chateau life

Evening at the chateau.
The mighty Heelers is browsing in the kitchen over a coffee.
His handsome preraphaelite features are relaxed and meditative.
Enter the Dad stage left.
The Dad looks like death warmed up.
"Are you alright Dad?" quoths Ireland's greatest living poet, for he is nothing if not a good son.
Wordlessly the venerable patriarch goes to a drawer and rummages for something medicinal.
Soon he is downing a glass of water mixed with aspirin.
And lo.
A change is wrought.
The Dad perks up.
Almost immediately he looks about 20 years younger. A spirit of action seizes him. He begins pottering at the cooker. Pots, pans, pork chops. All is motion.
In fact I haven't seen him so lively since old Granny Healy in Texas fell down her own oil well.
(Thank you to Judy Annual circa 1970 for that joke - Ed note.)
I am indeed most pleased at this rallying of the Republic, because I sense that all things being equal, a pork chop may shortly be coming Heelwards.
Enter my sister in law Jackie stage right.
"What are you at Mr H?" sez she to the Dad.
The Dad barely pauses from his activities.
"I was feeling a bit sick," he explains. "But I took some aspirin and now I'm right as rain."
Jackie picks up the packet of aspirin and peers at it.
"Look," she proclaims brightly. "It says on the label: Best Before March 2000. They're seven years out of date."
The Dad halts in mid chop sizzle.
He appears mildly nonplussed.
He has turned a brighter shade of green.
He now looks about twenty years older than he did when he came in first.
There is a moment's awkward silence.
"Never mind Dad old pal," chimes in me from the cheap seats. "They say what doesn't kill you will only make you stronger. Is there e're an ould pork chop for me?"