The Journal and Jottings of a Working Leprechaun.
Hi, I am Bert and yes, I am the working leprechaun, or lep, as we more commonly call ourselves, in question. Now before you read any further I ought to tell you some things. If you think I am going to go through this journal showering people with gold, wearing a pointed hat, saying "Toppa the mornin' to ya!" and getting into fights, you are going to be sorely disappointed! I do not wear much green, I do not have an Irish accent, I cannot grant wishes, I hate pottine, I grew up in London and I live in a flat in south Wales. Yes, honestly, I do!
Before your preconceptions are all shattered, let me tell you I am a magical creature, although what we use we do not actually call magic, we call it "The Helping Hand". As you read on you will see exactly why that is. the Hand helps me to do my job, which is to look after my two humans. A lot of us leps, although we live in the human world, do not have too much to do with humans, in fact we spend most of our time trying hard to avoid them, but I am different.
There are a select few leprechauns who grow up that way. These leps seem to want to know a lot more about the leprechaun code, the strict rules by which we live, than most of us who are mainly concerned with putting food on the table and keeping the walls and roof waterproof. They get hold of all the books they can, they find out about the helping hand, study and cultivate it, in the hope that they will see green stars on their thirteenth birthday and be chosen for Shana-sherin.
This is a haphazard cluster of low white buildings somewhere in the Old Country, that’s Ireland, in case you were in any doubt, where those leps who are deemed worthy to work with humans are trained. The training is long and hard. They are allowed no time off, no visitors, no distractions. They learn human history, cookery to Cordon Bleu standard, good housekeeping, gardening, sometimes a language, depending on where they are being sent, studies in human behaviour and many other things. At the end of his training a lep is paired with a human. He is expected to remain at his post for as long as he is needed and to do whatever he is told without question. It is the very highest honour to be chosen for Shana-Sherin. It is said that the heads of the Academy know you when you are born. If you were not chosen then, no amount of study will ever make you chosen.
On my thirteenth birthday the head of all houses at the academy of Shana-Sherin appeared in a swirl of green stars during my birthday tea and told me that I had been chosen as one of the lucky few who were fitted for training to live and work with humans. I was taken away from my family with barely time for a goodbye and transported to the academy. There I underwent seventeen years of rigorous training. At the end of that I was posted to my first job. I have worked at it for over three years now and I would not change places with any other lep in the world.
What you are about to embark on is about ten months of my private journal padded out and, I hope, made more interesting with sundry Emails, Skype chats, Facebook conversations and even maybe text messages which will allow you to get much more insight into the way in which I live and work. As you will see, when transcribing Facebook and other online chats I have not given full names. This both cuts down excess information which subtracts from the main body of the chat and safeguards my family’s privacy.
When one begins to read a journal one gets plunged into the middle of someone else's life. Until you get into the story you are left with about a million questions to which you urgently need answers. I have tried to foresee some of these and to give you the answers you might want.
Who is Brian?
Brian is my employer. I have, as I have said, worked with him for over three years now. He used to live at what I now call the Merseyside Tomb before moving down here to Wales. We have had our ups and downs and minor ructions but on the whole we get on very well. My work for him consists of housework, cooking, taking care of the house, when we had a house and the flat now we have one of those and, best of all, audio production work. Brian's absolute passion is working on the radio. This involves lots of recording of small radio commercials, known in radio jargon as promos, also features and documentaries. These promos have often featured a small lep of your acquaintance, who the listeners think is a figment of his and L’s imagination, that is a really funny joke to me! I also help out with lots of fiddly research and editing for the features and documentaries. Fitting all this in around the housework can sometimes be a bit tricky, no, make that a lot tricky, but I always manage it with never a grumpy word. Well, ok, hardly a grumpy word.
Who is L?
L? Ah, L is many things., but I do not want you to shut this book in disgust, or heave all over your chosen reading device, so I will try very hard not to get too soppy here. To be very bald and factual, L is Louise, or Lulu. She started off by being Brian's friend and co-manager of a radio station they own and is now his - oh, what is the right word here? Girlfriend? Partner? Other half? Take your pick! Do you sense a slight snarl here? Yes, well, I am a touch prickly on this subject. I may as well come out and tell you that when this journal started I had been carrying a torch for L for, oh, months and months. It's no good though and never can be, even if she and Brian weren't so happy together, the reasons will become clear, but one of the biggest hills I have climbed this year has been learning to accept that, I think.
Who Is Hinky?
Hinky is an elf and used to be my best friend before he took a job in the US and left me holding a very hot baby and a pile of forwarded junk mail.
Who is Tealy?
Tealy is Hinky’s ex-girlfriend and the hot baby in question. She got left on my hands and gave me more than one problem to deal with this year. I will not tell you much more than that, you will find out all about her in due time.
What Is The Lair?
The Lair, or The Bear's Lair, is what I call home. L calls her radio show The Bear's Lair, because it is what her friends sometimes call her home, so when Brian used to tell me we were going there for the weekend, he would say "We're going to The Lair." so that is how I always think of it, even though I live there now.
What happened this year, before the journal begins?
Ah, good question! Well, let me see. I was actually lucky to start this year at all, as just before Christmas I got hit by a car, giving myself a nasty bang on the head, a broken arm, broken ribs and multiple cuts and bruises. It is a good job I can usually pass for a human toddler if you discount my ears. Of course, it is a bit difficult to discount them when I am in theatre and a surgeon is operating on my head. It gets even more difficult when two distraught elves with furry heads and big ears turn up in my hospital room. It is a very good job that Hinky and Tealy have a lot more magic than I do, because they had to administer charms all over the place, mostly invisibility ones, what we call NoSeeMees, these had to be cunningly placed to hide not only the elves but also my aforementioned ears, which are small and pointy and stick up through my sandy blond curls in a most unhuman way. Luckily Hink knew what he was doing, so the doctors and nurses thought I was Brian and L's cute little boy.
Well I came out of the week long coma, you will hear all about that in due course and then started to recover. It was a rather difficult time for all of us. Brian had to go on with his work up in Merseyside, so L was left to look after me and what with the mending bones and battered skull, my temper was not very good. It was made even worse when I caught a bad chest infection, so had to stay in hospital until I was over that. Great was the relief when finally I was able to leave and got home on a Thursday night, just in time to hear L do a radio show.
In February I pottered around the house mostly, testing my wobbly arms and legs, doing housework and getting stronger. I remember some very funny experiences, as I had to use the Helping Hand to aid me in household chores. I will never forget the day I had a nice fat roast chicken hovering in the air, on the way to the kitchen counter, with the tray of roast potatoes just behind it. I was just turning to see if I could get the sprouts to, when Brian came wandering into the kitchen to ask me something. Using the Hand to keep things hovering in the air takes concentration. I got distracted and turned back to my task to see the whole lot headed gracefully for the floor. I only just caught them in time!
In March, something very sad happened. Brian and L's radio station, Team-Fm, went off the air for a while. Suddenly I became nothing more than a house lep. there was no more audio production work for me to do. I think what was hardest for me was to see how upset Brian and L were. But three good things came out of that very sad time. It brought the three of us closer, I think, it made Brian and L stronger and made them try harder, as you will see and, lastly, I got so terribly bored that I started to write this journal.
I have really grown to love my journal. Sometimes I have written daily, sometimes only once every couple of weeks, but it has become like a friend I have always come back to. In looking back over the year I can see what a long way I have come. I look at some of the earlier entries and the way I would deal with things and think, stars, Bert, did you really do that? But that is what you do in life. You grow up, you learn, you move forward. I hope to keep doing it next year and the year after.
I hope you enjoy my journal and jottings. Big smiles.