Kerput

The Noddy car has finally driven me to the point of complete exasperation.

Sunday evening on the way home there was a grungy rattley dragging sound from under the car so I pulled onto the side of the road (yes, very lucky it happened where the road was wide enough to do that) and behold! quel horreur! the exhaust was disengaged (two months of regular welding repairs  dust-bitten).

Dammit.

I crawled home (wasn't wearing shoes with laces), got up the laneway (snail's pace, ha ha) and after wrestling with string and the under-junk, have tied the exhaust pipe so it won't drag (think its tied to a bracket holding the fuel line, or something...)

So I'm having to drive slowly (for me) and avoid bumps (really?) in the hopes of keeping the string intact. Easier said than done. It sounds like an outboard motor but without the water-skiers trailing behind, and gobbling fuel, of course. Very environmentally unsound.

Last night I started phoning around the car ads on DoneDeal to everything in this county within my (puny) price range and guess what? The best ones were snapped up the day after they appeared. Has no one any consideration?

So now I'm scavenging around friends and relatives to see whether anyone knows anyone with a grotty car to sell...and wonder of wonders I think I might have actually found one.

So, not all bad, more of a steep learning curve as I haven't dealt with all the car buying paperwork and money and tax and change of insurance since the early days in East Africa, and its possible they  do things differently here in Ireland.

Maybe.

We'll see.

Alas poor Noddy I knew him well, but yes, he was a numbskull like a certain Danish friend we know.

I'll keep you posted.

Discouraging Snails or...

How To Discourage Snails From Hanging Out In One's Kitchen:

Turn the music up loud and play rock- they don't much like rock, too difficult to climb.

Tell them they are not welcome.

Ask them to leave- doesn't generally work, unless your Snailese is better than mine, in which case could you give me a few useful phrases? (Coming soon 'The Berlitz Guide to Snailese'.)

Play Café music, they don't like that either as the coffee grounds scramble their slime paths.

Bring in a rabbit from the field and ask them to race the snails...actually that didn't work so well with the hare and the tortoise, did it?

Tell them to hurry up and get on with whatever they're doing and hope you annoy 'em enough to make 'em leave.

Kidnap them and sell them into slavery to the French Restaurant...guess who's been listening to Joseph and the Technicolour Dreamcoat?

Invite some ducks to tea.


And if all the above fail, evict 'em by throwing them over the wall into the orchard- it discombobulates them, you know?


They even ate the cover of a good novel.

 Any better ideas?