A Farmer's Wife

Potato Blight

Sadly our spuds have got blight. The quickest way to save them is to remove the tops and hope for the best. These past two days have seen me spend many hours doing just that. I think Bert was a bit impressed at my keenness for the task.

There was a time I’d have hated this job. I couldn’t have borne the slimy feel of the blighted tops.

Was that when you were a wuss?

Yes. But now that I’m married I can do it.

When you’re married you have to touch slimy things.

I had a lovely surprise on Sunday. I got a message on Facebook from Mr Bolan. I’d a suspicion he was in the country when I saw a rant about spides and weather and grating accents. Thinks I to myself that snobby skitter must have pulled into town. But I know that the dear boy doesn’t really mean it when he claims he hates Norn Iron. He’s just cross with us because he thinks we don’t love him. And we do. Loads. Except for spides. They don’t love him. But that's only because they haven't the wit to appreciate him.

So we arranged to go for a walk and it was very pleasant indeed. Mr Bolan is truly blessed. He has delightful children, a handsome dog and a lovely and patient wife.

Then I’d yesterday off work and spent the early part of the day cleaning out cupboards. At around four pm I got very bored with this and headed off for a hike. I took Bonnie, Paddy, a flask of coffee and a banana and walked around the limestone quarry at Cranny Falls in Carnlough. The falls were lovely and the car graveyard was strangely moving.

Cranny Falls

Dead Car at Cranny Falls

When I got home Bert staggered in, grey in the face and clutching his back. He looked just like Albert Steptoe. Poor fellow was exhausted from pulling those slimy potato tops. That’s when I took over. Some folk might like the tall classy girls but us short common weemin - we make great farmer’s wives.

Bert exhausted from pulling tops

Back in the Good Old UK

...and I can discard the burqa.

It was as Mr Bolan said, (he is a genius, I swoon at his feet) a blip, not hackery.

I flicked a tiny smidgen of breakfast TV this morning. On channels 1 and 3 the talking heads were discussing 'problem gambling' on the internet. Each sofa consisted of a breakfast TV couple, an 'expert' and a female 'problem gambler'. The channel 3 specimen was middle-aged and respectable. She hid her gambling from her family and friends. Apparently, like 'problem drinking', if it takes place at home, it can appear quite genteel. At first. Until the bailiffs come.

The channel 1 bint was cut from a different cloth. She was brazen. Got herself into tens of thousands of pounds worth of debt then started stealing from work to fund her gambling addiction. She was quite blase about it all.

The presenter said,

But you robbed a bank of twenty-five thousand pounds!

The hussy replied,

That was my gambling addiction that lead me to do it.

Like that made it OK. I couldn't understand why she was sitting there. Shouldn't she have been in jail? Then I got bored and flicked to Dora the Explorer.

They were still on about internet gambling on Radio 4 while I was driving home from work. Apparently there are 250'000 'problem gamblers' in the UK. Some government type announced,

250'000 problem gamblers is an unacceptable number!

And I thought to myself,

I wonder what number of problem gamblers would be acceptable?

Let's face it - if everyone was as keen on gambling as Nellybert the bookmakers, internet casinos, lotteries et al would soon go bust. We don't even do the lottery. I've bought one scratch card in my whole life and have bet on the Grand National maybe twice.