A Party Of Sorts

This Saturday past was my mother's second anniversary. I chose to fill it with friends. The day went past. I spoke to a number of my sisters and I made an arrangement to visit with my youngest brother on the Sunday (today).

Swisser was supposed to visit yesterday but she cancelled. She texted Bert saying that she did not want to interrupt our party. Our party! I confess I was miffed of being accused of a party on Matty's anniversary. If it was a party this is what occurred, We ate sausages and mash cooked by Jazzer. We did drink wine. Mel visited us from Edinburgh and brought whisky. Bert drunk some of that and so did Jazzer although she ought not to have. Marty and Jazzer shared some of their experiences of growing up in Belfast during the 1970s and I read excerpts aloud from Lost Lives. Marty retired to the kitchen and played claw hammer banjo for hours.

There came a point in the evening, maybe after her second glass of Scapa, when Jazzer flipped. This is a regular occurrence. She goes from being a relatively normal person to one who is sensitive, defensive and argumentative. It goes something like this, I'll say,

Ben is an absolute gentleman. He really is an excellent young fellow. Everyone thinks the world of him. You couldn't wish for a better son.

Jazzer goes on the defence,

My other kids are fantastic too. They really are great. I won't have a word said against them.

And I say,

You've flipped you bint! Over the edge. No more 16 year old single malt whisky for you!

It seemed to work. Jazzer calmed down. Maybe twenty minutes afterwards this exchange Jazzer's pup Dora jumped up beside me. I stroked her absent-mindedly. Dora is our pup's sister so I don't wish to show favouritism. Jazzer's old dog Frank is snuggled up on my other side. Jazzer reciprocates on the other sofa by scratching my old dog's ears and giving her lots of pets. Old Bonnie groans with pleasure. I say to Mel,

Dora really is the sweetest little dog. She has a lovely nature.

Immediately Jazzer says,

What about Frank? Frank is a lovely dog too! He has a lovely nature as well.

I turn to her sympathetically and say.

Wise up you daft bitch. Can I not even say something nice about one of your dogs without you taking it as a slight against your other dog? Start drinking tea this minute!

We sure know how to party in Springhill.

Supper Time

While Nelly blogs, Bert makes the supper. Tonight we are having poached egg on toast with a side dish of grilled tomatoes and sausages.

What will Pearlie eat?

She might try a wee sausage if I peel it for her.

Pearlie cannot be having any foodstuff with a skin, a crust or a peel for she hates texture nearly as much as she hates music. Music she cannot be doing with,

I weesht ye would turn that oul dinnle aff.

She does like some music. She likes old-fashioned dirgey hymns such as 'How Great Thou Art' and she likes Scottish pipe bands. All else is dinnle.

And she likes her sausages peeled and her fish fingers shaven of breadcrumbs. She wants the crusts cut off her bread. I won't do that. Crusts cut off bread? That is just attention seeking. Since I've been giving her pan slice intacta I've noticed she eats much more of it for she nibbles right down to the crusty brown skin. That has to be a good thing.

And do you know something else? They put coverings on processed foods for a reason. Ever seen a skinned sausage? There is only one thing worse and that is a peeled fish finger. Those breadcrumbs are there for a reason. They are there to make the 'fish' look white instead of a dirty greeny-grey colour. We serve the stripped finger to Pearlie with a side of bread and butter and a cup of tea. Nice, warm tea. She  drinks her tea and eats the bread right down to the crusty brown skin. And later on the cat will eat the unwanted and unappetising fish finger. I'm going to tell Pearlie that fish fingers have been prohibited by law.

Fanad Lighthouse

Fanad, originally uploaded by NellyMoser.

If you should happen to be looking for me this weekend I'll probably be on a dander to that there lighthouse.

Home Truths And Happy Birthdays

Last week was for pondering and gardening. Writing? Not so much.

A week ago Mrs Thatcher popped her clogs which made for a lot of discussion, thinking and remembering.  A friend of ours told us once that there was a bottle of champagne he intended to drink when she finally expired. On Friday I asked him if he'd done so. He said he had changed his mind, that he would not allow her to affect his present as her policies had affected his past.

Then I was presented with a home truth by my dear husband, which landed true and took root. Still thinking about that one and will write about it another time.

Then I realised that Pearlie Blue has been living with us for almost five years, not four as I'd previously thought. They do say time flies when one is enjoying oneself. It was around about this time five years ago that she fell and broke her hip. When she recovered from that (something I thought she'd never do) she moved in here. I well remember telling her that she would be coming to live with us and her reply which I thought might display some pathetic gratitude or other sentimental feeling. Not our Pearlie. Instead she snarled,

I should have been in with youse ten years ago!

I murmured something about that not really being practical. Imagine! An ambulatory Pearlie wandering about, interfering, poking in drawers, standing in the way. She was always tremendously good at being in the way and still is I suppose.

So, sowing and planting and watching Game of Thrones and Mad Men, listening to and absorbing home truths, thinking about the eighties and the eighty-somethings, going to Ikea with my darling girls and taking our darling girl Hannah out for her birthday. We ate at Spice and went to see Good Vibrations. Good film. Lot of Game of Thrones actors in it.

It is Hannah Banana's birthday today so I must finish this and go see if I can find the birthday cake candles. Not that Hannah cares but it is extremely important to Martha.

Two Down, Three To Go

It is probably ten years or more since I lumped Margaret Thatcher, the Queen, Matty, Pearlie and Ian Paisley together as a cohort. I banded them on age as they were all born within a nine month period. If Matty was feeling 'old' I'd say to her, "Have you seen the state of Paisley? He's looking his age for sure! And the harples* of him! You? You're like a lilty** yet!" Or she'd think her mind wasn't as sharp as it used to be. "Sharp! You're as sharp as a tack. Didn't you win a tenner for completing the Irish News crossword the other week? Imagine being like Maggie Thatcher. Sure she has to be told every day that Denis is dead. Wouldn't that be awful?"

And there was always Pearlie who, couldn't walk, could barely eat, had no way with her and had precious few friends. While Matty was, without doubt, the most popular woman in her road and rarely wanted company or outings.

And the Queen. "Mum, that poor woman. Sure she's great for her age and wants for nothing but she has hardly a minute to call her own and almost her entire family are on welfare! At least your kids have jobs."

Ten years ago I'd have wagered that Pearlie would go first, then Ian Paisley. After that it would be Thatcher, then Matty at 95 and the Queen at 100 or more. Instead it was Matty, the youngest of the five who was first to pass away. Now Thatcher has gone and it's happy for her I'd say. There was a recent photograph of her sitting on a park bench, in a good wool coat, wrinkled stockings and a pair of Hotter shoes on her feet. A little whippet was beside her and she was petting the dog which looked like a smaller, finer version of my Judy. I never liked Mrs T. Some part of me admired her as a person and a woman but I hated her dogma. I hated her stance on Ireland. But I loved that picture with the dog. She cannot have been all bad.

I was in hospital having Hannah when Thatcher went to war with Argentina. I was in hospital this morning when I heard of her death. Nobody seemed to care. It was just a diversion, like the Jeremy Kyle Show.

And I wondered who would be next. My prediction - Ian Paisley, then Pearlie, then the Queen. Surely Pearlie cannot outlive the Queen?

And hopefully I will outlive them all. The news from the hospital was good. So far.


* harple - limp
** lilty  - bouncing, energetic woman

A Pet Day

Bert is opening and banging shut all the cupboard doors looking for 'something nice'. He lives in hope that fairies come to our house while he is asleep and leave vol-au-vents and macaroons for him to eat in the morning. Tough luck Bertram. The only fairy in this house is the Lidls fairy and she has left you some porridge. Try not to spill dry oats all over the floor like yesterday.

Meanwhile, in a town not very far away, a friend is reading the previous paragraph, which was posted on Facebook this morning. Within the hour her husband Rod had arrived at our door bearing a selection of fancy cakes. "I heard that Bert wanted something nice to eat." He then bundled our two younger dogs into his car and took them off for an hour's walk by the River Bann. He does this a lot so dogs are always thrilled to see him. In fact, Jess has been trained mostly by Rod and his wife. Trained to the lead and being trained not to bark at strangers.

So, while our dogs are being exercised we get on with our day. Ben, our current house guest, is making wooden guns. He is only 13 so that sort of thing pleases him. I don't see the point of the end product but I do approve of his learning to use saws, drills, lathes and the like. He is supposed to be mending the lid of the hen's nest box but he'll get round to it some day.

It was a beautiful today, blue skies, soft white clouds, bird song and bees. One of our hives did not make it through the winter so only the one left. Bert rotavated and ploughed and we put in a few potatoes. I planted onions and weeded the greenhouse, Les carried on with the erection of his poly tunnel and Marty did some therapeutic potting. We ate a lot of buns.

Good Friends

A thing I have noticed as I have grown older is that the friends Nellybert have now are good people, people to cherish, people to care about.

They are all ages but mostly they are younger than us. Tonight they were 13, known from birth, 33, known since teens and early to mid forties, known for 20 years. All good people and they all love dogs.

We are blessed with our good friends,

A Dead Rat And A String To Swing It With

Bert had been cleaning and levelling the sand beds in the polytunnel. He stood back to admire his work.

Look at that! Smooth or what? You could play bowls on that!

Les says,

Or marbles. It would be a good surface for marbles.

I say,

Marbles! You never hear tell of marbles these days. The young ones wouldn't know what to make of them a-tall.

Les,

Aye. It's all sitting at computer games nowadays.

Me,

Mind you, our grandparents probably wondered why we didn't play with hoops and sticks. Or spinning tops.

Les,

They probably said – sure spinning tops aren't good enough for the young ones today. It has to be marbles for them.

Bert says,

And what about a dead rat on a string? Sure the young ones today wouldn't know what to do with a dead rat on a string.

I looked at him.

A dead rat on a string?

Aye! Don't tell me youse boys never played with a dead rat on a string.

Bert – if any of us had as much as touched a dead rat Matty would have brought us in and scrubbed us down with Dettol! What was Pearlie thinking of, letting you play with dead rats?

Sometimes I wonder if Bert's mother was fit to rear a child.

Acme Boy Scout Whistle

When Pearlie first came to live with us she wanted a whistle. She knew there was one somewhere in her hoard but, despite her niece's best efforts, it could not be located. Then she wanted the niece to buy another whistle but I put the kibosh on that notion. The very idea of being whistled at like a border collie!

In time, as I sifted and disposed of Pearlie's hoard, I came across the whistle and very nice it is too. Lovely piercing tone to it, sweet to handle and easy on the eye. I immediately checked its value on eBay and found that it wasn't worth much. I did not tell Pearlie that I'd found it which was very bad of me but, knowing her, she probably nicked it from someone in the first place. I mean to say, family of girls, where would she get a boy scout whistle, other than by going through someone's cupboards. Did I ever mention that she's a bit of a magpie? I'm convinced she is currently stealing my teaspoons. I bet her handbag is full of them for I know the cutlery drawer isn't. Thing is I'll never know until she's dead as her handbag never leaves her presence. Oh well. If collecting teaspoons makes her happy then who am I to deny her one small pleasure?

But the whistle. I try to keep it on my person so that when I get one of those unsolicited calls I can say, "Just one moment. I'll just fetch Mrs Moser," then I get Pearlie's whistle and blast it down the receiver. Bert thinks this is a horrible thing to do, people only doing their job for which they get paid a pittance. I expect he's right. I'm just not a very nice person.

Face Like A Fur Hatchet

Bert has been away for a couple of nights. He's been to a concert in Dublin and is due back today. I have been doing his morning and evening chores and looking after Pearlie. That's not a big deal except, I could not help noticing, that tending the animals is far more rewarding than tending to Pearlie. They seem pleased to see me in the morning, they relish their food with gusto and they appear happy to be alive.

Pearlie? Not so much. The first thing I do for her is put on the kettle for morning tea and a refill of her hot water bottle. Then I fix up her fire. I take a lot of care over this, my aim being to start a cheery blaze immediately. When Bert starts her fire he stirs up the ashes, throws a log on and hopes for the best. If it goes, great, if it doesn't he starts again. While I'm doing the fire I can feel her eyes on my back, glaring balefully at me. Should I look over my shoulder she will be glaring balefully. She only speaks if she wants something else done. Truly you would think I was setting the fire around her ankles in order to murder her. When I bring in her tea and bread she looks at it with disgust as if it were rank poison. The only thing that gives her a glimmer of pleasure is the hot water bottle. And this is a woman who has enjoyed a cosy warm bed, the central heating on for two hours and a gas fire before getting her cheery blaze and rubber jar.

The truth is she's always glum and she is especially glum when the darling son is away. I'll be glad to see him back. Tomorrow morning it will be him going in to see the oul' doll with the face like a fur hatchet. It will be at least an hour later than I go to her and the fire-starting will be haphazard enough. Her first word to him will be some sort of a whinge and he'll laugh it off. But I suspect that inside herself, behind the baleful looks and the whiney voice, she will be just as pleased as a Pearlie can be.

Boundaries

Bert and I went to visit Peter a couple of days ago. Peter is a guy who, after he retired, took a plot of land at our last place (Clint's place) and grew hedging liners. He was there for ten years at least, the most decent man you could imagine. Around about the time we moved up here his wife started to fail in health and about a year after we left he wound his plot up. I'm sorry to say that Clint was glad to see him go because Peter's easy-going ways that fitted so well with Nellybert did not sit as well with Clint's vision of the perfect smallholding. The difference being, I suppose, is that we like to share and Clint does not. 

We'd invited Peter to the new place but his wife's needs were more important that Peter's need for the fresh air and a bit of space to grow things. Since then Peter's wife has continued to decline and Peter himself had his own health problems. It was chastening to compare his caring role to ours. His wife has got her clock out of kilter. She sleeps for most of the day and wanders the house at night. This means that Peter has to stay up late to look after her. He does not get enough sleep or fresh air. He has no outlet, no time to himself. He has no respite.

Thinking about it since I have realised that, even though having Pearlie living with us does affect our lives, we are actually quite fortunate because she does have a routine that fits in with some semblance of a normal life. To be honest I would not tolerate it any other way. In the first few weeks after Pearlie moved in she thought it was appropriate to call on us in the middle of the night if she needed pillows adjusting or somesuch. I spoke to her plainly. I explained to her that we would only be prepared to look after her at home if she could accept that we needed an unbroken night's sleep and that if she felt she needed attention at night then the only option would be residential care.

So, after seeing what Peter calls a life, I can see that our situation with Pearlie is a far more tolerable one. She has a good mind and she knows what is what. She knows we'll look after her and she accepts that she no longer rules the roost. This is how it should be. I will need to remember that this is how it might pan out for me too. The world belongs to the people who can keep the fire going, drive to the chemist, cook the milk puddings and protect the elderly from the occasional unsympathetic carer. Which is another story altogether.

Missing Matty on Mother's Day

I have made Matty a home made Mother's Day card this year. I have made it out of pictures of her with some of the people that she loved. If I'd used pictures of all of the people she loved, those pictures would have been so many and so teeny that they should barely be seen.

A Weekend In Fanad

I went to the Fanad peninsula in Donegal over the weekend with Miss Martha, Miss Evie, their parents and Judy. We stayed in a caravan just beside Ballyhiernan Bay. It is next to a big beautiful beach which the girls loved.

I was very agitated and worried before I went but returned in a far calmer frame of mind. The only snag was the usual one, Martha will wake up at around 6 a.m. and will be very loud and noisy. Judy was not impressed. I had to tell Martha stories. My favourite was the story of a girl who lives in an empty house and each morning there is a box outside her door with something she needs. At first Martha was sensible. The girl had some basic clothing, a dog basket, a blanket and porridge.

So all the girl had to eat was porridge and every night she had to sleep in a dog basket with a really thin blanket but when she woke up in the morning there was a box outside her door. What do you think was in it?

A beautiful yellow dress.

So the next night the girl had to sleep in a dog basket with a really thin blanket and she had nothing to eat all day but porridge. The next morning she woke up cold and hungry and outside her door was a box. What do you think was in it?

A lovely pink skirt.

A fashionista in the making for sure.

Pigs Might Fly

The weather last few days has been very fine for February but I have not been able to enjoy it as I am, as they say in Norn Iron, 'dosed with the coul.'

I have noticed since I started hanging out with toddlers that I get a cold about four times a year. It used to be only about once or twice a year. Small children are germy little beasts.

Another thing I will not be able to enjoy is a quiet house for Bert is away and there is just me, Pearlie, the two cats, three dogs, 7 chickens and 5 calves. Unfortunately I am responsible for feeding all these creatures. Although the pigs, Lily and Rusty are quite capable of helping themselves. This is to be avoided and I have asked Bert to put all the pig and calf feed in a safe place. He put it in a trailer with sides down, right at the edge, good and handy for a tall pig standing on hind legs. Luckily I got to it before they did so the only way they're getting into that trailer is if they sprout wings and fly.

In fact, must go and see if they have broke out and are rampaging through the yard.

I have very high hopes that I will be feeling better tomorrow.

Postscript. Darn pigs were nowhere to be seen but they had left a trail of tumblings behind them. Pigs are rough. I eventually found them in Bert's workshop where they had broken open a big bag of peanuts intended for the birds. Perhaps they thought eating bird food would help them to fly.

Dog Visitors

Nellybert has dog visitors almost every day. They are nearly as many as our human visitors. Today we had Lucy, accompanied by Clint and Rex, accompanied by Swisser. Lucy is a very good visitor. She farms and does not be in the house much. Of course, like all farmers. when she does come indoors she brings half a yard of filth and dung in with her. Judy does not like her much. Judy was very annoyed to see Lucy riding in the cab of the tractor with Clint. She must have thought Lucy had shocking airs about herself. To console Judy I had to take her out in the van when I went to buy my wine ingredients and my Guardian.

Rex, our other dog visitor, is a sister of Jess and she greeted him as she greets all her litter mates, first by growling and snarling viciously, then by having around thirty minutes of fairly good-natured tussling and tumbling. Rex is a nice dog and much bigger than Jess but he has a sweeter temperament. Of course he shit in the kitchen and his mistress was very cross indeed. I tried to explain to Swisser that other people's houses are 'outside' to four month old dogs and she shouldn't berate him. I also told her that I'd far rather put up with the dog's poop as listen to her shrieking at him. I think she took it in good part.

What To Do When The Muse Departs

Over a week now since I committed a word to The Garden and that was merely a link to another person's blog post. That other person being my sister and that blog post being so damn good
that my poor muse was utterly devastated, became a dessicated leaf and blew away in the breeze.

But I eventually caught it, gathered it up, watered it with tears of salt and am currently trying to breathe life back into it. So while the muse fights for its life in intensive care I shall tell you what I've been doing this past week.

I ate a burger. It was sourced from my local butcher who informed me that sales of burgers have risen sharply since the tales of Tesco and Findus and the rest serving up Old Dobbin have become news. What do I think of this? I think it a disgrace and not because I object to eating horse (although I prefer not to) but because they cheat us and because welfare standards are not being met in these dodgy abattoirs. A few years ago, when things were going well and everyone felt rich because their home was worth close to half a million quid, the fields were full of horses. Now, with the price of feed sky-high, there are less of them. They had to go somewhere.

I finished watching Game of Thrones and miss it a lot. I watched the last two episodes back to back six days ago and what with the thrills and the tension, not to mention sitting in the same position (tensed up to the max) for two hours I've got a sore hip that keeps me awake most every night unless I load up on paracetamol, hot water bottles and wine.

I resisted Game of Thrones for ages even though lots of it was filmed around these parts - Ballintoy, Murlough Bay, The Dark Hedges, Shane's Castle and Tollymore. There were also a few people I know playing extras in crowd scenes. It was exciting to see my friend Danny trading vegetables with another extra in the foreground of a scene supposedly set in the Iron Islands.

I also finished listening to my latest audio book, The Unbearable Lightness of Being. It was dense and far from light and I had to listen to parts of it several times but what a book! I'll carry it with me for ever. Not literally of course because I'm not sure I even have a copy of it. My favourite character? Karenin, Without a doubt. Although I didn't like him as much in Anna Karenina. And now I have started Madame Bovary. I will, I will be well-read!

And Nellybert acquired a time-share in Donegal. How exciting is that? I told Miss Martha and Miss Evie's folks about it today and we are all very excited.

And Ben Reed is spending mid-term break with us. Quite honestly he is The. Best. Boy. Who. Ever. Lived. I might have to do a blog post on him sometime.

There is also stuff about Pearlie but it is far too dreary and awful and I don't want to talk about it. Yet.

A History

My sister wrote this. It is worth sharing.

Painting Time

Martha said,

Granny. I want to put my smock on and paint.

OK. Let's go upstairs and get the paints.

She spotted some acrylic paint.

I want those.

Those are for big people. You can have the ones you used last time. 

But I'm a big girl now. 

Well. You'll have to wear an apron as well as your smock because you wouldn't want to get paint on the new pinafore your mummy made you.

I squirted out a blob of every colour and I showed her how to mix them to make different colours. Red and white for pink, red and yellow for orange, blue and red for purple. She was very absorbed. But before long she was mixing too many colours together and I explained that she would end up with a sludgy grey or brown colour. But she was enjoying herself and I thought it best to let her learn from experience. While she was mixing her colours I  left the kitchen to get something something from the freezer. Evie and I became rather engrossed out there and I started looking for rhubarb to make another batch of wine. We were less than five minutes. When I went back to the kitchen I found that Miss Martha had created a dark, dark colour and....

...she had painted

herself!

Big girls! You couldn't take your eyes off them for a minute.

Fish Girl

Hannah and I took Judy and Jess the puppy to Waterfoot. It was Jess' first trip to the coast and she liked it a lot. The only thing is, she was not happy to share her beach. She seemed to believe that it belonged only to Nelly and all who belong to her. It will not do that she has a growl that would not shame a fully grown German shepherd. This is behaviour we will have to try to modify.

Another thing Jess liked about her beach was the number of dead fish lying around. there were dozens of them and she was happy to eat them as they were. We had to prevent her as we didn't know where they had come from. Later on an old chap told us that there had been a fishing event the previous day and the small ones were thrown back. Jess growled at this poor old fellow in a very nasty and threatening manner. She did not like the cut of his jib.

It must be strange for a small dog to be taken to the seaside and find that someone has arranged an 'all you can eat' buffet, and then not be allowed to partake of it.

It's a tough life being a dog.

In The News

Is it nearly a week since I last looked at Nelly's Garden? Sure doesn't time fly when you're enjoying yourself?

I had the Leitrim Sister up for a few days and the country wine had a very mixed reception. She caught me racking the orange and tasted it then pronounced it rank poison. The raspberry, while tasty enough, was "too strong". I suppose that is a fault of sorts.  Maybe it is too strong for I had one of those hangover thingies the next day and I didn't like it.

The weekend rushed past in a flurry of visiting and being visited. I can say without any fear of contradiction (for if you contradict me, you are just plain wrong) that a lady from Tannaghmore, formerly from Armoy, makes the best soda bread in County Antrim and probably the world.

And Liam Neeson received the Freedom of the Borough in Ballymena today. Miss Martha and her mummy appeared in the local TV news as part of the crowd that welcomed Liam to the Town Hall. I'm sure this will not be the last time Martha appears on a news programme.

 Pictures are screen shots from UTV player