Lemon & lime & bitters, pool maintenance and early labour

Let me just say this. Probably the most thirst quenching, tasty and plain damn beautiful drink I've ever had (aside from a good afternoon pint of Guinness in a small country bar out west of Clare somewhere) and its made up of lemonade, lime and a few squirts of this Angostura bitters stuff. The last ingredient has some decent alcoholic content, perhaps the reason I like it so much, but I'm afraid I am addicted.

Another thing ye wouldn't come across in every day life back home. Hydrochloric acid. Yet I have a 5 litre container of it under the gaf now. Yes indeed, I thought pool maintenance was all about the net on the end of the long pole that the pool cleaner boy would use as you'd see him being seduced in those entertaining "movies" of yester year. But no no no. We fill up a little container of water and off we go to the pool shop - where the attendant duly takes it from us (as if a doctor taking a urine sample) and over he goes to his titrations kit. As we watch the colours go blue & pink and red (bringing back stinging memories of the chemistry lab in O'Connells where there was no way in the world anyone would have been trusted with anything other than a pipette and water) he calls out some stats to another bloke who puts the details into the computer. Whack the Enter button, then Bob's your uncle. Printout telling us we need 899 mls of Hydrochloric acid and 2 kgs of some sodium based balancing salt. Thanks mister, here's your 27 bucks and off we go.

Tell ye what though, it really is Hydrochloric acid. Spilt a drop on my foot and holy mother of Mary did it sting like bejaysus. And another piece of good advice, make sure ye cover the skimmer box when walking around the pool cleaning it with the vacuum underwater yolk. Bruising of the ankle, arm and arse less likely if ye don't go on your ear.

Onto labour. Funny, the movies would lead ye to believe that its a wham bam - there's the water breaking (nobody ever mentions the mucous plug eh??), ouch there's the contractions - off to hospital, an hour or two of agony for the poor mother to be and out she comes. Not so. Well, the early part anyway. So much so that ye can walk around a garden centre and enjoy the reaction of the staff when you respond to their question "How much longer do you have left?" with "Actually, I'm in labour at the moment".