Ash Wednesday

 I couldn’t remember whether Ash Wednesday is a Holy Day of Obligation or not. That’s how lapsed a Catholic I’ve become. I only realised it was today because when Bert came back from an appointment he mentioned that one of the women at the surgery had the greasy, ashy smear on her forehead and started quizzing me about it.

I was surprised for I’d always thought she was a Protestant. Ash Wednesday is certainly the sort of day when a devout Catholic stands up to be counted.

Of course, I’d also completely forgotten that yesterday was Shrove Tuesday. Not a single pancake did I make.

I’ve spent today getting ready for a short trip to Norfolk to see Katy and her family, and I’m really looking forward to it. I’ll be back late Monday with new photographs and stories to share. I’m going to miss my knitting terribly. If the pangs become too much, I may have to buy needles and yarn in Fakenham.

To get myself all excited about seeing my Norfolk family, I've been looking at lots of old photos of them and set the file up as a screensaver. It has really brought back some lovely memories. But the nicest family picture I've come across is not my memory.That memory belongs to Katy's aunts, my sisters Ganching and London Sister. I'm going to use it as it deserves another outing. I think it might have been taken by Ganching.

Katy and family on a day trip to London.

I wonder this - are knitting needles allowed on planes?

The Trees We Put Up Early

Last night London Sister sent us a picture of her seven-foot tree. She’s early this year. It’s not even mid-December, yet there it was, beautifully decorated, tastefully lit, standing proud in her high-ceilinged living room. This will be a poignant Christmas for her, her first without Jonny.

It reminded me of last year when Elle put her big tree up in November. Robin was in the last days of his life then, although I’m not sure she fully realised it. Maybe, somewhere in her mind, she sensed that if she waited until December, he’d never see it. Or perhaps she felt that if she didn’t put it up right then, she’d never have the heart to do it at all.

I’ve been watching the weather forecast all day. Storm Bram is in full swing, and if it doesn’t blow the polytunnel away, I’ll bring our own tree in tomorrow. We used to wait until Christmas Eve, but storms and years and losses have made me a little more positive about celebrating the season. After all, who knows how many more there will be, or how long we’ll have with each other?

And truth be told, the tree helps, a lovely corner of brightness when the days are short and the nights too long. So I’ll wrestle ours indoors tomorrow, if Bram allows. I feel the need of its cheer.

At least until January, when it’s back to the polytunnel with it.

A picture from the olden days, maybe around 40 years ago. It was the first one I turned up when I searched for 'Christmas Tree' on my EHD. Just as well it did as it's Katy's birthday today. My best Christmas present back in 1978. Happy Birthday Katkin!

Diana and Dodi Are Dead

I don't exactly remember what I was doing the night Diana died but I think there might have been some sort of a party for the next day had a bit of a hangover vibe. And it had been  a Saturday night. What I do remember was Katy coming in after an all-nighter. She'd been clubbing in Belfast. And she said,

Hey Ma, did ya hear? Diana and Dodi are dead!

I thought it was crazy talk. Some kind of post-party-drug fantasy. She said, turn on the TV. It's all over the news.

So I did, and it was. Was the newscaster wearing a black tie? I don't remember. But he had that black tie kind of voice going on and it was true. Diana and Dodi were dead and nobody hardly mentioned the driver who was also dead.

Yep! I've just watched the first episode of The Crown on Netflix and it is all coming back to me. 

Return to the Redshank Lawn

 

This post was written over 10 years ago and harks back to the late 1970s.

The bambino rolling around in a bed of persicaria maculosa (redshank) is now a professional gardener. Yet the first garden she ever knew consisted mainly of redshank!

redshank, originally uploaded by NellyMoser.

I moved to Drumtara in 1978. The house was newly built and I was its first tenant. Reader, I had nothing!

Well - I had a child, another on the way, several hundred books, a bed, a toybox full of toys (but that wasn't mine) and a couple of chairs.

Word soon got out that I was in need of household effects and furnishings and friends rallied around to help. I soon had more furniture and bits and pieces than I needed. I never said no and that is a habit I have to this very day.

The house sorted, I began on the garden. I'd never had my own garden before and I was very excited. With help from my father, I began to create a lawn for the children to play on. It was hard work breaking the soil, getting the stones and builder's rubble out and raking and finishing. At last, Daddy pronounced it ready for sowing and gave me a plastic bag of grass seed. I scattered, sowed and waited with mounting anticipation.

It wasn't long before the first green shoots appeared. At first, it was only a light green haze but as the days progressed it became greener and greener. My father came to look at it. There were a lot of areas where the seed hadn't taken. He said, "Don't worry. They'll fill in."

The grass continued to grow. It actually started to look quite lush. Except... except it didn't really look like grass. Daddy said, "Redshank." I was very disappointed. My first attempt at sowing a lawn and I had created a weed patch. A lush and green weed patch but a weed patch all the same. I asked my father what I should do. He said, "Just cut them back, don't let them flower, the grass will come through."

I didn't even have garden shears so I tackled my weed patch with the kitchen scissors. It took a long time and I got blisters. But the grass came through just like Daddy said. Of course, the kitchen scissors proved impractical when that needed cutting and I acquired garden shears from somewhere and used them to keep the grass in check. To tell the truth, it was never much of a lawn but it was good enough for my children to play on.

Nowadays I have a lawn and a ride-on mower and a man to cut the grass for me. It's not the best lawn in the world but it's certainly good enough for my grandchildren to play on.

Three More Sleeps

The next two days will be spent sorting things out, watering the polytunnel, leaving Bert instructions to keep things alive,

the hens
my sourdough mother
my chili seedlings

And packing. I have so many presents for James and Emily that there will be hardly any room for clothes for me. But not to worry, for Katy has a washing machine.

Then on Sunday, I leave for Norfolk and the start of a new journey when I fall in love with Miss Emily Anne.

This is the little person I will be meeting for the first time.

A Tight Tidy Theory

Happy Birthday To You,

Happy Birthday To You,

Happy Birthday Dear Katkin,

Happy Birthday To You!

Of course, Katy is a little older these days and, if you want to know how old, you must work out the anagram contained in the title. Go on! It's easy.

And keeping on the birthday girl theme, I discovered this drawing among Matty's things. An early work  by Katy dating from September 1989.

I can assure you that it is Seamus' spitting image.

Big Chubby Returns

12^th October

Had second cataract procedure at Mater Hospital, Belfast.

13^th October

Removed eye patch and could see perfectly. Threw away spectacles and started using reading glasses.

14^th October

Hannah and I flew to Stansted. Trains weren't running so had to get coach to Cambridge then train to King's Lynn. Did not get to Katy's until late. Baby James grown like gosling, still gorgeous and very smiley.

15^th October

Went to Hunstanton. Fierce wind blowing off the North Sea. Hannah sad she left her woolly hat in Ballymena. We found a sheltered spot and ate delectable Cornish pasties. Later on went for walk in derelict part of Sculthorpe air base.

16^th October

Went to Wells-next-the-Sea. Excellent second hand bookshop and we got to see the places where James' father played truant when he went to school there. Do hope that young James will pay more attention to his studies. Later on went for walk on Syderstone Common.

17^th October

Went to King's Lynn. Left Hannah to railway station as she was off home again. Went shopping for skeleton suit for James' first Hallowe'en. No luck. It seems that babies may only dress up as pumpkins in King's Lynn.

18^th October

Quiet day at James' home. James' other grandparents called. Much cooing and admiring took place.

19^th October

Went to Burnham Market. Shopped for London Sister's birthday present. If London Sister were town in North Norfolk she might well be Burnham Market. Went for lunch in Tilly's Cafe where all women present fell in love with James.

20^th October

James and Katy went to Music Event for babies and small children. James apparently slept entire time. I strolled around Fakenham and discovered shop selling battered chocolate. Not battered as in Mars Bar delicacy popular in Scotland, just slightly scruffy and sold for next to nothing. Apparently outlet for sweet factory that supplies Marks and Spencer and Asda. Glad we don't have similar in Ballymena or I would be dead from chocolate poisoning within month.

21^st October

Unlike previous visit when he screamed whole journey baby James slept all the way from Katy's to King's Lynn. Bid mother and child poignant goodbyes and started my journey. Was far too early and had to wait three hours at airport. Observed rude, unpleasant security person be nasty to everyone who stood in front of him. Thankfully got pleasant young chap myself. Had not got round to putting my eye drops in plastic bag and he was perfectly nice about it. Did not have to take my shoes off.

22^nd October

Bert had made an heroic effort to keep house tidy but it still smelt like ancient public house. Had no time to clean it as it was child-minding day. Evie and Martha were almost as delighted to see me as I was to see them. Evie got good child sticker from nursery and gave it to Bert. It was a lovely afternoon and we spent it on the trampoline, tree house and swing.

23^rd October

Removed vintage pub smell from house using vinegar, bleach and Zoflora. London Sister's birthday. Significant. My present and card arrived on time so quite pleased about that.

24^th October

Met Hannah and Ziggy and went for walk and catch up. She had noticed horrible security man at Stansted too. Jazzer and Ben came round for the evening. Had red wine, chili and chocolate.

25^th October

Amazingly, despite red wine, chili and chocolate, did not wake up with sore head. Caught up with my blog.

The End

Looking Back

24th most viewed on Flickr, 774 views

Miss Hannah from ten years ago, a photograph taken to celebrate a snazzy new haircut.

The 24th most interesting picture with 206 views

I put this one up not so long ago to mark Mother's Day. Matty is on my mind a lot right now as it is coming up to the fourth anniversary of her death. What a lot has happened since then. How delighted she would have been to know that Katy, the child in her embrace, is expecting her first child this summer. It makes me a little sad to think that Matty only got to meet her first great-grandchild, her namesake Martha, who she adored.

This is my blog from four years ago posted on the 21st April, the last one written while she still lived.

I woke just before 7am and decided not to get up. Immediately I fell into dreams. I dreamed that my mother was dying and that I held her in my arms and would not let her go. We lived in a succession of damp, dilapidated and tumbledown sheds and still I would not let her go. She got frailer and smaller and eventually she was as small as a baby. She was my baby, she was also another person called Shirley and still she was my mother. She was dying and I had to get her a coffin. She was small enough to fit in an infant's casket but I knew that because she had been a woman I needed to get her a woman-sized coffin.

These are the dreams I have without opiates. God only knows what Matty dreams. She told my sister, in one of her lucid moments, that it was like 'being in two places at once.'

Today was my Miss Martha day. We went to Matty's then out for a run with Great Aunt Ganching (with whom Miss Martha has become most enamoured). Next home to see Bert, a picnic on the lawn and a very relaxing afternoon with toys and pigs and dogs.

When Martha went home I spent a while watering the vegetables (this will be my role and it is a very important one) and then gathering sticks, a proper outdoor barbecue (no charcoal) and pork chops, spinach and baked potatoes for supper.

Another normal day. Tomorrow I go shopping for funeral clothes.

A Harsh Thirteenth Yin

The most important thing about today is that it is Hannah's birthday. The anagram in the title will tell her age, just a little bit older than the age displayed in the following photograph. Garvagh got it wrong.



Garvagh I hear you say? What would take a body to Garvagh? It's a terrible place, there are pictures of Gregory Campbell on the lamp posts.

Yet I have to disagree for Garvagh is a delightful village. It has a river and a forest and a pyramid. So what if the kerbs are painted red, white and blue? Nothing beats a pyramid.

And so to Flickr on Hannah's birthday. It would have been good if Flickr had turned up a picture of the birthday girl but it was not to be.

 15th most viewed, 962 views

For the longest time this was my most viewed image on Flickr until cute kittens in deco boxes and puzzled Limousins took over. I could never figure out why it had so many views. It was taken ten years ago when we had the previous house up for sale. I could write a very long blog post about what happened but I'd rather not. A lot of people wanted to buy the property and we actually lost a friend over it. In the end Clint bought it.

He has made a few changes. There are fewer trees and more sheds. It's a lot less wild and woolly. It has become what people around here say,

more Presbyterian looking

Except maybe for the goats. Goats aren't very Presbyterian.

Katy sometime in the 1980s, 322 views

A picture of my middle daughter, the one with the curly hair. She is probably four or five. It is the 15th most interesting of my Flickr photographs. And this is what she looks like today...

Katy in Cambridge, photo by Ganching

Katy calls this look 'spotty and bumpy' and while the spots are rather obvious, the bump is still pretty neat. 

A Damp Sunday

When I opened the door of the chicken house this morning the new hens, all seven of them, flew into my face. It was rather worrying. Now I know how Tippi Hedren felt.

We have Martha and Evie here on a sleepover tonight. We sowed seeds, baked biscuits and watched Puss in Boots. I got them off to bed in good time so Nellybert could watch Poldark. At around the three-quarter mark the two girls trooped into the kitchen and on to my lap as bright as two buttons. And there they stayed until the show was over. Evie remarked that Poldark 'looks like Fergus'. I must remember to tell Auntie Hannah that one.

Baking biscuits

Tonight the 29th most viewed photograph on my Flickr is one that the Kerry Sister took many years ago.

Seamus and Katy

This must have been in an odd-shaped frame at some point. It is one of my favourite photographs of Daddy and has been viewed 615 times. My other favourite picture of him was also a Kerry Sister picture and it hangs upstairs.

The picture of Evie and the stuffed hedgehog has moved to 29th most interesting so I won't use it again. I often wonder how Flickr decides these things.

So, that was my damp Sunday, the first day of Spring, brightened only by grandchildren, Poldark and a lovely phone call from Katy. Tomorrow will also be a rainy day. I'm not sure how I shall spend it apart from grandchildren and making food and poking around my photo archives.

Smoked Paprika Weevil

I decided to give my spice rack a long overdue cull. I remember Katy buying the smoked paprika for a chicken dish she prepared for her Northern Irish friends shortly before her wedding. It didn't seem that long ago but when I think of it, Miss Martha was actually a babe in arms and she is in her sixth year now.

That was a great evening. Delicious food, good company and the best of craic.  And nearly five years ago. That smoked paprika definitely was up for review. I opened it, sniffed it. Hardly any aroma. Much as I expected. But what was that? A grain of rice? A grain of rice that wriggled? It was a grub. I called Bert in to see. You should keep that, he said. See what it turns into.

No thanks! I don't think I want to see the kind of creature that pupates in hot pepper. Seems devilish. I sieved the paprika to see if there were any more. There wasn't. I took a photograph then flung the larva into the yard. See how it manages in a cold, wet, Irish February far away from its beloved paprika.

Naturally I Googled this and apparently it is not uncommon to find larvae in old paprika. It is actually best to keep it in the fridge. Who knew?

Stag's Horn Sumach

I saw a few of these when I was driving Katy and Mark to the airport and it made me wish I still had Stag's Horn Sumach growing in my garden. The one in the picture was in my last garden (now Clint's) and he, of course, ripped it out. Before he did so I planted up three or four suckers and they were growing well. I left them in the poly tunnel among Bert's climbers. They went missing and I believe some one stole them. It happens occasionally. We might not spot a few missing clematis but when it is something of mine, I notice.

I stopped in Antrim to check a few garden places but no Stag's Horn. At home I checked my new Chiltern Seeds catalogue and discovered that I can get seeds. Joy and happiness. Next year I am hoping to start enough perennials and shrubs from seed that will give me enough of a surplus that I can sell to cover the cost of the seed, maybe even make a small profit.

We did go to Derry yesterday and I'll write about it soon. I miss Katy so much.

Fairest Ivy Think Kit

Happy Birthday Katy! I wish I could give you a big hug today.

Hardy Fruity Toot!

Happy Birthday Katkin.

That was the day you strolled down the Murphystown Road to hang with Auntie Sheena. You might have mentioned to us that you were going to call on the neighbours.

Redshank

redshank, originally uploaded by NellyMoser.

I moved to Drumtara in 1978. The house was newly built and I was its first tenant. Reader, I had nothing!

Well - I had a child, another on the way, several hundred books, a bed, a toybox full of toys (but that wasn't mine) and a couple of chairs.

Word soon got round that I was in need of household effects and furnishings and friends rallied round to help. I soon had more furniture and bits and pieces than I needed. I never said no and that is a habit I have to this very day.

The house sorted, I began on the garden. I'd never had my own garden before and I was very excited. With help from my father I began to create a lawn for the children to play on. It was hard work breaking the soil, getting the stones and builder's rubble out and raking and finishing. At last Daddy pronounced it ready for sowing and gave me a plastic bag of grass seed. I scattered, sowed and waited with mounting anticipation.

It wasn't long before the first green shoots appeared. At first it was only a light green haze but as the days progressed it became greener and greener. My father came to look at it. There were a lot of areas where the seed hadn't taken. He said, "Don't worry. They'll fill in."

The grass continued to grow. It actually started to look quite lush. Except... except it didn't really look like grass. Daddy said, "Redshank." I was very disappointed. My first attempt at sowing a lawn and I had created a weed patch. A lush and green weed patch but a weed patch all the same. I asked my father what I should do. He said, "Just cut them back, don't let them flower, the grass will come through."

I didn't even have garden shears so I tackled my weed patch with the kitchen scissors. It took a long time and I got blisters. But the grass came through just like Daddy said. Of course the kitchen scissors proved impractical when that needed cutting and I acquired garden shears from somewhere and used them to keep the grass in check. To tell the truth it was never much of a lawn but it was good enough for my children to play on.

Nowadays I have a lawn and a ride on mower and a man to cut the grass for me. It's not the best lawn in the world but it's certainly good enough for my grandchildren to play on.

Happy Birthday Katy

Katy through the years.
Happy Birthday darling.

Katy & Mark

Happy to be in love, originally uploaded by KatyKatkins.

Was my Katy not beautiful on her wedding day?

There's Always Somebody Worse Off

Early morning Boxing Day I'm lying in bed listening to four bloody cocks trying to out-crow each other and I'm thinking,

Could anyone be having a harder time trying to have a lie-in than me?

So I got up. A short time afterwards I heard a whooshing, crashing sound and then Katy started to roar and shout...

I shout up the stairs.

What's happened? Are you alright?

Katy answers,

Bloody ceiling's fell on top of me. Top of my head. And I was just having a lovely lie-in. First in months.

Oh my God.

I race up the stairs.

Bert, Bert! Did you hear that? Ceiling's fell on top of Katy and Mark.

Aye. I heared.
Teddy was rather shaken by the incident but, thankfully, unhurt.

Nor was there was damage done to the antique lamp shade, to the ancient beams or to Katy's big curly noggin..

Happy Birthday Katy

Katycurls, originally uploaded by NellyMoser.

Katy

I heard the news about London whilst driving to Castlerock. Dede and I had only one creditless mobile phone between us. When Dede said that Katy was in London the only way I could handle it was by refusing to believe it. No. She was in London for Live8. She's in Norfolk today. So I was just worrying about Ganching and JB and their loved ones. We stopped at a hotel and phoned home - and everyone is OK. Thank God. We're selfish really aren't we? We must be sure that our own loved ones are well before we can think of the wider implications. Poor London. It didn't get long to feel happy about the 2012 Olympics.