I’m hopeless at the DIY, can’t even change a plug – so don’t expect me to fix broken biscuits

THE Almighty created us on his day off. He was working from home, according to the Old Testament. The creator granted me two unique gifts on the day I was made. The first is an uncanny, almost supernatural ability to burp at will. The gift from God goes down very well at children’s parties but how is it Beethoven was given an ear for music and Einstein’s ability to do hard sums won him the 1921 Nobel Prize? Arthur Guinness has to be up there too.

I have a desperate mind for porter but I swore I would not break my fast until I could drink in my own pub from my favourite barrel. It could be hormonal, like as in when pregnant women have an insatiable desire for crisps in the middle of the night even though they could be suffering from morning sickness which lasts all day.

When women get pregnant for the first time, they think, “Ah well, sure this morning sickness might not be too bad and it be all over by noon.” It ain’t easy, girls.

I have a bump in front. That’s a great one around here when you put on the bit of weight around the middle. Some lad will say, “When are you due?” Or, “Wouldn’t you be better off if you kept that spare tyre in the boot of the car?”

I’m back working in the pub, getting the place ready for opening day on July 20, that’s if the small few restaurateur publicans and their customers who are breaking the rules behave themselves. They could ruin it for all of us. Adam and Eve didn’t do what they were told and a wonderful treat was turned into a sin.

I am the tea boy for the skilled ones who are fixing up the pub before we open in 16 days’ time. I will definitely lose a few pounds from running to the shop for provisions.

The meitheal are stone mad for biscuits. Meitheal is an Irish word for a group of friends who come together to help out a neighbour in need.

Chocolate biscuits are dearer than Perspex.

This isn’t the second gift mentioned up at the top of the page but I am excellent at sourcing cheap biscuits.

I was stopped on my way to buy the biscuits by an inquisitive man and his partner, both in business and in bed. They are nosey people. Mad for the bit of news they are, but never does so much as a word get out as to what the two get up to themselves.

“Where are you off to, Billy?” asks the man, who was put up to it. “Iceland,” I reply.

“Will you have to quarantine for 14 days when you come home?” he asks.

I got a big box of biscuits in Iceland for €4. The biscuits were advertised as Broken Biscuits. I ask Jurga on check-out if the biscuits are OK. “They are good,” she says and then adds philosophically, “Life is not perfect.”

Jurga speaks in a lovely Kerry-Lithuanian accent.

There was a time when the men were fed bacon and cabbage with new spuds. Now it’s broken biscuits.

The help was never more needed, because I am plain useless at DIY. This has led to conflict in the home. I cannot change a plug, or fit the blue toilet water dye maker to the side of the bowl, or free blocked sinks with a plunger.

I tried the plunger and the wanton waste water shot out the porthole on the top of the sink and ruined my good grey-green ganzee.

Wanton waste water and good greygreen ganzee. Nice bit of alliteration that. It is like the trapeze artist doing the triple somersault.

But there will be not a mention of the literary trickery in our house. More like, how come you broke the light socket and left 50,000 homes without power by forcing the screw-in bulb?

Mam told me she put the blue toilet blocks in the urinal of the gents back about 40 years ago. This man did his business and when the urine turned blue, he went straight to the doctor

I am still dying for a pint even at this hour of the morning. And you are probably saying to yourself how come that man doesn’t fill one for himself in his own pub?

Well the answer is we are the pub with no beer. The brewers took back all our stock and credited us. Thanks, and thanks to the Government for the reboot grant.

This was the only grant I was ever given. I know now how grateful the farmers are when the EU subsidies hit their accounts.

This once-off payment, based on rates, was in addition to the weekly Covid-19 wage supplement. We were well looked after. More is needed to ensure the survival of many businesses. The money saved and paid will go straight back in to the economy. Better to support small business than big banks.

I helped with a holiday in Kerry campaign. Stay at home this year. This is practical economic patriotism and you will save not only jobs but lives.

We rediscovered our home places during the travel restrictions. Now is the time to travel around our beloved island, with less traffic to contend with and an even warmer welcome than ever before.

I always notice when women get their hair done. This is the second gift.

I have been told stories of men who wouldn’t notice their partner’s hairdo if the Empire State building was placed on top of her head.

The hairdressers opened on Monday. I hadn’t seen my friend for two months. She snuck out after dark because her hair was gone wild, she said.

The headscarf was back in fashion. But now my pal is happy with her lovely new hair style. It’s never too late to go blonde.

There were so many more women walking around town this week. You could see the confidence coming back and the laughter. I have never met a bad-looking woman and the makeovers were needed more for morale than vanity.

The morale of the meitheal is not good. They are kicking up on our WhatsApp group. Complaining they are. Bitterly. “The biscuits are broke,” they say, and me ate out of house and home.

So I reply, “Broken biscuits taste just the same as fully formed biscuits, and am I expected to put them back together again like some sort of cookie jigsaw?”

And any way, who can tell whether the broken biscuits are broken or not at the end of the digestive cycle.

I ask Jurga on the check-out if the biscuits are good. ‘They are good,’ she says and then adds philosophically, ‘Life is not perfect’