The Siege of Drumrankin

 

On Saturday Ben and Sara came around and we made a start on the overgrown flower bed next to the lawn. Ben was the spade man and I just pointed at things and wheeled barrows to the compost heap. A mass of blue iris was removed, a huge cephalaria gigantea disposed of and yellow crocosmia, irises and Sidalcea lifted and shared with Sara. Bert absented himself from these endeavours as he was helping Clint with his beasts.

Cleo likes a bit of digging too.

We had a leak in the upstairs bathroom which I discovered at 6am on Sunday morning. I’m usually up at that time as Cleo needs to be toileted as early as possible. Bert was informed of the leak and got up to look at it. Then returned to bed saying he would sort it later. I placed a basin under the drip and returned to bed for a few hours. Finished my Jane Gardam – the third part of the Filth trilogy already ordered from World Books.

Four hours later Bert got up and I fed him porridge and peaches and he got to work. I’m not sure what he did but the leak was fixed – temporarily.

Clint was on the yard first thing this morning. There was a bit of a siege on. Apparently, some boy’s cattle along with some other boy’s Simmental bull had broken out of another boy’s field and some decent sort of a boy had come along and got them all off the Dreen Road and into Clint’s silage field. So a posse of boys were gathered up and the cattle were to be moved into our big shed for collection.

I went up to tell Bert.

You know the other day, when you were telling me a tale about J’s sister-in-law, who was letting Clint cut silage in her fields for free and this boy came up and said he’d no business as the grass belonged to him and it was very confusing and it was either ‘this boy’ or ‘that boy’ and I couldn’t make head or tail of it – well do I have a tale for you, boys, cows and bulls galore and the good news is that there are that many boys coming to round them up that you can stay in bed.

It must have taken the boys a good half hour to get the beasts out of Clint’s silage but eventually, all landed in the yard and the cattle were safely deposited in the shed. The boys were a mixed bunch. One of them was a grizzled old fellow who looked like he belonged in a Western movie. One had a shifty look about him. One wore his trousers belted close to his armpits and one young one’s jeans were hanging halfway down his arse with a good expanse of his hairy crack on view. One was a girl and one was Clint.

It goes without saying that Clint wasn’t that impressed with twenty cows and calves and a bull trampling through his silage but the boy who owned the bull said he could have the loan of it for a month and Clint reported tonight that it has its courting ears on and he’s hoping to have an excellent wee crop of calves in 2024.

Yellow crocosmia, sidalcea, iris, cephalaria. Don't worry, I've still go lots of them left. These had just gotten out of hand in a small flowerbed

And Bert was up reasonably early this morning, off to the plumbing supplies store and has fixed the leak.

And I have bought yet another dress for Naoise's wedding. 

Blogger's Block

I struggle these days with Nelly's Garden. Two recent posts have discouraged me. The most recent was A Bit Of A Siege in which I described some fraught visits to Ikea. A response (from a dear cousin) worried me. I'd been critical of some aspects of my Ikea experience but ultimately felt that part of what went wrong was my own fault. My cousin had a relative (her husband's side of the family) who worked in the Belfast store and she was concerned, on his behalf, that I had a less than satisfactory experience. That worried me. Made me think that my attempts at light-heartedness might be making someone else feel less than good about themselves.

What can I say? I'm a snowflake. At least no-one has got in touch to rail against me for disrespecting the besieged defenders of Derry.

The other posting that attracted opprobrium was Alpha and Loudmouth. I wrote that one out of shame. Shame because I listened to vile racist abuse and did not speak up. In the comments in response to a regular commenter, I remarked that both women would have been Trump supporters if they lived in the USA. I am certain of that. This drew fierce comment from another regular commenter. I get it. I was associating racists with Trumpism. And I stand by that in the context of this place.

The thing is, I know my conservative (right-wing) and Loyalist neighbours. They don't trust Catholics, they don't like foreigners, they have little compassion for immigrants. They voted for Brexit, even though as citizens of Northern Ireland that was very much against their interests. British right-wingers mainly approve of the United States' current leader.

Definitely, Trump gets a very bad press in the kind of papers I read but I do understand this - not all Trump supporters are racist but, it does seem, that most racists are Trump supporters. And this is what I would like to know, and I know I have at least one Republican Trump supporter who reads this blog, is this - what is it about this man that you support?

A Bit Of A Siege

It was Bert who I first heard using the expression 'a siege' to describe a situation that was somewhat fraught. It must be a Northern Ireland Protestant thing, Derry never far from their minds, the taste of rattus norvegicus still on the tongue.

Well, it's been a bit siegy at Nellybert's this past week or more what with all the dog visitors (Gracie, Maya, Dora and Jack) and the kitchen fitting. Good news. It's nearly done. It's almost functional but, as it is sore in need of decorating, there will be no photographs until that is completed.

Today was a complete siege. Thankfully I had Zoe by my side to support me through it. It was The Return To Ikea.

There was a lot of stuff to bring back. For some reason, Ikea sold and delivered to us an entire set of drawer fittings for a unit that was meant to be shelved. So that had to go back as did various white bits, some superfluous fittings, a damaged door and some knobs that we'd changed our minds about. The whole lot came to about £250. Shame I'd lost the original receipt. So it was off for a bit of a wait and a people watch at Returns.

There are some funny people around. One woman returned three packets of paper napkins. I cannot imagine bothering to do that myself. I'd have kept them to use another time even though when that time came I'd have totally forgotten where I'd stashed them.

Eventually, my number was called. I wheeled my laden trolley to the young man's desk and began explaining that I was going to be a complete pain in the ass as I had no receipt as it had become buried under four grands worth of kitchen and then I'd gone to Amsterdam and never saw it again.

Amsterdam? he said. No problem, he said. And then efficiently worked his way through everything while telling me how much he loved Amsterdam and how he'd been there eight times and was going back in July. Did I partake? he asked. Sure, said I. When in Rome and all that.

As sieges go, that part wasn't too bad.

Zoe and I had arranged to meet in the restaurant. I was to phone her when I was done but, siege!, no coverage. Eventually, I had her paged. What's the name? asked the Ikea co-worker. Zoe Surname, I told her. Soon this message rang out throughout the store,

Customer Announcement. Can Zoe go to the restaurant where her Mum is waiting for her?

I was worried that there might be flocks of Zoes descending on the restaurant but just one turned up. My one.

We had the usual run through the store. I replaced handles and damaged door, bought another pull-out tray for the larder and inserts for the cutlery drawer. The door and tray had to be ordered, paid for at the till and collected from another desk. Somehow, between the till and the collection desk, I mislaid the receipt and another one had to be printed. Siege! Meanwhile, Zoe started gathering her bits and pieces to take to the van and somehow between the till and the collection desk and the van a little alarm clock she'd bought for her youngest daughter was not to be found. Siege! First thought was that it had been left at the till but apparently not. What happened next was that an Ikea co-worker had to take details and then go and watch security footage whereupon she returned and informed us that they had Nelly on camera picking it up at the till and placing it on top of some shelf brackets and then leaving the till area. So that was gone. Dropped somewhere and picked up by someone who has got themselves a free alarm clock. Good luck to whoever it is, may they never oversleep again.

To console ourselves for the loss of Evie's clock we returned to the restaurant and ate cake. Nothing else for it. As siege tucker goes that had to be a whole lot nicer than boiled rat.

This is the style of our kitchen. Not the handles. Ours are black.

Off-Duty Blogging

Moving house is one of the most physically exhausting and mentally tiring situations in the world. But then you knew that didn't you? My specialist subject is The Bleeding Obvious.

I love my new house but it made me sick and I'm only just recovering from that. That and the perfidy of British Telecom is my excuse for recent patchy blogging. Although I can't blame BT for not sending my London sis a birthday card.

After tomorrow I've got four days off and I plan to get back to some regular posting. This may well include a brief account of the Drinking Competition between the Mosers and the Wee Mannys.

It may also include an illustrated account of the Siege of Mrs Diana Wee-Manny's chopped off toe. I am going to warn youse in advance that I have obtained some graphic, nay, gross photographs of her toe/toelessness and if anybody would be repulsed/ thrilled to see these please let me know.

The Talk of the Country

Bert is a bit affronted to hear that he is the Talk of the Country. Ploppy Pants had all the gen about the siege outside the Dromona Creamery and of course as usual he refused to say where he had heard it.

He says to me, "Did you tell Ploppy Pants about Sunday evening?"

I reply, "No, but I put it on the internet."

Clint tells it like this,

“I thought nothing atall about seeing Nelly out tramping the roads. Says I to myself ‘wud ye luk at the goes o’ her,’ and then when I got to the creamery all I could see was this crowd o’ ones standing outside the gates and I thought the Dromona boys were out on strike. Then next thing I see Bert stuck in the middle of it and I wonder what the hell he’s doing there. Have they been out for a run and fell out and she’s off stomping home in a rip?”

Of course that’s why I volunteered to walk home ‘for the van’. It was really because I didn’t want the whole of Dromona seeing me, standing there like a complete idiot, locked out of my own car.

The Kerry Man

The fellows who have been spending their Christmas holidays stripping the old house down to the bare walls have been surprised by the number of Bert’s friends who call to the site to see what’s going on.

But only one has stayed to do a bit of work. The Kerry man’s visit coincided with the first day Bert hired the mini digger. It’s a bit smaller than what the Kerry man’s used to but once he gave it a try that was him for the day.

At dark I made Bert and him a big feed of cabbage and sausages and gave him my car to get back to Tannaghmore. He was planning to be here today at about half eight. He turned up in a fluster just before ten. There had been a flat tyre and a missing wrench and a general siege. He’d sorted it but had no time for coffee. “I’d better get up there. I wouldn’t want those Protestants thinking a Kerry man would be lying in his bed to this time.”

And you know he wasn’t hard to pay for his work – he got a beech hedge for his bother and he dug it out himself.