My Diary

 

The diaries of Alan Rickman featured in yesterday's Guardian and it occurred to me that one's blog is actually a diary and that I should start treating it as such. It's not the first time I've thought this.

So I must mention that I started seeing a physiotherapist a few weeks ago. I'd been urged to do this by both Ganching and Kerry Sister. It all seems to be going well and I've noticed some minor improvements. On Saturday last I needed to pick up a prescription and parked the van five minutes walk from the pharmacy. About one minute into the walk my hip started to hurt and it didn't stop. I kept going. The only other notable thing that happened was bumping into the taxi driver whose wing mirror I clipped a few months ago. When he called to see me about this we ended up visiting the polytunnels and left with his repair money and a box of free tomato plants. Apparently, they've done well.

Wednesday evening and all of Thursday were marred by stomach aches. I blamed too much rich food, especially birthday cake. Despite this, I still bought the ingredients for a Pineapple Coconut Cake. At the time of writing, I have yet to make it.

In Bert’s opinion, my guts were bad because I had not drunk wine since the previous Saturday. He backed his argument with that famous biblical quote.*

With this in mind, on Friday we shared a nice bottle of wine from Lidl.

On Saturday I went to Portglenone to have my hair trimmed and afterwards went to the charity shops. And only bought a book, Updike’s Run, Rabbit which I will hopefully get around to reading sometime in the next two years. Whilst perusing the shelves I heard a familiar voice which turned out to be a chap I’d sat next to at my Aunt Bee’s funeral meal some weeks before. He told me that it was Bee’s Months Mind which I’d not known about.

When I got home I contacted Youngest Brother and we made an arrangement to go together. It was the regular early evening mass in Antrim and the chapel was packed. The priest had just got back from Medjugorje and was tremendously enthused about it. The sermon was delivered with exuberance and featured the importance of the Rosary and the reality of the Devil. I’m sure that Aunt Bee would have approved.

Afterwards, Joe and I went to the cemetery. We visited two graves. Joe’s little granddaughter Ava, who died three years ago and Joseph, our cousin and Aunt Bee’s oldest child, who will be gone ten years tomorrow.

And after all that, I went home via Lidl where I bought another bottle of that fine wine – for my stomach’s sake.

*1 Timothy 5:23

Family  Anniversaries

Bernie 1930 - 1922

Joseph 1955 - 2012

Ava 2011 - 2019

Hard Times

My Uncle Vincent's funeral in Rasharkin was held on the same day as the interments of Princess Diana and Mother Teresa. I have to say that the old nun's death passed me by what with everything else that was going on at that time. But I'm rarely in that churchyard and when I visited it last week on the eve of Aunt Marian's funeral I was surprised to recognise so many names of people who are buried there. One of the most startling was the grave of the three Quinn brothers from Ballymoney who died in a sectarian arson attack on their home on the 12th of July, 1998.

Marian had lived to 83 years of age and she had lived well. The priest who conducted her Requiem Mass made much of her sense of adventure, her love of travel and her strong attachment to family. It was probably one of the most inspiring eulogies I've ever heard and, I can assure you, I am very hard to please when it comes to preachers. One thing I noticed in the chapel was the presence of three young brothers, great-nephews of Marian's I suppose, who were around the sort of ages as those other three brothers lying in the churchyard. The Quinns would be grown men now, probably with families of their own but they never made it to adulthood just like so many of the youngsters murdered in Manchester the other night.

It is hard not to feel a terrible sadness right now for it happens that tonight is the 43rd anniversary of the deaths of our father's two brothers, my uncles Shaun and Brendan. Sometimes I forget it is their anniversary. But not this year.

Yvonne and Anne
write far more eloquently on this than I can. There is a lot of reading here but it is very worth it.

Four Years On

The last Leap Year's Day was on a Friday which was just perfect. The week's work done and the very night for a nice relaxing drink or four and an unplanned proposal to the Love of my Life. He didn't wriggle out of it and, if God spares us, we are celebrating our fourth wedding anniversary this coming August.

Father's Day

my parents at home, originally uploaded by NellyMoser.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/17223773@N00/sets/72157594202041118/

Seven Dog Years Later

I'm Gorgeous Me, originally uploaded by NellyMoser.

Bonnie has been living with us for one year now.

James Blunt: He's A.....

D asked me today what I thought of James Blunt. Something happened, maybe that was when Gracie rolled in a dead fish or some such thing, and I never got round to saying. Anyway, for the record, I can't bear the wee get.

Today was one of those days when you remember exactly what you were doing a long time ago.

In 1977, on this day, I was in London. I was working as a chambermaid in the Inverness Terrace Hotel in Bayswater, living in grotty rooms in Holland Park (bet it's not so grotty now) and it was in a friend's flat in Paddington that I heard that Elvis was dead.

I must confess that I wasn't a huge Presley fan and it took a while for his death to affect me. It was 2004 before I realised what we had lost.