Tails From Provence

I’m kinda cheating with today’s Christmas Spirit video, because I’m using two videos.  If you’re not Irish (and of a certain age) you won’t have seen the first one, which was a long-running ad for the Irish electricity company back in the eighties.  It always gives me goose bumps, because for the four years I was away at college, that was ME getting off the train from Dublin, being met by my Dad and being driven to our family home.

Oh dear, I appear to have something in my eye… hang on…

Sniff.

The second one is a joke version of the first one and it cracks me up every time I see it.

On the LSH’s advice, I’ve decided to include a translation for all non-Irish readers.  I know one or two of you found the turkeys a little difficult to understand!

Alan: I’m back, Dad!
Dad: Hooray! How are you, son?  Are you long on the train?
Alan: Nine hours.  How’s Mam?
Dad: Herself?  She’s gone clean mad for the electricity now.  We’ve the lights and the kettle on day and night and that f*cking washing machine never stops at all, I can’t get a wink of sleep!
(Alan: My hair is so lovely the way it goes off to the side there.  Oh, I hope I don’t have to have a bath now when I go home.)
(Mam: Right, I’ll get the Manchester United towel out now for Alan’s bath and the immersion on.)
(Alan: I know, I’ll tell Mam I had a bath on the train, that’ll be gas.  Hope she puts on the electric blanket now, UP TO NINETY!)
Alan: Will Mam have the blanket on, Dad?
Dad: She will of course.  And the feckin’ lamp.
(Mam: Oh, he’d lovely hair when he was younger, I hope he hasn’t it cut short now, ‘tis lovely long.  God, I’d better turn down the heat a bit or Frankie’ll kill me!)
Dad: Do they have phone boxes over in Australia now?  They do, I suppose.
(Alan: I love cabbage.)
(Mam: A bit of cabbage now will be lovely.)
Dad: The ould town is gone to shit now altogether, you can’t get a good pint in town anymore.
(Mam: Where did I put the brown bread? Ah, I’m gone doddery!)
Dad: See the lights of the hotel? You’d swear t’was Las Vegas we were in!  Right, here we are.  Christ, she has every light on again.
Mam: Hello, son.  God, you’re looking great.  Go straight up now and have a bath.  I’ve the immersion on above.  Good man yourself.  I’ll be up to wash your hair in a minute.
Alan: I can wash my own hair now, Mam.
Dad: You can in your hole, get up now out of that!

I’m dedicating today’s post to Margaret over at A Year in Redwood.  I found Margaret’s blog via Blog Awards Ireland, and we stalk check out each others posts regularly ever since.  She blogs about her life since she left Dublin to live on a farm/B&B in the wilds of North Tipperary – check her out!  Wouldn’t it be a nice place to stay?