Its getting dark and the house is empty. I can hear the back door rattling in the wind.

And what about the low knocking upstairs ... ?

Auditor #9 wrote:

And what about the low knocking upstairs ... ?

Its the scuttling in the wainscots that is getting to me...

You need a better back door .

johnfás wrote:

You need a better back door .

Still in your panic room, johnfás ?

I'm in a lonely hotel room in Jackie Healy Rae country with the Atlantic raging outside the window and a trad singer downstairs yowling ominously, like an animal in pain.

Absolutely, clutching my only items of value for dear life.

Nice bed? It is the most important thing. Bathroom counts too.

So did you check to see why the back door might be rattling ... cactus ?

Auditor #9 wrote:

So did you check to see why the back door might be rattling ... cactus ?

Electrics seem to have gone. I'm just rooting around for the oil lamp...

Ah ... I love the smell of an old oil lamp almost as much as I love the smell of an ancient graveyard. The old oil lamp smell conjures up those dark Victorian times where strange stuff happened ... in foggy, smoky, damp towns and ... in graveyards.

Have you got oil for your lamp ?

Does your computer work on a dynamo?

Does anybody here have an interest in graveyards? I used to get brought to them by my father... who has an interest in graveyards.

johnfás wrote:

Does your computer work on a dynamo?

maybe cactusus battery has only two hours life left ... and the mobile went on the blink too, funnily.

johnfás wrote:

Does your computer work on a dynamo?

A treadle, like a Singer sewing machine.

Ah yes, I forgot you could get those swanky mobile internet yokes that stick into the side of your laptop. Are many people here using them? I am in the stoneage I am afraid.

johnfás wrote:

Does anybody here have an interest in graveyards? I used to get brought to them by my father... who has an interest in graveyards.

Was it your father built the panic room. Still alone in the house, johnfás?

Let's put on some music on the CD player while we're waiting for the ESB to fix your stuff ...

Get Thee hence to Endless Night

I used to wander around graveyards searching for the graves of members of the Anglo-Irish Literary Revival as well as the Celtic Revival of Irish Art... interesting stuff.

johnfás wrote:

I used to wander around graveyards searching for the graves of members of the Anglo-Irish Literary Revival as well as the Celtic Revival of Irish Art... interesting stuff.

What did you do when you found them

Kate P wrote:

I'm in a lonely hotel room in Jackie Healy Rae country with the Atlantic raging outside the window and a trad singer downstairs yowling ominously, like an animal in pain.

Still yowling, Kate?

I'd love to say we dug them up and sold the bones to others with a fetish for that particular area of history... but we didn't. I stood there and he said 'there is Paul Henry's grave, you see his paintings sell for hundreds of thousands, but he has a pauper's grave discernable only by the pebbles which sit on top of it, the markings on the headstone long since weathered'. I said ummm hmmm... and on we went.

johnfás wrote:

Does anybody here have an interest in graveyards? I used to get brought to them by my father... who has an interest in graveyards.

Used to go and sleep in our local one when I was a kid. Gave my mother a trump card for "my kid is weird" competitions...

No. Yowling over and bed very comfortable.
The four horsemen of the apocalypse, Michael Myers, the Grim Reaper, Norman Bates and Caspar the friendly ghost can take their chances and I'll sleep through it all.

Bed is very nice. If I start slurring my sentences shortly, you'll see exactly how nizzzzzz

I have one of those 3G cards, johnfás and find it brilliant. I use it all the time when I'm out and as I've said on these pages before, it never (well almost never) lets me down. I even had a chat with Riadach here one day while I was on the Tarbert - Killimer ferry.

Kate P wrote:

I'm in a lonely hotel room in Jackie Healy Rae country with the Atlantic raging outside the window and a trad singer downstairs yowling ominously, like an animal in pain.

I know it well.