart failure, of pure fear, even before the actual physical killing took place before my eyes.

Nature at work in its most violent but strangely beautiful form. I must get off my fat arse and do some walks.

duke3016:
I walked into our kitchen at home one fine morning, and my mother was seated at the table having one of her one hundred cups of tea.

“You haven't forgotten that you promised to accompany the Old Folks on their pilgrimage to Croagh Patrick today?” she inquired sweetly knowing that I probably had.

FML I had agreed in a moment of madness to accompany 10 of the senior citizens in a mini bus on this pilgrimage. They obviously thought I was serious. No backing out now.

“Of course not, I am looking forward to it” I lied

Now Mt Croagh Patrick is a mountain near the town of Westport in County Mayo. St Patrick is said to have climbed it in 441 AD. Each year, a few of the senior citizens make the trek to the top to pray at the stations of the cross, participate in Mass, do penance (in which case the rocky journey is undertaken barefoot or for the really bad sinners on their knees). There are three pilgrimage stations on the way to the summit of Croagh Patrick, each of which has a sign with instructions for the proper rituals and prayers.

When the time arrived and the Senior Citizens arrived I was not surprised to find that they were all women. My mother made the obligatory pot of tea and we waited for the mini bus. We all piled in and of course, as befits a holy pilgrimage, the prayers started. We prayed all the way to Westport, took a good few hours.

The piled out of the bus and started to take their shoes off. FFS we just covered 3-4 hours of the rosary, we can't be that much in need of penance. My job was to of course accompany them and help them along the way in any way possible. So off came the shoes.

We started at the base of the mountain, the first station, by walking around a mound of stones 7 times whilst saying 7 Our Fathers, 7 Hail Marys and 1 creed. I will go straight to heaven after that can I put my shoes back on please no chance.

Now the mountain is approximately 2500 feet high and to get to the summit is a fecking long walk over stony paths that threaten to rip your feet apart if you were stupid enough to do it with your shoes off. I looked at the motley crew of women who looked as if a walk to the shops would do them in. FML I am in for a busy afternoon.

Who was I kidding the religious fervour in their brains was a drug that spurned them on and when we reached the summit, which took 3 hours, they were like excited school children and I was knackered, wheezing and coughing like an old man.

The second station is near the chapel and the prayer odds are ramped up. Kneel and say: 7 Our Fathers, 7 Hail Marys, 1 Creed, Pray near the chapel for the Pope"s intentions, Walk 15 times around the chapel while saying: 15 Our Fathers, 15 Hail Marys, Walk 7 times around Patrick"s Bed saying: 7 Our Fathers, 7 Hail Marys, 1 Creed. I was on the fast path to salvation..

I was a physical wreck at this point, but we still had the third station to do. This consisted of Walking 7 times around each mound of stones saying: 7 Our Fathers, 7 Hail Marys, 1 Creed and Walking 7 times around the whole enclosure praying. I was now being considered for canonisation.

I had to be assisted down by the fresh as a daisy Senior Citizens of Bodyke and I slept all the way home as the women prayed again for the whole trip. I surprised myself as I really enjoyed the trip and foolishly signed up for the next trip.

Priceless

duke3016:

duke3016:
You have probably heard references in this ranting drivel about a certain Margaret Ryan. Now Margaret was a legend in her own lifetime. She was always a fixture around our house. She started in the employ of my Great Aunt Molly a goodly number of years in the distant past. When my mother inherited from Molly, Margaret was in the package.

She ran the post office and did general chores for my great aunt and when we took over the post office and built the shop, she just naturally came with the territory.

She had a caustic tongue and could strip the paint from a door at 50 paces and despite her diminutive size, you didn't mess with Margaret. She scorned all the trappings of the electronic age and did all the post office processes manually, much to the dismay and frustration of the powers that be. She handled all the pensions, dole and farmers AI phone calls (and the “I” did not stand for intelligence).

Her age was a mystery until in the last years of her life she broke her hip and had to tell me on the way to the hospital. She managed the Post Office well past official retirement despite numerous attempts to force her into retirement. This was not helped by the fact that Margaret did not have a birth certificate and was never out of Ireland in her life, so had no need of a Passport etc.

One particular Wednesday, which was half day in the Post Office, an officious looking man arrived into the shop.

“Good afternoon, my name is Mr O'Sneaky-jobsworth-smarmy-fecker” says he
“And” says the ould lad, in fine form
“I wish to discuss the Post Mistress with you” says greasy man
“And, who the feck are you” says the ould lad
“I am a representative of the post master general” replied tiny man drawing himself to his full height of 5 foot. And flashing his ID

Now the ould lad was a little gruff at the best of times but his treatment of officialdom was legendary.

“Fire away” says the ould lad
“When was Miss Margaret Ryan born” says official jobsworth
“No Idea” says the ould lad
“Roughly” says soppy ******
“Sorry, I have roughly no idea” says the ould lad
“We believe her to be past retirement age” says smarmy git
“Get away” says the ould lad.

Anyway, to cut a long story short, he got nowhere and my mother was no direct help either and he went away no wiser. This little charade was to be a regular occurrence every year as the wheels of government tried to turf Margaret out of a job.

When the ould lad sold the shop Margaret didn't like the new owners much so she retired of her own accord and working back from the hip incident I calculated that she was 85 years young when she retired (about Tikay's age).

Great woman.

duke3016:
After the debacle with the donkey kicking in the Shiite house door the ould lad decided that we had to have a fully functioning proper flush toilet on the premises. It was decided that he would have one built just outside the back door as there was no room in the house to install one.

He decided to get a handyman to build it and do the plumbing etc and he also decided that because he wasn't prepared to pay a man with a JCB I would dig the septic tank. That was ball breaking work I can tell you.

Anyway the hole was dug and the sides bricked and the top created and the trench dug back to the site of the new toilet. Paddy Welch was selected to build and plumb the toilet.

The previous week we had cleared out the house and placed some furniture and stuff in the out house and my Mother had received a flyer in the door from some people looking to buy old furniture and metalwork etc. There was one particularly large table that we took out of the parlour that we thought might fetch a few bob. So the mother rang them and they said they would be round in the next couple of days to take a look.

Paddy was getting on great and had built and plumbed the toilet and was in the process of building the door from some slats that were in the shed. Bliss a flush toilet at last.

The buyers arrived and we haggled over a few items and my Mother was quite happy with the price received and we then came to the table. Well the man's eyes lit up, it would seem that this was a particularly sought after piece of furniture. They examined it and said.

“Have you got the extension leaves for this Missus?”
“Ah don't know about that” says my Mother
“Pity, as it is, it is worth £200, with the leaves it would have been worth £500” says the man

Anyway my mother was made up with the £200 so they paid up, loaded up and left. The ould lad could not recall the extension leaves either but he was quite calm about the whole thing.

The ould lad then paid off Paddy for the toilet work and declared.

“Right off to christen the toilet”

He went out the back door and into the toilet and of course we walked to the back door to make sure that the device functioned properly. If the truth was told I was hoping it would back up while he was still on it.

He had closed the door and possibly just had time to drop the pants and sit down, when he launched into a tirade of the foulest, most abusive language even by his standards.

We waited until he and all the local animals had calmed down, which was quite a while. He came out of the toilet speechless with anger and pointed at the door.

We had found the extension leaves for the table. Paddy had cut them up and used them as the cross members.

Now whenever the ould lad went to the toilet he would say.

“I'm off to have a fecking £300 shiite”

Priceless

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