That’s enough isn’t it? I can stop now?

In 2002, an Irish property developer founded the Niall Mellon Township Trust with the aim of providing the poor of South Africa’s townships with housing. You can read more about it on the website.

The way it works is unlike most charities. Rather than providing money for housing, the trust actually provides the housing itself. Each year, volunteers, mainly Irish men and women, travel to South Africa and over a period of 7 days, build houses. The volunteers must raise a minimum of €5,000 each to fund travel, accommodation, building materials, machine hire etc. While those with trades are more demand, volunteers from all walks are welcome either for their specialised skills, such as medical personnel, or simply as labourers.

Last year almost 1,400 travelled and built 203 houses. Last year one of those volunteers was a friend of mine. I admire him for taking it on, for swapping his suit for shorts and t-shirt, his laptop for a shovel and the boardroom for a building site. Unused to manual labour he naturally came home exhausted, with aches and pains and bruised and scratched. Exhausted, yes, but elated. Just off the plane he was planning for the 2008 trip.

A couple of months ago the same man returned to South Africa on holiday. One of those last minute package deals and he jumped at it. A week’s break for himself and his wife.

At the first opportunity they spilt from the tour group and made their way to the township he had worked in. Like a little boy who has just built a sandcastle he was full of excitement and couldn’t wait to show off his work to his wife. His special project had been a playground.

He didn’t recognise it at first. It was destroyed. He was destroyed. The climbing frames had been hacked down, probably for firewood. The chains on the swings were gone, probably sold for scrap. Everything was broken.

For the second time in 12 months he got off a plane from South Africa. But not elated this time. Deflated. All that work. All that time. All that money. Gone. The sacrifice of having left his wife and children, one a newborn baby, at home believing he was making a difference to the lives of those more deserving. And now, nothing to show for it. Some bully had kicked over his sandcastle. The cuts and bruises this time were to his soul. The aches and pains to his heart.

He learned a lesson that everyone involved in charity work learns. I’ve learned it myself. More than once. When asked, Niall Mellon, said it is theirs now. They can do with it as they wish. He is right, though that can be hard to accept. There is only so much you can do for someone. They have to do the rest themselves.

Outside of a dog, a book is man’s best friend. Inside of a dog, it’s too dark to read. — Groucho Marx (no relation to Karl)

This is Toby (pretending to ignore the late cat, who in turn, is pretending to ignore him), aka The Tobster, You, Com’ere, The Hound, Black & White Thing and Jayzez Would Ya Get Outta There.

For a black and white dog, Toby had a colourful start to life:

Born on January 11, 2004, in the West-Cork Gaeltacht to a working mother - a Sheepdog - and a Labrador with a roving eye, and some other bits that roamed too, Toby’s early days were spent in a cosy hayshed with his four siblings. These happy days were shattered some weeks later when I called to collect him.

I was invited into the kitchen for breakfast by Big Pat. Big Pat, in his eighties, had just finished milking as many cows as he had seen years and announced he was hungry enough to eat a priest’s arse through a hedge. We were joined by his young lads - one in his late forties, the other just turned fifty. The puppy was brought into the kitchen so we could get acquainted.

He lay on my lap as I chatted with the men. Three tall muscular men who made light work of two pan-loaves, 1kg of butter, 2kg of ham and a huge slab of cheese washed down with two bucket-sized pots of scalding tea. Then it was time to leave.

I put the puppy in a basket on the floor of the car and was driving out the gate when Big Pat came running after me. A tear sneaking from the corner of his eye - it was the wind causing it of course. Lishen, I knew where he were going, so I’ve been shpeaking the bit of English to him.

That got me thinking. Here was a young black dog, wrenched from his family and taken to a place where he wouldn’t understand the language. A place where he would work hard (barking at cars, ignoring cats, sniffing visitors’ crotches etc.) all day, every day, only getting food in return. Somewhere around Watergrasshill the puppy was named Kunta Kinte.

A couple of days later I took him to the vet for a check up. Name? Kunta Kinte. What? Kunta Kinte. That’s hard to say never mind remember. Okay, then, we’ll call him Toby. Same thing. Is it? Trust me. Right so, and what breed is he? Sheeprador. A what? His mammy was a Sheepdog, his daddy a Labrador.

And so the puppy was registered with the vet as Toby Sneeze, Sheeprador.

How often have you heard the expression the area known locally as on news reports?

Every stretch on my road between the village and home has a name. Sadly, I’m one of the few to remember them. Last of it’s kind not in captivity - that’s me.

The Mill Bridge - No mill has been there in 150 years. Road works 50 years ago means that the once hump-backed bridge is now level and most road users aren’t even aware they’ve crossed a stream.

Cullen’s Corner - The Cullens are long, long gone and the ruins of their house have disappeared.

The Long Road - A stretch of less than 60 metres. Not a great distance you say? Well any straight is torture when you’re walking a long distance and carrying a load. Bends break such a journey.

Carter’s Lodge - I barely remember the man. I remember his voice, not his face. No one has lived there since.

The Ladys’ Walk - If you are tall enough to see over the high stone wall, you can make out what used be a pathway through the woods. The women folk at the Big House would have strolled along it in their billowing gowns. Bitching about the men folk I’m sure.

Cahills’ Orchard - Not a tree to be seen. There is the ruin of Cahills’ house. Along side it through the field is a strip where the the crops never thrive. When ploughed the stones that once were a road are visible. Keep your eyes open for similar signs and you can get to the village across the fields along a road abandoned almost a century ago - The Old Road.

Addition: I nearly forgot one of my favourites: Snailbox Hill was a steep incline that got its name in the 1940s when the sandpit opened. To get a loaded lorry up that hill you had to be in the lowest gear available.

As children, we knew all these names. You’re home early. Did you get a lift? Yeah, Mrs. Mongan picked me up on the middle of The Long Road.

But as children, the distances between each spot seemed enormous, so we named more. There was Money Corner where one of us once found a ha’penny. Primrose Country was the part of the woods along side the road that would be a cream carpet of wild flowers in early Spring. The Hanging Branch. The Big Oak. The Chestnuts. The Fox Run. The Mossy Trees.

Some of these folk-names found their way into official use over the years. I imagine that to have been the case with Cutbush, Blacktrench, Two Mile House, Turf Bog Lane and Bundle of Sticks - all to be found in County Kildare.

For generations the high, wide gates into the big farm nearby were painted blue. Twenty years ago, the new owner replaced them with silvery galvanised ones. Such was the uproar that he was forced to take them down and erect wooden ones - painted blue of course, as The Blue Door always had been.

The techie in me loves the precision of GPS co-ordinates. The amateur historian in me laments the fact I’m one of only a handful who know where The Horseman’s Gate is. But I can console myself that some names will survive a little longer. The area known locally as The Blue Door may even someday have a signpost and a place on the map.

1. Introducton

Painting is my 23^rd love. For brief period after I gave up competitive long-distance-spitting it was my 22^nd. Then blogging happened and painting fell back to 23^rd again. Still, 23^rd is not bad when you consider my 24^th love is eating Irish stew and 25^th making it.

Now before you go getting all excited, expecting talk of exhibitions and such, I mean house painting. Not the other kind - landscapes, portraits and so on - I know nothing about that.

But I know a lot about painting houses. When I was only a nipper, the great Barty Conlon was a world famous house painter in our village. He took me under his wing and taught me everything he knew. Well, almost everything - I had to go home early that day as my dinner was ready.

Over the years I’ve worked with a lot of painters (none as world famous as Barty, but some were classified as fairly world famous) and worked at it on my own bat too. (Regular readers have probably realised by now that I’ve done more moonlighting than Bruce Willis and Cybill Shepherd).

Anyway, I’ve learned all the knacks and tricks of the trade. I know how to suck air through my teeth and shake my head when pricing jobs; I know to get a look at the marque of the car, the size of the garden and the quality of the furniture before setting the price; I know to look impressed and tell auld wans they’ve picked great colours; without fail, I can locate the tea and biscuits in any kitchen - blindfolded.

I’m good at it too. No spills, drips or splashes with this lad. Masking tape? For wimps! Drop cloths? They just trip you up! A good painter doesn’t need them. All a good painter needs is a damp rag, just on the off chance a herd of wildebeest come stampeding through the room and one leaves a bum print on a skirting board.

And straight lines. The folks over at the local accident and emergency bring their electrocardiographs (and a corpse) over to Sneezy Manor to have them calibrated.

It’s all down to skill, know-how, a steady hand, the right tools, patience and time. Time is most important. A rushed paint job is like rushed sex - lads, I’m telling you, you may walk away happy that time, but don’t expect to be called again.

After the chaos of last week, I finally found some time to do some painting. Now therein lay the problem - some. Not enough, just some time. Big mistake.

2. Tooling up

I checked my supplies and realised I’d need a few things. Not a lot though, because I either make tools or reuse unwanted items. Rather than haul a heavy paint can up a ladder I cut the top off an empty plastic milk container (leaving the hand-grip intact). A long flat strip of wood with a small sponge glued on the end is great for getting down behind radiators.

But I would need some new brushes and a few gloss sleeves for my mini-roller would save me a lot of time. Now, I don’t like the idea of stuff, like gloss sleeves, that you can’t easily clean and reuse, but I thought, hey, it’ll save time and I can always chuck them over the fence to Nasty Neighbours’ kids - the small one will eat anything and the older ones love the excitement when the ambulance comes.

Stuck for time, I went to the nearest hardware, B&Q. A trip there is always good for a laugh anyway. You see DIY-dude paying big bucks for a professional painter’s drop-sheet when he probably has a stack of unused and unwanted sheets at home. And there’s always one who will buy the professional painter’s mini-tub which is really an empty ice cream pail. And the one who only needs a sleeve but walks out with a professional painter’s rolling kit (with roller, tray, fine and coarse sleeves and tool he doesn’t know the purpose of). If it says professional on the label it has to be what you need doesn’t it?

I got the gloss sleeves. And seen some brushes that claimed to be loss-free. Doubtful as I was, I’d give them a go and see what they were like.

An old painter’s trick is to wrap the roller sleeve tightly in a plastic bag if it will be needed again within a short space of time. It saves a heck of a lot of washing. But I didn’t have any bags. Irish houses used be full of them before the introduction of the bag-tax. I didn’t have any or anything like them. I thought, well for the sake of 22c I’d buy one - think of the time I’d save.

Can I have a bag, please? The shop assistant looked at me quizzically. A what? A bag - a plastic bag. But you aren’t buying anything. I’m buying a plastic bag. Actually, give me two. But you’ve nothing to put in them. Okay then, give me two of boxes of matches and I’d a like a bag for each. No problem, sir. Here you go.

3. Painting

My system is to paint by numbers. 1. Do that bit. 2. Do that bit. 3. Do that bit. Great system. Never fails.

This time, 1. was to be the bathroom walls. That’s where the trouble started in earnest. The last “Mrs.” Sneeze (long gone - bad hair - you know yourself) had a thing about fixtures. More precisely, a thing about fixed-fixtures. There were more fixtures bolted, screwed or glued to those walls than in the premiership on a Saturday afternoon.

I figured taking them down would mean repairs- it’d take a lorry-load of fillers and a lot of time, neither of which I had much. I’d just cut in around them. I had all the gear I’d need, even some tiny artist’s brushes for the trickier nooks and crannies. (Yeah, I’m a perfectionist).

That reminded me of a blogging artist, who also paints houses, once saying he likes to do rooms at night while the owners sleep - just to see the look on their faces the next morning when they see the transformation. That’s what I’d do. I’d paint at night. Okay, I’d be painting my own rooms for myself so I wouldn’t be surprised, but I could pretend, just for fun. Plus I’d be free during the day for any urgent work that came in.

A few hours sleep and I got stuck in at 1 in the morning. By 2, I’d lost the rag - the damp one. I simply can’t paint without the comfort-blanket of a damp rag to hand. I didn’t need it, but I needed it to be there.

I began to regret not removing all the junk from the walls. There were more corners than Monte Carlo. And why were there two toilet roll holders? One butt at a time. Two hands, but one butt. More disturbing was that I hadn’t noticed before.

The artificial light began to hurt my eyes. Cutting a straight line at the ceiling was next to impossible. For a while I thought I’d have to leave sections until daylight.

And the loss-free brushes! Brilliant yokes altogether. Not a single hair shed. The problem was, not a single drop of paint applied either - the synthetic fibres just wouldn’t hold it. I even tried some sticky varnish as an experiment but no joy. They should make rain coats or bullet-proof vests with this stuff not brushes.

I persevered and got what I had intended done by dawn. I stepped outside and then back in and feigned surprise. The dog gave me his fekin eejit look and walked off. I had to agree with him.

A few spots here and there might need some attention, but it still wasn’t bright enough to be sure and overall it was a good night’s work. Time for a coffee and a sit down.

3½. The result

In the full light of day I surveyed the scene again. It was much, much better than I thought. My eyes had been playing tricks under the lights and the ceiling line was, in fact, perfect. The patches I thought would need touching up had merely been shadows. It was a masterpiece.

But never again will I paint at night or when stuck for time - I’d used the colour I’d bought for the main bedroom not the bathroom!

Last week was one of those weeks where seven days weren’t enough to get through all that had to be done. One of those weeks when I’m make a plan of action for the day at 5, and by 7 it would be all changed. I hate that. I hate that as much as I hate leaving voice mail. Yeah, that much.

It’s not like me be disorganised like that. I’m not that kind of spanner. No sir, I’m the kind of spanner who plans everything meticulously and beats himself up if he doesn’t produce the goods before the deadline. So why did I allow things go awry?

Well, money mainly. See, most of what needed doing last week was for myself or free gratis for others. But to survive a week of doing stuff for nothing you need money. Money puts beer on the counter, milk in the hotpress and fresh towels in the fridge - the latter two are usually a result of too much of the former. So when billable jobs came in, I went at them like a pig at a spud.

One of those was on the Monday. I spent an hour with a client making a list of maintenance work she wanted done. I ended the meeting with my standard two questions: When do you need this done by? Any item(s) on the list you would like done before then? Her answers were this day week and none. Fine.

Tuesday morning, she mailed me asking can we get that done today? Now my normal reply would be something along the lines of as sure as there is hair on your balls, girl, we can. But this time I agreed. Fresh towels in the fridge remember. So Tuesday was lost, but I had a cheque in my hand on Wednesday. I bought milk for the hotpress.

The free gratis work was mainly for a family member. Recently home after a long stay in Scrubs and now with a permanent feeding tube, there was much to be done in that house. Collecting and making space for a month’s supply of 2l plastic containers of food. Learning how to use new electronic gadgets. Disposing of utensils that could no longer be used. Organising medication in liquid form. Swabs to stop an unused mouth drying out. Creams to prevent unused lips chapping. More trips to the chemist than a methadone patient.

Walls chipped by the guys delivering the new equipment to be repaired and repainted. Furniture to be moved to make room for a new, and much larger, wheelchair. TVs to be remounted to suit the new furniture layout.

Other, seemingly minor, worries to be sorted. The Council have changed the refuse collection from weekly to fortnightly and the recycle one from monthly to fortnightly too. (Saving themselves 12 trips per year while telling the public of the improved service). But the empty food containers are not accepted by them for recycling so they have to go in the regular bin which will be filled in a week. Work out a way to get rid of the rest of the empties for me, will ya. (I intend delivering them in person to the County Council office foyer - I’ll let you know what happens. If I’m not jailed).

The whole week was a mess. I didn’t get half of my own stuff done. So on Friday I popped by to see my little buddies, Sean and Oisín, for some chill out time. They always cheer me up. Mam and Dad wanted to pop out for a while - would I mind staying with the lads? No problem. Just back from a short holiday they needed to do some food shopping. Don’t forget milk for the hotpress, I warned.

After a big feed of sticky goo, a dribble of puke and a satisfying belch, Oisín nodded off on his mat, dreaming of boobs or whatever it is babies dream of. Seán, exhausted from protecting me from swipers (?) with a light-sabre, drifted off on the couch, probably dreaming of his new hobby, digging up worms.

I booted up Mam’s laptop to see what I’d been missing in blogland. I read Eolaí’s post about his son. I looked over at the two sleeping terrors. A shiver ran down my spine at the thoughts of being denied access to them. They aren’t my kids but it would break my heart not to be able to see them again. I can only imagine what it would be like if they were mine. I can only imagine what Eolaí’s going through.

Putting things in perspective, I had a great week in comparison. Last week’s to-do list is now this week’s to-do list, but so what. If things go well, I’ll get something done. There may even be beer on the counter come Friday. Whether there is or not, I can always drop by to get intoxicated by the antics of my two little buddies. Eolaí has had sobriety forced upon him.