Nelly's Garden
Friday, July 11, 2025
A Change Of Plan
Wednesday, July 09, 2025
Here We Go Again
My plan to use this blog as an aide-mémoire hasn’t progressed as well as I’d hoped. It’s been twelve days since my last post, and although nothing particularly exciting has happened - no riots, no house fires - it’s still been a longer gap than I intended.
So what did happen?
Still snail-watching.
Went to Portrush on a day out with Bert, Hannah and the big girls. They did not use all their Currie's tokens. Either I bought too many or they are tired of scary rides. Come to think of it, there's a definite air of ennui about them lately.
Watching a lot of teevee. Dept Q was a big favourite.
Became aware of a band called Bob Vylan.
Wondered why an old man dying of old age is such a big deal for the BBC.
Today was good, except for one thing.
I met an old work friend for coffee. That was good.
In the afternoon, Bert and I worked together in the garden. That was nice. We achieved a lot, dug up half of the papaver orientale and created a new area for planting. Displaced a lot of snails. Bert is very keen to replant but I want to wait a while. Snails are territorial, and when they return to their feeding grounds, which they will, they'll demolish anything new and tender. The big rough poppies could stand that, but my seed-grown agastaches might not. We'll wait a while until the snails move on. Fingers crossed that they do.
The not-so-good thing that happened?
I was just leaving the small polytunnel after watering the tomatoes when my foot caught in a clump of ox-eye daisies and down I went. My first thought being,
Here we bloody well go again!
Hand out to save myself. Didn't work. It wasn't too bad. The ground around that polytunnel is soft and spongy, even more so since I left a hose running there for about 16 hours on Sunday evening. As I lay there, a bit winded, a brown butterfly flew past. I identified it as a Meadow Brown. And I knew that I was OK.
My left hand is a bit achey but it didn't prevent me from picking several pounds of strawberries and raspberries.
Tomorrow - more gardening, drive Hannah to the airport and on Friday I might go to Belfast.
Friday, June 27, 2025
Slither Again
This is a summer activity.
Most evenings - especially damp ones with a light mizzle of
rain - I step outside to see what the molluscs are up to. I must look
like a crazy woman: torch in hand, stepping so carefully, peering
into every corner.
It’s strange to realise that I’ve gone from being a person revolted by slugs and snails to someone who’s maybe just a little bit obsessed with them.
The obsession began a few summers ago and has only grown since.
Last year, I
started marking some garden snails with dots of correction fluid.
Then I felt bad about it - was I interfering, harming them somehow?
But this year, I’ve found quite a few of my marked snails still
going strong, and still inhabiting the same corners of the garden as
before.
This one has decided tansy is not to its taste.
In the dark, I have to be so careful where I tread - there’s nothing more awful than accidentally crushing the shell of a garden snail. If that happens - and it rarely does, because I watch my step -the snail faces a prolonged and painful death. It’s kinder, then, to end things quickly and stamp out its life. Maybe I’m a little bit (a lot?) mad, because doing that to a snail makes me really sad. Even though they devoured all my cosmos seedlings and have done great harm to my Vancouver lupins*.
*I’ve had the Vancouver lupins (Lupinus polyphyllus ) ever since I visited Eamon in his home city in 2013. I collected the original seeds in the grounds of the University of British Columbia.
And this is what they are like now.
Sunday, June 22, 2025
More Fire
Last Sunday evening, I was getting ready for bed when I heard loud cracking and banging noises. My first thought was:
What
on earth is Bert doing in the kitchen? Slamming doors and crashing
about again?
But the noise wasn’t coming from inside the house. Could it be fireworks over at Galgorm Manor again? It sounded much closer than that.
When I stepped outside, I realised just how close it really was.
The house next door was ablaze. Flames shot twenty feet into the air, windows cracked, and roof tiles exploded. Thankfully, it was a calm night, so there was little danger of embers drifting over to our place.
I called the fire brigade, and they arrived within twenty minutes. It was close to 2 a.m. before the fire was finally under control.
It’s not the first fire on that site. Nineteen years ago the garage went on fire. I believe that one was accidental – someone careless with something flammable, though I cannot be certain. The garage contained a quantity of paint tins and a gas tank so there was plenty of fuel for that fire. Like last week, the fire brigade got here within twenty minutes and spent two hours dousing the flames.
In Bert’s lifetime, there have been three incidents of fire at that site. The first was the most tragic. It would have been sometime in the 1960s. Clint was at primary school, and he remembers it clearly - no surprise, as it was his grandmother who died in that fire.
It was a shocking thing. All that remained of her were her lower legs and feet, still in her carpet slippers. She must have fallen into or near an open fire. There was no damage to the structure of the building, just a greasy, sooty deposit all over the walls and windows.
When I told that story to my friend Vee after this latest fire, she went a bit pale. Said she felt the hairs on the back of her neck rise. She’s not usually one for superstition, but that unnerved her. Both Vee and Bert said that the site must be cursed.
According to the Fire Service, last Sunday’s fire was set deliberately. The police are looking for an arsonist but it is highly unlikely they’ll ever find anyone.
Wednesday, June 11, 2025
Ballymena Riots 2025
So, Ballymena is at it again. And this time, far too close to where my family live.
Once more, we’re in ‘whatever you say, say nothing’ territory. A passing comment to a neighbour about the hate and madness of it all, and you might catch a look that tells you they’re not quite on the same page - some sympathy for the protestors, plenty of hostility toward the ‘foreigners’.
It’s racism, plain and simple. It’s hate and it’s stupidity squared.
I once believed, naively perhaps, that my Irish grandchildren would grow up in a time of peace and civility. Instead, just around the corner from where they live, masked thugs have spent the past two nights rampaging through the streets, attacking police, wrecking property and burning families out of their homes.
They claim it’s a response to a horrific assault on a young woman. But how does terrorising innocent families deliver justice?
My heart goes out to her. She deserves justice, compassion, and the full support of the community - not this chaos done in her name.
They are racists, plain and simple, with their hatred and ignorance on full display.
Tuesday, June 03, 2025
Twenty Years Later
Today is the twentieth anniversary our father's death. This photograph, featuring Daddy and his granddaughter Katy is a particular favourite of mine. It was taken by my sister Tricia, one of a series of black and white pictures she took of him as he went about the farm. The pictures are from the mid-eighties. He would have been in his sixties then, probably around the same age that Bert is now.
I only noticed today that he is wearing a tie so it must have been taken on a Sunday. His cardigan is half-decent looking too but those are definitely 'working' trousers. He wouldn't have risked his Chapel Sunday trousers out fothering cattle.
Daddy and Bert at our old place.
Portrait of Seamus by his granddaughter Naoise.
Portrait of Seamus by his granddaughter Zoe.
Wednesday, May 28, 2025
All the Sixes
Bert's birthday today. All the sixes!
After the family left I said to Bert,
The girls don't get nearly as excited about birthday cake and candles as they used to.
And it's true. They are teenagers now and are way too cool for candles and cake. But we still have the memories,
...and the photographs!
Happy birthday, Bert!