A Visit to the Dingle Peninsula

I had a smashing time in Kerry – literally! The first thing I smashed was the passenger side bumper of my car. This was the result of a little accident I had whilst pulling out from a shop in Limerick. He came from nowhere m’lud. And far too bloody fast and me in serious need of a coffee break. Which is what I’d stopped for. Being a twit I immediately admitted guilt and the wee lad was OK about it. His car was barely marked but as usual he wanted to go through the boring crap of garages and quotes. There’s my bumper hanging off and all his entire car got was a wee scuff on its paintwork. With time to think about it I realise it was as much his fault as mine.

We settled the matter with fifty euro and I hope never to hear from him again. I have reason to believe I might not. Unless he reads this blog.

Then the following day I sat on my camera whilst out on a beach walk with the Kerry Sister and Brandon. I was a wee bit gutted but decided it was a perfect opportunity to get a nicer camera.

It is thirteen years since I stayed west of Dingle and I saw a lot change in the place. The Kerry Sister’s garden was amazing. Last time I’d been there it was a wee patch of flowers, a bit of fuchsia, some crocosmia and a couple of fields of stone and rushes. She’s been busy this last decade. It must have helped that Brandon’s a digger man as well as a dry stone waller. But he’d be the first to admit that most of the work was done by the Kerry Sister herself.

Then there was the extension – which was perfectly in keeping with the charm of the old house. Once again the pair of them had carried out most of the work themselves. It's nice for Brandon to be married to a carpenter. I was very impressed.

Dingle has got very modern. And the tourists have changed. There were hardly any Americans (cannot afford Europe these days) and many fewer Germans although there were lots more Japanese.

Other things have changed too. Once it was only the tourists drove decent cars. The locals moved around in rusty cars or ancient tractors. The fields were full of donkeys. Now there’s hardly a donkey in sight. It’s all SUVs, brand new tractors and ponies. These days the only people driving crappy cars are sure to be tourists – like me.

At least I managed to get to the top of Mt Brandon without breaking anything!

Ting-A-Ling

Pearlie's home and happy with us all dancing attendance on her. She has requested a buzzer. I've suggested a bell.

Father's Day

my parents at home, originally uploaded by NellyMoser.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/17223773@N00/sets/72157594202041118/

Bonnie Now & Then

Bonnie, originally uploaded by ZMB.

I've just caught this picture on Zoe's Flickr photostream.

And that was Bonnie when she first came to us in October 2006. It's quite a difference isn't it?

Hee Haw!

Matty and I went to the Oldgreen Garden Centre and got ourselves some Neddy ears.

I thought they looked best on Matty. You can see by her beaming smile that she thought so too.

Photographs courtesy of Ganching.

Just Sign On The Dotted Line

Just sign that would you Bert?

(signing) Sure. What is it? Have I won a prize?

Yes. You have. A bride.

Aaaargh!

Don't worry. You don't have to turn up if you don't want to.

You'll probably drag me.

Probably.

Happy Birthday Kylie!

Baby Bert, originally uploaded by NellyMoser.

Kylie is 40 today! Can you believe it? She don't look a day over 30. It's amazing what a combination of good cheekbones and botox can do for a girl.

In other news, today is also Bert's birthday. He doesn't look a day over 30 either. At least, not in this photograph.

Something To Think About

I picked up an old book recently entitled Modern English Short Stories. The writing may have been modern back in the 1930s but not so much now. I found this story by Mary Webb (Gone To Earth, Precious Bane) very moving and thought-provoking. I keep coming back to it when I feel negative and scared about Pearlie coming to live with us.

Change Coming

How’s Pearlie?

She’s doing not too badly considering.

She’s been in a nursing home for just over a week now but I’m afraid she doesn’t like it. I don’t blame her because the home she’s in is one of those huge chains. Smells like pee and staff seem a bit thin on the ground. There’s damn all going on in there other than folk just sitting around waiting to die.

We decided a couple of weeks ago that Pearlie should come over into the house with us. This is scheduled to take place in 4-5 days and Pearlie says she’s ‘dreading it’.

Mmmm.

Pearlie doesn’t want to stay on her own any longer. She doesn’t want to go into a home and Bert doesn't want it for her either.

I’m not entirely sure why Pearlie is dreading the move across the yard. What she says is that she needs to go to the toilet at around five am and she doesn’t think that Bert and I can manage it. I don’t think we can either. When I suggested that she come to us I thought the only upheaval would be that of the carers in and out all day. But since she’s been in hospital and the home they’ve been getting her up to the toilet at the scrake of dawn – or so she says.

I say to Bert – she needs two people to help her. We cannot do it on our own.

He says – that’s just them and their health and safety regulations.

I say – you were on your own with her when she fell. I’m not going to take that risk.

Pearlie’s not the only one who is worried about what’s in front of her.

Choosing His Words

Where've you been?

Making a total eedjit of myself.

What do you mean?

Well I went up to Philip McCartney's to ask if it was OK to go after those foxes on his ground.

What did he say?

Very little. He wasn't there but his wife was.

Oh.

She comes to the door and she's this red-headed woman and there's all these wee red-headed weans running about the place and I opens my mouth and says to her, 'There's a wee ginger bugger has been harassing my hens', and her jaw dropped and she looks round her at all the weans and I say, 'I mean a fox! A fox has been harassing my hens and is it OK if we go on to your ground to shoot it?'

What did she say then?

She just looked relieved and said, 'Shoot away at it!'

Omelettes Are Currently Off The Menu

Not our Foxy's offspring but of a similar age

Bert found Foxy's lair last night, saw her and her two cubs, got excited, shot at her and missed.

Alber' and friend came round this evening rigged out in full camouflage, armed to the teeth and staked her out. She was probably hiding in a gorse bush laughing her head off at them.

Did I mention she nabbed another hen? Our fences don't deter her. Our traps she easily avoids. She is, at time of writing this, still out there. Alber' and his mate got fed up and took themselves off home.

Is It Wednesday Already?

Ten activities that cut into my blogging time:

1. Reading blogs.
2. Playing Scrabulous.
3. Sifting through the detritus of fifty years of hoarding.*
4. Thinking very hard about the obligations the middle-aged have towards the very old.
5. Going to work.
6. Growing vegetables.
7. Watching 'American Dad'.
8. Fox-hunting.
9. Weeshing....
10. Thinking about blogging.

Twelve 'popular' television programmes I've never watched. This list is inspired by Mr Bolan who famously avoids television.

1. Inspector Morse
2. Desperate Housewives
3. Ballykissangel
4. House
5. Supernanny
6. Buffy The Vampire Slayer
7. Grey's Anatomy
8. Prison Break
9. Scrubs
10. Heroes
11. Nip/Tuck
12. Ballykissangel

I'm not a deliberate avoider of the telly. I just can't be arsed and after a while I get bored with its offerings. I got very bored of 'Lost', bored of 'My Name Is Earl' and terribly bored of 'The Bill' (to which I used to be addicted). Currently I'll watch 'American Dad', 'Dexter', 'Peepshow' and that pillock Jonathan Ross.

*Pearlie

What Foxes Do

We had a visit from Foxy on Saturday morning. I'd let the hens out at about eight o'clock. Bert discovered the carnage at around 2pm. It had probably happened mid-morning. The hen run isn't that close to the house and we'd heard no commotion. The only unusual thing we spotted was Plum (the rooster) running around. In all the weeks that he has been confined with his harem he has never made any attempt to escape. He had all he wanted within the run. But when Foxy entered he managed to make his escape over the wire.

Nine hens were killed. The fox made off with four. She must have made several journeys. The remaining hens took refuge in the house. Five corpses were left semi-buried. Foxy intended to return.

This is where she got in. She dug a hole under the wire.


The remains of Morag, the Scots Dumpy.


This was one of Clint's special hens, reared from an egg.

One of the old battery hens we got from Bert's Aunie Fungus.

We've declared war on Foxy. I'd hoped to conclude this post with a picture of a dead fox but so far no luck. Alber' was to come yesterday and set a trap for her but he didn't make it. She came back last night and picked up four of the dead hens. Today there is one corpse left, Alber's trap is set and there is a bullet with her name on it waiting for her.

NW200

Not everyone in Northern Ireland follows the motorcycle racing but everyone is interested in the North West 200.

I've just caught my cousin Denver Robb interviewed on the local news about the serious crash involving Robert Dunlop. This doesn't look good. Matty and I were only talking about Robert's chances a few hours ago. Please God he will be OK but it doesn't look good.

Update: Robert didn't make it.

Be Nice To Nettles Week

The sooner I get music in my car for my daily trek to work the better because the radio is starting to annoy me. I must be getting really old and fogeyish when even Radio 4 gets on my nerves. It bothers and irks me every single morning.

Take today’s offerings:

The deplorable state of the housing market That's hardly a cheery start to the working day when you work in that very field yourself. But I did surprise myself when I became exasperated enraged at a 'spokesperson' using the word ‘exasperate’ when he meant ‘exacerbate’. Little wonder the industry is in turmoil when that is the best we can do.

Then there was this:

Apparently there is a new film being made of Brideshead Revisited. This was last seen on our screens as a television series in 1981. I don’t know what I was getting up to back then but it certainly wasn’t watching that. I was well aware of the fuss surrounding it, for who couldn’t be. I just read the book. It's not one of his best.

So Radio 4 takes the screenwriter Jeremy Brock to meet with Sir John Mortimer the man responsible for the original adaptation. Aaargh! It was cringey. Mortimer is obviously mightily miffed at the film being made at all and kept saying in his querulous little old man's voice,

Just read the book.

No need for a film.

There had better be homosexuality and religion.

And teddy bears.

And why don't you write something original?

Like Rumpole.

Obviously a change of tune from when he took the gig back in the late seventies. Brock talked to Mortimer in the tones of a concerned and friendly geriatrician and reassured him that the film was replete with homosexual teddy bears. But the whole thing was just awful. I didn’t know who I wanted to shake the hardest – the Radio 4 production team or Sir John.

The only thing that was worth listening to was this story on the use of nettles. Zoë and D were out here the other week gathering nettle shoots for soup that D said was very yummy indeed. Apparently they can also be used as a substitute for spinach. I love spinach so I’d better hurry up as the nettle harvesting season is nearly over.

And would you believe that nettles can also be turned into a linen like cloth? I’d like to see and wear that. It’s not very common as hardly anyone is manufacturing it.I wonder if you can make cloth out of dockens. If so then the farmer who has the ground next to us could become a very wealthy man indeed.

Here’s a recipe for Nettle Soup. I must try it myself before nettles become all tough and hairy like a le…. No! I cannot say that. Ganching would kill me.

Ingredients

½ carrier bag full of nettles, tops or young leaves
55g butter
1 large or 2 medium onions, finely sliced
1 large carrot, chopped (optional)
2 celery sticks, chopped (optional)
1 large garlic clove, crushed (optional)
1 litre good chicken, fish or vegetable stock
a pinch of freshly grated nutmeg (optional)
3 tablespoons cooked rice or 3 rice cakes
2 tablespoons thick cream or crème fraiche
salt and freshly ground black pepper


To Garnish:
A little extra cream or crème fraiche
A small bunch of chives, chopped
A few sprigs of wild chervil or parsley, chopped

Method

Pick over the nettles and wash them thoroughly. Discard only the tougher stalks, as the soup will be liquidised. Melt the butter in a large pan and sweat the onion, plus the carrot, celery and garlic if using, until soft but not brown. Add the stock and pile in the nettles. Bring to the boil and simmer for 5-10 minutes, until the nettles are tender. Season with salt and pepper, and with nutmeg if you wish. Puree the soup in a liquidiser with the cooked rice or rice cakes (you will probably have to do this in 2 batches). Return to a clean pan, stir in the cream and reheat, but do not let it boil. Check the seasoning, then serve, garnishing each bowl with a swirl of cream and a generous sprinkling of chopped herbs.

To serve cold:
An alternative is to serve this soup cold. After liquidising and adding the cream, pour the soup into a bowl and leave to cool, then transfer to the fridge for a couple of hours before serving. For accelerated cooling, fill a large basin or saucepan with ice cubes and water and place the bowl of soup in the iced water. Stir to chill, adding more ice cubes if the first batch melts. Stir well just before serving and ladle the soup out into bowls. Garnish each with a swirl of cream and a sprinkling of chopped chives and wild chervil.

Serves 6

Recipe found on this dear old Radio 4 site

Matty's Creggan Schooldays

This part of Matty's memoir covers her time spent as a pupil of Master Duffy. I grew up hearing these stories and have always thought that Master Duffy was an inspirational teacher. My mother sat and passed the scholarship exam under his tutelage. She would have had her fees paid at grammar school had she taken up her place. Unfortunately her family was not able to afford the extras that this would have entailed. There would not have been enough to spare for school uniforms, books or travel to Ballymena. The wages that she would earn as a factory girl would have been sorely missed too. So it was that she left schooldays behind at 14 and started work in the Old Bleach in Randalstown.

Matty writes:

When I was eight years old I moved into Master Duffy’s classroom. I was a bit worried for he got the name of being very cross.

On my first day I was given a pen to write with. I had never used a pen before and the first thing I did was make a big blot on the page I was using. I was sure I would get slapped but he must have been in a good mood that day for it did not happen.
I spent the rest of my schooldays with Master Duffy and I was not really unhappy. He was a very clever man but he had a strange way of teaching. We did not have a half hour for each subject but two or three hours of the same thing. It was all right if you liked the subject but if you did not it was very boring. My favourite subjects were Geography, English and Art. Talking of art I was classed as a bit of a weirdo. When we had a visitor at the school the Master would ask me to give them a demonstration of me writing with my right hand and drawing with my left. It was all very embarrassing for me. I don’t think he knew how I had been punished and forced to use my right hand when I was a young child. History was not my favourite subject. I would sit and gaze out of the window and daydream and listen to his voice droning on and then he would shout at me,


“How many wives had Henry VIII?”

I could not answer and I would get a hard slap on the hand and it would sting for an hour or more.

When I was about ten years old we moved to a house on the Mill Road. I was very happy there for two of my school friends Betty and Lizzie lived on that road and we had good fun playing together. During the school holidays Mammy would take us for walks through the fields looking for bird’s nests and gathering wild flowers and she could tell us the names of these things which was educational for us.

On Saturdays we had to help Mammy to clean windows with screwed up newspaper, dusting and brushing below beds. My friend Lizzie would help me to do my chores so we would have more time to play.

My sister Sadie and I were the tomboys in our family and our favourite things to do were climbing trees and swinging from rafters and walking across the tops of iron gates. All very dangerous things to do and Mammy would have been very cross with us if she had known what we were doing.


In the Autumn we would gather crab apples and blackberries for Mammy to make jam or jelly. It took about two days to make the jelly as the juice of the boiled fruit had to be strained through a muslin bag but when it was finished it was well worth waiting for.

I spent some very happy times with Lizzie Boyle at the Lough Shore. She was very good at swimming but I was unable to do so. I spent the time in the water paddling and having fun. Sometimes when we were playing at the shore fishermen from other places around would come by. Lizzie knew them all by name. They would call with Lizzie’s mother who made fishing nets. I liked to watch her making them, as she was very skilled at her work. The house they lived in then was very old with cobblestones on the floor. I thought they were very lucky not to need to scrub the floor, as it just needed brushing with a broom.

One day Lizzie’s sister Teresa had gathered some hazel nuts around the shore and she was going to put them in toffee she was making. While she was doing this Lizzie and I came in and she told us she was putting dried peas in the toffee. Because she was older than us we believed her and told her she could eat it herself, as we did not want any of it.

The twenty ninth of June, the feast of Saints Peter and Paul, was a special day for us children for we had a fair on the shores of Lough Neagh at Cranfield. We children looked forward to it for weeks and saved our pennies to spend at the stalls buying sweets, yellowman and ice cream. The older people would walk around the ruins of the old church and visit the Holy Well to say prayers.

Once a year we had a traveling show called ‘Sparks’ which came to Tate’s Hall at Cranfield. They put on a different show every night and adults and children all attended it. We all enjoyed it very much and were sorry to see them leave at the end of two weeks and go to another part of the country.
One winter we had very heavy frost and a lint dam in front of the school was frozen hard. A lot of us were playing on it and the ice cracked. Dan McAteer and myself both went into the water. It was lucky it was not too deep but we were wet and cold. Dan was able to go home and get changed as he lived quite near the school but I had to wait until home time. I must have been a healthy child for it did not do me the slightest bit of harm.

We had a big garden at the back of our school and when the weather was good we spent a lot of time working in it, digging and planting and then weeding. We had a lot of different vegetables growing and a few flowers. We were allowed to take vegetables home when they were ready for harvesting and they were much appreciated by Mammy even though we had a vegetable garden at home. At the beginning of the war our school garden got a write up in the Belfast Telegraph for the way in which every inch of ground had been used for growing extra vegetables. We were all very pleased at getting a picture in the paper of us working in the garden.

One day while we were working in the garden Master Duffy got a message to go home. He told us to continue working and he would be back within the hour. We worked for a little while then we started chasing each other up and down the paths and sometimes accidentally stepping on the vegetable plots. That is what we were doing when Master Duffy arrived back and he was very angry. We were all brought back into the classroom and punished and he told us we were no better than a pack of wild animals.

When war was declared in September 1939 I was thirteen years old. We had heard it on the radio that Sunday morning, as we were getting ready to go to Mass. We had three miles to walk and we were not long left home when it started to rain very heavily and in a few minutes we were drenched to the skin. It was so bad we thought it was the end of the world and we were very frightened.

At school every morning after Master Duffy had read the newspaper he would get out a large map of Europe and throw it over the blackboard. He would then explain how the war was progressing and what country Hitler was taking over. I do not know what the rest of the class thought of it but I was not very interested and could not be bothered listening. I was too young to realize the terrible tragedies that could come from countries at war.

Nineteen forty was the year our class would leave Creggan School. Seven of us, five girls and two boys, were picked to do the Leaving Certificate exam. So we had to study hard and do extra homework in the evenings. The day of the exam arrived and we had to travel by bus to Antrim town where the exam would take place. A few weeks later we got the results and five of us had passed, one of the boys and four of us girls. We were very pleased.

The following week Master Duffy invited us to his house for a celebration tea. He lived alone so we were surprised how nicely everything was set out. There were little sandwiches and cakes cut into fingers. We really enjoyed our tea and afterwards he asked us girls would we wash some dishes for him. We got a bit of a shock when we went into his kitchen and saw the table covered with dirty dishes. It took us ages getting them finished and then we thanked him for tea and went home. We were worried he might think up some more jobs for us to do.

When we went back to school after the summer holidays Master Duffy continued to keep us informed how the war was going and the news was not good.

At the end of nineteen forty I was leaving school to help Mammy look after four of our cousins who were evacuated from Belfast. Although we did not have conscription in Northern Ireland we had food rationing, we needed coupons to buy sweets, we had blackout on all windows and a scarcity of so many things.

We learned how to make do and mend – it was not unusual for girls to get coats made from army blankets – but it became just a way of life.

I was sorry to leave my schooldays behind but strange to say a ceilidh at Creggan School is where I met my husband Seamus when I was nineteen. That was fifty-five years ago and another story to be told.

Ten Things That Make Me Happy

wild cherry blossom, originally uploaded by NellyMoser.

1. Hand feeding vine weevil grubs to my favourite hen.

2. Having long eared owls breeding on our farm.

3. Nurturing seedlings in my greenhouse.

4. Getting a really good move on Scrabulous.

5. Spring flowers.

6. Walking.

7. Family and friends.

8. The moment the plane leaves the runway.

9. Going to bed knowing that I don’t have to get up early the next day.

10. Making lists.

I could also add Bert, chocolate, gin, Ebay, barbecues and blogfriends.

Owl Watching

Spotted this evening at around 7pm

Near

Nearer

Nearest

I really love having these owls so close to the house. The adult birds are (wisely) elusive but their young, when you are lucky enough to spot them, just sit there staring back. As they mature, they too, become shy and elusive.

Obviously these pictures were taken using magnification.

English To Spanish To French And Back To English Again

A previous post Babel'd cos I'm exhausted from hossie visiting and Scrabulous.

Miss Hannah obtained a pedacito carried far in the interweb - thought it incorporated a competition and instead of another overdraft, manner too late, which it bought really one of the too expensive books of the atlas of the way of the summary of the indicator. During this time Mrs Moser stumbled through this part of Scrabulous where you can play with the foreigners total and signed for in top for a slowed down play with Cadre. Five movements thereafter, much of head that rasguña as for because simple words as ' mode ' were not allowed, and it discovers that it plays in Italian. I think that Cadre will gain this one.

Incidentally Marco did win our game. The final score was Marco 767, Nelly 307.

Alzheimer's or Intoxication - You Decide

Oh deary me - as if accidentally playing a Scrabulous game in Italian weren't bad enough I think I might have sent a Happy Birthday Ed message to 51 of my 52 Facebook friends. If you're the one I left out please don't be offended.

And seeing as I'm not entirely in my senses I think I'll start the (true) rumour - the one about the certain person who secretly lusts after and adores London's new mayor.

Be Careful Out There

Miss Hannah got a bit carried away on the interweb - thought she was entering a competition and instead discovered, way too late, that she was actually buying one of  Sneak's Digest overpriced Road Atlas books. 

Meanwhile Mrs Moser stumbled across that part of Scrabulous where you can play with total strangers and signed herself up for a leisurely game with Marco. Five moves later, much head scratching as to why simple words like 'diet' weren't permitted, and she discovers that she's playing in Italian. I think Marco is going to win this one.

Pearlie Update

Interweb good wishes must be especially blessed for Pearlie is doing far better than we hoped. She's through the surgery, in a bit of pain but in real good spirits.

Thanks for all the lovely messages and phone calls. Bert is very appreciative and in much more positive frame of mind.

The Cyrus Affair

I’m reminded of the 1969 Blind Faith album cover.

That caused a bit of controversy at the time (the cover had to be changed for the US market) but nothing compared to the Miley Cyrus Affair.

The cops would be interviewing the photographer, Bob Seidemann, if he took that picture today.

My opinion? I’ve changed my mind about a lot of things since I was sixteen but I thought then that Seidemann’s picture was beautiful, not salacious at all and I still think that.

Incidentally Seidemann’s model, Mariora Goschen, who was 11-years-old when the picture was taken, works today as a massage therapist.

Not Good

Last night, at around midnight, Pearlie fell and broke her hip.

Right now she is in the Royal Victoria Hospital awaiting surgery.

Considering the circumstances her form is fairly good.

Bert is devastated.

Vintage Chic

My Facebook so-called friends might have decided that I haven't a stylish bone in my body but I know they're wrong, wrong, wrong. Youse ones just don't get it for I have a style all of my own. Only today I picked up two gorgeous dresses in the Cancer Research Shop. They're both navy so I'll have to head out to Junction One and score me some navy shoes. Both dresses are smart enough for any formal occasion. One was a plain vintage dress from M&S and that cost me three quid. The other was a never worn Rodier dress that was marked at £179 and I got for a fiver. I tried the Rodier dress on for Pearlie and she liked it although I'm not sure that is a good thing. Bert's reaction was even better. His eyes had that sparky look he gets when he likes me in something and he said,

You've got a waist! Either that or you've got a hell of a big arse!

I think I might get married in the Rodier dress.

Compared To Bloody Who?

Apparently my so-called friends have voted on my Strengths and Weaknesses on Facebook and these are the results.

STRENGTHS:

most helpful
kindest
best mother (potential)

WEAKNESSES:

most useful i.e. useless
most fashionable i.e. unfashionable

So what do I take out of that? At first I thought that my helpfulness cancelled out my uselessness but then I realised it probably didn't. So I can take it that my 'friends' think I'm a kindly, interfering bag lady, old and in the way. Thanks a bunch.

Matty: The Early Years

The following is part of Matty's account of her life pre-school and in infant class. In it she writes about her terrifying teacher Miss Wade and her efforts to ensure that Matty wrote with the 'right' hand. By todays standards that sounds so inhumane.

It's hard to believe that teachers could treat little children like that. Miss Wade also features towards the end of this extract when she makes Matty sit outside on the cold step because of her mistaken belief that the child was suffering from a contagious condition. Even after the passage of more than seventy years Matty has keen memories of this cruel woman.

MY SCHOOLDAYS

Martha before she started school

I was born in the townland of Leitrim about two miles from Randalstown on the 28^th July 1926 and christened Martha after my Daddy’s mother.

My earliest memories are from when I was three and are of my playmate Malachy Cunningham, whose family lived close to us, playing with me on a heap of sand at the end of our house and of Arthur O’Neill, who did some gardening for us, wheeling Malachy and me about in a barrow. Arthur would make up poems about us but I cannot really remember them. Malachy and I were both too young to go to school but we had great fun playing together.

When I saw my three older sisters Kathleen, Josephine and Sadie getting ready for school I wanted to go too but I was four years old before Mammy allowed it. It was about three miles to walk and sometimes two of the big girls who lived out our way would give me a lift on their bicycles. At school the big girls would fuss over me and carry me about. I am told I was a chubby little thing with blonde curly hair. Master McNamee was leaving Creggan School about the time I started and he cut off one of my curls to take with him. I can tell you I was not pleased.

When I started school first I would sometimes be very tired so I would put my head down on the desk and have a little sleep. No one bothered me, as I was still too young to be doing lessons. We had two goats at home called Betty and Daisy so I had a bottle of goat’s milk to take with my sandwiches at lunchtime.

About a year later I discovered that school was not the great place I thought it was. Miss Wade was teaching me to write and she found out that I was left-handed. She was determined to make me use my right hand. She would put the pencil in my right hand and walk away. I would start writing with my left hand again and she would slip up and beat me hard on my knuckles. As a last resort she tied my left hand behind my back and eventually, after a time, she got me to use my right hand. During that time I used to wake up screaming at night and Mammy thought I was having bad dreams. In those days children never talked much about how they were treated at school.

Reading came very easily to me. I was not always able to pronounce some of the words I read but that did not stop me reading my only problem was I could not be kept up in books. I would read the same books over and over again until they were in tatters. Sadie and I used to borrow books from our landlord Johnny Haire. He had a bookcase filled with books that he and his sister had won as prizes at Sunday School. Johnny told us that if we took good care of them we could borrow his books anytime. We did as he asked and really enjoyed reading them, as they were all well written children’s stories.

There were places near our school that we liked to visit. On winter mornings we would go across to the blacksmith’s shop to get our hands warmed before school started. I can still remember the smell of burning hooves when the horses were getting shod.

At lunchtime we would go to McAteer’s shop and if we had a penny we could buy ten chocolate caramels or a pennyworth of broken biscuits or a couple of pencils at a halfpenny each. Across the road from the shop was where Pat McAteer and Tommy lived. Pat was a shoe mender and we liked to watch him cutting out the shapes of soles and heels in brown paper before he cut them in leather. He was a little man and he always wore a black bowler hat.

Tommy was a very fussy person and he was always warning us about jumping off old wallsteads. He said we would finish up, when we got older, with pains in our legs. If we bought cough sweets he would tell us not to eat too many or we would go to sleep and not wake up. He warned us not to go near the quarry hole at the back of our house. It was filled with water and was supposed to be so deep that three men could stand in it one on top of the other. The only time we ever went near it was in springtime when it was full of frogs and we would listen to them croaking and wonder how they could make so much noise. Tommy had lovely gooseberries growing in his garden but he would not let us have any until after the twelfth of July. He said they would not be properly ripened until then.

One day at school Miss Wade noticed a sore on my leg. She said it was ringworm and sent me to sit on the cold step outside until home time when my sisters would bring me home. I was glad when the time came for I was cold and miserable.

Way Matty!

Matty's story 'My First Job' was featured by Ronni Bennett at Time Goes By. Matty was totally delighted. Thanks to Grannymar for the nod and the encouragement. Here's the link.

She was even more excited when Len from Down Memory Lane asked to use the piece in his Antrim Guardian column. After all hardly any of her mates use the internet but they all take a scally at the local paper.

Matty says we're not to forget about Ganching who has always been very encouraging of our mother's writing right from she first began.

There'll be another piece from Matty soon.

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The title 'Way Matty!' was inspired by a conversation with a very old friend a very long time ago. She was telling me about this expression. She explained,

It's what some men in America and Canada say when one of them does something the rest of them think is really good. They'll say to the wally who did the clever thing, Hey! Way to go! and if they're real dickheads they'll just say Way!

The Refuge That I Run

Nellybert has a new venture on the go. We’re now providers of hostel accommodation for hens suffering domestic abuse. Six new hens arrived at the weekend and the hen house has become a refuge for battered chickens.

A while back Clint went to England and purchased a number of fertilised eggs from specialist chicken breeders. These included Barnevelders, Lakenvelders, Cream Legbars and Buff Suffolks. With eggs you cannot be certain to the sex of the chicken and, as is usual, Clint’s eggs hatched out roughly half roosters and half hens.

Roosters are mad about sex and would be at the hens constantly. There was one particularly popular unfortunate Cream Legbar that had them queuing up and as one randy rooster jumped off another one jumped on. Her poor back was in juggins and as Clint put it,

Those roosters have her treaded within an inch of her life.

Thankfully I’ve a lot of experience working in hostels so Clint’s chickens are in safe hands until he gets his own coop in order. It’s just like any other hostel really. There are cliques, there are arguments, they steal each other’s food and there’s always one that the rest pick on. And, like any other women's hostel, there are the inevitable disreputable looking males* hanging about outside trying to gain entrance.

*The One That Everybody Hates & The Other One

Ballymena Blogmeet

This past week I’ve been having strange dreams, anxiety dreams. Dreams where I’m late for important interviews, dreams where I’ve got assignments and just as I’m ready to hand it in I realise I’ve missed an essential part of it. I’ve been waking up in a muck sweat panicking and then I realise it’s not really happening and still I feel on edge the whole of the day. So what’s up? What am I worrying about? Could it be that I’ve got a blog date? With Hails?

But Hails you say - but Hails is lovely! Hails is a total honeybun, a real sweetiepie!

Hmmm… If you’d been thrashed as thoroughly, frequently and humiliatingly at Scrabulous as I’ve been by Hails you might think again. She might seem like a pussycat but I know her as a ruthless, unpitying destroyer.

But that was then.

Hannah and I thoroughly enjoyed our morning with the lovely Hails. She’s a great girl and great crack. She’s off on an adventure soon so we’ll wish her all the best. And thanks to the magic of the internet Coffee Helps will still be with us.

Godspeed Hails. See you when you get back.

She threatens promises that she’s still going to keep murdering me at Scrabulous but one of these days…

What The Flickr!

patchwork detail, originally uploaded by NellyMoser.

This detail from an eBay sourced patchwork quilt is one of my most commented upon photographs. It's handicrafts and kittens that top the comments league in my photostream.

The quilt has turned out to be a white elephant. I won't put it on a bed because it's too heavy to launder and it's far too big to hang on the wall.

Fanad Flickr'd & Faved

Fanad, originally uploaded by NellyMoser.

I'm still jealous of Zoe. This photograph has been favourited more than 20 times. Still hasn't had as many views as 'Our Ken's' For Sale Sign. Yet.

For Flick's Sake!

For Sale Sign, originally uploaded by NellyMoser.

I still haven't discovered why this fairly dull photograph has had the most views on my Flickr photostream. 683 so far.

Flickring Interesting

William, Mary & Ollie, originally uploaded by NellyMoser.

Swing Low Sweet Boob Of Mine

It's said that when a woman reaches a certain age she has to make a choice between her face and her arse. I choose my face but, as the regular reader knows, I have been making some rather heroic efforts at reducing the dimensions of my backside without sacrificing too much in the face department.

But nobody ever told me about the risk to my front elevation. It's large and matronly and has always been so. I remember a boy telling me, when I was about nineteen, that my boobs were like the Queen's - low slung! I was mortified. The Queen was, and still is, twenty-seven years older than me.

Back to the present day - I lament to Bert,

My boobs are destroyed with this bloody dieting. They're hanging to my waist!

He says,

Not at all.

I'm mollified. But he continues,

Sure it's just the one of them hanging to your waist.

Wanna Thin Sexy Shit?

Or, in other words, Hannah is twenty-six. Happy Birthday sweetheart!

Dancing Girls Mark 2

Exodus 31:15

We've had a very productive Sunday. I got the greenhouse cleaned, Bert did a bit more work on the bathroom project (still got all his fingers) and made the kitchen chimney starling proof. Gracie's folks came out and a good part of the vegetable garden was dug, manured and rotivated. Credit to Z & D for doing most of the spade work.

I popped in to see Pearlie.

We're all in the garden today.

Are ye?

Aye. Z and D are there. They're working very hard in the vegetable garden.

Humph. Ye'll be lucky if anything grows for you.

What do you mean?

Planting on the Sabbath!

But we're not planting! Just getting the ground ready.

It says in the bible, 'Six days ye shall labour but ye must keep holy the Sabbath Day!'

Oh. Alright then. Do you want tea or anything?

No.

Right. I'm off back to work. See you...

I suppose I should be relieved that she didn't add the bit about being put to death for toiling on the Lord's Day. And I wondered if Pearlie, her being so pious and all, mightn't have been answered better studying her bible rather than working at a puzzle book.

A Loom Of One's Own

I'm engaged on something at the moment which I call 'The Martha Project'. Matty has been scribbling away at bits and pieces ever since she retired and I thought it would be a good idea to gather these writings together.

I've asked Matty if I can put some of her stories on the internet and she has agreed so I'm going to share a little bit of it now and again. The picture I've chosen to accompany this piece is used by kind permission of Len Kinley at Down Memory Lane. Thanks Len.

The Old Bleach Factory as it would have looked when Matty worked there.

My First Job

In the year 1941 I began work in the Old Bleach Linen Company in Randalstown. I was 14 and half years old and I had no choice as to where I would work. My older sister had put my name down for a job and when a vacancy came up I was sent for.

It was a cold winter’s morning in January when I started off to walk four miles to the factory but it was no bother to me as I had eaten a good breakfast before I left home. I met up with the other girls on the way and the road did not seem long, as the chat was good.

Most of the older girls in the factory had bicycles but the younger girls, like myself, had not been working long enough to have the money saved to buy a bicycle. Between food rationing and so much walking we had no problem keeping slim. Dieting was a word almost unknown in those years.

We arrived a few minutes before eight that morning. There were five other girls beside myself starting too. I remember their names as Gwen McComb, Netta Conway, Minnie Rowan, Agnes McDonald and there was another girl whose name was Allison and I think maybe her first name was Lily.

I was told I would be working in a loom shop and when I entered the room the terrible clattering of the looms shocked me. I looked around me at the bare walls without windows, the light of day coming through panes of glass in the roof, and I thought to myself, ‘I will never be able to stay in a place like this.’ But as time went past I grew used to it.

I started my training with a girl called Mary McLarnon. Mary was a neighbour of ours and it was nice being with someone I knew. She was very patient with me showing me all I had to do like how to thread shuttles, and how to make sure to always have one ready to put on the loom when the other ran out. She also taught me what dangers to avoid.

The only tools a weaver needed were small clippers or scissors and a heddle hook and, not forgetting, a hand brush to clean your looms at the end of every week.

Two weeks later I was operating a loom of my own and I was very pleased with myself. It was fascinating watching the shuttle flying backwards and forwards and the heddles going up and down and to think that cloth was being made perfectly and at great speed before one’s very eyes.

I soon got bored with only one loom so they gave me a second one and I was kept quite busy and it was good to be earning more money. The first pay I earned in the factory was 12 shillings and sixpence (62.5 pence). I got keeping the sixpence and Mammy got the rest.

With walking to work every day we had no travelling expenses and we would bring a lunch with us. At the back of the factory we had a canteen where all you could have would be a cup of black tea that had a very stewed taste. It was awful but we had to take it and be glad of it for it was the only break we had all day. Afterwards we would go for a walk and it was good to get out in the fresh air.

Shortly after I started working in the factory I made friends with a girl called Ria Smith. We discovered there was just two days between our ages and we remained good friends for the rest of our teenage years.

It was during the war years that I worked at the Old Bleach and the factory was getting big orders, which meant they were employing a large number of people. I was moved around a lot to other loom shops that had different types of looms for different types of cloth but it was very good experience and you met up with other workers who were very friendly and helpful.

Most of the time I was weaving very plain cloth like linen, cotton and jute but on a few occasions I got something different to do like tablecloths with coloured borders and once I wove striped linen towels with lovely pastel colours and was told they were being made for the Rainbow Hotel in New York.

Once I was taken before the Manager for a fault in the cloth I had woven. This was the first time this had happened to me and I was upset. I told him I’d get myself another job. He said there were no other jobs to be had about here. I said I could always get married and he laughed and said, “Well you can count me out because I’m already married.”

In later years I sometimes had to train young people to operate a loom. You would have them there for a couple of weeks and it held you up a bit but you got extra money for it so I didn’t mind teaching them.

Although it was a very dreary environment to work the friendship between the workers made it a happy place to be and there was a good relationship between workers and management.

By 1952, the year I was leaving to get married, things had changed a lot in the factory. It was becoming more modern. A new building had been erected for automatic looms and as one girl could now operate about 10 looms it meant big pay-offs. There were other factories producing synthetic materials that were cheaper than linen or cotton and that was the beginning of the end of the linen industry all over Northern Ireland.

October 2004

Feared

The place is a house somewhere near Cullybackey. The time is approaching 11pm.

Man: Will you come out with me to check I've closed in the hens?

Woman: Why?

Man: It's pitch dark out there.

Woman: And?

Man: I'm feared out there.

Woman: You're feared? What of? The dark?

Man: The divil. But I'm not feared if you're with me.

So now I've another string to my bow. Divil-protection.

Fifteens

Fifteens, originally uploaded by ZMB.

ZMB's recipe seems to have disappeared. Never mind - here's one Beowulf made earlier.

'Fifteens appear to be a Northern Ireland thing, the rest of the world should be educated. To wit:

15 McVities Digestive Bisuits
15 Marshmallows
15 Red Glaze Cherries
1 small tin of sweetened condensed milk
1 good handful of desiccated coconut

1. Crush the biscuits into a large bowl, add mallow and cherries, mix.
2. Now pour the condensed milk into the mix, stir it up until it gets into a sticky lump.
3. Tip it all out onto a sheet of greaseproof paper and mould it into a log shape, roll the whole log thing in the coconut.
4. Wrap the beast up and refridgerate for a day, when it’s set you slice it up as you see fit (monster slices for the men, teeny-weeny arty slices for the women).
5. Eat.'

Bert's New Toy

Projects at Nellybert’s can take some considerable time. One that seems to have been going on forever is the upstairs bathroom. It was always useable as it contained the standard bath, toilet and wash basin. However not many people, other that the utterly shameless Nellybert, did use it for there were no curtains and only one window with frosted glass. The other window looked out over the road and would have afforded passing motorists an excellent view of whoever happened to be easing their bladder or bowels at the time. Eventually I purchased some gorgeous curtains from EBay and after a couple of months Bert put up curtain track and it was only a few weeks later that I got round to hanging the curtains.

The gorgeous poppy curtains

That achievement spurred us on because it wasn’t long before Bert embarked on boxing in the bath. He used old pine tongue and groove panelling that had featured in the bathroom before we’d renovated the house. It was at this stage that we regretted using a wood effect vinyl floor covering for the two woodinesses (antique and faux) laughed at each other.

The panelled bath

But there was still the space at the end of the bath. We’d considered a piece of old furniture for this and had left the floor uncovered until we found it.

The space at the end of the bath

Eventually I decided that Bert would build me a shelving unit. Plans were discussed. Plans were even drawn. Leitrim Sister had an idea, West Belfast Social Worker had another idea, Bert had an even better idea – or so he has convinced me. The only thing was – Bert’s idea needed a Compound Mitre Saw! I’m not sure what this actually does (Bert assures me it is an essential) but this I do know – men should always be encouraged to buy expensive power tools because it gives women such leverage when it comes to getting things done around the house.

You've spent all that money and I’m still waiting for my shelves, table, bed whatever!

Bert's new toy

Work Is The Curse Of The Blogging Classes

When I worked in Spide City and Tinkerton I had a rich seam of blogging material to mine. It carried only a little risk – the people I blogged about were unlikely to read what I’d written. Had they come across the blog they might have recognised themselves but the ones that provided me with the best stories did not have access to the internet and if they had they’d have been unlikely to be reading blogs. Some of my co-workers knew about the blog – in fact I believe I offended one by referring to her as she who must be obeyed. I don’t know whether it was the phrasing or the font size that bothered her for I never asked. Had my superiors taken umbrage at my ramblings I’d have been pleased. Getting dooced would have been a good route out of a job that I’d started to hate. But they never took it under their notice.

Nowadays I work for builders and property developers and I barely mention my working life. It’s not anywhere near as mad as my previous job but it does have the odd daft moment I’d like to write about. But I won’t because all our customers have broadband and my boss has a Mac in every room of his home. And I quite like the boss, most of the customers and the job.

So when I yearn for my old job it’s only the stories I heard, the things that happened and the excitement that I miss. What’s left for me to blog about now?

Our Lady of Bethlehem Abbey

Matty and Hannah and I took a trip to Our Lady of Bethlehem Abbey today. I wanted to get a Mass Card for a friend of ours whose father died earlier this week. I don't really understand the etiquette of Mass Cards so I thought it would be a good idea to take Matty who knows all the ins and outs.

Matty usually goes to Antrim with her favourite sister-in-law on Saturday mornings so I phoned first.

You not out with Maud this morning?

No. I told her I just didn't trust my legs today.

Bert and I discussed this over our porridge.

Says she just doesn't trust her legs to go out shopping with Maud.

Why not?

Maybe she's afraid they'll go shoplifting or slope off to score some weed. Or maybe they'll slip into a betting shop and blow the pension on the Grand National.

Happily she felt that her legs were trustworthy enough to go on a jaunt with Hannah and Nelly.

The Abbey is, like all respositories of rosary beads, mass cards and religious paraphernalia, a weird and wonderful place. You go in. The first thing that you see is a miniature priest's mass clothes. You wonder why? Who'd want that? There are shelves and shelves of religious pictures and statues, there are rosary beads galore, there are stands and stands of pre-signed mass cards. There is a monk sitting in the corner to bless the holy stuff you buy for it's no use if it's not blessed. There is Status Quo playing 'Whatever You Want' on the sound system. Whether this was the monk's choice or the delightful young shop assistant's choice I do not know. Probably the monk as he was 50+.

I quickly choose my mass card; a bargain at two quid. Meanwhile Matty gets heavily involved in a conversation with the shop assistant on the possibilities of buying a book o the life of Saint Anne but, said saint being slightly obscure, none was to be found. Matty reports that Anne is the patron saint of grandmothers. With Jesus as her grandchild, she would be, wouldn't she?


Experienced Matty's untrustworthy leg in one of Portglenone's charity shops. She does this genuflection thing with it. She says the strength just leaves her leg for a moment. I tried distraction as a cure and pointed her in the direction of a shelf of brand new shoes. No shoes were purchased -just another beige skirt.

The day ended well. After dropping Matty off in Tannaghmore and Hannah in Ballymena, Rosie and I went for a brisk walk in the Ecos Centre. It was there that I bumped into an old chum who shamelessly told me that he'd always had the hots for me. What's not to like about hearing that?

Of course I told Bert the minute I got home. He laughed.

Aren't you raging? Aren't you going to go in and start a fight with him?

No. I'll just congratulate him on his good taste next time I see him.

What's not to like about hearing that?

Mervyn's Gone

We heard an unmerciful squawking just outside the window - then it was further away. We ran outside. The squawking (a rooster's) was, by now, coming from the far end of the garden.

It wasn't Plum for he was safely tucked up with the hens in their new house. It wasn't The One That Everybody Hates or The Other One for they were perched in the old hen house. It had to be Mervyn - too proud to share space with the other bachelors. It had to be Mervyn who has refused to come in these past two nights. It had to be Mervyn who got his wings clipped for flying over the eight foot wire surrounding the new hen run to run with the new hens and fight with Plum. Poor Mervyn. King of the chickens but no match for Foxy.

A Barefoot Colleen*

You Are Bare Feet

You are a true free spirit, and you can't be tied down. Even wearing shoes can be a little too constraining for you at times! You are very comfortable in your own skin. You are one of the most real people around. You don't have anything to hide. Open and accepting, you are willing to discuss or entertain almost any topic. You are a very tolerant person. You are accepting and not judgmental. You should live: Somewhere warm You should work: At your own business, where you can set the rules

What Kind of Shoe Are You?

*That's what Matty used to call me when I was a girl. It embarrassed her that I liked to run around in my bare feet. I think she was worried that people might think she couldn't afford to keep me shod. Despite this result, these days I like my shoes and boots and have plenty of them. I love shopping at TK Maxx and the outlet stores. I rarely spend more than fifty pounds on a pair of shoes. I like them to be fairly plain, reasonably stylish and, above all, comfortable.

Thanks to Grannymar for this meme.

Happy Birthday Joe

Taking pic of zoe's dog, originally uploaded by KatyKatkins.

The brother likes to think of himself as a man's man. Lot of nonsense! He's never happier than when he is surrounded by women.

Happy birthday Joe - hope it was a good one.