Twenty-One X Three

Sometimes, when I blog about a birthday I like to use an anagram as the title, an anagram which contains the person's age. Today is my birthday and the best anagram to be found is 'His Extremity'. I may find a different title as 'His Extremity' might give a casual reader the wrong idea.

So, on my birthday I was taken out for breakfast by two of my husbands - the current one and the one before that. It was very pleasant. We called with The Pet Shop Boy and he greeted me,

Happy Birthday Nelly! Twenty-one?

And I replied,

Twenty-one is exactly one-third of my actual age.

I've a good bit of birthday left and later I may drink wine. We had cake yesterday and there may be more today.

Fame At Last

It is always very heartening to realise that people actually read this blog. I've long been used to folk sidling up to me at country funerals and addressing me as 'Nelly' and only today I was in Tescos when one of the employees greeted me thus,

Good to see you wearing shoes that match!

Although I cannot beat Hannah's experience - for she was walking her little dog on the river path when a complete stranger came up to her and spoke to the dog,

Hello Ziggy!

She then said (rather shyly) to Ziggy's owner,

I read your blog.

And So It Begins

I was going in to town this evening to pick up Hannah and decided to change shoes. My jeans were rather shabby and my shirt unironed but I thought they might do. I was only going to Lidls after all. Off I went, ready for anything. No matter about the faded jeans and the wrinkled shirt, my shoes were shiny.

When I got home I had some chicken business to attend to for Flour the Silkie is sitting on eggs for the third time this year. I've decided to let her get on with it. I removed the original eggs and set three below her plus the one she laid this morning and moved her to another shed. Apart from feeding and watering she will be left to get on with it in peace. It is a little bit late in the year but very warm for September so it should be OK. She is in good condition and I will make sure she gets plenty of nourishing treats as the sit progresses.

When all was done I went upstairs to change beds as more guests are expected in the next few days. I was very surprised to see one of my new shiny shoes lying on the floor. Didn't I....? Then I looked down at my feet.

The bits on my shabby left foot are flecks of straw from making a cosy bed for Flour.

Debeukhaw & Freebody

I've owned this velvet jacket for 39 years and it was vintage back when I purchased it from a stall in Portobello Road Market, summer of 1977. I spent about three months that summer working as a chambermaid in a hotel off the Bayswater Road. We started early and finished early and on Saturdays my sister and I would  go to the market. My favourite part was the vintage clothes stalls under the bridge. In those days I mixed vintage with hippy-dippy and very lovely I looked in it too. I wore that jacket with everything but mostly with a loose black or white top and a mid-length red cheesecloth skirt. Footwear would be sandals or boots depending on the time of year.

For some reason I was rarely photographed in the jacket. This picture is the only one I can find and it might have been one of its last outings before relegation to the back of the wardrobe.  I came across it again while I was clearing out a wardrobe for Hannah. And briefly considered recycling it. And decided not to. It's almost unwearable now, places were the velvet has rubbed thin and the crepe de chine lining has become very delicate. It's been through a lot. I partied in that jacket. It occurred to me for the first time in almost four decades to examine the label which I found tucked in a side seam. It was hard to make out but I managed to decipher it. Debeukhaw & Freebody, London W1. Strange name 'Debeukhaw' maybe Polish? I decided to Google it. There was no Debeukhaw & Freebody, there wasn't even a Debeukhaw (although there is now thanks to my Google rating) but there was a Debenham & Freebody. My lovely jacket had been a department store buy! Albeit a very posh department store. I'm still going to keep it for another forty years.

No Need To Apologise Revisited

Can it be ten whole years ago that I worked in that godforsaken hostel in Dunclug? The one that has been evacuated, knocked to the ground and grassed over. Such stories could be told and here's one of them from 2006. I hope that poor Eamonn straightened his life out. It's far more likely that he is dead and buried by now for he was a terrible martyr to strong drink.

No Need To Apologise

This good woman has got a poor cratur from Cashel* sitting in her office and he’s telling her how he’s starving, hasn’t a cent to his name, hasn’t ate a bite for four days and how there’s all these young boys outside torturing him and he doesn’t want anything to do with them, he just wants a quiet life and a new start.

So Eamonn you’re starving and you haven’t eaten for four days? Where’d you get the money for the drink then?

Sure a boy I met on the train give me the drink.

Right. Would you like a cup of tea and a bit of toast?

I would surely.

So the good woman and her colleague the good girl make the poor cratur a cup of tea and a bit of toast and he seems happy enough. Then he notices a television sitting on the floor.

Could I have that TV? Sure I haven’t even a radio or anything to put the evening in.

Well I’m sorry about that Eamonn but that TV belongs to someone else who has moved on. I couldn’t loan it to you. I’m sorry.

The poor cratur went on about this TV for longer than the good woman’s patience could stand and she tried to hurry him out. She offered to escort him to his flat as the young hoods were hovering about and had rang the doorbell several times wanting to know when that Eamonn boy was coming out. She noticed, whilst walking over, that Eamonn’s gait was awkward but put it down to hunger. But at the door of his flat there was a clatter and a great pile of CDs, DVDs and a DVD player fell at his feet. The poor cratur was very dismayed.

Oh my CDs are destroyed.

What are you doing with all those? Where did you get them? And what’s that you’ve still got up your jumper?

It’s nothing. I’ve nothing up my jumper.

You have. You’ve something square up your jumper. Did you take those things from the office?

I did not. They’re my own. Are you calling me a t’ief?

I’m not calling you anything. I just want you to explain to me why you’ve got all that stuff up your jumper and what it is you’ve still got up your jumper.

I’ve nothin’ up my jumper.

You have. I can see the square edges of it just there.

Are ye callin’ me a t’ief?

The good woman realised she was getting nowhere and as she had no real idea what had been in the bags in the office she knew she was on shaky ground. So she returned and consulted with her colleague the good girl. They saw that the bags of booty in the office had indeed been tampered with. They decided to return to Eamonn’s flat to give him the opportunity to redeem himself. Optimistically they took fresh black bags to receive back the purloined goods. When they came to the cratur’s flat they discovered he had company. Saoirse was with him but as they entered she disappeared into the bathroom.

She needed to go to the toilet.

Tell you what Eamonn. Give us back the stuff you took and we won’t call the police.

I took nothin’. Call the Guards if ye like!

At this point the cratur took his phone out and after punching in a few numbers he started shouting,

Mammy! They’re sayin’ I’m a t’ief. Tell them Mammy I never stole anythin’ in my life!

His charade with the phone complete he continued to brazen it out. His accomplice remained hidden in the bathroom.

I’m not a t’ief. It’s terrible you’re saying that about me!

I’m not saying that about you. I can’t say for sure that you took those items from the office but then again you are not giving me a good reason why you had them hidden up your jumper.

It’s because I have no pockets!

The good woman did not argue this point with him. Saoirse remained in the bathroom. It was the good woman and the good girl’s opinion that she had the good stuff in there with her. But there was nothing they could do. And the cratur knew there was nothing they could do. They decided to leave with their empty plastic sacks. The cratur said,

Are you goin’ to apologise for callin’ me a t’ief?

I tell you what. If you’re still here in a month – and you haven’t stolen anything - then I promise I’ll go down on my bended knees and apologise to you.

There was never any danger that the good woman would have to keep her promise for the following day the poor cratur was taken away in handcuffs, in the back of a police Land Rover, after being arrested for thieving! Just imagine the good woman’s feelings.

But that’s another story.

*The cratur was not from Tipp. Certain names and places have been changed to protect the innocent.

Sunday Evening Viewing

Aidan Turner                         Robin Ellis 

Bert found himself in a dilemma this evening.

What will we watch tonight? Victoria and Poldark are on at the same time. Should we watch Victoria first then catch Poldark on iPlayer?

I didn't care and would have preferred Game of Thrones, Season 4 Episode 6 but didn't like to say. I know how he gets on Sunday nights. So I said,

What do you want to watch?

And he said,

Poldark.

So Poldark it was. There was Aidan Turner all sweaty and shiny, showing off his gym-honed bod as he chiselled at the inside of a copper/tin mine searching for another lode. And all the other miners fully dressed shaking their heads at him as he frantically hammered. That Cap'n Ross. He never gives in. And there was George Warleggan (the snake) looking remarkably like my ex-boss and Demelza shaking her auburn curls (not a patch on Angharad Rees) as she marched the cliff again. They're never off that cliff in Poldark. Galloping it, walking it, gazing wistfully out to sea on it. Mind you, If I had a cliff like that near me I'd be on it all the time too. Just not so close to the edge.

There was the obligatory love scene. Ross all tanned from his frequent shirtlessness and Demelza pale as milk. Gentle kisses. Married sex. Yawn. Next morning she wakes, turns to smile at him and realises he's outside chopping wood. Bert says,

Why is he in the middle of the field? Be far wiser doing it close to the house then he wouldn't have to carry the logs so far.

Maybe he didn't want to wake Demelza. He's considerate like that. 

Every other day of the week Bert watches manly stuff. The News. The Weather. Farming programmes. Shows about Hitler. Gritty films. YouTube videos about pipe-smoking. Then on Sundays he turns into Walter the Softy. Poldark, Call The Midwife, Downton Abbey. He was heart-broken when Downton finished. No more Lady Mary, he loved Lady Mary.

As for me - I much preferred the first Poldark, the one from the 1970s with the delicious Robin Ellis and the peerless Angharad Rees as Demelza and I never recovered from the loss of Hamish Macbeth. Sunday evening telly, there's something about it. Get a good show and you'll never forget it.

Gardens: climbers as ground cover

Cloud-like hummocks covered in blossom: climbing hydrangea. Photograph: Alamy Stock Photo

 Cloud-like hummocks covered in blossom: climbing hydrangea. Photograph: Alamy Stock Photo

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James Wong

Sunday 4 September 2016 06.00 BSTLast modified on Wednesday 7 September 2016 09.03 BST

Iam not the kind of person who collects quotations, especially when it comes to gardening. But I shall never forget what Christopher Lloyd – an all-time horticultural hero of mine – once said about lawns in an off-the-cuff radio interview when I was a kid: “In gardens there is nothing so labour-intensive and yet so boring, and I think this is unforgiveable.” What a legend that guy was.

With ever-shrinking plots and leisure time, I often feel that re-creations of pastoral landscapes are increasingly out of place in many properties, at least as a form of ground cover. Sure, if you are lucky enough to have a plot big enough for the kids to play football on or acres of rolling countryside, lawns are lovely. But in postage-stamp spaces that are shaded by buildings or trees, steeply sloped, poorly drained, and where there is barely space to store a mower (all four, as is the case in my Croydon idyll), I think there are far better options available to us plant geeks. Chief among these: plants we normally think about clothing vertical spaces with: climbers. By their very nature they are vigorous, sprawling species designed to clamber over wide expanses, so why not use them on a horizontal plane?

The idea first came to me when visiting a forest in Japan where a large, mature tree had collapsed under the weight of a climbing hydrangea (shown above), which had subsequently stretched out in all directions to make stunning cloud-like hummocks covered in blossom.

Climbers as ground cover is nothing new – ivy’s ability to spread across a forest floor, creating a weed-suppressing blanket, has long been used by municipal planters to clothe steep banks quickly and cheaply. But honeysuckles and climbing roses work just as well, with the bonus of scented flowers throughout the summer. Trachelospermum, the star jasmine, also adapts brilliantly to the treatment, with glossy evergreen leaves providing a perpetual carpet that erupts into fragrant white blossom in full sun. In fact, pretty much any one of the popular favourites has worked in my experience, from Clematis and Akebia to Campsis and – if you have the space – Parthenocissus.

Allowing climbers to grow hugging the ground also has the benefit of slowing the flow of sap along their branches, resulting in loads more flowers, stretched right across their length. Pruning is greatly simplified: you just trim the bits that encroach on paths. You can even train them over both planes: first across the ground and then up a vertical surface. This softens the angles in small gardens that make boundaries easier for our eyes to perceive, making a space appear far bigger than it really is. Definitely something I will be experimenting with more this year.

Empty Streets and Dry Garages

When Lizzie was here yesterday we got talking about a photograph of Pearlie taken as she cycled through Cullybackey when she was in her early twenties. Lizzie claimed that it had been made into a postcard. No one could recall where we'd last seen it.  So today when Bert and I called in at the Cullybackey Historical Society Open Day we were pleased to see that very picture. We cannot be certain it was Pearlie but the timescale fits and it looks like her. According to Bert his father didn't own a car back then so cycling or walking would have been her only option. I'm sure that's not true. Johnny is bound to have owned a car in the 1950s. How else would he have got to Portrush? And he was always in Portrush. Bert asked me if my father had a car back then.

Of course he had a car! He might have had to share it with his six brothers but they always had cars. Sure they had a petrol pump. They'd have looked well walking or cycling when they had access to free petrol. And how could they have courted girls on the far side of Randalstown without wheels? Not like your lot who wouldn't have walked the length of themselves for a woman. Folk who thought three fields away was a big distance!

And speaking of modern day petrol stations I have sad news to report for one of the guys in the garage has been rather dry with me these past couple of weeks. Normally he's all friendly banter which  I thoroughly enjoy. The first time I noticed he was a bit 'off' with me I thought he was distracted, maybe having an off day. He's been 'off' with me for a couple of weeks now and I think I must have offended him in some way. Perhaps because a couple of weeks ago I couldn't recall receiving change and when I queried it, it turned out I had. I should have been embarrassed but I wasn't and maybe that is the problem. Ah well. I hope he gets over it soon. I miss his banter.

Early Riser

Up early this morning taking Hannah to work. Driving before 6 a.m. is a pleasure for there is hardly another soul about and the journey into town and back home takes about 25 minutes. I stopped at the garage in Cullybackey to pick up buttermilk for I had scones to bake, visitors expected - Bert's Aunt Lizzie and a cousin from Scotland. I spent an hour or so washing floors and other boring household tasks, baked the scones, then gazed at my chickens for recreation.

The visit was very pleasant but afterwards I was extremely tired and popped off to bed for what is known as a power nap. It was supposed to be 30 minutes but turned into an hour and a half and I awoke feeling utterly exhausted. How does Hannah do it? Recovered enough to make supper, water the vegetables and gaze at the chickens.

Then phoned Jazzer to arrange crazy, mad birthday weekend a week hence. Only Jazzer will do for crazy, old bird madness. Opened a bottle of rose petal wine (strange and potent) and watched that Game of Thrones where Hodor broke Locke's neck.

I promised to blog every day. Didn't promise that it would be interesting.

All The People I Talked To Today

I might try to blog every single day during the month of September which won't be easy as I am practically brain dead and the only thing I am any good at writing is lists. The other day I found my husband sitting in front of my screen perusing my To Do list with a quizzical look on his face. I was displeased and a little bit embarrassed. As soon as he left I opened a new sheet on my spreadsheet and entered some words.

The next day while I was organising my digital images into folders he crept up behind me and peered over my shoulder. He does this a lot and I'm not keen on it. I said,

Are you looking at what I'm doing?

And without any shame he answered,

I am.

And I said,

You're looking at the wrong thing then. You should be looking at this. 

And flipped the screen.

He said,

That's not very nice.

But I know he really thought it was hilarious.

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To begin this month of daily blogging I offer a list: Some names have been changed to protect privacy.

All the people I talked to today in real life

1. Bert. We talked a lot. No serious conversations. Lots of laughing and saying, bah, bah, bah which is our new joke. I may explain this later.

2. Hannah. General chatting about work, family, tree houses and stuff.

3. Evie. She was almost too excited about beginning her academic career to talk about anything much except maybe cats and hunger.

4. Martha. We discussed music and dancing. She said she likes Irish music especially when it is fast and bouncy.

5. Ploppy. Inheritance, cars and general gossip.

6. A young man in a coffee shop. Geeshie Wiley. He brought the subject up and I was very impressed. We also talked about people falling out of tree houses and what can be done to avoid litigation.

7. Bilrus. We talked about families, life, Game of Thrones, politics and small man syndrome. Bilrus is a very tall man with a very small boss.

8. Howard. Dogs, mutual friends and the work place.

9. MM. Sinn Fein shenanigans and politics in general.

10. Locky. Horticulture and mutual friends.

11. Peter. The property market.

12. A Wildling. The misadventures of small dogs.

13. Rod. Families, music, mutual friends, food, dogs. He had supper with us and said he didn't mind that the lid of the pepper pot fell off when I was seasoning the cabbage. Said he liked pepper a lot. Said yum-yum. Then he played his guitar.

14. Les. We had a discussion about a mutual friends experience of bullying in the work place. Food, families, music. Then he played his guitar while Bert played the clarinet.

That is all.

Something New

At Sea*

Almost time for the new school year to begin and this year Miss Evie goes into year one at Big School. Doesn't time fly past? I say that even though it is a pet peeve how people talk of time flying.

What happened to the endless hours waiting for the school bell to ring at the end of the day, the ever lasting months in the run up to Christmas and that long, long stretch of summer holiday viewed from the first day of July? Time didn't fly back then and I'll bet Miss Evie thinks it was half a lifetime ago when she started off at nursery school. 

I read somewhere that all it takes to make time slow down is to do something different so I'm doing something different tonight, going to an event in the Ulster Museum in Belfast. I'm looking forward to seeing Glen Hansard (part-timer) and I'm looking forward to seeing my brother-in-law Breanndan Ó Mhuircheartaigh and the Kerry Sister. 


*I am not certain of the provenance of the picture. I think it is by Kerry Sister.

Off Again!

No posting this weekend as I'm off to Donegal for a couple of days. And with all the potting, watering, cleaning, packing and catching up with my wine-making I really need a break!

Peaches and Oak Trees

This has been a wonderful year for raspberries and peaches. Raspberries are over now. A week of wet weather and the wasps finished them off but not before we shared, made gallons of wine and filled the freezer. The peach trees cropped heavily too; the free standing tree lost a branch under the weight of fruit. I need to improve the management  of these trees with more summer pruning and thinning. Meanwhile I need to continue giving them away, making peach wine and peach and raspberry wine, chopping and freezing for even more wine and the odd pudding. Howard was here this evening helping me get the fruit on the highest branches and he said that peaches are rather good soaked in rum and eaten with cream. That might well do for a Saturday treat.

Peaches and garlic

I took four dogs and a cat for a walk in the wood today in the hope I might catch a glance of an owl. All I spotted were wood pigeons. This is a shameful admission but it is over a year since I've been in there - Bert's wood, only five minutes from my door. It's also been quite a while since I've climbed the stairs to the tree house. Thirty seconds from my door. I really must do better.

Whilst in the wood I saw Matty's oak tree, a little sapling that she had in a pot by her back door. It was given to Mum by her friend Marie who, I think, grew it from an acorn. That's what Matty said anyway. Bert planted it in a good place and now that I know exactly where it is I'll have to keep an eye on its progress.

Little oak tree

The Return of the Owls

One fine evening last week I went out to check that the chickens were closed in and heard the long-missed sound of young long eared owls calling for food. It's a strange call, almost like a creaking wooden gate. At this stage of their lives the young owls will be able to fly short distances and are agile enough to move from branch to branch, even from tree to tree in a wooded area. They still depend on the adult owls to bring them food and the calls are to let the parents know where they are. There were at least two calling.

Chances of seeing them are slim for they live in the wood now. Back in 2007 they nested close to our house and were easily spotted even during the day. But even if I cannot see them or photograph them it is wonderful to know that they are breeding near us. Owls and buzzards. We are blessed.

There is more good news. My mother's wedding ring which was lost for more than a year has turned up. I found it wedged under the skirting board in my private, secret sitting room. What a relief. I'd never even told my siblings it was missing. Obviously if I was more of a thorough housewife, dusting my skirtings regularly, I'd have found it long ago.

And here - post from seven years ago with photograph of a juvenile owl. Perhaps it is a parent or grandparent of the ones we hear now.

I Miss My Baby Owls

baby owl springhill 2009, originally uploaded by NellyMoser.

For the second year running there has been no long eared owl babies at Springhill. I miss them very much.

We think that buzzards took over their nesting site. Last year there were at least three young buzzards reared on our land. Buzzards are OK but I'd much rather have owls.

A Horticultural Tale

Many years ago when I lived in town I had these very unexpected visitors. Mick, my first husband, was at work and myself and the girls were all at home. I was washing dishes and noticed a parked car with at least four adult occupants. It seemed out of place at nine o'clock in the morning but I never thought it would have anything to do with me. Then the door knocked and there on the doorstep they all stood, the occupants of the car, and the tall bearded one was brandishing a piece of paper which he said was a warrant to search my house for drugs. He might have announced it differently but that is how I remember it. They were one woman, three men and a golden labrador. The woman sort of herded the children and I into the living room while the men and the dog set to searching the house. Katy, who was about six, was very excited about the dog and wanted to know if we could keep it. I was worried. About a year previously I'd held a party in the house and someone had cannabis and I fretted that there might be a fleck of it left behind for at that time people were being charged and taken to court for very small amounts of hash.

The police officer who was 'guarding' us attempted light conversation. She noticed some unfinished patchwork I'd been working on and talked about that. Apparently she had an interest in needlecraft too. I couldn't really engage with her for worrying about the untidiness of the home that they were rampaging through. At last the bearded one appeared. He asked me to come into the kitchen. My heart sank. Had they found cigarette papers, a grain of dope? No. I walked into my kitchen to find one of the officers holding a house plant. Beardy said,

Can you tell me what this is?

I was amazed and relieved and answered,

It's a plant my friend bought me for my birthday. She got it in a florist shop in Wellington Street. You're joking. You can't really think that it's a cannabis plant?

He wasn't joking.

We're taking it with us for investigation.

I got cheeky.

Well, I'll be wanting it back and you'd better water it!

They left.

A week later I'd heard no word so I went to the phone box at the bottom of the estate and phoned the police station and got through to the switchboard.

Hello. This is Nelly Moser. I'd like to speak to Sergeant Willis please.

I'm afraid he's not in his office today. 

I'd like to leave a message for him.

Certainly. 

Ask him if he has completed his investigations regarding my house plant I'd like it returned please.

The switchboard woman tittered and said,

I'll make sure he gets the message.

A couple of days later the door knocked and there standing on the doorstep was one of my unexpected visitors from that morning, the youngest of them, given the shit job of returning my birthday present. I took it from him and noticed it was light.

This plant hasn't been watered since you took it. It's bone dry.

We watered it every day!

I don't believe you.

A couple of months later my sister and I were at a friend's gig in the  Smithfield Bar and I noticed Beardy Willis and his drug squad chums sitting at the back. I quietly pointed them out to her,

That's the crowd that took my house plant.

They left soon after and the landlady set two drinks in front of us.

What's this?

That's from Sergeant Willis.

And that was that. My dizygotheca elegantissima lived on for a few years but eventually died and was never replaced. It never got to be as big as the one in Belfast's Botanic Gardens.

Dizygotheca elegantissima or False Aralia

Distant Donkeys

A person could nearly be happy if it wasn't for the relentless brutality of the reported news. Today Bert and I travelled to Loughgall to pick up clematis liners in one location, compost in another. There were friendly people,  friendly dogs, and slightly distant donkeys - Armagh and Tyrone are pleasant places. The orchards in Armagh are laden with apples but apparently it's not good news for farmers. More work for the growers with lower prices and the Irish cider companies have quotas. This is how market forces work in the 21st century, the better things are the worse they are.

In Springhill there is a glut of raspberries and blackcurrants and, hopefully, of peaches. This is a good thing. Nelly fills the freezer, all the visitors get free fruit and the birds, insects and pigs eat the leftovers. No money involved. When I'm picking currants one hen, the smart hen, follows me around eating the fruit that I drop. She's not actually that smart because she hasn't figured out she can pick the fruit straight off the branches. Those blackbirds could teach her a thing or two.

Pessimist

So many weeds to pull and so much fruit to pick. I say to Bert,

The days aren't long enough,

And he says,

You can see them getting shorter too! Winter is coming!

Damn you Bert, I may have anxiety but you are a pessimist. Yet it may be that I have nurtured my own optimism as an antidote to my anxiety.

In the right (wrong) frame of mind I can turn any pleasant thought to a negative.

My word, the raspberries are doing fine this year,

To be followed by,

I wonder how many years I have left in which to enjoy raspberries.

Short lived delights like laburnum bring sad thoughts too. It is glorious in the few weeks when it blooms, so loud with busy pollinating insects. Evie calls it the corn tree because, to her, the drooping acid yellow blossom look like corn cobs. Every year the laburnum's glory is tinged with sadness as I remember that my time to enjoy it grows less and less.

Perhaps it is me who is the pessimist.

Off To Norfolk

I'm off to Norfolk tomorrow to see Katy and family. Sweet Baby James will be one year old this weekend and soon I will have to desist from calling him Sweet Baby.

 Today was a good day, I spent most of it planting vegetables and picking and freezing fruit, pounds and pounds of fruit, mostly white currants and raspberries. I still need to complete my packing.

The best thing about today though was the news about Theresa Villiers. Good bye and good riddance to the toffee-nosed witch. Northern Ireland has hardly had a worse Secretary of State and there have been some duds over the years. Hopefully this Previously Unheard Of (they usually are) will be a tad more useful than Helmet Head Villiers.

Anyways - back to the packing. I'll freeze the blackcurrants in the morning.

Ten Dogs At A Party

We had some friends around for a barbie yesterday and for the first time ever there were more dogs present than humans. Sadly, some of the dogs were not well-behaved.

There were our own three dogs,

Judy - she found it all rather difficult for she is not really a dog person. She much prefers people. Luckily Rod came round later and he is one of her most favourite friends. Luckily he is a dog person and was not too fazed to be greeted by nine dogs leaping on him as he came through the door.

Jess - like Judy she found it all a bit too much. Her sister Dora was there and her brother Rex. She likes Dora and always shows her where the best shit for rolling in is. Rex - she can take or leave him. Her best bit was when Rod came. He understands the shit thing and is not too precious about it, Rod and Marty retreated to the kitchen to play music and Jess lay faithfully at their feet. She is a huge Rod McAuley fan. In fact her other name is actually Sprollie McAuley.

Roy - Roy loves a bit of doggy company. He feels he is the old gentleman of the house and enjoys the odd row with the other boy dogs. He always wins.

There were the Reed dogs.

Frank - Frank is old and deaf and very bolshie. He also likes a row with the other boy dogs and always wins.

Dora - she is very sweet and loves to roll in shit. her favourite is fox, second favourite pig but when these are not available she makes do with cow.

There were the Kenny dogs.

Rocky and Dougie. - Good dogs, Jack Russell Terriers. Bothered no-one.

Dora - also a Jack Russell Terrier, Very small and sweet, wants to be cuddled and loved all the time. Actually quite needy. You'd think butter wouldn't melt in her mouth. Until she got into the hen run. OMG! Swisser and I were gathering white currants and suddenly there she was, crept under the wire, through the tiniest gap and within seconds had one of the brown hens in her tiny little jaws. I went after her and she has down in a giant nettle patch. I tried to prise her jaws open but it was impossible, they were locked. Poor hen is squawking in pain and fear then Swisser gives the dog a good thump and it released. I caught the wee brute and got it out of the run. The hen disappeared. Carried it into the house and dumped it, quite unperturbed despite choking on feathers.

There was Swisser's dog - Rex. An absolute sweetheart, one of the sprollies, brother of Dora and Jess. Bit of a mummy's boy, not allowed to roll in shit. He was bullied by the old fellows, Roy and Frank but held his own.

Ziggy - Hannah's dog. Most well-behaved dog at the shindig. For a change.

And what of the hen? It wasn't easy finding her for it's a very nettly chicken run and full of fruit bushes. But we did. She hadn't a tail feather to her name, bruised but not bloodied. She has been moved in with the banties and their babies and seems content enough. Her poor sore bum is purple from that antiseptic spray. She keeps looking at it, perhaps wondering where all her lovely feathers have gone. The rooster is down to only three wives.

And what of the humans? They ate, they drank. they talked nonsense. Some of them argued, some of them went home early, some stayed up very late, some played music, some sang. Some banged on about politics and Brexit and Bonfires. Then they told me to give it a rest.

Until next year.

Day Trip To Portrush

Last year Hannah and I took Martha and Evie to Portrush to go on 'everything' at Barry's and Kiddieland. We had a great time so we did it again this year, except sadly, Hannah couldn't make it so Ben came in her place. I don't know if  a 17-year-olds can be a mensch but if he is too young right now, he's certainly on his way. He didn't mind carrying their pink coats, only flinched a little when I asked him to hold my Cath Kidston bag when I had to rummage through my backpack looking for even more cash to turn into amusement park tokens.

On the train

We took a few photographs while we were there. The best ones were of the more sedate rides as the hectic ones were all too fast for my limited photographic abilities.

Worst ride was the Ghost Train. Not even a tad scarier than it was when I were a girl and eight tokens for us all to go on. Martha referred to it as 'getting it over with'. Next year, if we are spared we're giving the Ghost Train a miss and having an extra ride on what Bert calls the 'hobby horses'.

It all fair took my mind off Brexit and the Chilcot report. Sometimes we have to forget about the grim stuff and just have some fun.