Infancy with Miss Hannigan

The Irish summer has been in force all weekend hence instead of being my usual doom and gloom self I've gracefully converted to being a youthful happy chappie. This has regrettably left me with little to whine and grumble over (always one for outlining the negative in everything). For this reason I have commenced reminiscing summers and long weekends at our malicious aunt's shambles of a house and as the title suggests you can rightfully guess that she wasn't exactly the most nurturing matron. Here's five features worth reading that were always a prominent part of our stopover. Furthermore, if you were immersed in by the musical accredited headline then I do apologise if I deceived you but the only thing this passage has in common with that tuneful film is an array of inconsolable children singing in hope about a figurative brighter 'tomorrow'.

1. Eighty percent of our stay we were padlocked out of her house and out of her way. She deposited us into her wasteland of a back garden which resembled an oppressive prison yard. Where she had formulated a simple-minded rota where two of us were continuously shielding her turf (which was just mounded aimlessly in the middle of the yard). She even armed us with wedges of timber, as her embezzling neighbours considered her a manageable target for theft.

2. We were fed once a day therefore starvation and malnourishment were standard characteristics to retain. When nourished it was substantial that we were overloaded with leek themed everything. Yes, leek cereal, leek soup and our favourite leek spaghetti bolognese. Occasionally she had one delicacy to submit in our direction~ the exquisite plain and hollow burger bun (beef burgers were merely too extravagant). Needless to say regularly we found ourselves collectively battling rats for the cheese on the mousetraps.

3. Sleeping arrangements were liable to change every night. If you snoozed under the dinning room table one night you were revamped the following bedtime to slumbering in a bathtub or hallway landing. Those fortunate enough of us to secure a bed were violated into sleeping alongside a dirty hairy teddy-bear or auntie Hannigan's novelty pig replicated sex toy.

4. Señorita Hannigan had this ridiculous love interest. He owned this humiliating washing machine engined car. Repeatedly this complete stranger would escort us in his wagon of a vehicle to random fast-food restaurants throughout the country and make us focus on his pursuits into grazing on different kebabs. He also possessed this beard that amazingly always had Cheese-Puffs submerged into it.

5. Lastly madame worked as a cleaner in an undersized rural school (she proclaimed to us that she was in fact a teacher). She would usher us into the establishment and while we were contrived into operating her duties she would lounge in the staffroom feasting on the employees' biscuits, slurping their tea and seemingly photocopying her individual body parts.