Back to Sligo

On Weds18^th we are all off to Sligo and the Vehicle Registration office. The VRT people have FINALLY found the code for 1986 2CVs on their hamster-wheel driven Amstrad computer after 3 days short of 2 months and invited Dad back the 1 hour drive to come sign for it. Dad reports that the lady almost needed a slap anyway because she suggested Dad’s hard won exemption from Import Duty might have run out in the intervening time. Spit. Last time (May 21st!) we were up we were diverted off the proper road by a collapsed bridge and found a superb scenic route through the hills, past crags and caves, picturesque villages and post card Irish cottages and dry stone walls. No such luck this time. We took the camera but failed to re-find the route. After the drive we looked on the map and now know where we should have gone, but that’s not a lot of good to us now.

Other than that there was more Kittens-are-family 'therapy' for me and more free ranging fun for chooks but now excluded from Mum’s raised beds. A soul-food supper of bangers, beans, mash, and fried onions is cooked by Dad. Of course, I get the spare sausage.

On the Thursday Roscommon is given a day off from the rain and it is pure pleasure when wrangling chickens or bunnies , not to be kicking through calf-high (if you are human, nose high to me!) saturated grass, skipping round puddles or squelching into muddy dips in the grass you had not seen. 

For Dad, a chance then to break out the chain saw and 'log' up the big 15 foot lengths of wooden beams from the former hay-barn. This made an impressive contribution to filling the log-store but also wore out his wrists and arms. He didn't know you could get RSI from a chain saw. It must be the weight and hefting what is basically a small petrol engine around at bizarre angles. Not to mention chucking the logs around.

In Dog-meets-kittens therapy sessions we get braver, now giving kittens the run of the house while I am supervised and held on the lead, still allowed to approach and sniff but not to actually kill them. Mum and Dad think (hope?) it's working. They praise me up mightily and give me sweeties when I don’t attack them but they are still nowhere near to trusting me enough to let me off the lead. Sometimes they think they are battling to overcome hundreds of years of breeding terriers to exterminate small animals. They could be right. There is talk of the moment of truth perhaps coming on Tuesday 24^th. Not the Monday. There is a sneaking superstition that ‘animals die on Mondays’ after what happened to Coco and Haggis.

In chicken-land, one of the 'hins' decides to go broody out in the nettle patch in our East field, making herself a nice nest in dense cover. We'd have never found her but for William the Conqueror deciding to stand guard and crow occasionally. Good camouflage, William. Very 'covert'! Cock-a doodle-DOOOOOOO!!!!!!! She's not in this clump of nettles! Honest!