The Luck of the Irish?

The Luck of the Irish? ©

By Michael Casey

They say things happen in 3s, but who knows perhaps that should be 33s. So it was my daughter's Birthday and we stayed up and had a midnight feat at 2am, this was about the time she was born. The midwife who I swear was really Joyce Grenfill, and reminded me of a girl I once chased, and now my smaller daughter acts like Joyce Grenfill too on occasion., anyways the midwife has come in and said "lets put the sexy lighting on" as she switched off the daytime glare. So the midwife had a feel and concluded my big daughter needed to be induced, that's why it was 1.30 when my daughter had been born. I had had kebab and chips while I waited, followed by pizza, then finally Joyce Grenfill decided to call the crew.

At night the crew was 4 people, the anaesthetist  I swear was a sailor, he was not doing the hornpipe but he WAS covered in tats, then I had to dress up in theatre gear, all those years trying to get Shoplife on the stage and now this was the theatre, the theatre of my daughter's birth. Afterwards me and Joyce Grenfill washed my new daughter, then I had to go home at about 3am to tell the news to my visiting and non English speaking Shanghai mother in law.

So that is the background, oh I should mention I thought I heard pencils being banging on my bedroom wall, i  did know about all this Black Magic stuff in the newspapers, to do with pencils. But in our house it could just have been chopsticks clicking in the kitchen below. So now you know.

My daughter's Birthday dawned, we'd both been back to sleep after out 2am Midnight feast, I'm turning on the kitchen tap and guess what the top came off and a gyser  errupted, I get soaked. One daughter is hanging out the washing and the other is upstairs holding court on her phone, so I scream more and more asking for help. If I was having a heart attack I would have got even less notice, though I have had a triple heart bypass as you all know. Finally Rip Van Winkle arrives, the story was written by an American while he was in Birmingham by the way, so I throw a towel over the tap then direct my daughter to where to turn the water mains off.

Small daughter comes into the house from the garden and laughs at me, a half soaked dad is a great sight. So I ring my sister around the corner and get the name of a plumber from her. The plumber comes and he soon fixes the tap, he also sorts out the toilet tank overflow. So I’m pleased by the fast service, though not the price, tell your kids to forget The Law or Medicine, be a plumber they’ll make more money.

We had had the washing machine on, now we get a huge noise coming from it, like the wall of death that motorbikes do at fairs. So we hit off and the man and the motorbike fall over, then we hit start again and the noise has disappeared. At least the washing machine is ok, then my daughter shouts from the bathroom, the shower is not working properly. Nothing to do with 30 min showers most day, my electricity bill, my electricity bill, o me misermum.

So we let the shower cool down, me too, and then we try again, after calling on all the saints to intervene, the shower is saved, alleluia. Totoro our  takes a flying leap at my legs, my scared legs where my veins were donated to my heart, I scream, oh goodness gracious, as Derek Nimmo would have uttered in Oh Brother.

Next Saturday Totoro won’t be leaping, Totoro will be Neutered when he gets his first kitty needles. Only I also discovered that Totoro is not a boy, he is in fact a she. So I don’t live with 3 girls, I live with 4 girls, o me misserum, as Frankie Howerd used to say when he sat on that cold rock in Pompeii, by the way when I was in Pompeii 20 years ago I did of course do a Frankie Howerd impression.

So sink, toilet and shower problems all in one day, plus a Ninja kitty as my daughter calls Totoro, not forgetting the washing machine. At least the shower seems to have survived.

The next day the boiler man from Baxi came, I spotted a drip under the boiler, its only 18months old. The Baxi man was very nice and he investigated. The boiler is ok, but the drip was coming from some tap thing. This was a relief. The Baxi man tested my pressure, no not my blood press, the gas flow pressure.

Then then curse of the pencils, or was it chop sticks, he discovered my gas meter had a hairline crack on the nipple. I have similar nipple problems myself, my left nipple/boob is very sensitive after my surgery, and will remain so for up to a year. In the case of my gas meter this meant the Baxi man switched and sealed off everything. 

Then he called out the emergency gas people at Transco.

So instead of having no water, now I had no gas, though Totoro our new kitten could supply the whole of Europe on his own.  The Baxi guy left, but I was glad he could  had saved us from a potential gas explosion. So I have nothing but praise for the Baxi guy.

The Transco man came in about an hour, he literally took out my gas meter and replaced it with a brand new one. If only the prices are lower with a new meter. As for my daughters, I had sent them around to their aunt’s so she could give them breakfast, it was all a big adventure for them. When they returned they could see our new nice posh gas meter.

So have I just had the Lucky of the Irish? Or should I find whoever  was tapping pencils on my bedroom wall and put chopsticks up their pigu?