Hmm, St Paddy's day.

I was just having another lazy day before going back to work next week.

I was still lying in bed at 11am, when the phone rang.

I answered it, it was my mate who's dad owns the air conditioning business I used to work for.

He asked what I was doing today, and said "nothing", he asked if I wanted to go out and do something for St Paddy's day, since he had the day off. He thought the other guy that lives there, my mate that works from the ABC was home too.

He went and kicked his door, and confirmed that he was home, so we planned to go and do something, it was looking like a bit of a crappy day, and since I'm not supposed to ride, they said they'd get ready, and turn up in a little while.

I got up, had a shower and started getting ready. I figured I'd wear my green suit, since I had been planning to wear it to work today, I'd thought about it before I went on the holiday and found out my license was suspended.

I finished getting ready, and was sitting on the computer when my mates turned up.

We sat around for a short while, we all had a beer, I called a taxi.

We chatted for a little while, and the taxi turned up about 10 minutes later, damn, that was quick.

They left the half beers, we jumped in the taxi, and went into Gosford.

We went to a reasonable looking pub on the main street, I haven't been in there before, since they aren't open late. I got a guiness, my mates got other drinks, and we looked at the menu, trying to work out what to get for lunch.

Nothing much grabbed our fancy on the menu, so we figured we'd just have our drinks, and then keep going, and get lunch somewhere else.

We sat and drank, and chatted. My mate called our other mate, the guy I'd just been on holidays with, he said he'd come down in about an hour. When we finished our drinks, we left, and walked down the street.

As we were waiting to cross the road, my mate spotted a chick that we all know, because she went to the school I went to, and then she left when I left, and we were both at Tafe (she was doing her HSC there, I was doing my first IT course), she packed it in, and went back to school, but went back to a different school, the one my mate had gone to.

We crossed the road, and then started talking to her, she's working in some temping agency in Gosford. She's not bad looking, it's too bad she's a religious freak.

While we were talking to her, some half pissed bloke wearing a green plastic hat came up and complimented me on making an effort on the day, wearing green.

Yeah, whatever mate, and then he left. We finished our conversation and kept walking.

We were heading across to Iguana Joes to get some lunch, it started raining a little bit heavier as we got closer. We were walking across the sports field towards the club, and I noticed that I had a large amount of blood all over my hand.

What the hell is this? I had a scratch or something on my hand, and blood was just pouring out of it.

We continued walking to the club, and went in. I went into the toilets to wash my hand, and work out where it was bleeding from, after washing the blood off, I couldn't find where it had come from, it must have stopped then.

While I was in here, I noticed how lower class it had become. When this place first opened, the sinks were very classy, the taps were sensor operated, you just wave your hand under the tap, and could adjust the temperature depending on which side you put your hand, the sink is just a large slab of marble or similar, sloping backwards, and the water runs down a gap at the back.

Now, the sensor taps have all been removed, and they have replaced them with really scungy looking normal taps, that are just cold water, and a grill of chicken wire has been put in the gap at the back of the sink.

I finished in there, and went back out into the main area of the club.

My mates and I went and got in the line to order food, that didn't take too long, I ordered a steak.

We grabbed some drinks, I ordered a Bundy and coke, my mate commented that it was a good Irish drink, to which I replied that I'd already had a Guinness today, and what had he had?

We took our drinks, and went and sat outside. We chatted for a minute, and because there were a couple of empty pool tables, my mate said we should play, so we all moved over near the pool table.

He and I played pool, I don't remember who won, he probably did, but he commented that I'm no where near as crappy a player as I used to be.

The few games I've played while hanging out in Maitland must have been some good practice.

We went and sat down again, chatted, and a little while later our mate that had been called up earlier arrived.

We finished our drinks, and I went and shouted more, this time I had a Jameson and Coke.

On my way back to the table, some woman shouted that "I probably wasn't even Irish!" commenting on my green suit and hair presumably. I replied "no, but I am a Quigley", so she said "that's alright then".

I got back to the table, and our food had been served, and our mate that had just arrived had collected mine for me.

There was a huge steak on the plate, it filled up half the plate, I wonder if I can even get through it.

Our mate went and ordered some food, we continued eating, and chatting, he came back from ordering a couple of minutes later.

A little while after that, some woman comes around asking about the cars that people are driving, because someone's left their headlights on.. my mate had, so he went out and turned them off.

My mates went and got themselves a bottle of wine. I said I didn't want any, because of the preservative 220 in it, but they said it was a really nice wine, so I ended up having a glass of it, it wasn't bad either.

The others had only got tiny steaks, which they said were terrific, but they'd finished, so it was just me still eating, but I was able to take my time, because my mate was still waiting on his, which arrived a couple of minutes later.

We continued chatting, both my mate and I eating, and then when we'd all finished our meals, we just chatted for a while.

There was bugger all going on in this pub, so we decided that we'd all go around to our mates' place (the guy who's dad owns the aircon business, and the guy that works at abc).

We went out to the car that my mate had driven down in (becaue we'd got the taxi), and we all got in, it was starting to rain a bit heavier now.

My mate started the car, and started reversing out of the parking space, and then the car stalled. Hmm, this is an automatic, how do you stall an automatic?

He tried to start it again, but it wouldn't start. We were blocking a car that was trying to get out of the carpark, so 3 of us jumped out, and pushed the car back into the spot.

My mate tried for a few minutes to start the car, but it wouldn't start. It was turning over with no problem, but it just wouldn't fire.

We jumped out, opened the bonnet, I went about checking everything obvious, spark leads, battery terminals, nothing looked obviously wrong.

My mate tried started it again, and it would just turn over and over, but not fire. I suspect it's got something to do with fuel.

My mate called up the NRMA, to find out about getting someone out to look at it, he was told that the car wasn't listed on his memebership, so he'd have to pay the membership for the car.

We looked, and there was no fuel, so we told our mate to call them back, after we tried putting some fuel in, rather than pay $80 or whatever to join the car to NRMA, have the guy turn up in an hour, and put some fuel in it.

So he said he'd call them back, and hung up. We tried to think of anyone that could give us a lift to the service station, since it was raining, and really windy now, but we couldn't think of anyone.

The 4 of us started walking the kilometre or so to the nearest service station, we got about 1/3 the way there, when my mate realised he could have called his dad, so he did, and he said he'd come down in a bit, so we walked back to the car/club again.

We all sat in the car, and waited. We sat here for about 10 minutes, and then someone asked the question "why are we all sitting crammed in this car, when we're parked at a perfectly good pub?", so we all got out of the car, and went back inside again.

We ordered more drinks, I had a Glenfiddich on the rocks this time, we sat and chatted, and waited. After about 15 minutes, we'd finished our drinks, so we went back out to the car again, and my mate tried starting it again, but it was still no good.

A couple of minutes later my mate's dad turned up, we grabbed a jerry can of fuel off him, and my mate put it into the car, then my other mate tried starting it again, over and over, but it was still no good.

Someone had the bright idea of trying to jump start the car, which I thought was ridiculous, it wasn't going to work, because the car was turning over and over without issue, the radio was working, the lights were on, it's nothing to do with the battery.

They wouldn't hear it, and said it was "worth a try anyway". Whatever you reckon. I was expecting several minutes of mucking around, positioning the other car, and putting the jumper leads on etc, all for nothing, but then my mate went into the back of the car his dad was driving, and pulled out this self contained jump start thing.

It must have a couple of big capacitors in it or something. He went about connecting that up to the battery, and then my mate tried starting the car, but, what a surprise, it did absolutely nothing, and made no difference, and the car still didn't start.

I said again that I thought it must have something to do with the fuel, perhaps the fuel pump is buggered.

My mate decided to call the NRMA again, join the car, and get someone out here to look at it.

We left him with the car, calling NRMA, and the other 3 of us piled into the car with my mate's dad.

It was raining quite heavily now, and as I got in, I noticed that I had green shit running out of my hair, down my face.

My mate told me not to drip it on the seat or anything, but then his dad said it didn't matter, because the car had been written off from the hail damage a few weeks ago, or whenever that huge hail storm was.

My mate's dad took us all back to my place, where my mate had left his car.

I quickly came inside, cleaned the green shit off my head and face, and dried my hair a bit, and then went and jumped in their car.

We went back down to Iguana Joes again, spoke to my mate, waiting in the stuffed car. He'd called NRMA, arranged for someone to come out to look at the car, but they wouldn't be there for another hour.

We decided to go to the supermarket, and get some grog and stuff to take back to our mate's place if we ever got there, so we jumped back in the car, and drove over to the supermarket, leaving my mate to wait for the NRMA again.

We ll went into the bottle shop, I bought a bottle of Glenfiddich. It was up in a locked case, so I had to ask one of the staff to get it for me, some woman came from behind the counter to get it, and commented that she had to feel my suit, and did. Wow, polyester.

I wanted some ice to go with it, but inconveniently the bottle shop doesn't have ice, so I had to go into the supermarket to get it. I then got stuck in a line in there, buying one damn thing (where's the express lane for people buying 1 thing, and paying with cash?).

I finally got through there, the others were waiting in the car, and my hands were full, otherwise I probably would have gone to the bakery to get something to eat.

I got back in the car, and we took off again, driving back to find out how my mate was going.

When we got back, the NRMA was there. It looked like the guy was packing up to leave. I asked him what the story was, what it was, if he'd fixed it etc.

He didn't tell me much, only that it was something to do with the fuel pump (he suspected), but he couldn't fix it, so had called a tow truck.

He finished packing up his tools and whatever, got in his car, and left.

It was still raining, so we got in the car with our mate again. He told us the same thing, it was supposed to be the fuel pump, the guy couldn't fix it, and now he had to wait for the tow truck.

My phone rang, it was a guy from work. I can't remember what the conversation was about, but more than likely something to do with something at work.

While I was on the phone, the tow truck turned up, so we all got out of the car, my mate gave the keys to the tow truck driver, and arranged for the car to be towed to the Holden dealer nearby, so then we all got in the other car, and drove around to the Holden dealer.

We sat in the car for a minutes, the tow truck turned up and the guy unloaded the car, and we headed into the office to book it in.

The guy asked what the story was, and my mate started telling him, but was leaving out some of the details, so I interjected to tell the guy how the car had started, had then stalled etc, in case it gave him a better idea of what had gone wrong.

My mate got pretty pissed off, but I just said that he might have needed a bit more information than he was giving him, anyway, the car got booked in after all that.

We went back and got in the car, and my mate drove us all back to his place.

We unloaded the grog and stuff from the car, went in, sat down, and had drinks.

My mate's dad has bought another projector "for work", and my mate's got it attached to his computer at the moment, so he just crapped around on there for ages. I got fed up, and started mucking around with the receiver, trying to put the radio on, because it was so boring.

Our mate who just dropped his sister's car off to get fixed noticed me trying to put the radio on, and said to our other mate to put some music on or something.

He pissed around with the computer a bit more, and eventually put "Me, Myself and Irene" on.

I've seen this before, and wasn't terribly impressed with it, but I sat and watched it again anyway, while drinking glasses of Glenfiddich.

When the movie finished, someone brought out a bottle of Bundy liqueur, so we all had some of that, and then I finished it off.

We sat around more while my mate stuffed around on the computer, a little while later he put on "Supertroopers".

I drank more of the Glenfiddich, watched the movie.

When that finished, my mte started stuffing around on the computer again. I was getting a bit bored.

My mate started playing some boring shootemup game on the projector after that, and I was contemplating walking home before I fell asleep.

Eventually someone else got the shits with that, so then my mate put on "Bad Santa", and I watched that properly, I'd already seen the first half of it at another mate's place a few months ago, one morning after we'd all been drinking, and when everyone had fallen asleep, he turned it off.

That wasn't a bad movie, seeing it properly, and in full.

While we were still watching the movie, a bit after midnight, my mate goes like "what day is it??", and we tell him, and he realises that he was supposed to go to second part of a first aid course a few hours ago. Oops.

We kept watching the movie, and our mate went and put some mini pizzas in the oven, good stuff, I'm starving, we didn't eat dinner either.

When the movie finished, at about 1am, my mate and I spoke about walking back to our homes, but our mate said he'd give us a lift back, because he hadn't drank all that much, so he did.

I couldn't be bothered doing anything when I got home, I just went to bed.