Sunday, October 31, 2010

What I've Been Missing

So I says to Bert,

Y'know how long it's been since I walked the path to Gillies?


No. How long's it been?

I've not been on that walk since the 9th January, 2010!


Why'd you leave it so long?

Last time I was on that walk some boy yapped at me for not having Bonnie on a lead.

What did you say to him?

I said nothing to him.

Coofy!

No. I never said a word. I just punched him to the ground, kicked him in the balls and rolled him into the river.

Was he an oul' fellow?

Nah. He was some young buck. But that's why I wanted to avoid that particular walk for a while.

Saturday, October 30, 2010

Kelly Quagmire

Wee Kelly Osbourne has been on a diet (so she says) and has lost a lot of tonnage. This makes her happy and instead of scowling on the red carpet she now grins a lot. Only thing is, even without the face padding, her admirers have discovered that her jaw really is that broad. This is who she reminds me of now.

Thursday, October 28, 2010

Long Noses Come Home

I happened to mention to the brother, the out-of-town one, the Vancouver one – that we’d got our pork coming and he said, for he’s a bit of a wind-up merchant,

I don’t know how you can do that.

Do what?

Eat pork.

What d’ye mean?

Well – eat pigs and there you are keeping pet pigs. I mean, could you imagine eating Lily and Rusty?

So I said to him,

Well. It’s like this. Imagine it. It’s like you keep chickens. You keep them for eggs and meat. Every now and again you pull a few necks, do a bit of plucking, get them in the freezer,

He says,

And your point is?

And I say,

And in the house you’ve got this awesome talking parrot…

So tonight we’re divvying out the pig. Dave and Zoe have got half of Pig No 1, shared with us. He was rather a big lad. Many the time we marvelled at the size of his balls. Marty got half of Pig No. 4, a much smaller pig, although Marty thought it was more pork than he’d seen in a while. That shelf of the freezer Mrs Marty had cleared out was not going to do the job at all.

When all the divvying was done Bert and I sat looking at the boxes that were marked Pig No 1 and Pig No 4. I said,

Can you imagine if we’d named them and those boxes had on them instead of numbers a name like Flossie or Boris or somesuch. Can you imagine how we’d feel about that?

We called those pigs the Long Noses. We were good to them but we did not get friendly with them.

Wednesday, October 27, 2010

Highly Recommended

I have stumbled upon this wonderful, intelligent and darkly funny blog. It is called Hyperbole and a Half.

The blog's creator Allie Brosh has an amazing artistic talent and twisted, honest way of looking at the world. This is one of my favourite posts. I LOVE those dog pictures. Hell I love that dog. Even though she is retarded.

I'd show you one of those doggy pictures but I'm too afraid. Allie keeps a Copyright Monster and it has slavering jaws and big sharp teeth.

Tuesday, October 26, 2010

A Possible Career Change...

...for me as a surrogate Mum for passing rock bands. No rough types need apply and they must love animals. Whether that be for eating or petting. Matching socks are optional

Sunday, October 24, 2010

Then and Now

2010 - Children found working in Worcestershire field. Picking spring onions. Police called. Children taken into police protection.

1970 - Children found working in County Antrim field. Picking spuds. Nobody cares. Uncle Kevin totally gets away with it.

Saturday, October 23, 2010

Happy Birthday JGB


Happy Birthday to Sister J, Cousin J and Best English Teacher Ever - BD.

Thursday, October 21, 2010

More Tales From The Negative Scanner

Hannah and Katy should both sack the stylist! Mmmm. That would have been me.

Tuesday, October 19, 2010

Love Me, Love My Pigs

Rusty and Lily were close companions right from the start.

Matty said to me this evening,

Is it true there's a picture of you on the internet lying with those pigs in a pigsty?

Um. I wasn't actually lying, just sort of, y'know, reclining and it wasn't in a dirty part or anything....

Humph. That's a nice thing to have the world to see. Our Eamon told me.


Thanks bruv.

Honestly! Life was far simpler before they told Matty about the internet.

Sunday, October 17, 2010

The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Dog

Bert asking directions to our holiday house.

So. That was my long-awaited break, just a little old weekend in Malin Head, Donegal. It started off well. We had a nice drive down; it wasn’t that hard to find the house where we were staying, we had a meal in the village of Malin, and then a good brisk walk on Five Fingers Strand. We went back to the house which was very comfortable and enjoyed a few glasses of wine.

I wasn’t feeling that great when I laid my head down to sleep but I put that down to the salad in Malin. Given a choice of more than one place to eat Bert will always pick the one that looks a bit cheap. It’s not that he cannot afford the nicer places, just that he thinks he has to be ironed, shaved and brylcreemed to enter a better establishment. This of course is nonsense. Now that the Celtic Tiger has breathed his last and is mouldering in the grave, any dining place is pleased to welcome a man with a pocket full of Euros and no mind will be paid to his unpolished Converse or to the straw and sawdust sticking to his pixie. But I was too hungry to argue. We entered the café which was staffed with young women with red hair and I’m not talking ginger, I’m talking cerise and they had facial piercings. Sorry. Call me a square, or whatever the young and hip call squares these days, but I hate facial piercings nearly as much as I hate tattoos. We chose our main courses. I decided I didn’t want a whole portion of chips and Bert agreed we should share. I ordered a salad. When will I ever learn? For there are still huge swathes of Ireland that do not understand the concept of salad.

When I think of salad I think of green leafy vegetables, a slice or two of tomato, maybe some scallion or sliced onion. I think of a smear of dressing, vinegary and oily. When cerise-headed, facially pierced girls think of salad, as did their mothers and grandmothers before them, they think of chunks of iceberg lettuce (yuck), hags of tomatoes, lumps of scallion, great shreds of red and green peppers, boiled rice (why?) and a great big fucking boiled egg. The only thing that might come close to a dressing would be the disgusting, glutinous mess they call coleslaw. Needless to say it was stinking but because I’ve been taught that leaving one’s vegetables is a sin I ate as much as I could which amounted to about a third of it. I never lipped the rice or coleslaw and I only had half a boiled egg. I hate myself for it now. How I wished Lily and Rusty were there for they would have eaten all that vegetable rubbish and declared it awesome tucker.

The fact is you’ll never hate a foodstuff as much as when you’re reintroduced to it at a later point. I’ve said I felt queasy and sick when I was going to sleep. Ha! Sleep! Precious little of that I got. Up and down all night saying ‘Hi Ya!’ to every morsel of food I ate that day. I’m never drinking red wine again either. It’s Gordon’s Gin all the way for me now.

The next day I was still feeling crook but I trailed myself out and we went to the actual Malin Head which is supposed to be the most northerly point in Ireland. It’s also happens to be in the South of Ireland but that’s a slightly complicated tale for those who are not overly familiar with early 20th century Irish history. On the way there Bert said,

Do you remember the last time we were here?

Were we? Can’t say I do. When was this?

Not that long ago.

Are you sure? Nothing looks familiar.

I’m sure.

I can honestly say I don’t think I’ve ever been here in my life.

You were.

Bert went for an hour’s walk when we were there. I’m afraid I just dozed in the car. And when he came back I asked to go back to the house. I was sick for the whole of the day which I spent in bed. Bert had to go to Carndonagh to get me Imodium for I was that bad. I’ve never taken that drug in my life before but I knew people are advised to pack it when going abroad. I never thought I’d need it in Donegal. But – it worked.

We discussed going home but I wasn’t fit for the journey. Instead I said to Bert to get out and about and make the most of it and he did.

I got up at around seven that evening and ate a plain yogurt. We watched some TV. We had just two channels to choose from which was strangely relaxing. We watched the GAA awards, a documentary about the Irish Republican Brotherhood and The Clancy Brothers in Concert. It was like heading back 50 years in time.

Bert went to the pub and had a brilliant night. He said lots of the good old boys in there were coming down with the vomiting and the diarrhoea but were still knocking back the porter and whiskey. He said it was the sort of place where you might buy a wee heifer of a boy before the night was out. He said he was that drunk he fell into the hedge on his way home. He said the stars were wonderful. I shuffled out to look at them and they were. I thought there wasn’t that much light pollution here but it’s nothing on Malin Head.

Do you mind earlier on when I said we’d been to Malin Head before?

Aye.

It wasn’t you. It was Paddy.

We left this morning about eleven o’clock. It was all so beautiful. I had a little cry for what I had missed. Ten miles on Bert said,

Did you clear out the fridge?

Oh no! I meant to but I forgot.

And so it was we left the house for the second time that day. This time I didn’t cry.

While Bert was out and about getting to know the locals, this fellow here was the one and only creature I passed the time of day with.

Thursday, October 14, 2010

New Camera


rusty & lily, originally uploaded by NellyMoser.

I had to get a new camera because my Canon PhotoSmart G90 stopped working. Seems they sometimes do that.

Tuesday, October 12, 2010

On Growing Old

As you'll know elders are a big feature in my life right now. Both my mother and my mother-in-law are in poor shape at this time. Both find life difficult, both get very tired of living. But somehow they fight on to see another day. Bert and I were talking about this, wondering how we'll be when we're old, infirm and ill. Bert reckoned he'd be bitter. I hoped I wouldn't. But hey! Think on this. To get to be old - is that so bad?

There is somebody young right now, somebody related to me, although I do not know her, somebody who is very seriously ill. I hope and pray she gets to be old.

Saturday, October 09, 2010

Come On Nelly!

It's just like the olden days - company expected and I have spent the day cleaning the house from top to bottom. And - I'm enjoying it. And - I'm doing it without cocaine. And - I'm awesome.

So who is this company you might ask? I'll give you a clue. They're playing in Lavery's tonight and staying here afterwards. Never mind Come On Gang! for it's Come On Nelly! tonight

Friday, October 08, 2010

A Dish Cloth


I spent today with Matty. She was tired, but apart from that not in bad form. Still knitting away. She's working on a bigger project now and it's tiring her out handling it. It's quite the knitting circle going on in Tannaghmore. Kerry Sister is making something big and purple. She says it is a cushion cover. Matty is making a body warmer and I'm knitting cotton dish cloths. Yes. Cotton dish cloths. I found some dish cloth cotton when we were doing the final clear out of the moby. Cotton dish cloths used to be Pearlie's passion. She made dish cloths for everyone she knew. Except me of course. She even made Matty one, which Matty has elevated to a washcloth. It was my plan to make the most wonderful dish cloth ever and give it to Matty, who would love it far more than the one Pearlie made. And this dish cloth would be a work of art for obviously I am a far better knitter and can produce much better anything than any of Pearlie's shoddy efforts.

I knit my perfect square in bright, white cotton and I worked it in basket stitch and I cast it off and I held it up and admired it. And then I took it to Matty's bathroom and compared it to the one that Pearlie made and looked at them both very hard and then had to own that Pearlie's was just as good as mine if not better. Ah well. At least mine is bigger.

In other news, Matty who declared several months ago that her scone making days were over has, this very morning, made scones. And they were delicious even if the making of them left her very tired.

Wednesday, October 06, 2010

A Journey Worth Reading About

Hails on horseback in Outer Mongolia

Coffee Helps is one of the best blogs that I've ever had the pleasure of reading and it's author Hails is one of the most genuine, decent and sweetest bloggers that I've ever had the pleasure of meeting. And I've met some!

Hails is also a modest soul and I know her well enough to be certain that she'll be 'SCARLEH' reading this.

Why do I appreciate her writing so much? It's this. I first found her blog by simply googling for Cullybackey. I was struck by this young girl who made an excellent story out of scraping her car on a gatepost, as she drove out of her little rented house in Pottinger Street, while on her way to a job that was not fulfilling her in the slightest amount. I identified with Hails. I lived in Cullybackey, I scraped cars and I knew only too well the boredom of an unsatisfactory job.

Hails moved on, she went travelling, she fell in love, got her heart broke, picked herself up, went travelling again. She carved out a whole new life, learned to love pickled cabbage and found herself a brilliant career. All the while she kept on sharing, writing, inspiring and entertaining.

Imagine it. Finding a blog that starts in Pottinger Street and ends up in Outer Mongolia! And she's not done yet. Hails - you're my hero.

Monday, October 04, 2010

Bye Bye Moby

Today was a momentous day. We finally disposed of the mobile home that has been a feature of this yard for more than seven years. It was bought for Pearlie to live in while this house was being renovated. Since she moved in with us it has been completely surplus to requirements. There were a few people had a notion of moving into it but it never happened. They would have been far too close to us and it probably would have turned out unfortunate.

Then the Land & Property people laid a huge rates bill on it and it took us more than a year to convince them that no one lived there. Rules are about to change and it seems that in 2011 empty buildings will no longer be exempt from rates. I said to Bert, "Get rid of it or I'll hire a digger and bury it rather than give those bastards one brown penny." He got rid of it.

Funny thing is the moby has gone to live on the very road on which I lived as an infant. It will only be there for a while for it is to have a complete makeover and then who knows where it will end up?

Sunday, October 03, 2010

The Dog Whisperer




Curtis again - telling Bonnie secrets.

Barbed Wire Throat

I was laid low these past few days with a throat that felt like it was full of broken glass or barbed wire. And all I wanted to do was eat fruit and sleep.

The throat was picked up from Miss Martha who wasn't too well on Thursday when I looked after her and all she wanted to do was watch videos of her Mummy, eat fruit and sleep. Poor little lamb. If I'd known how grotty she was feeling I'd have been even nicer to her. (If such a thing were possible.)