All Fall Down

I sent Bert off to Stanley's funeral today looking very smart indeed. Actually that is a lie. I got home from my own physiotherapy appointment just as he was on the point of leaving and was able to give him a final dust down with the clothes brush and pronounce him fit to be seen.

It's been quite a week so far. Bert was in hospital on Monday having a 'day procedure'. He went there for 8am and got home around 9pm. Pearlie was her usual unsympathetic self. I told her he'd be resting (he had a general anaesthetic) and that I would be fixing her supper. She started to protest saying, "I want Bertie to make it!" I told her to wise up and she started to dry eye cry. Bert laughed and walked out of the room. Tears don't do it for him and I should know. Little wonder after half a century of witnessing his mother's crocodile tears. Pearlie got her supper, made by my own fair hands, and did not eat it. Her choice. She's an intelligent woman (if a little manipulative) and, if I say so myself, her requested supper was a delicious panada that Nigella Lawson would have been proud of.

But we were all out of sorts this week. Pearlie started her Tuesday with a big row with her carers about missing stockings and I started mine with a big row with Pearlie about the very same thing. OK - it's no huge thing that I've been doing her laundry for years now but, on the very odd occasion when something gets misplaced I do get to hear about it. You'd think I do it deliberately. The truth is she'd annoyed me the previous evening by showing Bert no compassion for his pain and discomfort and I was angry with her.

It's a rattling thing when someone you've known for years and who seems so dependable, so strong and so there, just leaves this world so suddenly. Stanley was an important part of the support system for Pearlie's sister and a good friend to very many people. He was a beloved father and grandfather. He was fit, fearless and fun-loving. He loved animals genuinely and without sentiment. His funeral was huge, even by Irish standards. We saw him every two weeks when he brought Lizzie over to visit Pearlie. He used to give us good advice about the cattle and pigs. We will miss him.

Once Again, In The Midst Of Life

How strange life is. We have just had a lovely Sunday where our house has been buzzing all day long. I have been looking after my darling Miss Martha and Raich and Sylvie came round to work on the plot. Of course Sylvie, being a little un, spent most of her time playing with Martha, leaving her mum to dig potatoes like a demon.

Building jigsaws

Meanwhile, in the background, Nellybert know that an old family friend is grievously ill and on life support.

Bert's friend comes round, He is a social worker and Raich used to be a social worker. They get talking about a scheme to introduce adolescents with serious mental health issues to the great outdoors (where Raich now works for a nationally known organisation). They swap email addresses and agree to fix up a meeting. This all takes place in my kitchen while I look on with some pleasure.

Bert receives a message to inform him that, at hospital, the life support for our friend is to be switched off.

Hannah and Jakers arrive to work on a ratty project to make the living quarters more fun-filled for their happy rodents and the social worker joins in. Hannah, Martha and I rack wine, clean up and wash dishes. Hannah and Martha see this as fun. I find that Martha thoroughly enjoys washing demi johns with bottle brushes.

The girls who never take their coats off

Then word comes through that S has died at approximately midday.

So, on this Sunday at Nellybert's, toddlers and children had fun. Social workers made plans to help the unfortunate, wine making and cooking ensued, potatoes were dug and vegetables harvested, friends conversed. People made things with wood in Bert’s workshop while Bert wandered around looking very sad, Pearlie wept, watched Noel Edmonds and did puzzles, I went to town and bought mushrooms, chocolate and wine and pondered very hard on what a complicated and poignant thing that life can be.

In The Midst Of Life

This fellow I know (knew) told me that one day, he was going to buy Galgorm Castle. He was just an ordinary bloke then. Maybe a bit better looking and taller than average, but nevertheless, just an ordinary bloke.

He never did get round to buying Galgorm Castle but he did OK in life. A lot better than OK. It's like my father used to say, 'Aim for the top of the tree and you'll fall into the hedge. Aim for the hedge and you'll fall in the ditch.'

Last night someone took his life and I just cannot get my head around it.

Death On The Dreen

Last night Bert had to shoot one of the calves. The vet didn't know for sure what was wrong with it. She thought it might be meningitis but after a day it was clear the calf wasn't going to get better and that it was suffering. It's only the second time he's had to do that to a large animal. He was quite shook up about it but I reassured him that it was the right thing to do.

This morning he killed three roosters.

The local hounds will eat the calf and we will eat the chickens.

Goner

There's a part of me that thinks it is wrong to pray for animals. It's a part I don't agree with. We're all animals when it comes right down to it. It's just that we humans are particularly arrogant, selfish animals that believe, rightly or wrongly, that we're more important than the rest.

Nevertheless I prayed for Lucy and I prayed for Bonnie. Whilst doing so I had the sneaky suspicion that somebody, something would die in their stead. I'm a superstitious fool. I admit it.

Today I accidentally drowned a spider. And on the Dreen Road, Big Ernie, the angriest turkey in County Antrim, died with his head stuck in the feeding trough. Heart attack? Who knows. Clint weighed him prior to burial. He weighed exactly 60 lbs, including feathers and guts. He was a big boy. Clint is sad. But Lucy is grand and Bonnie is on the mend.

Time Races By

This week has flown past. What was I doing? When did I ever get time to blog before?

I went to work, I played a few games of Scrabulous, I drank at least one gin every night (maybe that's what I'm doing wrong), I tried to keep my house tidy and I read a book.

You know what it is. Having Pearlie staying with us is sucking up all my mental energy. She is such a negative person that she totally drains me. 

I have a new tactic in my battle to stay sane. There will be no more reasoning with her, no more negotiations and no arguments. Instead I will be bland, pleasant and very, very boring. Yes! That's it. I'm going to bore her to death. 

In The Midst Of Life

As I said I forgot all about my blog's anniversary - a trivial enough thing in the wider scheme of things.

On Tuesday morning I received two emails telling me that someone I had been close to many, many years ago had died, in his early sixties, from a heart attack. I'd only recently resumed contact (through Facebook) with his daughter and his first wife and had sent him an email hoping to hear how he was doing. I knew he was retired and, according to his daughter, was living the bohemian life in Spain.

Later that same day Matty told me that one of my many second cousins, Peter Cassidy, had been murdered in Zimbabwe. I'd never met him, not that I recall, but Matty remembered him with fondness as a small boy, during the war years, when he'd been evacuated from Belfast to the Randalstown area. She was quite upset about it. Peter Cassidy was a journalist and, according to African newspaper reports, met a truly horrible end.

It was Mervyn's death that was most on my mind even though it must be nearly thirty years since I last spoke to him. I was eighteen and straight off the farm when I met him, his then wife and their little daughter. We were all student nurses together in Holywell Hospital. I was as green as a goosegog and thought they were two of the most worldly and experienced people I'd ever encountered and consequently was madly attracted to them both. They'd met John Peel! He'd stayed in their flat in Bristol. This was before I knew that John Peel stayed in millions of people's flats. They were hippies, they drank cider, ate different and interesting food out of wooden bowls, had a great music collection, were Bohemians! Mervyn wasn't conventionally handsome but he was funny and intelligent and I sort of hero-worshipped him. Such passion usually ends in tears and we did eventually grow apart.

I still credit the both of them with helping to open my little country mind and introducing me to an alternative world. It was their relationship with their adored daughter that inspired me and got me longing to become a mother. And they even introduced me to my children's father.

I'm just so sorry that Mervyn didn't have longer to enjoy his retirement.