Murder in the Chicken Run

When a rooster flies at you and puts his spurs into your leg, you notice it. This fellow was a big heavy lad and he ruled the roost. I'm going to miss hearing him crow tomorrow morning.

Yep! Foxy got into the hen run this evening, killed my beautiful rooster and one of the new chickens. He (or she)  dug a way under the fence from the garden of the derelict house next door. He'd already killed the big fellow and was making off with the hen. Bert gave chase and Foxy was unable to get his prize under the fence. So he didn't get his dinner. Bert had to pull the poor hen's neck as she wasn't completely dead.

I miss my lost roosters more than my hens. They may not lay eggs but they have bigger characters. I need to get another one and I need to make sure the damnable fox doesn't find it so easy to get into the run. Bert went out with the gun but saw no sign of it. I'm in two minds about killing them because I'd be thinking of hungry cubs. And Evie wouldn't be pleased. She's in the fox camp.

And from Hannah's perspective - this.

Photo by ZMB

Hunger's Mother

I was mopping the kitchen floor when Bert called from the depths of his man cave,

Is there anything instant that I could have for lunch?

And he'd only had his breakfast an hour before.

I replied,

Yeah. There's lots of things.

What like?

A wide range of ready to eat meals.

Where?

The Spar.

Once again I explained ingredients to him. Eggs, bacon, potato bread, tomatoes. A small fry. He's making it right now. It's not that he minds preparing food. He just cannot bear to think about it. He'll probably have pickles with his fry.

An Interesting Day

Today I met up  with Grannymar for a coffee and a stroll around the Castle Grounds in Antrim. It's been six years since we had a real life meeting and there's been a lot of water under the bridge since then but my fellow blogger hadn't changed a bit. One of the very many great things about blogfriends is that many years can go by but you still pick up just where you left off.

On the way home I called with two of Matty's oldest friends, sisters-in-law who live next door to each other. Both are doing great and that was good to see. I also got to meet one of the sweetest and most lovable toddlers I've come across in a long time.

I got home later than I expected to find Bert in a fainting condition, weak from hunger and wondering had I brought home anything to eat. He always asks this whenever I've been out for more than an hour. There are two things he has yet to absorb and they are firstly, when I go out to meet people socially food shopping never enters my head and secondly, there is always lots of food in the house. He never asked me a single question about my day just lamented that all he'd had to eat since breakfast was an egg and a slice of wheaten bread. There was no other food in the house.

Of course he was wrong about this. There were the usual staples, bread, beans, tinned fish, home made rhubarb tart, cauliflower cheese etc. I took him by the hand and pointed at the big door under the fridge.

See this Bert. It's not just a big box to hold the fridge up. If you open the door and pull these drawers out there are all sorts of things in there.

He said,

I would never think of looking in there.

He got quite excited about some fish fingers and a bag of frozen peas so I left him to it. Then he was off out to his music night and left me to dine on my own which was fine as I'd eaten at Anna's just before I got home. Another reason why food shopping wasn't on my mind.

But before I thought of food I started a rhubarb wine and bottled a damson and blackcurrant. It was when I was pulling frozen rhubarb out of the big chest freezer that I noticed a few boxes of dinnerish stuff and pulled one out at random with no notion of what it might be. Whatever it was I reckoned it might go well with pasta. So that was my dinner, A bit of pasta languishing in the store cupboard, lying in an almost empty packet, the dubious thing from the depths of the freezer and the dregs at the bottom of the damson and blackcurrant wine flagon. It turned out to be chicken and mushrooms in tomato sauce and it wasn't bad at all. And I got to feel virtuous by 'using things up'. Bert would rather have died of hunger than eat it. I wonder if that is why he is thin and I am not.

Managing His Man Cave

One of my daily chores was tidying and wiping the coffee table in Bert's man cave. And every day, as I carried out this one-minute job, I'd find myself feeling a bit resentful. Thinking...

Bert never lifts as much as a spoon!

I'm always lifting and laying after  him!

I bet if I stopped cleaning up after him he'd soon notice!

Then I thought,

I will just stop cleaning this table for a week and I'll document it every day and we'll just see how bad it gets.

So I did stop cleaning it and, much to my surprise, Bert did bring dishes to the kitchen and he even emptied ashtrays. The table stayed much the same throughout the week. Apart from Wednesday morning, the day after he had his mates around for a music session. That was the fourth picture along. He never even noticed that I wasn't clearing and wiping his table every day. I wiped it this morning and it was a little grubbier than usual but that meant it was more satisfying to wipe down.

So, there you go. A daily chore has become a weekly one and I don't have to be resentful any more. It's only a table in a man cave.

A Funeral for a Bullfinch

Thursday rolls around again and today we had three collections. First was Ben, just finished the very first of his GCSEs. Bert collected him, took him for a hearty breakfast, then they both picked Evie up from playgroup.

She arrived back here in very bad form. Apparently there had been some sort of difficulty with a boy named Kai. It must have been bad for she was inconsolable for at least ten minutes. He had 'noyed' her by looking at her from under the table. Doesn't sound like much but a three-year-old looks at the world differently than we do. Cuddles, a sausage roll, red sauce and a glass of milk set her on her feet again.

We sorted out the hens, collected eggs and passed the time very pleasantly until it was time to collect Martha from school. We all checked out a charity shop in Harryville where I bought a bunch of books for 60p, some bright pink Crocs for £1 (real ones and I promise I'll only wear them for gardening) and the girls added to the dressing up box.

We weren't long back when Bert discovered this poor bullfinch that had flown into one of the sun room windows. That meant there had to be - A Funeral.

Martha collects the poor wee thing in an environmentally friendly open casket - half an egg box. Sort of appropriate, eggs, birds....

 Ben was chief grave-digger. Note girls' tragic stance. Note Young Loveheart's dog Phoenix, a part of the funeral party. Our dogs did not attend.

Left alone at the grave side, Phoenix cannot help wondering why perfectly good food has been buried in the ground and a piece of concrete slab placed on it. Little does she know that the slab is there to prevent her from digging the bird up.

The girls lay flowers on the grave while Phoenix watches. I have to say that her owner was almost as bemused as she by the proceedings. I had to explain to Young Loveheart that the game of Playing Funerals is useful for helping young children to accept the cycle of life and death.

The posy that the girls gathered. I think it looks very pretty even though it too will soon wither and die.

Thursday is turning out to be Nellybert's favourite day of the week.

From The Sallagh Braes to Lough Neagh

Warning: While this post does not contain Game of Thrones spoilers it does show some gorgeous pictures of the Northern Irish countryside.

One of Game of Thrones' many pleasures is spotting the location. A few episodes ago we had Petyr Baelish and Sansa Stark standing on the Sallagh Braes looking down at a computer-generated Winterfell. Tonight we had Fair Head and what I believe was the shore of Lough Neagh. I know that some of the location work was filmed in Antrim as a cousin of mine just happened to be cycling by as the actors were taking a break. If one is a fan, as I am, it is also fun to chat to various folk we know who have worked as extras on the show. We were hoping to see Martha and Evie's Daddy tonight but there were no wildlings to be seen anywhere.

A friend told us this story. One of the people working on the show approached his brother asking if he knew any folk with with horse riding experience who might come on the show as extras. Our friend's brother rides with the local hunt and at that time he was sporting longish dark hair and a heavy beard.

So what did he say? 

Said he didn't know anyone.

Martha and Evie's Daddy said that extra work is long and tiresome and that often, when scenes run over, there is hardly enough time to eat. He had a day working as crew and said that was much better, with tastier food and more breaks.

Another friend told us that way back at the start when Khal Drogo and Daenerys had their first very sensual love scene that the tent of romance was pitched in a cattle shed in Buckna. I'm glad I didn't know that at the time for it would have ruined the vibe.

Ah well. Maybe we'll get to see Martha and Evie's Daddy be a wildling next week.

Jelly Babies

Today I ate an entire bag of Jelly Babies and they were not even the good Bassett ones – just inferior Spar Jelly Babies. I am very ashamed. According to the bag that was 180g or 7 servings. According to the complicated table on the back of the packet I consumed 'food' that amounted to 635.4 calories, roughly one third of my daily recommended intake. I was warned that the sweeties might contain Peanuts, Nuts but I did not detect any as I scoffed those babies down. Naturally sugars were the main ingredient. Water was the second (healthy) then Beef Gelatine. Oh dear! I'm sure that Beef Gelatine is what the food industry gets when it boils up cattle hooves and other horny and grimmish bits. Not very yummy sounding. More cheeringly the Babies contain Vegetable Concentrates (Nettle and Spinach) but I don't think that compensated for the boiled skin and tendons.

Spar also informs us that they help locally, raising over a million pounds for local community projects. As there are approximately 12,300 Spar stores in 34 countries this amounts to just over £80 per store. I'm not impressed.

Finally the packet states that if the consumer is not entirely satisfied with the product then it can be returned to the point of purchase without her statutory rights being affected. I shall go back tomorrow and wave the empty packet at them and complain about being forced to eat cow's toenails mixed with sugar and then demand my pound coin back but I don't think they'll be overly impressed.

So no more Jelly Babies for me. Not even Bassett Babies.

Looking Forward

Some patients see very well the day after cataract surgery. Other patients see well a few days after surgery, and still others may need a full month to reach their maximum vision improvement.

I woke early this morning and removed the eye covering. Disappointment. I may as well have been looking at a white saucer with that eye. So it seems that I'm not going to be one of those who enjoy immediate improvements. But as the day progressed I noticed the mists clearing just a little and I'm hopeful that my sight will be even better tomorrow.

My eye feels as if it has been punched. That should feel better tomorrow too.

Tomorrow. Looking forward to it.

Pass the Chopper Please

The alarm this morning was set for 05:30. It was tough getting up especially as I'd been wakeful during the night. I showered, dressed, breakfasted and called Bert at 06:30. He appeared downstairs in a pair of Crocs, red tartan pyjama trousers and an ill-matching green check pyjama shirt. To say he looked odd would be an understatement. The 5 minute drive to the train station was not without event. As usual Bert left fastening his seat belt until he was actually driving and, as he did so, he almost caused an accident by swerving towards the middle of the road just as another vehicle was overtaking. This is why I was taking the train instead of having Bert drive me. He is not at his best first thing in the morning. What would I have done if he had been in an accident? I would have had to get out and hitch a lift with someone going into the village. Then the thought of Bert standing by the side of our road in that crazy outfit while all our early bird neighbours drove past rubber necking the scene made me laugh and I recovered my humour. It would have been the talk of the village before the clock struck ten. Ernie would be one of the first to hear. The lads in the garage would spread the news widely. Perhaps it would have taught Bert to fasten his seat belt before driving off.

The train journey went smoothly (lots of yawning fellow passengers) and I got to the hospital fifteen minutes before my appointment time. The nurse who was first to see me tsked when I gave her the letters from Eye Casualty. “He'll not take you” she said, meaning the surgeon. I was crest fallen. This was my fear, the worry that had kept me so wakeful the previous night. She told me to wait until she had the chance to speak with him. Five minutes later the great man entered. My nurse consulted with him. Five minutes later she was back at my side announcing, “He's going to take you! Come on. He says that eye has been clear since March!” I was delighted and rather pleased that I had kept attending Eye Casualty so that all the relevant notes were there.

Now to the actual cataract removal. A friend told me that it would be twenty minutes of discomfort but well worth it. Yet I didn't find it uncomfortable, just very, very odd. The people who carried out the procedure were lovely and the great man turned out to be pleasant and easy to talk to. He oversaw the procedure which was carried out by another. The colours and shapes that I saw as my eye was being worked over were strange and beautiful. It seemed to take a long time to prise the cataract away. (I was told afterwards that it was very dense.) I was listening to the conversation between the surgeon and the nurse as he requested instruments and I could not help giggling when he asked for “the chopper”.

When all was done I was informed that it had gone very well and then I was wheeled off for coffee and biscuits and a chat with a nurse on aftercare. Bert and one of our friends picked me up and we went back to his house for lunch.

Home again, home again jiggety-jig to find most of the family already there.. Martha and Evie were very taken with my eye-dressing. Martha said I looked like a pirate. I was spoiled by everyone and now, as soon as I've posted this I'm off for a lie-down. The eye dressing doesn't come off until tomorrow and I'm excited to see what I can see.

Nelly the Pirate

Garden Show Ireland and a Stranger in the Dyke

Zoe, the girls and Granny went to Garden Show Ireland at the Castle Grounds in Antrim. I went last year on my own and enjoyed it very much. However it is far better with company. I did not buy a single plant, just took photographs. The truth is, I don't even have enough room for the plants I already have. My new rule will be - no new perennials unless there is an area of the garden already prepared for planting.

Beautiful aquilegia

Gorgeous iris

 At one of the show gardens where Evie kept trying to sit on the hedge

 Climbing

Zoe and Evie

There was so much for children to do there. The girls had a cookery session and a kite making workshop. There were swings, slides, golf, climbing and a chill out area. That last was bliss. Mood lighting, air conditioning and an episode of Bill & Ben The Flowerpot Men. It was close to being my best bit. Evie's worst bit was getting covered in mud three times and the stilt walkers. Her best bit was the jazz band and Martha's best bit was dancing to the jazz band. Zoe's best bit might have been the 30 minutes she got to look around on her own and possibly seeing Monty Don.

Dancing

Got back home to discover the coffee supplies were running dangerously low and headed out in the van to replenish. On glancing to my right at the bottom of our lane I spotted a large-headed fellow standing in the dyke. Or so I thought. It was actually an election poster featuring Ian Paisley Jr, or Ian Óg as ussuns like to call him. I really, really need to get these eyes fixed.

Stranger in the Dyke

Feeling Lucky

Up this morning at 6:30 and on the train to Belfast at 7:22. Almost fell asleep. Taxi from Great Victoria Street to the back door of Eye Casualty and I was the second punter through the door at 8:50. Sitting in the Pharmacy at 10:00 waiting for my prescription... and waiting. I started to feel a tiny twinge of annoyance. Then I gave myself a shake. I'd just benefited from a free consultation, a free eye exam, free advice and here I was waiting for my free medication. How fortunate is that?

The outcome is I'm to take two new lots of eye drops, one a steroid, I'm to show up for the procedure on the 11th of May and, hopefully, I'll get the cataract removed and the artificial lens fitted. Oh happy day, please let it be so.

I decided to walk from the hospital to the city centre and got soaked to the skin. Missed my train by four minutes then killed an hour in Botanic Avenue charity shops where I purchased a small brass elephant for a fine pound coin. Who cares about missed trains and drenchings? Not I.

Elephant. A symbol of strength, protection and good luck

An Update On My Little Life

The first thing is these damn eyes of mine. Way back in January I got a date for the cataract procedure, for the 19th February and I was most delighted. Then that procedure was postponed and I started to think I had been forgotten about. Meanwhile the eye infection kept recurring and eventually I couldn't use steroid eye drops any more. Now I've got a new date for the procedure - next Monday, seven days hence. And the eyes are still bothering me. The condition has been diagnosed as adenoviral keratitis and it is affecting both eyes. So I'm off to Eye Casualty tomorrow with a letter from my GP. Catching the 07:22 from Cullybackey so hopefully I won't be at the hospital for the entire day. I expect to hear if I'll be able to go ahead with the procedure next week and, of course, I shall keep you all (all several of you) updated.

The second matter is Roy, the fat old collie we inherited. He's not been mentioned for a while. Happily he has fitted in with us far better than we ever hoped. He loves most people, though not that keen on the ones under three foot because they squeal a lot and he doesn't like CBeebies too much. When the small folk are around he hangs out in other rooms.

We thought, when he first arrived, that we'd have to put him on a reducing diet to get his weight down  but wait for a few weeks until he was well settled. It turned out not to be necessary. He started racing about after the other two dogs and within a fortnight the weight started to drop off him. The more weight he lost the faster he could run so he is a slender dog now.

I must organise an 'after' photograph. The 'before' one has already been recorded.

My Little Life

I don't buy newspapers as often as I used to but I do get the Guardian on a Saturday. At £2.70 I consider it a small luxury. It will take me most of the week to finish it. The magazine is the first part I'll tackle, then the main paper followed by the family section and finally, the review. The sports, travel, cookery and finance sections are usually ignored although last Saturday I did read the AP McCoy interview. He's a local lad who started his career over at Billy Rock's yard. McCoy went to the same school as my brother and sister though I'm told he wasn't there that often. Too busy riding horses.

So it must have been Wednesday before I got round to the Toni Morrison piece in the Review section. That was a good and interesting read. I haven't kept up with Morrison. There are a few of her most recent books to read and that article reminded me that I still want to read them and I'm encouraged to go back to some of her earlier novels which are still on the shelves. Somewhere. Song of Solomon and The Bluest Eye. I really haven't kept up.

I was struck by this statement from Morrison which stung a little and I've been pondering it ever since.

 “So much contemporary fiction, even when it’s well written is sort of … self-referential. I used to teach creative writing at Princeton and I would say ‘Don’t do that. Don’t write about your little life’.” 

Because isn't that what a personal blog is all about, and I know it is not considered creative writing, it is just writing about one's little life. My self-set task for the month of May will be to try and do it better. Perhaps with just a little more creativity.

Every Picture Tells A Story

Zoe's sketch of her grandmother.

663 views, taken 2005

That is a month and a bit of Flickr's mostest views and interestingness all redd up and I can't say I'm sorry. That picture of Jazzer and her oldest girl (married with a baby now) has the 30th most views. We were visiting Swisser on that August day. Seen in the background Bert with Swisser's dog Tracey (I know! A dog called Tracey) and our dog Paddy. Both of them gone now.

Matty, 448 views, taken during the Second World War.

My mother aged about thirteen. This photograph was taken by the Belfast Telegraph to illustrate a feature on war time food production, the Digging for Victory campaign. Matty's school teacher, Master Duffy, had turned over part of the school yard in Creggan to vegetables. That picture was only a fragment. Matty said that the entire image showed her standing framed in a trellis of runner beans.

This is what Matty wrote herself about the school garden.

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.

Saying Goodbye

There was a 28th most viewed photograph on Flickr yesterday but I didn't share it. It was taken ten years ago when I was far less thoughtful about what I chose to share. It was only a picture taken at a party of a middle-aged man with his shirt off and sitting beside a young woman in her early twenties who was looking at him bemusedly. He was smoking a cigarette. Deletion was the only option.

Now this photograph, the 29th most interesting today, shows an intensely emotional moment in our lives. Bonnie was seriously ill and we were waiting for the vet. A decision had been made.

Bert had already prepared her grave. That took twenty minutes. The rest of the time we sat with her, soothing her.

I used natural light from the window and Bert was quite unaware of the shot being taken.

249 views, taken June 2013

An hour and a half later she was placed in her grave at the top of the garden.

About twelve hours later I wrote this post.

Remembering

This anniversary hasn't taken me by surprise for I've been thinking about my mother since April began. I knew I'd be writing this blog today and I've left it to the very last moment. Four years, four years now since Matty died.

There would have to be a picture and that was decided at the last moment too. The problem, and it's not a problem, about choosing pictures of my mother is that there are so many great ones. She came across well in photographs. This is the one I have chosen to remember her tonight.

Miss you Mum.

And this is my sister's remembrance.

Frost And Critters

Taken in 2007, Bonnie and Fred, 727 views, 27th most viewed on Flickr today

Last night brought a very sharp late Spring frost and a thick layer of ice on the hens' water bowl. The pieris, which looked so gorgeous yesterday, are devastated now. My paeony is looking very wilty. In the polytunnel my cucumber and courgette seedlings are mush and Zoe has lost a lot of young tomato plants. The severe cold coming after a very warm week was hard on those tender plants. Mother Nature can be cruel.

Good news is that Dave says my crumble is the best he's ever tasted. I hadn't made it for a while as Miss Martha said she didn't like it. Today's was made with white currants, red currants and raspberries. All from last summer thanks to the freezer. Freezing temperatures aren't always a bad thing.

Insulted Face And Poker Face

The 'do', otherwise known as the tree house-warming party went well. At one point there was around thirteen people in the tree house which was quite a crowd and, I'm glad to say, no one fell down the step winding staircase.

The end of the night brought a bit of a drama when a tired and overwrought woman ordered a guest out of her house for extreme rudeness. That woman was me but the guest really did overstep the mark. He did say sorry but his apology was not accepted.

Tonight the 26th most interesting picture was taken at another 'do' where the guests minded their manners and treated Nelly in a manner that she deemed acceptable. This do was a poker party. I never play poker myself and for two good reasons. Number one, I am bad at it and number two, I detest losing money to other people.

This lady fancies herself rather good at poker and indeed she often wins. I think she looks the part.

Swisser, 354 views

And this is the 26th most viewed picture.

Miss Martha, 742 views

Early Post

I'm posting early today because there is some sort of a 'do' happening here tonight. Not sure what it is all about but it might be something to do with Ziggy. Maybe it is his birthday? Anyway, I'm going to be busy tidying and stuff so best to get Nelly's Garden over and done with.

Great Pollet Arch, 165 views

Great Pollet Arch, Fanad Peninsula, County Donegal, 25th most interesting photograph on Flickr. The 25th most viewed is a repeat today. This picture is much better than mine. I was too afraid of falling in and drowning to get the best viewpoint.

Looking Back

24th most viewed on Flickr, 774 views

Miss Hannah from ten years ago, a photograph taken to celebrate a snazzy new haircut.

The 24th most interesting picture with 206 views

I put this one up not so long ago to mark Mother's Day. Matty is on my mind a lot right now as it is coming up to the fourth anniversary of her death. What a lot has happened since then. How delighted she would have been to know that Katy, the child in her embrace, is expecting her first child this summer. It makes me a little sad to think that Matty only got to meet her first great-grandchild, her namesake Martha, who she adored.

This is my blog from four years ago posted on the 21st April, the last one written while she still lived.

I woke just before 7am and decided not to get up. Immediately I fell into dreams. I dreamed that my mother was dying and that I held her in my arms and would not let her go. We lived in a succession of damp, dilapidated and tumbledown sheds and still I would not let her go. She got frailer and smaller and eventually she was as small as a baby. She was my baby, she was also another person called Shirley and still she was my mother. She was dying and I had to get her a coffin. She was small enough to fit in an infant's casket but I knew that because she had been a woman I needed to get her a woman-sized coffin.

These are the dreams I have without opiates. God only knows what Matty dreams. She told my sister, in one of her lucid moments, that it was like 'being in two places at once.'

Today was my Miss Martha day. We went to Matty's then out for a run with Great Aunt Ganching (with whom Miss Martha has become most enamoured). Next home to see Bert, a picnic on the lawn and a very relaxing afternoon with toys and pigs and dogs.

When Martha went home I spent a while watering the vegetables (this will be my role and it is a very important one) and then gathering sticks, a proper outdoor barbecue (no charcoal) and pork chops, spinach and baked potatoes for supper.

Another normal day. Tomorrow I go shopping for funeral clothes.

Tuffets and Quilts

23rd most viewed on Flickr, 774 views 

tuffet

noun

1. 1.

   a tuft or clump of something.

   "grass tuffets"
2. 2.

   a footstool or low seat.

Here we have Martha sitting on a 'tuffet' in the polytunnel. The tuffet is actually the contents of a plant pot. Martha is a keen gardener to this day having been partly reared in a polytunnel.  She is still fond of sitting on tuffets.

23rd most interesting, 423 views on Flickr

Alice meets Tweedledum & Tweedledee in Through The Looking-Glass, another of A.H. Watson's delightful illustrations.

I remember Matty referring to folk as Tweedledum and Tweedledee. It was generally scathing and directed at various people of her acquaintance,  always two misguided folk who agreed with each other to a high degree. A couple of ladies spring to my mind as I remember this but I can say no more.

Tweedledum and Tweedledee also featured on a heavy patchwork quilt that was often on the bed I shared with my sister. At this stage of my life, maybe four or five years old, I was unaware of the Alice books but I couldn't help being fascinated by the patchwork pieces of fabric that featured the Tenniel illustrations. There were two colour ways, one, sunny and bright and the other, more muted with a sea-green tinge. I'd examine them for what seemed like ages comparing and contrasting. Although it was more likely moments, for little children fall  to sleep so quickly.

It was probably nursery curtain fabric and perhaps it came from the Old Bleach factory in Randalstown. It was heavy, so maybe linen. I wouldn't have known the names of fabric in those days. One thing I do know is, I would give a great deal to see that fabric again. Not because of the Aliceness of it, but for the pleasure it gave me when I was very young.

Dogs And Dunminning

Dunminning Cottage, 22nd most viewed. 785 views

This picture was taken ten years ago. The cottage has been re-thatched since then and, according to the internet, it has been up for sale. Whether or not it sold I do not know but the asking price was around 60 thousand. Which seems reasonable except that it is very tiny and needs a good deal of work. It dates from around the 1830s and was originally inhabited by the toll keeper of Dunminning Bridge. Cousin Margaret says she went to school near there and she remembers it having a shop where she bought her sweets. Back in the 1950s and 60s people would have a little shop in their house selling sweets and a small selection of groceries. Agnes Hughes ran one from her house at the top of our road. I'd go there sometimes instead of our Granny's petrol station because Agnes did not moan at us the way Granny did. She did give us 20 questions as to what the neighbours were up to. I tried very hard to keep my guard up but it was difficult not to let things slip.

22nd most interesting on Flickr, 179 views

This picture was taken in November 2012. My lovely Bonnie died the following June. She was slowing down by then but still enjoying her life.

The light was beautiful and the dogs blended with the Autumn foliage. And Bonnie was having a really good day.

Another picture of those two, taken by Hannah, whose animal photography is excellent.

In Which I Obtain Smelly Compost And Zoë Becomes A Shroomer

It appears that both of yesterday's Flickr pics have dropped to the number 21 spot. So won't be shown again today.

And if any reader is feeling deprived of pictures, here is a link to my least seen picture. Taken in 2005 and only one view so far.

We went to one of our local garden centres with a delivery. The guy that owns it is a very gregarious chap and always tells the best stories. Local folk probably know who I'm speaking of. While our friend was giving Nellybert (the gardeners) a talk about the local council he received a phone call. It seemed that he was, at that very moment, supposed to be giving a talk to the local council about gardening. I never knew he could move so quickly.

After the deliveries were made, and an Ulster Fry consumed, we made our way to the local council yard to collect some of their free and evil smelling compost. I intend to use it to mulch my old perennial bed which has become a disaster area. I've laid cardboard down to suppress weeds and over this will go the minicipal compost. I'm doing it despite hearing horror stories. Young Rainey said his father's gardener used it on his beds and everything died. The internet says it is full of weeds and plastic. Don't know about the weeds but there is plastic.

Zoë had an interesting find yesterday. She was pulling up last season's chard in the polytunnel and found she had pulled up an unusual mushroom.

She checked it out on the internet and thought it might be a morel. Today she told me that she had sent a photograph to the NI Fungi Group and had it confirmed

It is a morel and good eating! One of the most expensive mushrooms around, but very rare in Northern Ireland.

So I'm to keep my eyes peeled for more of them. Zoë thinks it might have been transferred to the tunnel from under the beech trees as she had been using leaf mould as a soil conditioner and mulch. I checked out the NI Fungi Group myself and apparently there has only been three reports of morchella in Northern Ireland.

Sisters

Today;s Flickr theme appears to be sisters. The 20th most viewed photograph features Martha and Evie carrying buckets of frog spawn that they found in the woods. They look really delighted with themselves. 811 views in a matter of weeks but Martha is wearing wellies. 

Since that day the girls' first call on arriving here is checking on the tadpoles. I'm keeping an eye on them too. Soon they will have to be moved to a more frog-friendly part of the property. 

811 views

259 views

The 20th most interesting picture is a scan of myself and Leitrim sister. She's the one in the stripey jumper which I might have knit but I'm not certain about that. It was taken around thirty years ago in the days Before Bert. I just cannot believe those bushy eyebrows. 

Nineteenth Flickr Breakdown

I have spent the weekend building my new garden and, every so often, I'd say something like,

Well, that's everything planted now except for those five.

Then I find a dozen more sitting around. I think all that is left is five campanula looking things, some yellow crocosmia and about ten sweet William. No doubt there will be something else lurking in a corner that will have to be squeezed in. 

We have had Ben here for two nights and his mum for one. Ben has proved very helpful carrying heavy paving stones to the new plot and Jazzer has made sure that our glasses brimmed full. I was doing Saturday night's blog when she appeared in my secret, private sitting room and started rummaging in a sideboard. I looked at her curiously.

Bert asked me to get him a beer.

He keeps his beer in that other cupboard.

I quickly published my blog and went to join them all in Bert's public sitting room and was just in time to catch her pouring his beer for him. He said,

But that's water!

I realised what had gone wrong.

It's not even water. It's Holy Water from the monk's special tap in Portglenone. I got it to fill up the Holy Water thingy I got from Matty's so I could bless myself every time I went into my private, secret sitting room.

We had a good laugh about Bert nearly drinking Holy Water and decided that he should learn to bless himself as well although he wasn't much good at it.

Moving on to Flickr pictures.

811 views and it's only up about a month

It was these pictures that got me interested in Flickr again. I'd been off it so long, flirting with Instagram, that all my pictures had taken great leaps in their viewing figures. And I could see patterns. Flickr viewing figures have, in general, shot up as the site has changed the way views are counted. For instance, if a person types in the tag 'wellies' vast amounts of pictures appear in front of the wellie-fancier and each image gets credit for a 'view' even if it is barely glanced at. So, these days, numbers of views don't mean much at all. I had noticed that the tag 'wellies' got viewing figures up so I experimented with it. There are other tags too but 'wellies' seemed fairly innocuous. But who knows what goes on in the mind of a wellie-fancier?

 591 views, taken 10 years ago in Ballymena

This picture was taken at the time the Orange Order was trying to rebrand the marching season, calling it Orangefest. It didn't really work out for them. Trying to turn the Twelfth into a jolly time for all did not sit well with fighting and rioting against Parades Commission decisions. These two children (adults by now) are dressed as William III and Mary II. The man in the hat is dressed as Oliver Hardy but he doesn't know it.

Eighteen Pig Gardens

Another super day, literally not a cloud in the sky. I made great progress with my new perennial garden, with only a dozen or so more to plant. And a path to lay. Fitting then, that the eighteenth most viewed image on my Flickr today is one of my old perennial garden which was taken seven years ago. Between one thing and another that old garden got out of control. When Matty was sick I neglected it and it only takes a couple of years of neglect to create huge problems. Last year I painstakingly cleared it of pernicious weeds, mainly bindweed and couch grass. Then Bert suggested rotovating it. This was a really big mistake for the bindweed spread. It only takes a smidgin of root to start it off. I got disheartened, too disheartened to replant. My current plan is to lay cardboard and mulch and then only plant huge sturdy plants and shrubs. I'll start on that project when the new perennial garden is finished.

Nelly's Garden 2008, 850 views

Lily, 305 views

The eighteenth most interesting picture is the young Lily gazing up at the photographer and wondering when the next tasty titbit would be coming. That was five years ago and she was still a stripling. Still looking for tasty titbits. If the pigs don't get a treat as they enter the grazing paddock they break out. Give them half an orange or a carrot and they graze contentedly until bedtime. All is right with their world. Sometimes I wonder if it is actually the animals that train us.

Just Flickr Seventeen

There was a great deal accomplished in Nelly's Garden today and, hopefully, as much again tomorrow.
We had another calf born, a little bull, very handsome. And Ben is here, always a delight to have him around.

Now to Flickr and the number 17.

17th most viewed, 864 views

It was 2005 and we were getting ready to move house. Bert is surrounded by Paddy, Harry de Cat and Rosie. They are all gone now, Paddy died in old age but Harry (6) and Rosie (10) were killed on the road outside our present house. These days we take care to discourage the dogs from going near the road. We use an electric fencing system and a collar. Some people might think this cruel but it is fairly effective. Much better to receive a couple of digs from an electronic collar than to lie broken and bleeding on the road. It only takes a couple of days. Even so, yesterday Bert discovered a well-trodden track from the field next to the lawn that led straight down to the road. We suspect it is Jess for she tends to stay out longer in the morning than the other dogs. Bert wasted no time in blocking her access and I intend to supervise her morning run out. Here's hoping. 

Evie, 307 views

The 17th most interesting image - Miss Evie, tired out after a trip to the Ulster Museum in 2014. She hardly ever naps now. Too afraid of missing something.