Catch the pigeon and the lucky duck from Limerick

Catch the pigeon

Reading Martin Feeney’s blog about finding a bat in his house reminded me of a mad incident that happened one summer about three years ago.

I arrived home from work having gone straight to work following a weekend away, the young wan was spending time with one of her nannies and as I came into the living room, I felt that something was up.

At first glance around the room, it just wasn’t how I left it. There was stuff everywhere and to begin with I fleetingly thought I had been burgled.

Then I realised I had in fact been pigeoned, while undoubtedly the lesser of those two evils, was something really yeuck and nasty as it was. Somehow the flying rat had managed to fly in the small side window that I always leave open in my living room during the day. (I can do this because I do not live on the ground floor).

Hey guys, free house

This became apparent when I worked out that all the debris on the floor was in fact pigeon feathers as well as the contents of my mantelpiece.

Looking around I surveyed the damage which was huge, though it certainly could have been worse.

Above my telly there is a precariously angled shelf with loads of freeby CDs from newspapers, used CDroms, video cassettes (which have to be placed in a very particular way or they collapse).

While I could see evidence that the unfortunate houseguest has sat on the videos, (due to the large amount of bird shit), for some thankful reason, the whole lot did not go tumbling unlike other little corners of clutter in the room.

Due to the bad lighting in my living room, I have a little movable desklamp on my cooker so I can see while making my culinary wonders and the houseguest seemed to think that would be a perfect perch.

Wrong, from what I could deduce again from the evidence presented, the lamp moved and literally scared the shit out of the guest. Double yeuck…

Then looking at the window I could see where my visitor had repeatedly banged itself off the window by the large minging, filthy goo and mess left splattered.

I then heard my downstairs neighbours come home so I ran down to get them to come up and see, and up they came.

Up to that point, it hadn’t even occurred to me that my visitor could still be there until M, the boyfriend said: “Are you sure it has left?”

R, the girlfriend, and I just looked at each other.

I began to look over my table which was at that time placed in front of a corner where I kept a box of DIY stuff and saw what looked at first glance like a wing. We both gasped and went ‘oh jesus look!’.

Just as R and I realised the ‘wing’ was in fact a bunch of lavender that had been knocked off the wall by the visitor, the lamp decided to click on the timer switch loudly and all of a sudden the room became bright.

R definitely jumped and screamed higher and louder than me. Oh how I laughed heartily.

As it turns out, R believes she saw the poor flying rat dead outside the house a day or two before.

Judging by the state of my living room, I doubt it would have survived the shock of trying to get back out again, not to mention the moving lamp.

I still keep my window open though. And thank God I didn’t have to remove it either alive or dead myself…


catch the pigeon



The lucky duck from Limerick

€115m, just imagine! What would you do with that amount of money, it is straight from that programme ‘Meet the Braithwaites’.

Turns out the roll-over Euro lottery worth €115m (just to say that amount again) was won by a mother of six from Limerick, I thought ‘WOW’.

I hope she was broke, I hope she struggled for money (God I hope that doesn’t sound nasty) because according to one of the Sunday tabloids she now stands at the 72nd richest person in Ireland, just ahead of that mad Donegal musician Enya, who has made an absolute packet humming and making other mad melodic noises about tidal currents and all.

But seriously, I hope her family had nothing, because it so much more gratifying to hear of people who really want getting such fantastic luck.

And I have to say while I agree that she probably should have kept her privacy, I wouldn’t take the strong line that dumtomsphoto’s has taken in his blog, sure hasn’t she won enough to keep everything from her door.

And I hope it makes her life and her family’s lives better forever. And before anyone says it, the only people who say money doesn’t make you happy are rich people.

I have no doubt that money doesn’t bring happiness, but it sure helps stop some of the bigger worries in our lives and you cannot tell me any differently.

Five things I would have done immediately had I won:

Bought a house this weekend, I need to stop lining landlords pockets, unfortunately Dublin is not a home-buyers dream, not when the average price of a house is €350k. But that wouldn’t have been a problem, not with €115m.

Bought a holiday retreat somewhere down the country, New York would have to wait till next weekend.

Bought a car.

Established grants for single parents in each of the colleges here in Ireland which would adequately provide for them and their child/ren while in school, including accommodation, childcare, books, living expenses, course fees and other miscellaneous expenses.

Book an amazing holiday for the child, the lovely man and me, and I would probably bring all the muckers (mates) along for a week somewhere along the line.

There’s many more things I would do, but that’s just for starters, what would you do?