Saturday Woes

I notice that Ganching regularly posts on daily pluses and minuses so, as I have had a couple of days of minuses, I intend to borrow her idea at least once.

Minuses

Bert broke my whizz mop. For those that do not know a whizz mop is the best way ever of mopping floors. Unfortunately, to allow them to be sold for an affordable sum, they are not as robust as they might be, I had an amazingly robust mop and bucket once. The only way it could be broken would be for a truck to run over it, or to be stamped upon by an elephant. The downside was you'd need muscles like Popeye to operate it and it slopped water all over the place.

I was eating a nice bit of crusty toast and raspberry jam and my dental plate broke. I got a temporary repair made but I'll need a new one. The new one will cost me the price of 14 whizz mops.




I put my Omron GoSmart pedometer in the washing machine. Fortunately it was a quick 30°C setting. I'm attempting to dry it out but if it doesn't work and I need a replacement and I don't win one on eBay that's near enough the price of one whizz mop.

And I have an eye infection. 

Pluses

I also have gin!

The Stable

Today I asked Bert where he had deposited the cardboard (for lasagne gardening) that was kindly donated by Ronnie Pet Shop Boy and he informed me it was in The Stable.

The Stable?

We have six sheds and at the last count fifteen names for them. The sheds are referred to something like this, 

• The Woodshed
• The Milk House
• The Byre
• The Cattle Shed
• The Workshop
• The Hen House
• The Pig House
• The Calf Shed
• The Back Shed
• The Potato Shed
• The Turf Shed
• The Silo
• The Tractor Shed
• The Tool Shed
• Ian’s Shed

But The Stable? There hasn't been a horse about this place in more than sixty years. There might have been stables back in Master Kernohan's day but that was a long time ago. The place that Bert refers to as The Stable currently contains,

An ancient stack of turf, almost inaccessible as it has flung upon it a great amount of yellow drainage piping and...

• An amount of railway sleepers.
• Some coal, supplied by Frank McCooke.
• A bit of a quad bike.
• Some other bikes.
• A few collapsed swallow's nests.
• A great quantity of adult diapers.
• A stove.
• A quantity of Bann bricks.
• Cardboard.
• Various other treasure.
• No horses.

In Which The Piano Is Rolled To The Shed

We never did get that piano tuned. There was no point anyway for I had nowhere to put it but the sun room and it was plonked far too close to the wood burning stove. Today Young Loveheart, Rod and Bert rolled it to the shed, the one I call a workshop and Bert calls the Pruta Shed even though the amount of pruta (potatoes) currently stored there only amounts to three baskets of Sarpo Mira. Miss Martha will not be pleased about the removal of the piano although she will still be able to bash away at it in the Pruta Shed.

I see from my previous blog entries that we've had the piano for three years. It was first mentioned in the following entry when I was enjoying a rare opportunity to have the house all to myself. It seems too that Bert still has the outstanding matter of that unfinished ranch fencing to consider. I'll mention it to him tomorrow.

Tuesday, November 29, 2011

Home Alone

I'm home alone. Pearlie has gone to one of her regular respite placements so that means two whole weeks without a batallion of carers tramping in and out. And it is also two weeks without her constant griping and complaining. It is a chance for Bert and I to have a taste of what it must be like to live as a couple in privacy and peace. Eight whole weeks a year we get of this and I know that makes us very fortunate people.

As I said I'm home alone. Bert has gone off to Malin Head with a couple of friends. I hope they get reasonable weather and aren't blown off the Head. I've been left with the chickens, the dogs, the pigs and the cats - not too burdensome. Clint has been left with the cattle. I'm supposed to be watching and listening for one of the heifers 'looking away' but we're not holding out much hope. The beast has had numerous goes with A.I. and a good run with the bull and she just can't catch. Clint came in to talk about it. He knows Pearlie isn't here so I've got nobody to moan at me.

Huh! The only place that one will be looking away at is the abattoir. She's far too big a baste to be keeping as a pet.

I interpret this as a dig at the kune kunes but I do not react. He goes on.

Aye! It's the freezer for her, no question about it.

I'm sure he'd like me to get sentimental about her so he can come over all manly and practical and farmerish but I do not give him a chance. He goes on,

Did Bert ever get the bags sorted out for the butcher?

I concur that if he did, I have not been informed of it.

Huh! He's an easy-going boy waltzing off to Donegal in this weather and no worries about the butcher! And in November! Sure it's wild up there! He has little or no sense. I don't know what would take him up to Malin Head at this time of the year!

I remark that I thought the break would do him good and mention that we've got a piano.

Aye! I saw that. I don't know what you thought you needed that for. Huh! What with that oul squeaky clarinet and dinnilin' away on an oul out of tune piano that'll hardly do him much good. It would answer him a lot better to finish that ranch fencing he started.

I have to agree that Bert has a rather dilatory attitude to general chores.

Well! I'm away down to get my own livestock foddered and in before it's too dark to see.

I bid him goodnight.

When he is gone I say to the dogs for there is no one else to say it to,

Y'know – there are a lot of things that Bert is good at, that Clint is not.

And I smile a little smile to myself.

On Sisters

It is with a heavy heart that I pack my little case and head for County Leitrim to visit one of my multi-talented sisters. The reason? I've just read this. And there was no mention of me.

Sibling rivalry... it never dies.

I'm sure if she had racked her brains she'd have thought of something!

Most home-made wine in Cullybackey?
Best granny in the world?
Gets up 5 minutes earlier every day?
Awesome pastry?
GSOH?

Seriously though, I'm proud of them too.

Weekend Plans

Today I planted tulip bulbs. My sister said, is it not too late, will they grow? And I replied, they will have a better chance in the garden than in my kitchen drawer.

I'm in a reflective mood and am trying to get my life back on track, starting with getting up times. Since Pearlie died I had drifted into being a slug-a-bed and, at this time of the year when daylight hours are short, it makes sense to get up before nine. I do what I always do, set my alarm 5 minutes earlier every day. The hens are pleased.

I have also decided to eat less biscuits and take a daily walk.

In December I plan to blog every day so that my loyal readers can share in my Christmas planning. Prepare to be very impressed.*

This weekend I will be getting on a bus and travelling to Enniskillen and will be accompanied by two young girls aged 3 and 5. At Enniskillen we will be met by Leitrim Sister who will take us to her lovely home among the rushes. The older of the two girls wasn't going to go as she informed her mother that,

Teacher doesn't allow us to take holidays in term-time.

We explained that weekends don't count. Bert is not too heart-broken to be left by himself for two whole days.






*Impressed at my lackadaisical attitude.

Pottery, Porcelain & Glass

Bert has been forbidden to put anything in the attic.

If you want something taken up there, leave it by the stairs and I'll take it up.

Why? Because he just dumps things there willy-nilly on top of all the other stuff and I have to move it to get to the stuff I want. He's been storing outgrown children equipment such as buggies, stair gates and so on for we're hoping for more grandchildren some day. I've been digging out china, and pretty cushions and knick knacks that have been up there since Pearlie moved in with us. For my new room you see. The new room that I keep going on about.

You can be certain sure that Bert will not pay a blind bit of notice to my instructions that he keep out of the attic. He agrees with me, then does exactly as he pleases and I have to admit I do admire him for it.

Bringing out the china has awakened my interest in it and I found myself drawn to a vintage coffee set in a Ballymena charity shop. It looked in very good condition considering it must be close to a century old.

Royal Doulton Duveen 'Syren'

Sadly I could not afford it as it was priced at £395! There aren't as many bargains to be found in charity shops these days, not since the people who work there discovered eBay and the prices that some collectors are prepared to pay.

But I did have a happy find in Portglenone a few days later. I have a few bits and pieces of Poole Pottery Dorset Fruits. It's modern but I like it. I'd been poking about and was about to leave empty handed when the nice lady said,

Do you like these plates?

Four Poole Pottery, Dorset Fruits dinner plates, the apple pattern. How much did she want for them? Fifty pence each.

Now if I only have six adults and two children for Christmas there will be plates enough. Six apples, a pear and a bunch of grapes.

Starved

I was brought up in a family where breast feeding was the norm. I had been breast fed myself, I'd seen all my six brothers and sisters breast fed and it never occurred to me to do anything else.

Back when I had my children feeding one's child oneself was not the norm and midwives did not seem to encourage it. Nevertheless I persevered and it all went well for me. There were no problems, my little ones thrived and that thing called 'baby weight' melted away in no time.

As time passed I found out more about my own and Matty's early experiences. My mother let the odd thing drop and eventually it all became clear. She had a difficult breech birth with me and did not recover well. She felt isolated and unsure of how to deal with her first child. I was very underweight and she struggled with nursing. As her anxiety increased, she neglected to nourish herself and consequently I was starving at the breast. She told me that there were fierce District Nurses who called very often such was their concern for this baby that failed to thrive.

Then my Aunt Sarah visited. She had a son six months older than me. He was a giant baby, dark curls, the fattest chubby cheeks, a great lump of a well-fed infant. Aunt Sarah was horrified to see the scrawny thing that Matty had produced.

Give that child a bottle! Thicken it with Farex. Put sugar in it.

Matty did as her sister said and I started to thrive. Got chubby. But I never, ever forgot that early starving. All my life I have wanted more food. At times of anxiety I just want to eat and I especially want to eat starchy, sugary things. I must have adored those thickened, sweetened bottles of milk.

I've been thinking about this recently for I've gained weight. Again. I can't stop eating. And that cousin? The one who never knew hunger in his entire life? You should see him now. He's as lean as a whippet and a right handsome devil.

All Dogs Welcome

Nellybert likes to give a warm welcome to dogs and their owners, even when the number of four-legged visitors may seem excessive. Today we had just the five canine callers.

photo by Zoe Bowyer

Gracie and Maya brought their entire family with them. And stayed for dinner. Gracie likes to assist me in the kitchen when I'm cooking. Her job is to deal with spills. I am a careless cook and often drop morsels  and crumbs on the floor as I go.

As well as their family, they also brought....

photo by Hannah Bowyer

Ziggy! Today is Hannah's college day so Ziggy is sleeping over. He looks rather splendid in that picture does he not?

Sadly Ziggy missed Fly's visit. He and his master had called earlier in the day.

From this picture, taken by Miss Hannah a few weeks ago, you can tell how much Ziggy looks up to his good friend Fly.

And then there was Poppy. Eight weeks old and visiting Nellybert for the very first time.

A little Jack Russell terrier who wouldn't stay still for a second. She got on well with everyone, even the cats and she peed on the spare bed, my fault for putting her on it. I do hope we will be seeing lots more of her.

Two seconds after this snap there was puppy pee on the Ikea bedspread. Who cares!

The Stack Garden

Bert generally does not tell me things. So I wasn't a bit surprised yesterday when a large truck containing stones arrived on the yard. As Bert thinks receiving a load of stones an important task accomplished it would therefore be deserving of a cup of tea. When he came into the kitchen I attempted to engage him in conversation.

What are the stones for?
Och!
No. Tell me what they're for.
Tssk!
Just tell me. Other husbands tell their wives things.
The back garden!

And off he stomped clutching his cup of tea in hand.

Did I ever mention that he's not really a morning person?

I pondered this information. The back garden? We have various areas around the house that could be described as garden but I wasn't sure which he meant. And why would he be needing stones for it? Gardens are my department too. I deserve to be consulted.

I broached the subject again the next time he came in for refreshments (thirty minutes later).

So, exactly where is this back garden you speak of? Back of where?
I didn't say back garden. I said stack garden.
Stack garden?
Yes. Every farm has a stack garden.
Where's ours?
Round the back. Where the pigs are.
Bert – In nearly thirty years I have never once heard you call any part of this place the stack garden. Have you just made that up?

I have to say here that the naming of places is something we argue about discuss often.

Bert went on to argue that this area, which I call the pig paddock, has always been referred to as the stack garden and that if I had been brought up on a farm, as I claim, then there would have been a stack garden.

And what would this stack garden be used for?
For stacks.
What kind of stacks?
Hay! Corn! Logs!
No. We had sheds for those and the hay was baled and stored in a hay shed.

He continued to insist that all farms had stack gardens and I argued that stack gardens were all in his head or else something only hill-billies know about.

Currently his names for fields are,

The Field Across The Road

The Meadow

The Corner Field

The Hall Field

The First Hill

The Second Hill

The Third Hill

The Big Hill

He claims not to remember the names of the six fields planted in trees apart from The Whinny Field. These fields are now known as The Trees. I pressed him on this and he managed to recall that two of them had been referred to as,

The Wee Field On The March With Gregg's

The Boag Field

Boag Field. Do you mean bog?
It rhymes with doag*. So what did you ones call a boag then?
We called it The Moss and cut turf in it. We didn't make a field out of it.
Youse were that grand out at Tannaghmore.
We were.

I'm certain sure that when I met Bert he didn't speak of doags, boags or stack gardens. And he used to (I think) tell me things so when the man from the quad bike shop pulled into the yard this morning I thought he wanted to buy a tree, or perhaps he was looking for directions. But no. Bert has bought a quad bike. And never said.

*doag - dog

Happy Birthday Evie!

That wasn't a bad weekend. We had a delightful night out with the Banjos, Jazzer cooked breakfast and Banjo Man finished the decorating. We had the Little Misses for a sleepover and that overlapped with the Banjos. Evie took a great shine to Jazzer and when I was leaving them home the next day referred to her as,

My best friend Jazzer that I like.

On Sunday morning Martha demonstrated her ballet skills on the newly varnished floor while I made a little film, I cannot share as I have temporarily mislaid the lead that connects iPad to PC. Nellybert filmed both girls prancing about for exactly one minute and fifty-seven seconds and when we left to rejoin our rapidly cooling cups of coffee Martha cried,

I need an audience!

She is going places for sure.

I also made a pleasant discovery. When Enid Blyton is writing about Brer Rabbit she can be quite entertaining.

Today was Miss Evie's third birthday. I suppose in a way it still is but, as  I understand she is currently tucked up in bed wearing new birthday jammies, that is it for her until her Big Four in 2015.

Happy Birthday Evie!

Going Out

Nellybert are going out with the Banjos tonight. For a meal. Jazzer phoned at lunch time and suggested it and, as always, my first impulse was to refuse.

Go out? To eat? I'd much rather stay home, wash down the bookshelves, clean the spice rack, bottle the elderberry, watch Last Tango in Halifax, bicker with Bert, eat toast, then go to bed with the iPad and a Sudoku puzzle.

But I gave myself a good mental shake and said,

Go out? To eat? We'd love to.

Changing Rooms

Bert and I have been busy bees this last few days. He is working on a wall unit for Young Rooney and is quite obsessed by it. Then, in the evenings, he spends an hour or so sanding down the wooden floor in what was previously Pearlie's room. It will return to what it was, my own sitting room. I'm looking forward to it. I will have an open fire, rugs and cushions. We can't have cushions in the sun room as it opens on to the yard and the dogs and Bert and the visitors carry all the dirt of the day in there. And for some reason all the cushions end up on the floor. Bert has just one left and it is covered in sawdust. My sitting room will be a haven of comfort and cleanliness. I told Bert so and he disputed it but he will see.

Meanwhile I've been cleaning and sorting. I have found my long lost passport and all my nicest cushion covers. I have went through my gigantic ironing pile and recycled at least half of it. That's one way to cut down on the ironing.

A young friend called today and I brought her in to see the progress and she was amazed at the amount of books on the shelves. She asked if I'd read them all and I had to admit that I hadn't. I told her that I started collecting books in the early seventies and that back then I used to put my name in them and the date I acquired them. I picked up an ancient Penguin and opened it to show, in my best juvenile handwriting, that it was named and dated 3/3/73. Over forty years on my shelves and still to be read.

The Country Girls

I have been to Belfast twice this week and I may go again tomorrow.  On Tuesday Bert and I went to Smithfield Market, then to the outskirts to collect some flagstones from a friend. We got a little bit lost on the way back but in a good way. Getting lost is just another way to see new places.

I went yesterday with Bert's cousin, the one formerly known as Pearlie's favourite niece. She had a medical appointment but, to make it more fun, we went up early to check out the vintage stores on Botanic Avenue and get a bite of lunch. I chose a cafe that specialised in Middle Eastern food and, I am sorry to say, we were served by a waitress who thought it amusing to mock favourite cousin's strong accent.

You're a wee country woman aren't you?

She then proceeded to speak in an accent that she thought approximated FC's. It was rather awkward. I expect we should have complained bitterly but then we country women aren't like that. Not nice wee women like FC and Nelly anyway. I took a dry tone with her and FC lightly remarked that she hadn't expected to be insulted. Our server realised that she had overstepped and was the soul of politeness and attentiveness thereafter. Despite it all I enjoyed the food (FC didn't) and I might go back.

I seriously considered leaving a complaint on the cafe's Facebook page this morning but decided against it. I liked everything about the place except the server's unprofessional attitude. McCooeys are hoors for slagging country folk. I'll be ready for her next time. If she's still there.

Family Meal

Nellybert have the decorators in. Well, to be honest, just the one decorator, Banjo Man, and he keeps breaking off to drink Guinness and play his banjo. I'm not complaining. He is doing a wonderful job and we're not even paying him. So the house is a bit upside down. It didn't help that I pulled all my wine out to do stuff with it and that Bert has been on lock down in his shed building a dog house for Jazzer's incontinent dog. Working man suppers had to be made (lots of meat and potatoes) and, consequently, I'm rather behind with household chores.

Today I'd planned a Family Meal. And I needed Bert to help me prepare. Bert, when he takes the notion, is a good focused cleaner. He likes to throw things out, he likes to lecture me on how my cleaning routines are haphazard and inefficient. He cleaned the scullery, threw lots of things out, spent at least 40 minutes in it. Meanwhile I haphazardly and inefficiently cleaned the rest of the house, baked a cake, made fifteen scones, a stack of sandwiches and mopped the scullery floor. That's teamwork.

London Sister is visiting. We also had Martha, Evie and their parents, Hannah Banana and three family dogs. Family Meals are great. They consist of a lot of different kinds of food, mismatched fancy china and a family.   Zoe brought terrible things from Ikea, herrings and Swedish blood sausage. Bert and Dave fell on them with glee. I tried not to look as I concentrated on my scone, piled high with Les' delicious damson jam and whipped double cream. The cake was a triumph. It was an apple sponge made with a combination of Les apples and Lidl apples. It actually fell apart when I was removing it from its dish (should have lined it) but I managed to piece it together and joined it at the seams with runny icing.

From now on Family Meals shall be the order of the day.

Afterwards the girls brushed their teeth and put on pyjamas all the better to be straight up the stairs and a bedtime story as soon as they got home. Then we took some photographs. I was in such a good mood that I even forgave London Sister for looking every bit as young as my children.

Shared Space

Eighteen demijohns of home made wine sitting on the kitchen island and one of hard cider which has started to ferment. Yippee! I have made an important list. Four demijohns needing racking and three needing bottled. 

I was hoping Bert would go out tonight so I could make a start on the wine and then clean the floors but he has chosen to stay at home to finish some decorating. How could I complain. This is going to be my own wee sitting room. Banjo Man is helping him. I am a very fortunate woman indeed. So far, I haven't had to lift a finger. It used to be a sitting room and we had just got it the way I wanted it when Pearlie needed to move in. This was something I wasn't expecting but I am sure it was at the back of Bert's mind all along.

I said to him the other day,

We're each going to have our own sitting room! 

Aye.

And we  already have our own bedrooms.

Aye.

We could have a bathroom each if we wanted.

Aye.

This marriage is going to last forever!

I'd Rather (Not) Go Blind

For a while now I haven't been able to enjoy looking at the heavens. Even on the clearest night the stars would not stay still for me. When buzzards flew above this house, which they often do, I've not been able to see them as sharply as previously. Looking into the distance seemed to strain my eyes. Using binoculars did not help. I couldn't get them to focus. Maybe it was time to get stronger spectacles?

Yesterday while driving into town I thought my glasses were fogged over and, while stopped at traffic lights, cleaned them. I picked up Hannah and on the way home it felt as if my lens was dirty. I knew it wasn't. I closed my left eye and all was fogged, closed the right, could see clearly. Closed the left again and it was as if my lens was smeared with Vaseline. I made an appointment with my optician when I got home and saw her today. I have a well advanced cataract in my right eye. A year's wait for free treatment. I'm not sure what to do.

Only the other day I was thinking that the quality of recent photographs had deteriorated. No wonder! I've been using a half blind eye to focus them.

When I left the optician I felt so sorry for myself. Ten pounds heavier than I was, penniless, going blind, sore achey shoulders, getting old. I had to give myself a mental shake. Sure if I lived a hundred years ago there wouldn't even be any treatments, never mind free treatments! I have options. I spent the rest of the day rooting up sunflowers, preparing my garlic bed and chatting to the younger generation. And the younger generation told me that their grannies have all had cataract operations and are doing just fine.

Adventures In Cider Making

At primary school one of the stories in our Wide Range Readers was Johnny Appleseed. As I remember, Johnny was presented as a jolly hobo who wandered the length and breadth of America with bags of apple seeds which he planted everywhere for no reason other than benevolence. And this is how Johnny Appleseed is generally known. I never gave him another thought until I read The Botany of Desire: A Plant's-Eye View of the World by Michael Pollan.

Pollan's work shows how people and domesticated plants have formed mutually beneficial relationships. His chosen plants are the apple – our desire for sweetness, the tulip – for its beauty, marijuana – which intoxicates us and the potato which nourishes us. Each of these plants has thrived through selective breeding and genetic engineering. It was a fascinating read which I'd recommend to anyone who takes pleasure in growing – anything!

The section I enjoyed the most was the one on our desire for sweetness and apples. Pollan had a lot to say about Johnny Appleseed or, to give him his true name, John Chapman. The tale I had from school was over simplified. John Chapman was a fascinating man. But he didn't just wander around the United States planting seeds willy-nilly. He planted nurseries of apple saplings and sold them to farmers. When a nursery was established he left it in the hands of a manager and moved on, planted another nursery and continued in this pattern. He made a decent living. Now an interesting fact about apples is that they don't grow true from seed. Indeed, if you were to take an apple and plant the several seeds that it contained, each seedling would be entirely different from the others. And most would be sour. Apple trees that produce sweet fruit may only be propagated by grafting. So the vast majority of John Chapman's trees would have produced sour fruit. So why did people buy them in such large numbers? Because sour apples are just what is needed to produce hard cider and applejack. Our reading book never mentioned that.

Which brings me to my own recent experiment. I've been wanting Bert to make a cider press for ages but he has yet to get round to it. So I was rather pleased when a friend sent me a link to a method of producing cider without using a press. I gathered my apples, a mixture of Bramleys, crabs and dessert apples. Mostly Bramleys as they are what I have at hand. They are not ideal for cider but it is just an experiment.

The recipe uses a juicer instead of a press and we happen to have a sturdy masticating juicer which makes it easier still.

Hard Cider From Whole Apples

What You’ll Need:

• Apples, pears, or crab apples (to be mixed with sweet apples.)  About 15 lbs. of fruit gets us about a gallon of juice.  Must be fresh and organic.  Try to include some crab apples or tart apples with your sweet ones for a better, more balanced flavour.
• A juicer. 
• A chopping knife and cutting board.
• A large sieve and a clean kitchen towel.
• Demijohns, a funnel, a siphon hose, rubber bungs and airlocks.
• Sugar
• Swing-top bottles

Method:

1. Wash your fruit well with plain water. 
2. Cut your apples into quarters.  This is mostly just to check for bugs or other issues with the apples.  Discard or cut around any that have an infested core, and cut out major bruises. You don’t need to worry about coring or taking stems out– the juicer will do that for you.
3. Start juicing!  As your juicer pitcher gets full, pour it through a funnel into a sterilized demijohn.
4. Once you have juiced all of your fruit, taste the juice and add sugar.  At least a cup of sugar to a gallon of juice, more if you like sweet cider.  During the fermentation process, the yeast will eat the sugar (both the fructose from the fruit and the added sugar) and turn it into alcohol– so this step is both for flavour and alcohol level.  Those of you in the USA may not really need to add much sugar, as most of the apples there tend to be really sweet.  You can add more sugar later if the brew is turning out too dry or tart for your taste.
5. Put a rubber stopper and an airlock on your demijohn, and let it sit for a week.
6. Rack your cider– siphon it into another sterilized demijohn, leaving the yeasty sediment in the bottom of the first one, so you have a much cleaner cider in the new demijohn.  Taste it and see how it’s doing.  If it’s already tasting pretty dry, you can add some more sugar before you put the airlock back on.
7. For a sweet cider, bottle after a week. Three weeks or more makes a drier end product. Fermenting it this long means that it won’t be very fizzy in the end– but you can also add a little sugar just before bottling to regain some carbonation.  The next step is to bottle your hard cider.  Use the siphon hose to fill swing-top bottles. The type of bottle is really important, since it lets out small amounts of the pressure that builds up, so you don’t burst any bottles.

For those of you in Northern Ireland all the specialist equipment needed can be purchased at Hillstown Farm Shop near Ahoghill (and Randalstown) or Nature's Way in Belfast.

The Devil Makes Three "Old Number 7"

Banjo Man was the first person, actually the only person, who enthused (raved) about this band. Last night he made me watch this video on YouTube and I have to admit I was impressed. Banjo Man and his band Dogg Ruff String Band  have been doing their own version of Old Number 7 for a while now so I've heard the song a few times.

There was this other band too... racking my brain now. Phoning Jazzer now. Futurebirds. Now I know why Banjo Man has grown a long beard. He is going all modern Americana. I think he even has a Pinterest page of decorated beards on the go. Can't wait until he is plaited, beflowered and beaded for it will certainly dilute his current White supremacist look.

Is that not a darling beard? The wonderfully named Cooper McBean who plays tenor banjo and guitar with The Devil Makes Three.

Morning Pages

I am so behind with everything including blogging. One thing I am way ahead of is contact with family and friends, and that has to be more important that chores, hobbies and blogging. Isn't it? I maybe should check the polytunnel today to see if anything has died.

During the week I did find a moment to read Oliver Burkeman's column in the Guardian Saturday magazine. I found the idea intriguing and discussed it with my sister asking her if she'd read it or, if she'd even heard of it. Turns out she had and had found it a very helpful exercise when she was going through a hard time. So, I began. Matty always said that her children followed each other 'like sheep'. But I'd say that if one of the sheep has found a good way of being, why not follow her?

Three days in and I'd forgotten how difficult it is to write longhand. My wrists and shoulders ache. My first insight? I hate the shelves and wardrobe in my room. I suppose I'll have to do something about that.

Right now I am writing this on an iPad and the weight of it is killing me. More blogging tomorrow. Devil Makes Three on YouTube.  When did my life get so exciting?

Insider Knowledge

I have just finished watching the first two series of House of Cards. Essentially, as far as politics go, it was complete toodle but, as a drama, it was  tremendously enjoyable. The acting, particularly the two leads Spacey and Wright, was tremendously good. Kevin Spacey has created a marvellous, Machiavellian villain.

So that's me a-waitin' on my next fix of House of Cards and Game of Thrones. And speaking of Game of Thrones, Season 5 has been shooting recently here in Northern Ireland. I'm not enough of a geek to know if location shooting is still going on but I am enough of a geek to have enjoyed a recent conversation with one of the extras. He wasn't able to tell me about what was going to happen, said that if he did he'd be contractually obliged to kill me but he did tell me about some of the previous season's shoots. For instance, y'know that highly erotic scene back in Season 1 where Daenerys Targaryen first got it properly together with Khal Drogo? They were actually supposed to be glamping in a luxury yurt befitting a warlord. Where the romantic pair actually were was in a cowshed somewhere in Buckna.

I was unable to pick my informant out in his scenes in the actual show. He said he was the one with the big black bushy beard. Not helpful. Not helpful at all.

Once upon a time in Buckna