The Hidden Orchard and Other Rooms

I really should have posted this a few weeks ago because the apple blossom has fallen from the trees and, if successfully pollinated, the fruit should be starting to form.

We have an orchard of sorts closer to the house but it has been neglected. It contains one ancient cooking apple tree and two crabs. There used to be damsons but they are broken down now. Recent plantings of fruit trees have not been successful. A greengage and pear never took off. The Katy apple tree that Les planted is doing OK and the currants and gooseberries are reasonable if we can get to them before the blackbirds. For the past few years Bert has been planting other trees in there including a tiny apple that Mammy grew from a pip. Who knows how that will turn out.

A few years ago we applied for and received a number of native Irish apple trees from Trees on the Land which were not planted in the orchard. They are in an out of the way spot and I'd forgotten all about them. Then, a few weeks ago Bert said that I really ought to go see the apple blossom before it dropped.

What apple blossom?

He reminded me where it was so I grabbed a camera and went out to see.

I've heard that professional gardeners advise making 'rooms' in a garden so that all is not visible at once. It's a good idea. But I'm not sure that they mean that the rooms are hidden by overgrown raspberry canes, great clumps of nettles or fallen laburnums. That's what here is like. Our outside is packed wih rooms. For instance, if you want to see our climbing hydrangea you need to go round the back of the long shed where it grows profusely with a clump of yellow welsh poppies at its feet. Bert put it there because it prefers a north facing aspect. He wasn't bothered that it faces a big dungheap.

We seem to have forgotten the 'room' hidden under the sweeping branches of the big beech trees. This was a den created by Martha and friends.

Why we can't have nice things

Five years later

Enraged

I've been trying to make a post about why I lost my temper with a visitor to our home when he expressed unasked for views supporting the Orangeman in the White House. This, despite knowing that my political alignment leans strongly to the left. But what really pissed me off was when he asserted that RFK Jr was the best person to have charge of the health department. His reasoning? Because Kennedy is an old man, yet he has a six-pack and this must mean he 'looks after himself' therefore best man for the job in hand.

How does one argue with that? I didn't even try. It was too stupid.

Instead, I said something like this,

Have you any idea what if feels like for me to sit in my own home and listen to you and people like you spouting your stupid shit? Do you know that I so often wish that I could just say, there's the fucking door, why don't you just fuck off!

Then I stormed out, to sit it out until he had the decency to leave.

Which he did, almost immediately.

I heard Bert in the kitchen, putting the kettle on. He looked quite unperturbed.

I said,

Has he gone?

Yes. He said to me, tell Nelly I'm sorry I offended her.

And what did you say?

I said, you didn't offend her. You enraged her.

Is it any wonder I don't have much to say about politics in this blog. I'm just not cut out for it.

I thought of finding a picture of that oul fella with the six-pack to illustrate this post but any I saw were too horrid. Instead, a picture of Cleo running through a wood with a stick in her mouth. Her ears don't normally look like that. Nice capture.

Back to Bellaghy

 

Last Saturday, Zoe and I went to the Seamus Heaney Homeplace to hear local writer Jan Carson in conversation about her work, particularly her most recent publication which centres on fictional inhabited islands on Lough Neagh. As I expected, it was a really interesting evening.

Obviously, as Jan Carson is only a couple of years older than my youngest daughter, we’re from different generations, Nelly boomer, Jan Carson Gen X. Despite that, I was getting older-girl vibes from her. Not that she isn’t young and vibrant compared to me, but it felt as if I was back in grammar school, in first or second form, and she was one of the cool sixth-formers.

What brought that on? It was when she spoke about the camaraderie among this generation of Irish novelists, how they support each other, enjoy meeting up at literary gatherings, and how the craic is mighty, and as she chatted about Anne Enright and Louise Kennedy, I could just see myself at age 13 or so, hero-worshipping Jan and her cool friends.

Which is why, as she was signing my copy of her latest novel, I was thrilled to pieces when she complimented me on my Uniqlo/Marimekko shirt. I think she was even a wee bit jealous. 

One From Ten Years Ago

 

The Daily Photograph 9

Wouldn't it be a fine thing to have even a quarter of that energy?

I was weary today so I just had fun with the girls. 

Sheena passed away shortly after midnight.

I will spend tomorrow in the garden.

Speaking the Names

 

I went to a wake last night for a family friend, the last of her generation. It was well attended, as she was a much loved woman from a well respected family.

As is often the case, I met people I hadn’t seen since the last time I’d been at something like this. Among those around my own age or a bit younger, the refrain was familiar, we only ever seem to meet these days at wakes and funerals.

Many of the conversations circled the same ground, bereavements - parents, partners, siblings, and in the hardest cases of all, children.

At one point I found myself sitting beside a younger man. We got talking. He said he was from Creggan. I told him my mother had lived not far from there.

“What was her name?” he asked.

“McAnespie.”

He didn’t recognise it. Didn’t know anyone of the name. I explained that there’s no one left of the McAnespies in that area now.

My mother and her sisters, so I’ve always been told, were fine-looking girls, much sought after at the ceilidhs and fairs. All of them gone now and not a one left to carry the McAnespie name on as their one and only brother never married.

Later, speaking with another old friend, we talked about our deceased parents, about all the people who lived on the road where we were, about those who had died recently and those long gone. And it struck me then how these gatherings have become less about a single person and more about a kind of reckoning. A quiet taking stock. Who’s still here. Who isn’t.

There’s an idea that no one has really gone from this world until their name is spoken for the last time and that one day that will happen to most of us. So I won’t say every name that was spoken of on Saturday evening in the house beside the moss, in the townland of Drumkeeran, in the Grange of Shilvodan, but here are some of them in no particular order,

Pearlie Orr, Pat McKeown, Joe Byrne, Joe O’Neill, Martha Byrne, Seamus Byrne, Paddy Heffron, Susan Heffron, Sadie McAuley, Brian Heffron, Martha McKeown, Malachy Robb, Shaun Byrne, Brendan Byrne, Jonny Steingold, Bridie Lavery, Clare McAtamney, Father Felix McGuckin, Sammy Heffron, Sheena Heffron, and Sarah Fox nee McCrossan.

The person listed last was born in rural Tyrone in the 19^th century and is still being named. She was my great-grandmother.

Out and About

One very good reason why I have been neglecting this blog is because I've been getting out and about. Today Miss Martha and I hopped on a train and took ourselves off to Holywood to peruse its excellent charity shops. We do that a lot. Martha took the selfie at the railway station and we are both sporting some of our Holywood finds. The silk scarf I'm wearing (too tightly) is one I found on a previous visit and the sage green cashmere sweater was today's bargain. Martha's best buy was the vintage tweed cap she's sporting. You might notice that it's my granddaughter that seems to be wearing the cashmere sweater. The reason being that she set off without a coat (as youngsters often do) and when it turned cold and showery she asked if she could borrow my jumper. I agreed and because it looked so good on her I'm letting her keep it. On her it's oversized but that works.

I wish my beautiful silk scarf didn't look as if it was strangling me.

An Apology

 Springhill, March 2026

Dear Reader,

I am very sorry - very, very sorry that I have been neglecting you. The truth is Nelly's Garden is very, very old (for a blog) and is getting tired. It's not that she wants to actually kick the bucket - just that she wonders if there is any point in rambling on and on about dogs and crocuses (croci?) and other stuff even though the internet is full to the brim of people rambling on about their opinions, dogs, obsessions and that is even before AI gets properly started.

I will try to do better. That is if you can bear to listen to my nonsense.

By the way, I despise Drump, Fartage, Netanyahoo and if that bothers you, you can do one.

Anyway, in the meantime, here are some photos of the croci (crocuses?) in my garden.

Kind regards, 

Nelly.