Boxy Daisy Titters

Big birthday for Bert today. As is traditional, the birthday cake was served on the Monday closest to the special day, so yesterday. Zoe took the photograph. I have one almost exactly the same but this one is better.

I gave Bert a backpack as a present after the whingeing he did on Rathlin about being the only man on the island without one. He kept saying to people afterwards,

Every man, woman and child had a backpack and there's me, in every single photograph, carrying a shopping bag.

Here's what I think. (1) It was a very nice shopping bag and (2) he was lucky anyone wanted to take his picture.

Bert and his shopping bag wandering the leafy lanes of Rathlin Island

Then on Friday, I took Bert to the Seamus Heaney HomePlace to see Mikel Murfi's The Man in the Woman's Shoes. More than one member of the family had recommended that we see it at our earliest opportunity. And I will not be falling out with any of them for it was heartwarming and brilliant. Mikel Murfi was playing the companion piece, I Hear You And Rejoice, on the following night and I was sorry I wasn't going to see that too. Zoe did and she enjoyed it but said there wasn't the same hilarity in it.

So, it was a busy few days, not helped by the fact that I am still laid low with the summer cold. The kitchen got painted on Saturday, finished on Sunday. Window frames and skirtings still to be completed. It is all looking very fine.

Well, it was a Saturday night. A few beers won't do much harm.

Bert's best birthday present today? It would be hard to decide between Dawn and Les' hamper of fine cheeses and port or the return of Hannah Banana from her travels in Europe. Tough one. Ziggy would definitely say, Hannah! But maybe a small morsel of cheese too. Sorry, Ziggy. Far too good for dogs.

Loudmouth and Alpha

On Monday I engaged in a little bit of food stockpiling, just instant coffee and long grain rice but it's a start. Only joking! I've been hoarding food forever.

The reason why that lot is sitting on the kitchen table is that Nellybert bought a new kitchen from Ikea today and the first unit that is being built is the larder cupboard.

The Kenco coffee and long grain rice were purchased in Lynas (wholesale to the public) and after stashing enough rice to last six months and enough coffee to see us through a month I decided to pop into the charity shop next door. There was a lot going on there. A four-way conversation about shoplifters (foreigners) and attitudes towards. The one doing most of the talking (I'll call her Loudmouth) was a woman of mature years with a bad hair dye job and a worse attitude. She was ranting on about how much she disliked foreigners. She was talking about the Roma people as they are the ones with the bad rep for nicking stuff in charity shops. Anyways, Loudmouth was giving it harsh about what she'd like to do about all these thieving, gipsy foreigners who come over here, live in our houses, take our jobs, rob our charity shops and shit in our second-hand Sunday best suits.* Really! What Loudmouth would like to do would tip their boats into the sea and drown them! She'd hold them under. She would!**

Obviously, this woman was an evil bitch. And crazy. You wouldn't want to get on the wrong side of her. I didn't. I never said a word.

And the other people, the volunteers, the other few customers - they didn't say much either. Just sort of smiled and nodded. Loudmouth left the building. A few remarks were made, not entirely disapproving. One of the women said something, I didn't quite catch it but I gathered it contained some mild swearing. What my mother would have called 'rough talk'. Immediately the alpha volunteer lit on her. We'll have none of that kind of talk in here! The poor woman was mortified. She made some reference to Alpha being 'good-living'. Ballymena talk for a person who considers themselves to be 'saved' or 'born-again'. I may not have mentioned that this particular charity shop was raising funds for Christian missions.

I left the shop (without making a purchase) and went for a walk. I felt soiled and cross with myself for not speaking up. This woman, Alpha, the saved Christian, was happy to listen to the vilest of racist abuse from one woman yet baulked at another, milder woman, swearing. I wondered what Jesus Christ would have made of it all if He'd*** been in the shop with us rummaging through the menswear rails. Alpha would have been keeping a tight eye on Him, with His swarthy Middle Eastern looks, most likely a thief. Those bloody foreigners.

*She really said this!

**Loudmouth was a complete ignoramus. The people she was talking about do not travel here by boat.

***Capitalisation for dramatic effect.