Day 3

Dear Diary,

It was all go last night, believe me! Shortly after bedtime, not-so-owld Fergal Da Fecker emerged once again from The Petrol Station, shouting and raging and carrying on. And after about thirty minutes of this, during which he swung a very large hammer over his head and threatened to “kill da fecker wot cheated me,” I quite regretted the passing of owld Fingus Da Flatulator. He may not have amounted to much, did owld Fingus, but at least he was never violent. He certainly never went on the sort of rampages his son seems to favour (I am only assuming that Fergal was his son, but one never knows). In fact, when he was soused, which was every afternoon, he mostly went to sleep and made soft mewling noises. What’s more, owld Fingus never threatened to send his sheep to the abattoir. If he had, they might not have spent the evenings with him inside The Petrol Station, but that is another story for another time.

What I want to write about, dear diary, are the happenings of last night, or at least those about which I have some personal knowledge. I am, of course, at a disadvantage, for I slept unusually soundly and missed most of what went on. However, I expect I’ll get it all sorted out in my mind sooner or later.

In the meantime, we should probably start where we started before (before I went of on a tangent), with not-so-owld Fergal Da Fecker waving his hammer and threatening to kill (I presume) the man in the large car who bought the sheep with (allegedly) spurious currency. As I wrote, this went on for about thirty minutes, after which he flailed away at various objects that got in his way, his victims including the sign in front of The Petrol Station, a section of fence, several windows, an old chair and several bales of silage, all of which were happily minding their own business and doing nothing offensive whatsoever. I felt quite bad about the chair, being it was the one owld Fingus Da Flatulator liked to sit in of an afternoon when it wasn’t raining too hard.

After the thirty minutes had passed, leaving those of us who remained standing nervous wrecks, not-so-owld Fergal Da Fecker siphoned a pint of potheen from the petrol tank and went back inside. Almost immediately he was asleep, or at least if his snoring was anything to go by. And if it wasn’t snoring then the poor crayture suffers from the most dreadful catarrh.

Anyway, almost at once I could see the cows were upset about something and were packing their bags.

“We’re sorry to leave you alone,” they said to me (or at least the larger one – Milegarde - did). “But we’re not hanging about to be done in, and that’s a fact.” And with that they were off through the hole in the fence, the one they always used when the grass looked greener on the other side. Mind you, I suspected this time they weren’t just being greedy and were up to something. In the past, they never packed their belongings, and in the past owld Fingus Da Flatulator simply went out first thing in the morning and brought them back. This time, I had a feeling they were going to continue down the road to the other end of the island, and possibly beyond, that’s how many changes of clothing they’d packed into their udders. They didn’t want to be brought back, at least not by not-so-owld Fergal Da Fecker, whom they didn’t trust further than they could kick him in a gale.

I figured their chances were pretty good, what with him not knowing where to look for them and being unfamiliar with the usual hiding places on the island. I also figured he was so drunk he might not remember them at all. He’d probably think they were figments of his imagination. But such is life.

As I’d suspected, he didn’t miss the cows at all this morning. In fact, I don’t think he even knew where he was. He sort of held his head and swayed back and forth and sat down in owld Fingus Da Flatulator’s chair (the one he’d attacked with the hammer), only to have it break into bits underneath his scrawny arse. That made me laugh, it did, in spite of it being rude to laugh at someone else’s misfortune.

He spent some time on the ground, thrashing about like a mule what’s got stung by a bee. In fact, he might have remained where he was all afternoon, hadn’t a very large car pulled up and stopped in front of The Petrol Station. Right away, I wished I could have escaped with the cows, for I knew it was the same large car with the same large, well-dressed man who’d bought (with allegedly funny money) the ewes. However, either had not-so-owld Fergal Da Fecker forgiven him, or he had forgotten all about the affair, for no sooner had he laid eyed on the well-dressed gent than he broke out all smiles. I swear he would have touched his forelock if he’d been able to manage it without falling flat.

Anyway, the large, well-dressed gentleman pretended not to notice him (other than to wish him a very good day to you, my good man) and strolled around the back of The Petrol Station, directly to where I was sitting, minding my own business. He stood there for the longest time, eyeing me up and down and looking ever so critical, at which point I suddenly saw my life pass by my eyes, just as if I’d been drowning, and felt faint. I asked myself once again why I hadn’t I run away when I’d had the chance? But of course, the question had a certain rhetorical ring to it, didn’t it, seeing as how I can’t go anywhere without someone starting my engine, but we all live in hope, don’t we?

The large well-dressed man continued staring at me until my oil ran cold and then walked all the way around me, which was most upsetting, seeing as how I’ve not got eyes in back of my head. But then, just as quickly as he had come, he left. He walked directly to his large car, and drove off. Didn’t say a word or nothing, not even a quick ‘hello’ to not-so-owld Fergal Da Fecker. Not that Fergal would have heard anything anyway, what with him being so busy snoring on the spoilt chair.

I stayed up watching and waiting for a couple of hours, feeling almost like one of those sentries in front of a palace. However, in the end, not-so-owld Fergal Da Fecker got to his knees and crawled back into The Petrol Station. And I was alone.

And so, Dear Diary, I’m going to get some sleep. Not very much, of course. Without the sheep yakking away all night and keeping watch, my nerves are all a’jangle. If I survive, I’ll let you know what tomorrow brings.

And so endeth another day.