Quiet Sunday

I woke up this morning to four extra people in the house and two extra dogs. It was raining heavily and I still hadn't finished trampling down the wildflower meadow area that Rachael and I started yesterday so I put on wellies and a waterproof, fed the hens and started trampling down. A roller would have been good but we don't have a roller.

Eventually, the house cleared. I watered in the polytunnel and made a third and last batch of chilli jam for this year. The first batch was from Lorraine's chillis, the second from Les' donation and the third a mixture with a few green tomatoes thrown in. I don't think my own chillis are ever going to come on.

When I went to check my email I found that my DNA results from MyHeritage had come through. I am 93.2% Celt and 6.8% East European. A peasant through and through. The East European has to have come from a great-great-grandparent and the only one that I know of whose forebears might have come from East Europe (via Scotland) is a Steen, from Sallagh in Carncastle. I've been told by a local genealogist that my father's grandfather John Steen was the son of Jacob Steen from Carncastle. Bert's results are still to come. Perhaps they will be more exciting but I suspect he's a peasant too.

Sallagh Braes

Companionship

Nelly: What do you know about Don Quixote?
Bert: Not one thing.
Nelly: Don Quixote! You know nothing about Don Quixote!
Bert: Och! Don Quixote - sure I thought you said John Coyote. Don Quixote... good old guy, full of crazy ideas. great notion of himself, there was something about windmills...

Bert and I have just spent a pleasant, companionable Sunday.

We hung his grandfather just outside Pearlie's room. We washed out the sewers. I found that to be very interesting. DynoRod will be getting no business around our way as Nellyberts are doing it for themselves.

Then Bert proposed going out for a meal. I screwed up my face. I thought of the delights of housework and loading Bert's iPod. I pondered, then disdained the idea of getting dressed up to sit among strangers and then having to wait at least forty minutes for food to be placed in front of me. I suggested that we go for a walk instead and pick up a takeaway on the way home.

So we gathered up Bonnie, Paddy and Francis Joseph Banjo (we're looking after him this weekend) and went hiking in Tardree Forest for an hour and a half. "Dogging," says I. "We'll show them how to bloody dog."