New Years Day

It seems remiss not to mark the first day of the year with a blog post so here we go.

How do I feel right now?

Tired and a bit overfed. We had a huge roast dinner last night which Jazzer and I cooked. She did the soup, the beef, and the roast potatoes. I did three vegetable dishes, Yorkshire puddings and a summer fruit crumble. A joint effort. Then there was too much alcohol and some terrible TV. Jools Holland's show wasn't too bad but it feels a bit of a cheat knowing that everyone there was pretending it was the last day of the year. I mean, we weren't actually sharing the festivities with Beth Ditto, George McCrae and Adrian Dunbar. And, by the way, does anyone else think that Ed Sheeran is a bit bland?

What's been going on?

Leitrim Sister was up for a couple of days. As always, I enjoyed her company. It was horribly cold while she was here but we didn't let it keep us back.

What's happening tomorrow?

Going to Ikea with Zoe and the girls. I'll be buying James some new bits for his train set.

What am I going to do next?

Going to phone James' house to find out what he needs then I'm for having a G&T and maybe a bit of Netflix. Godless is good.

The Day After St Stephen's Day

Apart from posting a few pictures on Flickr, I did not spend much time on social media sites over the holiday period. Reason being, I went to Instagram on Christmas morning to see if there were pictures of my grandchildren opening their presents. There were not but what was there in abundance were pictures of other peoples cosy, firelit, candle-glowing evergreen and berried interiors which threw me into a mild depression as I didn't even try the fairy lights until Christmas Eve and they didn't work so no tree! I missed it very much. So instead I continued with the uploading of archived photographs to Flickr. it was Cullybackey's turn and this was the picture I chose to show the world on Christmas morning.

An interior of a disused factory just outside the village. It could hardly be less hygge although Hannah did point out that the patch of mould in the far corner could definitely pass for a Christmas tree. Next year I'm buying new fairy lights and there will definitely be a tree!

So Christmas Day passed in a blur of cooking, eating and drinking. We watched one thing on television and it was a parcel of shite despite having Christmas trees galore, right way up, suspended from the ceiling, sideways etc. It's perfectly OK going mad on the festive greenery when there is an army of liveried servants to do one's bidding. That's right - I'm ashamed to admit we watched Victoria where Royal children went out in the snow with no hats when everyone knows that one wet flake would kill a child stone dead from consumption or a chill in Victorian times. In my defence, I will say that I kept dropping off to sleep during the turgid dreariness.

St Stephen's Day was much more relaxing but that's for another time. Except that my daughter very wisely pointed out that I might have started Christmas Day a little better if  I'd actually got in my vehicle and drove to town to see my actual flesh and blood grandchildren enjoying their presents instead of faffing around on Instagram and Facebook. Good point Zoe.

Just Like A Pig

Could Bert be trying to tell me something? The other morning he told me this really cute story about the pigs…

Y’know, every morning since the apple harvest I’ve been giving Rusty and Lily a big Bramley after I take them out to the field. They get it just after I shut the gate and Lily always takes her apple to a special place beside the hedge and Rusty, well he just stands there and wolfs it down wherever he’s standing. This morning I got distracted before I shut the gate and the pair of them must have turned back to see what was going on. Well, they found the apple barrels and Lily, she lifted one and took it to her special place and was eating it as dainty as you like. Meanwhile, Rusty was snout-deep in the apples munching away without a care in the world.

They have such different personalities.

Yeah. They do. Tell me this – which of the pigs would be most like you, Lily or Rusty?

Lily, of course. She’s a girl, I’m a girl.

No!

OK. Lily’s most like me because she’s a lovely pig and Rusty is like you because he’s a rough, scruffy brute.

No. Not that!

OK. I get it! You think Lily’s like you because she’s such a dainty eater and Rusty’s like me because he’s a greedy pig.

Yes, that’s what I was thinking.

 A dainty eater

Nelly Christmas

About five weeks ago I decided to cut down on the eating and drinking as I was getting way too fat. And, it was all going so very well. I'd have a few glasses of red wine on a Saturday night and avoided alcohol on the other six days of the week. I watched what I ate, reduced my portions, got back to a daily walk. I was feeling lots better and had reduced my tonnage by 9 lbs. Some of my trousers were actually getting a bit fally-off.

Then Christmas. I had good intentions about the scoffing but the drinking got in the way of that. Stepped on the scales this morning to find that I have gained 6 lbs. Ah well. I will just have to start all over again.

Here is a picture of chubby ol' Nelly hiding behind a dog. Photo courtesy of Miss Martha.

The Temptation of Nelly

I have heard that practitioners of Feng Shui would have it that the attic area of our homes represents our hopes and dreams for the future, and that an attic bunged solid with the usual detritus and junk blocks those hopes and dreams. With this in mind I plugged myself into the translater’s notes for Don Quixote and headed for the poor man’s Aladdin’s Cave that is our roofspace. Oh the stuff! And we’ve only been here a few years. After twenty minutes I had managed to throw out three things, had rearranged several more and decided to allow Bert’s grandfather back down the stairs. His reappearance will annoy Pearlie as she didn’t get on with him. Now the only thing to decide is whether to hang him in her room or just outside it. Just outside it would probably be best as I make a point without being too cruel.

 

I was just wondering what to do with Bert’s old pram when that very face appeared at the top of the staircase.

 

“Do you feel like being naughty?” he enquired.

 

Naturally my first instinct was to kick him back down the stairs. However I refrained, pointed to my headphones and roared, “I CAN’T HEAR YOU!

 

He said, “No! Not that kind of naughty.” and produced ice cream. What could I do? I ate it. I’m finding it so very hard to resist temptation these days.

 

Then there was the other day. Hannah made one of her yummy curries and I had a good helping with rice and naan bread. That should have been enough for me. But no – next thing Jakers produces a gigantic slab of caramel shortcake and waves it under my nose. I say, “Oh no. I shouldn’t.” He says, “It’s OK. It’s not cake or anything,” I had to agree. It may have been a concoction of sugar, fat, flour, condensed milk and chocolate but it wasn’t actually CAKE. So I ate it.

 

Then there’s all the sweets and biscuits that Bert and Hannah bring into the house. I tell them to hide it from me so that I won’t be tempted. And they do. They hide it in the second drawer down in the wee red IKEA cabinet in the TV room. And sometimes they even leave the drawer open so that I can see that they've hidden it. 

Nelly the Zealophant

Bert and I went out for breakfast this morning. We went to one of those cafes that specialise in cheap Ulster fries and traybakes. It’s a popular spot that is always doing a roaring trade. As I’d already had my healthy fruit and muesli breakfast I ‘contented’ myself with a cup of coffee. He was ages in the queue so I entertained myself by people watching. There was a 60+ couple in front of him. I noticed that the man, otherwise just stocky, had one of those enormous bulging bellies. His wife was pretty chunky too. Both of them collected huge platefuls of food. I watched the man as he sat down. He looked almost dewy-eyed as he started to tuck in. Bert came down with a small fry-up, small enough to see lots white plate through. I’ll have to be honest here and admit that not so long ago I’d have had some food too, even though I wasn’t hungry, just because it was there and everyone else was eating. And maybe that was why I was so interested in what all the other people were eating and why I was being hypercritical about their diets and their BMIs. As Ed said of me as recently as today, ‘there's no zealot like a convert’. He was talking about my anti-smoking stance. But anyways back to the big-bellied man. He was still chomping away after Bert had finished the mini-fry. Only by now he was looking a bit bored with it and his jaws seemed weary as he chowed down. His hunger was satisfied but he carried on eating. And that’s how you get a great big belly. Just another observation – I reckon that the proportion of obese people inside the café was far greater that the proportion out on the street.