Beats so big I'm steppin' on leprechauns

I'm determined to get my posting back on track but I don't want to post any old crap.

The two subjects I could easily post about are a) run-ins with the law, but that's over and done now and b) soppy, doe-eyed posts about le FP. Which, let's face it, no-one needs right now.

Luckily, my family are alive and crazy and provide never-ending blog fodder.

Take my Aunt for example. No, really, take her. As far away as possible. Ha ha.

She's the older sister to my Mother, and trust me when I say that Aunty definitely got the crazy gene. uh-huh. She got it.

Problem is, she drinks a lot and she's accident prone. Things that don't go together very well. Last time she visited me in Paris she ended up in hospital having dislocated her arm. She did this when she tripped in the middle of the road in front of the Eiffel Tower. When I asked why she wasn't watching where she was going she said simply that she hadn't seen anything quite so phallic in a long time and was just 'admiring its beauty'....

Equally, let's not forget that this is the same woman who - when pretending to be blind - fell down the stairs, having mistaken the door to the stairway for the door to her bedroom. That ended with a broken wrist.

At the moment, my Mother is living with this sister, my Aunt. Mom sold her house recently and has bought a new place, but it's being 'brought up to standard' as she likes to say to her friends. So while the works are being carried out, she's shacking up with her big sis.

The first day that they are room-mates, I get a call from my Mom.

"Your Aunt is in hospital", she said wearily. "She's broken some ribs"

"How on earth...." said I.

"She was stretching to trim her clematis when the rabbit she was standing on gave way. She fell backwards, hit her head on a tortoise and broke her ribs on a little girl with a puppy."

I kid ye not. This was my Mother's explanation of events.

"Did you explain this to the doctor?" I asked.

"Yes" she said. "He didn't seem impressed. But then I don't think they have garden ornaments in India, or wherever it is he's from."

You see, my Aunt's garden has for a long time been a health hazard.

On many occasions I've nearly twisted my ankle on a concrete frog, or bruised my shin on a donkey with baskets. It's like an awful, babes-in-the-wood-meets-tim-burton nightmare of a garden. Wherever you turn there are dull concrete eyes staring at you, lifeless, desperate to be turned back into their living, breathing forms.

"The thing that has upset her most" said my Mom, "is that she broke her 'I wuv you' when she fell".

"What?"

"The little girl with the puppy. She's always called it her 'I wuv you' - that's what she thinks the little girl is saying to the puppy".

"Please stop"

"No, really, she fell on her 'I wuv you' and she broke the girls head off. She's planning to get it fixed though, once she's up and about again."

The next day, my Mom called me again.

My Aunt had returned home from hospital the day before and gone straight to bed feeling queasy and shakey.

The next morning she had woken up blind. Yes, blind. Couldn't see a thing. She couldn't open her eyes and when she did so manually she couldn't see anything.

"Doctor says it's the shock" said my Mother.

"Just tell her to stay out of the garden" I replied. "And away from the staircase".