Saturday, July 28, 2018

A Busy Week

It's been a busy week. Monday was a family meal day with a lot of worry leading up to it. Zoe had only heard about the Pig Invasion, she hadn't seen it and I was fretting that she'd be completely gutted about the damage done. But she took the pragmatic view and I was greatly relieved.

Tuesday was a funeral service. It was an unusual one as the person whose funeral it was had died 10 weeks previously in Australia. Her husband brought her ashes back to Ireland for funeral and burial. It was a really lovely service. Afterwards, I went on a shopping expedition and bumped into a cousin. We went for coffee (and tea) and caught up with each other. Heard a very interesting piece of gossip about our Westminster representative who is currently in the news for all the wrong reasons. I feel a bye-election coming on which he'll probably win if he has the brass neck to stand and he will.

Wednesday I was not looking forward to as we were going to do some financial planning and had someone coming round to discuss it with us. But that wasn't as awful as I'd expected. Time for a bit of gardening and then off to Portballintrae to see Swisser. We had been asked for supper but had declined and she'd made it anyway so that was two suppers. I did not take the main course (a healthy vegetable dish) but did not refuse wine.

Thursday - the girls. We had an exciting trip to Portglenone then they had an exciting jaunt on the quad with Bert then it was the exciting trampoline for the rest of the day.

Yesterday I went to Belfast with Jazzer (whose sister's funeral was Tuesday) for another jaunt. The train was packed but it was an interesting trip as I got talking with some of the musicians from The McLain Family Band, a bluegrass band from Kentucky who'd been playing two nights in Ballymena and were on their way to Dublin.

In Belfast, we shopped a lot although I just bought Birkenstocks.  Between shops, we had coffee and a snack in the Linenhall Library, a drink in Maddens, dinner in The Apartment and another drink in the Europa Hotel. The train home wasn't as busy but I ran into a Facebook friend and we chatted all the way to Antrim.

From Antrim to Ballymena I got out my book, The Way I Live Now by Meg Rosoff, and came across a passage so shockingly harsh that I gasped. Closed the book and finished it later in the privacy of my own home. that evening. Very good read though not to everyone's taste I imagine.

That evening I watched the Netflix reboot of Queer Eye For The Straight Guy and enjoyed it a great deal. Found myself grinning throughout. Hadley Freeman, my favourite columnist in the Guardian Weekend magazine, had raved about it and I get that. Not to everyone's taste, I imagine. For instance, Bert said he wouldn't like it as he doesn't like reality shows. This week he has sat through The Hateful Eight and Natural Born Killers. Not for me. I watched the tiniest bit of The Hateful Eight but the minute...

BEWARE
!!!!!SPOILER ALERT!!!!!

...Samuel L. Jackson got his bollocks shot off, I was out of there.

The pigs have been in Piggy Jail all week but we're making it up to them with extra rations. They had carrot cake today and liked it very much. It's not allowed to give them food that has been in a kitchen but we had it in the fridge in Bert's room which definitely isn't a kitchen and the only other thing that is kept in there is alcohol. Which the pigs also like.

Today it rained and it blew and I worked in the tunnel clearing weeds from where we harvested onions and garlic. Outside the bay tree blew over and the sunflowers were bent but not broken. When it all died down I put stronger stakes on all the tallest plants.

One more thing.

Today was our mother's birthday. She would have been 92 years old. I always thought she'd make it to her nineties but she didn't. And although I don't believe in an afterlife I wish I did because then I'd know she'd be looking out for a special person that she never got to meet but if she had, she'd have loved her very much.



Tomorrow is a day of rest.

2 comments:

Mage said...

What a great entry....thank you very much.

Nelly said...

Thanks, Mage. I love being retired. I can be as busy as I want, doing (mostly) what I want. Time is way better than riches.