Dark clouds gathering

Head Rambles Posted on by 11

I’m in a bad mood.

Aha! I hear you cry, you’re always in a bad mood.

That may or may not be true, but today I’m in an even badder mood than normal.

It has been an expensive few weeks. I had a cracked oil tank that had to be replaced, and a dog that required expensive treatment. Then there is some new fencing that has to be erected to replace a fence that has collapsed. The funds are taking a hammering.

Now I suspect the washing machine is on the blink.

I put in a wash this morning [amn’t I incredibly well domesticated?] and what was unusual was that I went to empty the machine when the cycle finished. This is indeed unusual as I normally leave it in the machine to fester for days until I could be bothered to clear the drying rack which involves sorting stuff into underwear/tops/bottoms/whatever which is a pain in the arse. The drying rack was actually clear this morning, hence the decision to empty the machine.

Everything was cold.

It should at the very least be warm and damp.

It was damp all right and the wash appeared to be reasonably well washed so I cleared everything onto the rack. I put in another wash just to see what would happen.

Fucking cold again!

So the heater part is fucked. Do I get a mechanic out to fix it or do I replace the machine? I gave this question long and hard thought and decided after about ten seconds that a new one is in order [though not yet on order].

We’ve had the existing machine for around twenty years and I never liked it much anyway. It had two flaws – the drying cycle never really worked even after two hours of churning and the filter is at the back of the machine which is fucking insane. If the filter blocks up I have to haul the machine out from its very tight fit, remove the back and then unhitch a rubber hose to get at the filter.

So maybe the time has come to get a new one.

I’ll have a go first with a few judicious thumps with a hammer and maybe take the back off [the machine is a complete bitch to slide out]. You never know?

One way or another, the mood is still bad.

 

Be Prepared

Head Rambles Posted on by 12

There has been the odd mention of problems with our national electricity supply.

It’s funny how no mention was ever made in past years with warnings of blackouts in coming months? Usually we only had blackouts during strikes or after a batch of bad weather. Could it coincidentally be anything to do with an over reliance on the wind for their bird munchers?

Anyhows the first mention was a few weeks back where they talked about a shortage of power for the next five years. The problem at the time was that a couple of generating plants were down for maintenance. However hey have just announced that Huntstown is back on stream. This is exciting news as I didn’t even know there was a Hunstown plant. Apparently it’s a gas powered station so that will shortly be shutting down again in case it causes the planet’s entire climate to collapse.

Now there is a plan to reassure us.

I am so reassured.

In the case of a problem with power, the data farms will be the first to go. I’m sure this is brilliant news for all the firms that have just invested in their spanking new farms?

Then the next to go will be cement factories. This would indeed be reassuring if every town and village had its own cement factory but off the top of my head I can’t think of any. Maybe the lack of them pushes them down the priority list. Other industries too will be blacked out but they don’t go into any further specifics.

Last of all to be blacked out will be healthcare settings and private homes. But, we are told, it will never come to that. Private home owners can rest assured that there will be no power cuts.

Now that they have made such a clear and specific statement, I am worried.

I have all the candles in place. Torches are placed at strategic points. The gas fire is primed an ready to go. My only problem is brewing my mug of tea. I thought of getting a generator but I would have to shell out way in excess of €500 to get one powerful enough to boil a kettle. I don’t value my tea that much. I’ll have to rely on gas.

About forty five years ago we bought the full camping equipment – chalet tent, table and chairs, inflatable mattresses and a cooking stove with a cylinder of gas. Over the years for various reasons we got rid of the tent and the mattresses. Many years later a friend of Daughter sat on the camping table and flattened it [she was a BIG girl]. The chairs survived for some more years before ending in a skip. The only thing that remained was the stove and gas cylinder.

That stove travelled the country on our various holidays. It was ideal for brewing a quick snack at the side of the road. In later years it was dragged out during regular power cuts. It was used so often I even had to refill the gas cylinder a few years ago.

Yesterday we had a power cut. Maybe they were practising for the cuts we aren’t going to have? I dragged out the camping cooker and connected it up. The stink of gas was disgusting. Luckily the power came back in time to prevent a massive explosion and I decided to bin the stove. It has had a long and honourable life and it’s time to replace it.

It’s always best to be fully prepared for the things that will never happen?

 

On being scared

Head Rambles Posted on by 7

WE’RE JUST ONE week out from the scariest night of the year.

*sigh*

I suppose it’s a kids’ thing and I shouldn’t be such a grouch but this “scary” lark is a tad overplayed.

A four foot kid dressed as a Star Wars character is hardly what I would call scary. Now if he were six foot, wearing a ski-mask and pointing a sawn-off shotgun at me, well that would be scary. Happily that rarely happens so I would consider myself reasonably scare proof.

There are a few things though that might send a shiver down my spine.

Dentists? Even the word causes an outbreak of gooseflesh. I’ll skip hurriedly past that topic.

A visit to Dundrum Town Centre? Oh yes. To be avoided at any cost. It’s a cathedral to consumerism on a vast scale and frankly I would prefer a visit to the Cardiac Unit, which is probably where I would end up anyway.

Herself when I mix up her medication? Not for the fainthearted.

Myself, ditto.

Being forced to watch just about any programme on television that passes for “entertainment”? Luckily I usually commandeer the remote control so I’m spared that horror. Thank God for torrents.

The prospect of being governed by the same gang of inept, power-crazed, incompetent cunts for the foreseeable future? That is definitely the stuff of nightmares.

Halloween?

A walk in the park!

 

The letter of the law

Head Rambles Posted on by 5

I have had dealings with a few solicitors in the past.

To the best of my memory I have had three different firms acting on my behalf for various reasons.

The third firm was in the village. Well, when I say “firm” I mean just a one woman show. She was grand and saw us through a load of legal shit when we moved here. As she was involved with the move, she held on to the Deeds to The Manor. We also made an updated Will seeing as we were now land owners on a grand scale.

A couple of years ago we got a very nice letter from the village solicitor to say she was retiring and shutting down the practice. She casually mentioned that all her business had been handed over to a Mob the other side of Skobieville, and that if we wanted any documents I should approach them.

Not long after, a new solicitor’s office opened in the village. It was actually a branch office for a big firm in Dublin. It seemed kind of logical to move my business there should I need any legal representation. Life in Ireland is so fucking litigious that one never knows when one might need legal advice, or indeed representation.

To start the ball rolling I banged off an email to the Far Off Mob just asking if they did indeed have my Deeds and Will. They wrote back and said they couldn’t possibly tell me whether they had or not unless I identified myself. [*sigh*] I wrote back with scans of my driving licence and a current bill. Actually It wasn’t a bill as I don’t get any of those these days so I sent off a letter addressed to me from Revenue.

I never heard any more. Maybe they had written to Revenue asking for identification?

I contacted the new solicitor in the village. Would she like my business? Of course she would! I told her about my papers being in a black hole in the other Mob’s cellar, and how I was having difficulty accessing them or even finding out if they existed. She said she would write to them and ask them to send everything back to the village where papers should be kept.

I got an email during the week. The Mob had written back to her saying they couldn’t possibly release any papers without the appropriate methods of identification. I won’t repeat what my new solicitor said about them as it would probably land both of us in court. I pointed out that the only reason for the latest demand was that the Mob didn’t trust my new friend and were either assuming she didn’t know who I was or else she was performing some scam or other on her own behalf.

I decided the only way through this little logjam was to drive all the way over to the Mob and demand my papers so I could bring them back myself. I got my new solicitor to write to them telling them I would be driving over and that they had better have the papers ready for me.

I haven’t gone yet. I have to wait until my new solicitor can confirm that provocation would be a reasonable defence if I have to resort to the use of a baseball bat.