Last night was Toy Show night.

For any foreign [i.e. not Irish] readers I should explain that this strange phenomenon hits our televisual machines every year around this time. The Late Late Show has been running here weekly since God was a child and has become a somewhat tedious chat-show. It’s the world’s longest running chat show and I think that record is what keeps them going.

Anyhows, once a year they scrap the normal bland interviews with non-entities and “celebrities” I have never heard of and run The Late Late Toy Show. The studio is done up like a Disney set on steroids and the guests are replaced with kids from around the country. Dozens of them. And they are let run riot amongst the toys and also do their party pieces.

Somewhere in the annals of our constitution or in the Law Library there is a law that states that every Irish person has to watch this show. Kids are encouraged to take over their houses and to compel their parents to watch this two and a half hours of mayhem. Sadly, those of us whose fledglings have flown the nest are also compelled by law to watch. Weird, but it’s only one night a year I suppose.

We were watching the news last night [which precedes the Toy Show] when I got a frantic phone call. It was Daughter in a blind panic saying she couldn’t get RTE on her televisual apparatus. Could I fix it? Or could they come and watch it at The Manor? I agreed to the latter as I couldn’t be arsed to do the former. So within minutes we were invaded by Daughter, Grandson, Granddaughter the Younger and the dog.

We have two televisuals. One is in the main room and one is in the small room where Herself reigns from her electric bed. I switched on the one in my room [which hasn’t been on in ages] and discovered I couldn’t receive RTE on it. I should explain that I had been messing on it a while back setting it up as a Freeview set. That relies on the satellite for the bulk of channels but relies on a digital terrestrial signal for RTE off a separate aerial on the roof. The Roofers must have shifted the roof aerial a bit and the signal kept breaking up.

So everyone piled in to Herself’s room which rapidly filled up with an overflow into the main room. The overflow consisted of myself and the two dogs. Banished from a corner of my own gaff….!

I was actually quite happy with this arrangement as I could play with the dogs for a couple of hours. Though play is rather overstating a lot of petting and tummy tickling. Daughter’s dog is a huge black hairy beast the size of a small horse and is the most gentle and loving of dogs. For some reason she adopted me years ago and always makes a beeline for me and demands cuddles and petting as soon as she arrives. If I make the mistake of ignoring her she just butts my hand with her huge head or plonks a massive hairy paw on my leg. She is literally impossible to ignore. Luckily Penny is used to this and isn’t jealous. Or not much anyway.

They left some time after midnight. A blissful silence descended on The Manor.

Another law states that the Christmas Season has been officially launched once the show airs.