Tuesday, July 22, 2008

Our Gentle Gloom

The Giant's Causeway

"The remainder of the afternoon went by in the kind of gentle gloom that descends when relatives appear", wrote Harper Lee in "To Kill A Mockingbird". We brought our own hideous brand of such 'gloom' to our long-suffering relatives in 'Norn Irn' last week. Boris, Norris and Doris had a great time playing with their cousins, seeing their Grandparents, enjoying loads of open space and (all but Doris), spending their mornings having a whale of a time at the CSSM holiday club at Castlerock.

As well as catching up with Stumpy 'hitler' Greenisland and his eccentric family, we managed a family meal out with everyone, a trip with cousins to the fabulous Giant's Causeway, a couple of rather nifty second hand bookshops, and a reminder of just how completely and embarrassingly useless I am at ten-pin bowling. P&O bounced, crashed and rolled us safely back across rather rough Irish Sea to Troon, and so we are home again.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hitler?

That Hideous Man said...

Yes, a charming epithet with which you were tarred by your own dear wife in our hearing... the context being, "I would have three children like you , if I wasn't married to Hitler"

Anonymous said...

Ah, 'it is better to live on the corner of a roof than in a house shared with a contentious woman'.
Taking this sage advise to heart explains fully the placing of the study in the loft, atop a set of retractable ladders.
I shall shortly be descending the afore mentioned ladders to speak the truth in love to my wife - pointing out to her the merits of compromise on both sides, economic prudence, population explosion, the fact that our house already appears to have each bedroom filled, and that this particular Hitler would have happily stopped at the stage of annexing Austria, whereas I have already compromised by invading Poland, and if The War Office had her way we would have invaded France two years ago and doubtless she would by now be champing at the bit to get across the English Channel!

That Hideous Man said...

Oh I would hve thought that an extra room extended out accross the top of your garage would make ideal 'Lebensraum'..

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