I received a letter from my ex-employers the other day.

The letter contained a form that I had to fill in to prove that I am alive.

Why are they writing to me if they think I’m dead? Fucking idiots.

Anyhow, I was about to sign it when I noticed that I had to have the signature witness by a Garda.  Now the signature is no problem.  I am getting damned good at forging my own signature and have reached the stage where it is almost indistinguishable from the original.  Getting a Garda to witness it could pose a problem though, as Sheriff can be an awkward bugger to find when you need him.

I had to go down to the village this morning, so just on the off-chance, I called into the Garda station.  As luck would have it, there was Sheriff having a quiet smoke and a read of the paper.

I showed him the form and asked him to put his X at the bottom of it.  He refused.  I asked why.  He said that he never put his signature to anything unless he was ‘in possession of all the relevant data’.  Sheriff can be a right bollix sometimes.  I asked him what the fuck he was on about and he replied that he couldn’t sign it as he didn’t have conclusive proof that I was alive.  I told him that that was fine by me, because if I were dead, he wouldn’t be getting any of the pints I owed him.

He signed the form.

On the way to post off the form, a car with German registration plates pulled up beside me.  The driver wanted to know the way back to the main road as he wanted to get to Dublin.  I sent him up the Bog Road to the mountain tops.

My first tourist of the season.

Spring is definitely in the air.