The Stack Garden

Bert generally does not tell me things. So I wasn't a bit surprised yesterday when a large truck containing stones arrived on the yard. As Bert thinks receiving a load of stones an important task accomplished it would therefore be deserving of a cup of tea. When he came into the kitchen I attempted to engage him in conversation.

What are the stones for?
Och!
No. Tell me what they're for.
Tssk!
Just tell me. Other husbands tell their wives things.
The back garden!

And off he stomped clutching his cup of tea in hand.

Did I ever mention that he's not really a morning person?

I pondered this information. The back garden? We have various areas around the house that could be described as garden but I wasn't sure which he meant. And why would he be needing stones for it? Gardens are my department too. I deserve to be consulted.

I broached the subject again the next time he came in for refreshments (thirty minutes later).

So, exactly where is this back garden you speak of? Back of where?
I didn't say back garden. I said stack garden.
Stack garden?
Yes. Every farm has a stack garden.
Where's ours?
Round the back. Where the pigs are.
Bert – In nearly thirty years I have never once heard you call any part of this place the stack garden. Have you just made that up?

I have to say here that the naming of places is something we argue about discuss often.

Bert went on to argue that this area, which I call the pig paddock, has always been referred to as the stack garden and that if I had been brought up on a farm, as I claim, then there would have been a stack garden.

And what would this stack garden be used for?
For stacks.
What kind of stacks?
Hay! Corn! Logs!
No. We had sheds for those and the hay was baled and stored in a hay shed.

He continued to insist that all farms had stack gardens and I argued that stack gardens were all in his head or else something only hill-billies know about.

Currently his names for fields are,

The Field Across The Road

The Meadow

The Corner Field

The Hall Field

The First Hill

The Second Hill

The Third Hill

The Big Hill

He claims not to remember the names of the six fields planted in trees apart from The Whinny Field. These fields are now known as The Trees. I pressed him on this and he managed to recall that two of them had been referred to as,

The Wee Field On The March With Gregg's

The Boag Field

Boag Field. Do you mean bog?
It rhymes with doag*. So what did you ones call a boag then?
We called it The Moss and cut turf in it. We didn't make a field out of it.
Youse were that grand out at Tannaghmore.
We were.

I'm certain sure that when I met Bert he didn't speak of doags, boags or stack gardens. And he used to (I think) tell me things so when the man from the quad bike shop pulled into the yard this morning I thought he wanted to buy a tree, or perhaps he was looking for directions. But no. Bert has bought a quad bike. And never said.

*doag - dog

The Parlour Revisited

A post from September 2009. Still relevant.

The other day I asked the household where some kitchen gadget had got to. Bert says,

The last place I saw it was on the sill in the parlour.

Parlour? Where’s the bloody parlour?

I never said parlour. I said…you know…that room out there.

You mean the room with the washing machine in it?

Yeah. That room, the – you know?

The scullery. Or utility room if you like. Where did parlour come from?

I never said parlour.

You bloody did.

It’s a big problem for me this shifting of place names. The outside is a nightmare. The sheds are referred to something like this -

• The Woodshed

• The Milk House

• The Byre

• The Cattle Shed

• The Workshop

• The Hen House

• The Pig House

• The Calf Shed

• The Back Shed

• The Potato Shed

• The Turf Shed

• The Silo

• The Tractor Shed

• The Tool Shed

• Ian’s Shed

Of course we don’t have fifteen sheds. We have about six shed-type buildings and each one has at least three names depending on which decade Bert’s mind is settled on that particular day. For instance, if Bert refers to the Turf Shed, will he be speaking of the shed which currently contains turf (unlikely) or does he mean a shed that was used for turf storage twenty, or even forty years ago. This is not much use to me as I don’t know where they kept the turf during the Swinging Sixties.

It was no better in our last place where we only had a garage and three poly tunnels.

Where are my orange handled secateurs?

In the tunnels.

Which one?

The one with the clematis.

They all have clematis.

The montanas.

Big ones or liners?

Och you know. The one with Denise’s potting bench.

She has two bloody potting benches! Here they are! Why couldn’t you just have said the middle tunnel?

I blame his mother.

When this was her house there were three rooms referred to as The Scullery and two known as The Pantry and two called The Good Room and two more called The Front Room. Upstairs was The Room, Bert’s Room, Lizzie’s Room, Uncle Andy’s Room, Our Room, My Room, The Good Room, The Room With The New Window, The Room With The Broken Floor, The Cupboard, The Back Room, The Room With The Good Bed, The Front Room, The Big Room, The Wee Room, The Best Room and the Attic. As far as I know, The Toilet and The Bathroom were never called anything else but I could be wrong.

There was none of that nonsense in our house. Upstairs we had 4 bedrooms which were named according to the persons who slept in them, downstairs was The Kitchen, The Scullery, The Room, The Bathroom and The Room Before The Bathroom. It never changed downstairs. Outside sheds were named and stayed named. You knew where you were in Tannaghmore.

And don’t get me started on fields.