Ten Years Ago

 

A Weekend In Fanad

I went to the Fanad peninsula in Donegal over the weekend with Miss Martha, Miss Evie, their parents and Judy. We stayed in a caravan just beside Ballyhiernan Bay. It is next to a big beautiful beach which the girls loved.

I was very agitated and worried before I went but returned in a far calmer frame of mind. The only snag was the usual one, Martha will wake up at around 6 a.m. and will be very loud and noisy. Judy was not impressed. I had to tell Martha stories. My favourite was the story of a girl who lives in an empty house and each morning there is a box outside her door with something she needs. At first, Martha was sensible. The girl had some basic clothing, a dog basket, a blanket and porridge.

So all the girl had to eat was porridge and every night she had to sleep in a dog basket with a really thin blanket but when she woke up in the morning there was a box outside her door. What do you think was in it?

A beautiful yellow dress.

So the next night the girl had to sleep in a dog basket with a really thin blanket and she had nothing to eat all day but porridge. The next morning she woke up cold and hungry and outside her door was a box. What do you think was in it?

A lovely pink skirt.

 A fashionista in the making for sure.

A Flying Visit

Back from a flying visit to beautiful Eelburn and the people and dogs had a ball. Well - there was a ball for a while but then Dora lost it. There was this one time we'd been playing on the beach and the dogs had had their chow and the people were going out to eat when we looked back and saw this sad sight.

Left Behind. Jess and Dora

Of course we went back and took them with us.

Worst Bit. Jazzer snoring.

Best Bit. Under a quilt, lying on a sofa to escape the sound of Jazzer snoring and looking out on a skyful of stars.

Early Post

I'm posting early today because there is some sort of a 'do' happening here tonight. Not sure what it is all about but it might be something to do with Ziggy. Maybe it is his birthday? Anyway, I'm going to be busy tidying and stuff so best to get Nelly's Garden over and done with.

Great Pollet Arch, 165 views

Great Pollet Arch, Fanad Peninsula, County Donegal, 25th most interesting photograph on Flickr. The 25th most viewed is a repeat today. This picture is much better than mine. I was too afraid of falling in and drowning to get the best viewpoint.

Easter Monday

A very fine day befitting a bank holiday. I did a tiny bit of gardening and took a 17 minute walk and was exhausted. Guess this virus is still in my system. Finished watching House of Cards. Talked to Katy on the phone and had Hannah and Ziggy to visit. Cow still hasn't calved.

It's is number six day on the Great Flickr photoshare. The sixth most viewed picture on the 6th of April 2015 is Fanad lighthouse, taken by me in the days before we had a caravan a mile or two down from it. Looking at it, I feel sad that I have yet to visit Donegal this year. Sometimes, not having one's own car sucks. 1,323 views so far.

Lighthouse at Fanad Head

Then there is this one, the sixth most interesting. I took it myself with a cheap Kodak Instamatic camera. The place was the Castle Grounds in Antrim, somewhat less manicured than it is today. The date was probably around 1972. I could find out for sure if I could make out the cover of the Rolling Stone. The red clogs were my footwear and the cider my refreshment. 392 views.

Still Life

I must have been around 18 when I made that photograph and I would have looked like this...

Young people used to get away with such a lot. Imagine it nowadays, me lying around in public parks, barefoot, drinking cider. The police would be called.

Bonnie Takes Her Last Holiday. Again.

Bert and I have just come back from a short break in Donegal. We weren't on our own. We had four dogs, the Banjos and Swisser as well. Swisser got a new nickname – Professor Pants. She was waxing superior over dinner, told Jazzer and I that we had given over the control of our lives to our husbands because we are currently not working. I was having none of that. Just because someone is Professor Pants does not give them the right to judge how others organise their lives. Anyways Swisser was just pissed off that her youngest dog didn't get to come but we had to put a lid on it somewhere. Our caravan, we get to take all three of our dogs if we choose. We made a concession for the Banjo's youngest dog who is our youngest dog's litter mate. They are wild together. And as Swisser's youngest dog is also their litter mate the canine craziness would have been unbearable. He'll get to come the next time.

Once again it was Bonnie's last holiday. She is so old and done now that we have to lift her in and our of the van and she needs help getting up stairs and on to sofas. She was not able to get to Ballyhiernan beach because it meant climbing some pretty steep sand dunes so, just before we left, we took her to another beach that was easier for her to get to. Just seeing her there, plodding along, trying to keep up with the younger dogs was nearly tragic. Her back legs are getting weaker and it is much more noticeable when she is in unfamiliar surroundings. I wonder how much longer she can continue. But she had her little break, she was with people and dogs that she knows love her and I think she enjoyed it.

I wonder if she will be able to squeeze in just one more 'last' holiday?

By the way Swisser really is a professor now and about time too! I think adding Pants to her title will help her to keep everything in proportion.

Fanad Lighthouse

Fanad, originally uploaded by NellyMoser.

If you should happen to be looking for me this weekend I'll probably be on a dander to that there lighthouse.

A Weekend In Fanad

I went to the Fanad peninsula in Donegal over the weekend with Miss Martha, Miss Evie, their parents and Judy. We stayed in a caravan just beside Ballyhiernan Bay. It is next to a big beautiful beach which the girls loved.

I was very agitated and worried before I went but returned in a far calmer frame of mind. The only snag was the usual one, Martha will wake up at around 6 a.m. and will be very loud and noisy. Judy was not impressed. I had to tell Martha stories. My favourite was the story of a girl who lives in an empty house and each morning there is a box outside her door with something she needs. At first Martha was sensible. The girl had some basic clothing, a dog basket, a blanket and porridge.

So all the girl had to eat was porridge and every night she had to sleep in a dog basket with a really thin blanket but when she woke up in the morning there was a box outside her door. What do you think was in it?

A beautiful yellow dress.

So the next night the girl had to sleep in a dog basket with a really thin blanket and she had nothing to eat all day but porridge. The next morning she woke up cold and hungry and outside her door was a box. What do you think was in it?

A lovely pink skirt.

A fashionista in the making for sure.

The End of the World As We Knew It.

It was in October last year that Nellybert went to Donegal. To say that the trip was disappointing would be no exaggeration. We decided to give it another try.

The weather was not as good as it had been on our last outing. But that was in October so, of course, you'd expect it to be glorious. You cannot look for blue skies in May and they turned out every bit as grey as you'd imagine.

We sat at Five Fingers Bay where the tide was in. I scrambled on the shingle to collect wee square pebbles to fill in the spaces in the paths where the Bann brick is crumbling away. Bert sat in the van and watched as the tide started to go out again. He said he'd never seen such a thing before for he doesn't get out much. I said if he noticed it going out really fast and far we should jump in the van and race for the hills as it would mean a tsunami was coming and we were expecting the end of the world. Strangely I wasn't that concerned. If the end of the world comes, it comes.

The gloom of the weather did not perturb us and we headed for Doagh Famine Village which turned out to be a most interesting and entertaining experience. Deserves a post of it's own really. I might call it 'Play Down The Famine' Village which was a new and very interesting view of the National Tragedy. Can't say I disapprove.

The weather did not improve and we drove to the Mamore Gap, stopping at the famous shrine where I prayed a bit and made a small offering. I thought I was praying to St Colmcille but it turned out to be Padre Pio. Apparently he comes highly recommended by those in the know. So Ganching, if something good happens to you next week - let me know and I may start my own shrine to Padre Pio on the Dreen Road beside our wee spring or Holy Well as I now call it.

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 20^th 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.

Fanad Flickr'd & Faved

Fanad, originally uploaded by NellyMoser.

I'm still jealous of Zoe. This photograph has been favourited more than 20 times. Still hasn't had as many views as 'Our Ken's' For Sale Sign. Yet.

Daniel O'Lovely

In her most recent post Hails waxes lyrical about the great Daniel O’Donnell. She makes the true observation that Daniel is very much beloved by elderly ladies. This worries me. At what point of the slide into old age does Love of Daniel begin? Does the Queen adore O’Donnell? Is Vivienne Westwood a fan? Are Patti Smith and Deborah Harry planning future musical collaborations with the Donegal man?

But I think Daniel Adoration is associated not just with age but also with simple-mindedness. Because it’s not just certain elderly ladies that make up Daniel’s fan base, it’s…. now how do I put this?

Q. What is the current P.C. term?

A. Developmental Disability.

Or as legend has it, in Ulster Scots parlance, The Wee Dafties.

I worked for years with the developmentally disabled and one thing that I noticed was that, whenever they could choose for themselves, their general taste in music was crap not pleasing to my ears.

Usually they’d favour the worst sort of country and western music (think George Jones), the most anodyne so-called pop music, really dreadful heavy metal or Daniel O’Donnell and some other similar sad sap whose name escapes me.

Occasionally you’d get a classical music fan but he or she would be incapable of verbalising musical choices and I often thought that these choices were imposed upon them by parents or staff who just wanted a bit of chill-out time. For the music chosen would be soothing rather than challenging.

But to return to the fascinating subject of Daniel - at one of the places I worked staff organised a holiday for a group of residents in Donegal. They hired a minibus and spent their days searching for Daniel O’Donnell taking in the beautiful Donegal scenery. Eventually they tracked down the O’Donnell residence but, sadly, Daniel was not at home. They did meet his mother and his aunt and were invited in for tea and scones. It was the highlight of the holiday. For the staff that is. The residents did not have much to say about it. Except for the one who always vomited when she got excited. Or thought no one was paying any attention to her. She said, ‘Daniel’s Mammy was great Nelly. She gave us photos and scones. I boked mine up and Agnes ripped her photo!”

I wonder if those ladies were really Daniel’s relatives. Perhaps he keeps lots of stunt Mammys and Aunts on the payroll to enhance his image and keep stalkers at bay. Or maybe the Mammys and Aunts are just stalkers/mentalists basking in the Daniel glow. Who knows! There has to be a PhD thesis on the O’Donnell phenomenon in there somewhere.

P.S. Interestingly, to me anyway, Daniel's beard wife is called Majella. That's my middle name. Nelly Majella Moser.