The Troubles We've Seen

Poor Ganching has been having a rotten week. It just goes to prove that good people don't get their just deservings for she has been more than good this past year in giving up so much of her time travelling back and forth to help out with Matty. She's not the only one. All my sisters have travelled regularly from London, from Kerry and from Leitrim to help keep Matty at home. My brother in Canada has been over twice this year.

Matty is stable but not nearly as well as she was. She still gets up every day and eats fairly well and, this is a real blessing, she keeps her wits about her still. Her main trouble is that she is very tired and weak. This affects her mobility and she cannot get around very easily. Despite these troubles she stays in reasonably good form.

So that is that. For now.

A Night In Front Of The Telly

Tonight I sat myself down in front of the television and prepared myself to be entertained and, to a certain extent, shocked. And I was. First I watched the 'Big Fat Gypsy Wedding' thing and I was horrified at that poor child galumphing to her First Communion in a pink meringue of a dress that, we were told, weighed twice as much as she did. I'd like to have seen Father Davey or Cassie O'Neill's faces if any child had appeared at the altar rails wearing that contraption. I actually don't mind the dresses that these girls favour - it is, after all, their style, their thing but the huge gowns do not enhance the wearer's grace or elegance. That 16 year old girl who got married looked like she was tramping through a muddy ploughed field instead of gliding up the aisle. Oh well. I should talk. I do a fair bit of galumphing myself and that without being hampered by a dress that weighs more than I do.

Then I watched 'Shameless' but not for long. Far, far, too rude and gory. Hard to take when you're sober. Early night for me I think.

And four more days of work to go. And an orange to eat.

Farfrae's Erection* and Other Matters

So this is me on the countdown to finishing at Moonchaser (anag.) I wonder if I will be very sad when the last day comes?

Today I decided that I will eat less crap, walk more and drink less alcohol. So far it has gone well. I also decided (after reading, before sleeping last night, a little chapter of St Germaine) to do much less housework. St Germaine argues that more than an hour a day is excessive. No doubt there are others who'd argue that even an hour a day is too much. We shall see how it goes.

Now that the weather is getting brighter it's easier to walk and I managed 40 minutes in Tardree forest at lunchtime. I am very happy with my current audiobook which is another Hardy, The Mayor of Casterbridge. How did I get to be over fifty and not read this before?

By the way, I still have another 30 minutes of housework to do, and an orange to eat.

*'Passing to and fro the Mayor beheld the unattractive exterior of Farfrae's erection...'

and earlier in the book the Mayor 'having shut the door... sat in his dining-room stiffly erect.'

As you do. The illustration shows Farfrae and Elizabeth Jane dancing under the erection

Up The Junction (One)

A couple of weeks ago when Kerry Sister and I were having a coffee in Junction One I spotted Liam Gallagher stroking about. It wasn't the latest Liam either but the one from quite a few years back with the hair, the sideburns and the parka. Oh I knew it wasn't the Liam Gallagher but there was more than a passing resemblance. I wondered if he did looky-like work, or if he was in a tribute band.

I saw him again last Monday and he was wearing a suit as you do when you work in a bank.

Happy Birthday South London Sister

January is a shocking month for birthdays in our family. Here's another one.

Wessex Tales

I was very keen on Hardy when I was a teenager but life got in the way and it's only recently that I have returned to him. Now Bert has also become a fan. Oh we are such a literary pair and you would not believe the intellectual conversations we have. When I'd finished 'The Woodlanders' I rushed sobbing into Bert's arms. "What's wrong?" says he. "Woodlanders," I sobbed. "I just finished it. It was so sad!"

Bert said, "The GOOD man."

And I said, "He was a good man and he was like you, he was brilliant at planting trees."

"Aye," says Bert. "But he was a fucking eedjit, lying out in the rain till he died!"

See! I told you we had intellectual conversations!

Before I read 'The Woodlanders' I thought 'Tess' was the greatest story ever told but now I'm not so sure. That ending was incredibly moving. Neither the babies dying in 'Jude' nor Tess getting hung affected me as much as Marty standing all alone at Giles' grave. I was very upset when the the Durbeyfield horse died and heartbroken when Jude and his wife botched the killing of their unfortunate, trusting pig. 'The Woodlanders' is the first, so far, where the plight of the humans moved me to tears.

Happy Birthday London Niece

Happy Birthday Miss M and congratulations on embarking on the brilliant portfolio career.

Happy Birthday Vancouver Nephew

A very happy birthday to my nephew Emmet.

You don't know what you've got till it's gone

First of all a big Nelly shout out to the Halifax banking advisor who helped sort out a thorny financial issue that had been troubling me for several days. Thank you Madam - you made my week and restored my faith in prayer.

And it's been a funny sort of day. I gave in my notice at work. This is something I have been seriously considering since well before Christmas. “Give up your good job in the middle of recession!” I hear you exclaim. Believe you me that is such a Nelly thing to do. I have my reasons and they are good ones.

Still I spent the latter part of the day feeling a wee bit wistful. The new office is starting to grow on me, I work with some lovely people, it's situated in a country area with lots of pleasant walks nearby. It's close to Matty's house. I have very many good memories from my time in this employment.

But this I have learned during my working life – when it is time to go it is time to go. I usually wait until I have another job lined up, this time I haven't taken that step. Although I don't expect to be idle. There will be work for me to do.

Get A Grip Time

Over Christmas I usually get a dose of ostrichitis. Sounds painful doesn't it? The main symptom is sticking my head in the sand. I wonder if ostriches really do that? Now yesterday I actually did think I was going to go completely doolally when I opened a letter containing the most dreadful news, which news was a consequence of my ignoring a previous letter. Obviously this terrifying missive was from my bank. I sat there howling and sobbing for a while then Bert came in and comforted me by patting my shoulder. That's pretty good for Bert. He says it is time to declutter my life. He says if I do that I will feel much better.

So this evening I started on a pile of paper sitting on my desk. I gathered together all the paperwork I think I'll need to convince my bank not to cast me into penury. I read a sweet Christmas card from a decent cove called Peter that I'd missed seeing at the time. I discovered that Nigel the Dog Warden is going to hunt me down for not paying one of my dog licences and I realised that I still haven't renewed my passport! If anyone tries to whisk me away on a Carribean holiday then I am truly stuffed.

That's a start made anyway. I intend to continue the decluttering my life during this coming week. Watch this space!

As Happy As...

At present I am not happy. Joy is mostly absent from my life. Contentment is a distant memory. I'm informed, however, that I am not depressed and I suppose that is something to be glad about.

I sat musing on the sofa just now while watching Bert destroy a perfectly good piece of fish. "You're going to fry it!" I exclaimed in horror. "The only way to cook that fish is to poach it in seasoned milk and butter then make a nice sauce with the liquid." He insisted that frying was the way to go. Off to Pearlie's pantry he popped to get the really awful cooking oil she favours. "At least fry it in butter," I implored him. He was having none of it. He really is a philistine.

So anyways there is me sitting on the sofa suffering the reek as Bert destroyed a perfectly good piece of fish and pondering happiness and the lack of it in my life. I got to thinking of all the 'happy as' sayings, such as -

As happy as a sandboy.

As happy as a clam.

As happy as a pig in shit.

Then this one. Has anyone ever heard it before?

As happy as a goat a-hanging.

It's one of Bert's favourites. Now why should a goat a-hanging be the least bit happy? Beats me.

Musical Youth

Dessie came round this evening. I was telling him that I'd just bought Miss Martha a selection of percussion instruments from Lidl's. He was uncertain as to whether these would be of an acceptable standard. My thoughts are that Miss Martha will probably enjoy them even if they are not of orchestral quality. Bert has been alerted that he will need to sort the whistles and the clarinet for tomorrow as he and the little lady will be having a session. Dessie recommends that we start her on a 'G' whistle. We may have to make an urgent visit to Beat Street, Cullybackey's numero uno musical supplies store. Hope it's not snowing. Hope I don't get carried away and buy Miss Martha a piano as well as a whistle.

Day Off

Which would have been best? Knowing that I was off today or finding out as a nice surprise?

Hard to call.

I spent my unplanned day off drinking way too much coffee with Kerry Sister then cleaning house then going walkies then visiting Matty in hospital. She was a wee bit cross. Cross because her sister has been discharged from hospital and now she is trapped there on her own. She reckons that maybe the doctors will change their minds about doing all these tests and send her home. So I informed her that she was trapped in the system and she informed me that my hair was a mess.

Hey! Mothers and daughters - laugh a minute right up to the end.

New Year's Day

Hannah and I went to meet the lovely Hails today for coffee - what else? There were some boys who tagged along but we paid them no mind. (Sorry Raymond & John).

Hails looks amazing. Korea obviously agrees with her. We went to that place that used to be a world-famous coffee chain and it has totally improved since it stopped being Buckstars. Sadly there was no kimchi on the menu but we gulped down our disappointment and made do with classic bagels and raspberry ruffle cheesecake.

After an hour of catching up, putting the world to rights and talking about pigs, kimchi and blogging we parted company to go and be good daughters to our mothers.

My plan was to spend some quality time with Matty and give the Kerry Sister a break. T'was not to be. When I arrived I found everyone waiting for an ambulance as Matty had developed a bit of a problem. The Kerry Sister and I followed the ambulance and found ourselves in a hideously busy A&E in Antrim Area Hospital where we waited, and waited and waited. Four hours later and she still hadn't been assessed. Meanwhile quite a number of useless fuckwits who appeared to have damn all wrong with them (but then what do I know, I'm not a medico) were taken before her. It seems that a terminally ill 84 year-old merely coming in with one of the nastier symptoms of her disease is not nearly as important as some young cove who will continually harrass the staff (between fag breaks) about when he'll be seen. Staff seemed to know him well too so I'd assume he was a frequent visitor. As I said, I'm not a medico, but if I was responsible for his treatment I'd recommend a staved hole. For those of you not familiar with local slang this translates as a good hard kick up the arse.

At the time of writing I'm assuming Matty is still waiting because I haven't heard anything different. So there you go - New Year's Day. Not to be forgotten.

The Best Bits

Of course 2010 wasn't all doom and gloom. There were some happy times. Katy and Mark's wedding in June was one such occasion. Matty's absence made for some bitter-sweet moments but despite this it was a lovely break from every day life. It just wasn't long enough.

2010 was certainly the year of the wedding. Other marriages we celebrated were Les and Dawn, Billy and Rachel and Declan and Laura. Those last two got busy pretty quickly and are expecting their first baby this coming February. Something else to look forward to.

At last! I got my kune kune piglets. Please to meet (again) Sperrin Awakino I and Sperrin Tutaki II, otherwise known as Lily and Rusty. We had a bad scare in August when Rusty contracted pneumonia but with the help of the Clough vets he recovered and, fingers crossed, hasn't looked back.
Then Bert bought this really crap van. It went through many mechanics before he returned it to the vendor and said, "Money back please!" It was a stressful time but one of the mechanics had this litter of collie-labrador pups and before we knew it we had ourselves a Pooper Pup. She's nearly trained now and has been a great source of comfort, amusement, joy and torture ever since.

Then there was Miss Martha who was always a delight, always a joy. I went part-time a few months ago to help her Mummy and Daddy get their work done. I haven't regretted it. Money is nothing compared to a grandchild.

And there was my family, my darling girls, Bertie Boy, my siblings and my friends. I don't know how I'd get on without them.

Although 2010 wasn't all despondency and gloom it did manage to give the family one almighty kick in the teeth soon after I wrote last night's post. My mother's youngest sister, only in her early seventies and stressed beyond imagination over all that has happened to her family since January, suffered a coronary. As I write this she's making some progress and I wish her a speedy recovery. Bring on 2011!

I Hold Things Back

I was going to write a post about how 2010 has been a really shit year and how I'll be glad to see the back of it. My reasons for thinking this? Well – for a start there has been too much death and illness in my family. And I have been under a great lot of stress which has impacted on my work life and consequently I am no longer happy in my job. Added to this I have lost my health and fitness mojo, haven't been doing as much walking as I'd like to and have been comfort eating which has resulted in a weight gain of 14 lbs and the relegation of lots of my clothes to the back of the wardrobe.

But then I had to reconsider – was I being unfair to 2010? For it did have its good times and Miss Martha has been a constant source of joy throughout the entire year.

So how did the year pan out? What were its ups and downs?

The downs are easy to remember.

In January Matty's only brother Dessie died the day before his 80th birthday. Matty was, at that time, complaining of stomach pain but wasn't keen on seeing her doctor. Looking back, we can see that for Matty this was odd behaviour. She finally allowed herself to be talked into it. I was sure it would be nothing.

In Spring Daddy's sister Mary went into hospital. She had cancer. Somehow I convinced myself that if Mary had cancer Matty couldn't possibly have it too. But I was wrong. Mary died in May and I was privileged to be one of three nieces at her side. Her passing was peaceful but previously her suffering had been immense.

It was after Aunt Mary's funeral that my three youngest siblings went to receive the news that there would be no treatment for Matty's illness.

Then in November Aunt Josephine died. She had been ill with dementia for a long time. Matty was in hospital when Josephine died, she was recovering from the after effects of a pulmonary embolism. We brought her home on the evening of the funeral and she now requires a serious amount of care, help and looking-after. After seven months of round the clock care from ourselves we, as a family, worry how long we can carry on with it.

I'm not great with stress. It must have been June when things started going wrong at work. I couldn't concentrate and, at the back of my mind, I couldn't convince myself that work concerns were actually important. Of course this is wrong thinking because one's employers don't approve of their workers taking this view. And I knew it was wrong thinking but I couldn't shake it off. Then the stress, the lack of sleep started to impact on my actual performance and it all turned into a vicious circle. Still spinning around in it to this day although it has got slightly better. I still feel as if I stand at the edge of a whirlpool of negativity and disaster. Expect I'm depressed.

It doesn't help that I often feel I'm waiting (impatiently) for all to be over. And not just Matty, Pearlie too and that makes me feel like a really bad person. I wait for my old people to die and then I'm old people and there are people waiting for me to die. Yep. I'm depressed.

Tomorrow I'll write about the best bits of 2010. They deserve a post of their own and pictures, lots of jolly pictures.

St Stephen's Day

Miss Katy and Miss Martha

For a while now I've been waking up at 3 or 4am and have not been able to get back to sleep. Some worry or other will come into my mind, usually something to do with work such as, will the Whoevers get the dents in their fridge freezer sorted out or will the Somebodys get their central heating fixed? And what about that franking machine - will we get it up and running? Will we ever find the black biros again?

Being on holiday I worry about other things. Is the turkey overcooked? Will there be enough room in the oven to cook the Yorkshire Puddings? Does Bert really, truly love me?

After the usual four hours tossing and turning I got up this morning at 8am and made a plan of work. I cooked beef and ham and brussels sprouts with bacon and almonds. I cooked carsnips and mushy peas. Bert and I had previously prepared a Norfolk Bronze turkey with stuffing, a tiramisu and a London cheesecake. Swisser made mustard mash and beetroot. Interesting. Zoe brought chocolate orange cake and home made ice cream.

All my daughters were there with their boys, their dogs and Miss Martha. We had Ploppy and Jenny and the aforementioned Swisser. We missed Mel very much.

Miss Martha had baby-sized Man Flu but bore it stoically. We had a lovely evening.

And now I believe we are going to play Texas Hold-Em.

Just in case you were wondering there wasn't enough room in the oven for the Yorkshire Puddings.

Happy Christmas

I was going to say tomorrow it will be Christmas Day but it's today. Happy Christmas everyone. I've spent all evening making alcoholic desserts and I licked the bowl. Cheers!

Dead Computers and Rancid Cars

This post is not about Christmas. No sir!

My PC died a death on Tuesday evening. Dave may bring her back to life again with transplant surgery but there are files I may never see again. Oh well. Hardware isn't what it used to be. I remember in the olden days of Spectrums and Commodores you could have beaten someone to death with your machine and it still would have worked perfectly.

Then there was the stink about the car. I first noticed the niff about ten days ago. I thought I might have spilled milk whilst transporting groceries. Today I bit the bullet and gave that car a good cleaning out and it was there, under the baby blankets, gilets, cowboy boots and assorted unnecessary paperwork that I found it - a tupperware container of rancid beef stew wearing a long blue beard. It was only the icy conditions that prevented it from taking legs and walking. At least it wasn't milk. I'd never have got rid of that smell.

It all brought back a feeling of deja vu.

A List

So. I did this application thingy on Facebook which computed the words I used most frequently in my 2010 status updates.

It was interesting.

1. Bert. Which is just as it should be. Blood ties mean a lot, an awful lot. But one’s life partner is the most significant tie of all, most especially if it’s somebody like Bert.
2. Martha. Back to blood ties. One’s children are delightful but there is a freedom and a delight about grandchildren that is different. Miss Martha – the most adorable, delightful person that I have met this century.
3. Bees – they are sleeping now.
4. Sleep. Something I don’t think I get enough of. Apparently people who sleep a decent amount are generally not as fat as those who don’t. Yet again that could be the junk food. I’m sure that eating properly would help me to sleep better. Hopefully will do better in 2011.
5. Honey. I do like honey but after two years of beekeeping still haven’t got any.
6. Forward. Only way to go really. In 2011 I am all for moving forward. This will mean leaving some folks behind. Somehow I think they will manage without me.
7. Pigs. What can I say? They taste good, they are good. To Zoe, Katy and Hannah my apologies for casting Swine before Pearls.
8. Love. I do. Love you. I do.
9. Hannah. And no mention of the other two despite Katy giving me a son-in-law in 2010 and Zoe a grandchild in 2009. See 8. Hannah was here. She got mentioned.
10. Evening. I’m normally a morning person but mornings were generally taken up with certain folks who paid me to give them up. Hence evenings were better, Roll on a time when Mornings are Mine!