Anne and Pat got married.

That was their first mistake.

In the course of time they bought a house.  It was a nice enough place – one of those off-the-plans bungalows that infest the Irish countryside – and it had a lot of land.

Anne and Pat became quite well known in the neighbourhood for their marital conversations, which were – how shall I put it? – loud, fiery and frequently violent.  It was getting to the point where the police were contemplating putting a car in permanent position there to save the constant driving to and fro.

Anyhows, time passed and the pair decided enough was enough.  Possibly they had run out of things to throw at each other or maybe they just got tired.  Who knows?  Anyway, she threw him out.

So far the story is fairly normal.  It happens frequently enough and I’m sure you are all familiar with similar stories.  But then you don’t know Anne and Pat.

Pat decided that if he was being thrown out then he wouldn’t move very far, and he put a caravan at the side of the house and moved into that.  He then applied for planning permission to build a bunker there.  Things went quietish for a while though there were still frequent visits from Plod.

Pat got his planning permission and then discovered he had no money so he decided to sell the bungalow, split the cash and build his bunker.

Anne wasn’t best pleased with this idea as it meant that now she was the one being turfed out.  She decided that if he could build a bunker then so could she, but on the other side of the bungalow.  Anne being Anne though, hers was to be a massive two-floor multi-bedroom monstrosity.

So she applied for planning permission and they got themselves an estate agent.  The plan was simple – sell the bungalow and then they could build the bunker and the monstrosity with the proceeds.  The estate agent took a ton of photographs and wrote a splendid blurb about this beautiful peaceful bungalow in the serenity of the countryside.  He put it all in the papers and they sat back to wait for a sale.

Anne however got impatient and started work on the monstrosity.  The first thing she did was to demolish the gate and bulldoze a driveway across the bungalow’s front garden, slap bang through the scene that featured on the sales blurb.  She presumably ran out of money at this point and just left this muddy ditch with wire fences each side of it.  Not a pretty site.

The place didn’t sell.  Anne continued living in the bungalow and Pat stayed in his caravan.  The police continued to be regular visitors and life went on as normal.

The estate agent presumably got a little frustrated at his lack of commission and had words with them.  The new “driveway” was tidied up a little and the gateway was rebuilt.  Pat didn’t like this so he planted a hedge from the middle of the gate out onto the road.  In retaliation, Anne put up security cameras everywhere and big notices warning of CCTV.  The place was beginning to look like a high security facility, albeit with a very strange and awkward entrance that was now almost too narrow to drive in.

Anyhows, the estate agent who was probably on fifty Valium a day at this stage decided to hold an open day.  Pat promptly put up a huge sign beside the gate declaring “LAND DISPUTE”, presumably because Anne had grabbed a bigger slice of the original garden.

Rather surprisingly, the place didn’t sell.

It’s still for sale.  I would suggest they change the blurb in the paper a bit though.

For sale.  Beautiful property and a haven of peace between two building sites.  Garden is likely to be decorated with various missiles such as bottles, beer cans, bricks and the odd kitchen utensil, as the fun loving neighbours continue their quaint country customs of shouting abuse at each other.  This property is well secured as there is an almost constant police presence.

Any takers?