A run away memory

It’s late June 1985 and we’ve still got the green door at 14 st Cummins hill, come in through it and past the cabinet where Dad keeps his watches, you can hear the cockatiels and budgies squawking in the huge cage above the television, Dad’s in there reading the paper and watching the news at the same time and telling the birds to shut up, down the short hallway to the kitchen, there's a new phone on the wall, 31497, we are the four hundredth and ninety-seventh line registered in the Killybegs area, Mum is changing baby Alan on the kitchen table, and there’s a CB radio screwed to the wall above the guinea pig cage, poop droppings are all over the floor, stepping over them and into the back hallway, there are two hamsters in a cage and Jenny is making them eat hazelnuts and they are storing them in their fat little cheeks, you can see black paint marks still on the wall where we painted the walls and ourselves and got into so much trouble, the back door is open and it’s only a small step down into the back garden, sheets are blowing in the soft summer wind from the clothesline, Derek is changing the bedding in the rabbit hutch and he’s still upset that the daddy rabbit eat one of the baby ones, so he’s not being nice to him and big Sandy is cowering in a corner, we think she’s sad that her babies are dead, but our dog Snoopy is sitting at attention at Derek’s feet wondering what he can do to help, Derek doesn’t want my help and I go into the coal shed and there is the distinct smell of kittens in the air, Mammy Cat has just given birth again and now that they are getting bigger we’ve made a bed for them in the smoker, it’s completely rusted and I can never remember it being otherwise, ‘cause in 1985 I am seven years old and can’t remember the smoker being anything other than a place for animals to have their babies, our old Irish setter Sherry had 21 puppies in there and we think that is a Guinness world record, but we never got it verified with Roy Castle, I reach my hand into the mess of blankets and pull out a wee black kitten and it meows in my face and Mammy Cat eyes me to make sure I don’t hurt it, Dad says we’ve got “too many fucking animals” and Mum says we are going to have to purge them especially if we move into her dream home, the actual home doesn’t exist yet, but the picture in her head does and when we drive around on Sundays we see loads of houses and the one we all like the best is Rossbeg House that the Classon's own, and it’s on the beach and there was a dead seal on the beach last time we where there and the bathroom is bigger than our kitchen and we’d have to go to school in Ardara, so I put the kitten back and cluck my cheeks at Snoopy and run out the back gate and go up the mountain to meet up with the boys.