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.

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.

Daddy would be working Saturday. Would I be on for helping entertain the two boys? We could take them to the forest park. Or if the weather is bad, just drive around and stop for lunch somewhere. Maybe we’d have lunch in that place we’d visited a couple of months ago - The Geraldine. Anywhere really, just to get them out of the house.

No problem, Kathy, says I. We’ll think of something to get them out. Little boys are like farts: better out than in, eh.

Lovely image, Primal. Thanks. I’ll never be able to look at my sons the same way again.

Saturday morning the weather didn’t look promising. Wind and rain and more forecast. The boys nodded off as soon as we set out. Kathy breathed a sigh of relief. The peace was welcome. Seán had passed the morning jumping off chairs declaring himself to be Capin Jack Sarrragh - a brave and fearless pirate, but one likely to crack his head against a windowsill. It can be difficult reason with brave and fearless pirate captains when they have just turned three. His brother, king Oisín, had banged the tray of his throne (high-chair) bellowing aawaaahh sna sna sna wheeyh which roughly translates as damn it, woman! Feed me now! Tír na nÓg can be a terrifying place.

But now they slept. Their oh- and ah-inducing angelic faces belying the demonic ones of just 20 minutes ago. When we got to The Geraldine they were still sleeping like teenagers so there was no point stopping. We’d go as far as the forest park anyway and see if the newly acquired annual pass, a smartcard, was working. It was and we drove in and pulled up in the car park.

Kathy had an idea. Look the sun’s coming out. You stay with the lads and I’ll go down to the café and get us a couple of toasted sambos and something for the pirate. I’ll ask them to warm the king’s bottle. All going well they’ll wake soon, we’ll feed them, then go for a walk. Now what would you like to drink with your toastie?

Not coffee anyway. Their coffee is shite. Do they do anything else

Yeah. They do soup. Don’t know what it’s like though.

Shur just ask them if it’s shite. If it’s not, then I’ll have some.

So I just say excuse me, is your soup shite? And if they say yes, I get something else? What if they lie and say it isn’t shite?

We’re in a forest with a pirate and a king. Anything could happen. This is the stuff of legend. Trust your instincts. Go now, and may the force go with you.

Kathy set out on her quest taking the force with her. And her wallet too - the force doesn’t work unless you have a few quid in your pocket. The sun was warm now. I let down the windows and lay back in the seat.

Just as I was nodding off there was a clap of thunder. Then another one. The skies opened and the hailstones hammered down on the roof of the car. The king woke up screaming and woke the pirate. The pirate leaned over, stroking his little brother’s cheek, explaining it’s only big noisy rain. Pirates have a tender side.

Pirates being used to the expanse of the high seas can also be a bit claustrophobic so I turned on the windscreen wipers so he could see out. A big mistake. He screamed in terror and set the king off crying again. Through the trees and coming straight toward us was a big black scary monster. Pirates know all about monsters and nothing I could say could calm him. We were going to be taken. Then we were going to be eaten. Monsters prefer takeaway it seems.

Kathy had been about to leave the café when the hail started. Seeing she had no coat the staff had cut holes for her eyes and mouth in a large back plastic refuse sack and pulled it down over her. All that was visible was her feet.

The force and/or wallet had worked wonders. There were toasted ham & cheese sandwiches wrapped in tinfoil. Big chunks of ham, not the photocopied stuff sandwich bars sell. One toastie cut into strips with a side order of crisps in a paper cup - pirates can be particular. A banana on a paper plate. A plastic fork to mash it and a spoon to eat it with. Kings like to dine in style. Two large beakers of hot homemade soup for the slaves.

We ate like kings … pirates and slaves. Actually, with four of us now in the front we ate more like octopuses. A sandwich in my hand had to take a carefully planned and calculated parabolic trajectory to get to my mouth. Even then it ran the risk having a bite taken out of it en route. Tell ye what, lads. When we win the lotto, we’ll treat ourselves to a picnic in a lunar lander or a one-man sub. Imagine the room we’ll have then!

There was a problem though: Kathy had forgotten a drink for the pirate. My turn to go to the café. If they don’t have rum, I’ll get Ribena. Okay? … There are no monsters, but if it’ll make you happy, I will be careful and not get taken. Reassured, he returned to the task of twisting every knob and pulling even lever on the dashboard.

Picnic in the carpark? With two small kids and the woman in the rubbish sack? Yes, I admitted to the woman behind the counter, how did you guess? You look stressed. Don’t suppose you’ve any rum?

When I got back the pirate was gone. A cowboy had taken his place. The pirate ship was now a space rocket. His royal highness was laid out on the passenger seat having the royal nappy changed. The hail came again and I was forced to squeeze into the back between two child seats. The cowboy needed to ride off into the sunset or somewhere equally important and I was chosen as his mount before I had time to say no, nay or neigh. The back of a Fiesta is small at the best of times but in a space rocket with two child seats, a cowboy and a horse there isn’t room to change your mind.

I needed a pint after that. Thought you’d be in earlier for the racing, Primal? Couldn’t. Busy. Working on the house? No. I accidentally went on an Irish picnic in a space rocket in a forest with a monster, a pirate, a cowboy, a horse and a king. Right so. Wasn’t great weather for that kind of thing. No. But the sandwiches were lovely.

A mail burst into my inbox on Tuesday bubbling over excitedly with the news that the County Kildare Community Network website, kildare.ie, run by Kildare County Council, won a LAMA award for “Best Use of External Communications”. You can read it here. Ah, don’t bother - I’ll give you the main points.

LAMA = Local Authority Members Association. Llama = a useful animal.

The award was presented by RTE presenter Sharon Ni Bheolain and John Gormley. For overseas readers, the former is just a teeny weeny bit less hot (about 1cal or 4.1868J) than Jolene Blalock, her name is actually Ní Bheoláin not Ni Bheolain and she works for RTÉ not RTE. The latter is a Green who sold his soul to Fianna Fáil for a ministerial post.

kildare.ie was recently redesigned. Adherence to web standards and improved accessibility & usability are an integral part of the new design. Ah yes, I remember them doing that. I couldn’t view a damn thing on the site for days unless I buried my pride and switched to Internet Explorer. Months later and their online planning system still only supports IE. If your browser of preference is Firefox or Safari you can use their LiteView version. So much for usability.

Here’s an interesting little exercise: Go to the World Wide Web Consortium’s markup validation service and plug in http://kildare.ie/. 23 errors! So much for adherence to web standards.

Go to the Council’s home page. Like the tiny text in light grey font with the white background? Pretty isn’t it? If your eyes aren’t the best it isn’t pretty at all. Oh, hold on, I apologise. I’m being far too harsh - on the right, toward the bottom there is a tiny link for Larger Font. Have you found it yet? Ok, I’ll give you another ten minutes.

*Puts kettle on. Makes nice mug of coffee*

Ok, you found it. Good. So now the font a readable size, even if it is light grey. See the Help/Accessibility link in the same section? Let’s go there and see what it says. Oh no! The font has gone back to the default size! Very accessible indeed.

Ok, well we’ll just have to struggle on. Let’s see what they have in the Publications section. Oh, look, the Development Plan for 2005-2011 is there. This will be interesting. I wonder what they have in store for my area? Now which is my area? I can’t tell because it’s all laid out in gobbledygook map references - I’ll just have to work my way through all the PDF files all until I find it. At least it’s usable.

Now I understand: They got the LAMA award, not for accessibility & usability, but for improved accessibility & usability. Believe me when I tell you most downloadable documents on the site used be in MS Word format - at least I can open PDF.

Personally I think the county would be better off with a few llamas.

It was cold wet windy night. The forecast was for gales and flooding. The kind of night when sensible people lock their doors, pull the curtains and sit warming themselves in the glow of a flickering TV.

Not me. I had to go out. I’d arranged to meet someone at precisely some time between 7:15 and 8:00. But how? There would be drink involved so I couldn’t take the car. And I flatly refuse to use taxis since they tried convince us the national maximum fare was a minimum. I thought of my local publican.

Now Con has a reputation for being, shall we say, less than generous. It is said the crows flying over his house bring packed lunches. It is said he hates breathing out. It is said he owes himself money. It is said if he owned the Alps he wouldn’t give you a slide.

But I tried anyway. Good man, Con. Are you working tonight? I’m finishing at 7:00. Any chance you’d be able to pick me up after that and drop me to the pub? I have to meet a lad and it’s kind of important. He grumbled a bit but agreed.

The following morning, through the haze induced by the barrel of his beer still bubbling around in my belly, I seen him at the shop. Ah Con. Thanks for the lift last night. You were a lifesaver. He muttered something about the money he’d made out of me wouldn’t have covered the petrol he used. Ah me bollix, says I, if it weren’t for us making up the crowd the bar last night would’ve been as empty as Dáil Éireann outside of budget day.

Back home, the builders gave me a small can of petrol and I decanted a couple of hundred mil into an old medicine bottle. I knocked up a new label on the computer, put it in a box and wrapped it with left over Christmas paper. I dropped it off to him in the pub that afternoon saying that’s just a little thank-you for yesterday.

I left before he opened it but I have no doubt the contents are in his car by now, the bottle put away safely and the wrapping saved for next December. He may have managed to salvage some of the sellotape too.

It is just over a year now since Ireland hosted the Ryder Cup at the K Club. And oh what a total load of utter bollix it was. But oh (again) what wonderful memories I have of those few short days. Or should I say, few long years, as the whole population of the island, not just we residents of the area, were subjected to hype about it from all quarters since the year 2000.

For those who aren’t familiar with the Ryder Cup let me direct you to Google, Yahoo or SearchMash. Golf bores me. For now, all you need to know is that Europe play the US every two years. Every second time the teams meet it is in Europe. They should have met in 2001 but yer man bin Laden mucked about with airplanes and the Americans couldn’t/wouldn’t/didn’t travel. So that game was deferred until 2002 which gave Ireland an extra year to prepare. Not that we needed it - everything is done at the last minute here anyway. Except for the talking that is.

Bertie told us about the money that would flow in from golf tourism. Fáilte Ireland said this’ll be great lads. Just wait and see. Or words to that effect.

Greedy individuals the country over would rent out their homes for the week at exorbitant rates to rich Americans. Yeah, right. Like Chuck and Darlene Azzamilewhide were going to fall for that when they could live it up in fancy hotels at a fraction of the prices being asked by Ernie and Bernie MacInerney.

But oh the memories. I remember driving up from Cork and being greeted in north Tipperary by a big sign saying Welcome to the Ryder Cup Region. How the feck they figured that out I don’t know. Perhaps geography isn’t a strong point with Tipperary County Councils. I emailed Donegal, Kerry and Galway County Councils, CCing North Tipp, suggesting they erect signs too.

There was a special committee set up to liaise with the K Club on road improvements, traffic management and so on. They met many times over a year or more before the K Club realised they weren’t dealing with a County Council delegation but rather a self-appointed group of local residents. Oh how we laughed. The K Club should have smelled a rodent - the authorities never get involved until the last minute.

Ah yes, the road improvements. They were class altogether. The N7 upgrade was suddenly a priority. We couldn’t have the visitors being shuttled along a road built in the early sixties. The good silverware had to be brought out. However, unlike your mother would have, they couldn’t put it back in the box in this case, so commuters got a decent road out of it.

The minor roads got great treatment too. Actually, they got the full range from the beauty parlour - manicures, pedicures, elbowicures, choctherapy, vinotherapy, tarmacotherapy, the works. The depilation was my favourite sight. As shown below, all low hanging branches were removed from the roadsides by men with slash-hooks aboard open-top double decker buses.

So the stage was set. Then pelting rain for days. Then came the storm. And a power cut right before the tournament would begin. The crews worked like Trojans through the night and restored it just in time. Restored it to the K-Club that is. The rest of us were left without for another 48 hours. The crews needed rest I was told. In an area devoid of mains water where private pumps are the norm, we sat in the dark, drinking souring milk and getting progressively smellier while the crews slept. But at least the Ryder Cup wasn’t affected an that’s what counted, isn’t it?

The residents of Straffan were well looked after. Well, sort of. They had the privilege of purchasing tickets. No freebies going from Ryder Cup Inc. And they couldn’t flog them on either - applications had to be accompanied by passport numbers and so on. A few got around this, but not many.

Those living outside the village of Straffan, semi-residents, would be ferried by shuttle bus. A strict cordon would be in place around the village and absolutely no private vehicles or pedestrians could pass through. My neighbour (who hates golf) and his 6 year old (golf fanatic) son strolled down to the junction on the Saturday morning and asked the Garda on duty what time the bus would arrive. It wouldn’t. There wasn’t one. He could go to another junction and meet it there. But that’s a 7km detour, he protested. Kind of stupid when the K-Club is less than 1km away. The cop agreed and my neighbour drove his manky builder’s van right into the village and parked up at the shop. Oh how he laughed.

If there was a ring of steel around Straffan, then there was a ring of copper further out, and one of wood outside that. We who weren’t eligible for resident stickers for our cars had often to convince grumpy Gardaí at the outer checkpoints that we actually did need to pass through. I chatted with a cute young Garda stationed near my house. How long was her day? 5am to 8pm. No relief? Only for loo breaks. I call on my mobile for someone to come. Don’t tell anyone - I’m not supposed to have my mobile with me. What about food? I have sambos but I can’t be seen eating them. She demonstrated how, from a distance, eating a ham & cheese could look like using a walkie-talkie. What exactly was her function? To guard this fecking tree as far as I can make out. Oh how she laughed.

We kept a tally on the number of golf-tourists visiting the local pub. (The owner had bought bunting and American flags to attract them and had stocked up on Bud and Coors). 7 in total. 7 over the whole week. 4 pints and 3 glasses. Oh how he laughed.

So who benefited from the Ryder Cup? Well the guys who set up the websites advertising properties for rent were paid handsomely by greedy home owners. Many of these owners paid for holidays or home improvements on the strength of income that never came. But that’s their tough and at least the tour operators and builders turned a shilling.

The village of Straffan got landscaped and streetscaped for free. They won in the Tidy Towns competition this year without hardly raising a finger.

Straffan and surrounds got upgraded roads. But that needed to be done anyway. And it isn’t the benefit we all thought it would be, for now the volume and speed of traffic has increased and residents take their lives in their hands getting out their own gateways.

Foot-shooting was the order of the day it would seem. The K-Club expected American golfers to come baying at their gates. But America lost so they’ve little interest. Plus their green fees are crazy. And up until Monday this week non-members could only play Mondays and Tuesdays.

Neighbouring golf clubs charged mega-bucks during the tournament. If I were an American golfer who played there would I even bother coming back after being screwed? I think not.

I could go on, but this is really about my memories of that great sporting spectacle. And what fond memories they are. Like all Paddys I thrive on being inconvenienced and witnessing bureaucracy mess up.