Fuel For Thought ....

It's not, really. That's just the first thing that came into my head as I dropped in here to show ye a few simple photo's.

See, it's absolutely fucking Vile, out there. It's cold. The wind's lashing. The rain's slashing. People in town are all making jokes around canoes.

And these are people born to it. Seen it all before. Don't need the reassurance of a shared mockery. Only, this is taking the piss, even by local standards.

I looked out, today, across Pat's fields. The very fields I trailed that Red Stag across, this time a year or two ago. Fuck me! I remember Pat wandering down towards the reed bed the Stag harboured in. Today he'd need a boat to cross that same field!

But, anyway; I'm home and indoors now. Came home from town. Fed my dogs and horses. Walked in here to check for e mail and the phone rang. Call out. Domestic rat job. Inside twenty minutes, I'm back in town, doing my thing. Happily, the client offered me a whiskey, after I'd done. Better still; It was Jameson! :D

Back home and I fetched a big bucket of Turf from my shed. This is the stuff you probably got taught, in an english school, that we burn on fires here. Only ye'd likely have been told it was " Peat ". You put Turf on ye back gardens, yeah? Peat ye dig into the flower beds surrounding the Lawn (laid as 'Turf').

Fuck all that. This is the turf we burn on our fires and in our stoves. It's raw, natural and cut out in rectangles. Then stacked in little piles, to dry, right where it's cut. No one comes and steals it, 'mind. We don't do that round here.

Turf

That's the natural stuff then. But, they also take it and process it ~ god knows how ~ and make it into what we call " Briquettes ". Clean, smooth, manageable things that we're supposed to cut into slices and blocks and use a ton of Fire Lighters to set fire to. Then, I guess, we're supposed to heap what ever we have on top of that little lot. What ever .....

Briquette

Ok. That one's a little dusty and shabby. Been hanging around on my kitchen floor for months now. I don't use a lot of this shit. Long since learned to start a fire in a bucket of water, without shit like this.

They have " BNM " embossed on top of them. Barely even partially visible in the shot there. That stands for 'Borda Na M.....' something or other. I think it's Irish for 'Fuel Board', or something?

Me? I like wood, when I have enough. Wood burns fierce ~ Ash is good. Hardwood could make the devil sweat! But it burns fast too. Turf isn't a bad fuel. Once it's got going, it burns on a par with decent wood.

Here's what I have going on tonight:

Contentment

Fuck what it's doing out there, eh?!

Thinking How Fucked Up The World Is .....

I've come if for a tea break, from tossing turf briquettes into my shed out there. I was at it for five hours last night. Three, so far, today. It's mind numbingly 'Donkey Work'. But, my donkey can't toss a briquette.

And, as my Dogs are so used to hearing me say; " There's sure as hell no fukka gonna come here and do it for us! Best get on ......" And I've been getting on. And on. And on. And all I can do out there is think. I've absolutely no distraction but the thoughts in my own head. Been thinking a lot, out there.

If I were a local farmer, I'd have a family. I'd hope to have sons too. Because sons grow into men and extra men are fucking near essential in this life. They learn to master their fathers every skill and put those same skills into practice, day to day about the place.

That's why, as I sling turf and think, I'd got round to considering if I could hire some cunt to do this for me, or at least help. But, I realised that Noel's two lads would be helping him. Pat only has some girls, I think? Actually, he does have a son, but the kid's way too young to be of any use yet.

Now, here's where it starts fucking up, look. Girls. What I'm doing out there would be a perfect job for a girl. This stuff's light as a bath sponge and perfectly managably sized. I even have a gorgeous, gentle mare here, and an insane but harmless donkey. As I grew up, I learned that 'Every' little girl worships horses. That's how come they clamour for unpaid jobs in stables. To be around horses.

But, of course, if I say so much as another word on That subject? Ye'll be making a mental note that, believe it or not, it seems Ditch must be a fucking pervert! See? How the fuck has this mind set come about? Are all stable owners kiddie fiddlers now? The undeniable 'logic' I've just alluded to would have to bring us to that, totally fucked up, conclusion. And that Is fucked up!

Number two; What in hell should I be thinking of, even thinking about putting a child of barely teen age to work? See? 'Because kids of that age Don't work!'. No. Fucking right they don't ~ these days! They get a six week holiday during which they sit about fiddling with a PS3! No wonder kids are getting fat.

Well, I know where I'm coming from. Because I left school at fifteen. I was in work that same week. Eight hours a day, pulling a lever in a factory. Does it look like it's done me any harm? Do I come across as a completely uneducated moron? I own my own cottage and land. No mortgages here. I work at my profession only as a hobby these days. Yet I realy want for nothing. Not bad for a kid who never passed an exam in his fucking school life!

Yet, the thought of turning ye kid out to do a bit of paid work for anyone is anathema these days. Whilst my own family tree shows the vast majority of my most recent ancestors were working their arses off by fourteen. I have girls working in cardboard box factories. Lads working, alongside their fathers, as Hawkers. Many girls actually living in as domestic servants! (Horror! A fourteen year old girl sent to live with strangers? ~ Oh, don't let's start That shit again! See what I mean?)

My Great Aunt was 'sold into service' at around twelve years old. Her parents said it was in an effort to 'straighten her out'. Bit fucking rich, actually. Coming from a mother who taught her girls to strip to the waist and take on all comers in bare knuckle fights! But, ye see how this shit is more 'normal' to me?

But, anyway, that's all fucked up now. There's a plethora of reasons why I can't even think about hiring a little spare energy to do some light work for me. But, I still had hours more to think in.

Latterly, I figured there could be a way through all this. I started fantasising: How about offering Working Holidays?! I mean, parents bring the kids, kids get to stay on what amounts to a farm, look. Fresh air. Fields to play in. Nice animals to pet. Just get a taste of a few hours donkey work a day. It'd help use up some of that energy. Give them an appetite. They'd have a whale of a time afterwards. And all this under the direct gaze of mum and dad.

I was getting into this one! They could park their trailer in my paddock. Have fucking Bar B's, for all I care. Do pretty much as they liked for a week. And they could even pay me a few quid as their kids made up the rest by helping out around here! Good, eh? No losers. No 'Risks'.

Oh no? Fuck up number three; I'd have to have unlimited Public Liability Insurance, in case anyone twisted their ankle whilst walking across my land. The kiddie set to do the bit of donkey work would have to wear steel toe capped boots, hard hat and hi viz vest, and likely be over seen by a 'Responsible Adult' at all times ~ meaning mum and / or dad would have to sit outside my bloody horse pen, staring into the small shed.

Then I'd need a Caravan Site licence, to allow them to pull on for a week. And I'd in no way get that without laying on mains fucking sewage (which I haven't even got for myself), hot and cold running water - I haven't got that either - and a fucking shower block!

Then I imagine some bloody 'Social Worker' would come along and say we were exploiting the kid by forcing it into slave labour, while all the time exposing it to terrible risks such as the Ticks, Claggs and Gnats which are ~ believe it or not ~ an integral part of 'The Countryside' here in Co. Leitrim.

So, fuck it all then. I shifted my own damn turf. (Dean 'O managed to get away in time to help me out for the last hour. Thus mercifully saving me about another hour and a half on my own) And I guess that's really all I wanted, before the monotony and mind numbingness of it all drove me to start this rant. Bit of fucking company and someone to share the craic with.

Point still remains though; How many people would jump at the chance to give themselves a well earned break, in beautiful surroundings. Get their kid into the fresh air and away from the Box. Let them get amongst Real animals and even do something for their pocket money?

In todays society? No Fucking Chance!

Now ask me why I think half the kids are fucking obese and half the rest are hanging around on street corners, swearing at passers by as they eye up the parked and unattended motors near by.

Poggered!

I am. By that lot. I just Double handed a good two thirds of that shit. Now I'm about as poggered as I honestly remember ever feeling.

Some explanations are due, yeah? Ok. I'll try to take ye through this. Only my mind's about closing down with sheer exhaustion here. I'm physically, thus mentally, about fucked. Just thought I'd tell ye about this little episode.

" Poggered " ? It's a Gypsy word. Part of what we call " Poggardi jib ". What academics would refer to as " Anglo Romanes ". That vestige of the fuller Romani Gypsy language still retained by english Gypsys. Frankly, little more than a form of slang, these days. 'Pidgin Romanes', one might say? We've lost all inflection and the vast majority of words.

To explain That? (Tricky, actually. Because I have to dredge up what little inflection I've picked up through the academic study of the truer language!) Ok. A Gypsy mate of mine once asked me to demonstrate the purer, inflected, language to him. I asked him what he'd like me to say ~ ye know how it's always murder trying to think of an example of talk.

He said; " Say; ' Here comes the big, black cat '. " So I said, " Avella o boro, kalo matchka. " He was impressed. So was I! I was so into it, in them days, I didn't even need to think about it. Just came out with it. Say that shit to any english Gypsy today? He'd likely say; " Do what, mate?! "

But, it'd be the " Avella " that'd most likely throw him. The rest he should know. Only, he'd only know to say something like; " Acai av's ..... (the big, black cat) ". See? We've lost the forms of shit like I do. They do. We do. He does. Etc.

The fuck was I talking about? The fuck Am I talking about?! Why am I talking about this shit?! Fuck knows. Maybe I've knackered myself so badly I'm going to die as a result of it? Is this the last stage of Ditch Shitters brain switching off and going bye, byes? Am I exhibiting the truth behind the thing about ones life flashing before one ~ witnessing one last time the stuff I knew as a little child? Or is it just the stout and whiskey, on an empty stomach? I'm honestly too fucked to cook my own dinner.

Anyway, trying to drag some sembelance of sense out of all this: I'm poggered. I poggered myself shifting that shit in the photo. That's Turf. What most of ye would probably know of as " Peat ". Only, you put it on ye gardens. We put it on our fires. And the photo's decieving. Let me tell ye; The average length of turf brick in that shot is a foot long. Each bit is about three inches thick. Look again. That fucking pile filled a high sided truck which can hold over a hundred bails of hay! LOT of fucking turf! And I've just shifted most of it. Twice.

" Poggerdom man kedivvus! ". That'd be the proper, old way of saying; ' I fucked myself today! '. Not literally. I'm not out to teach any of you bastards to swear in Gypsy! But, in context, it works. I'm Fucked!

Doesn't the above, rambling, confused and confusing diatribe just about prove it?

Fuck this. I'm off!