Bonfire Tales

Scene: A car park in a village near Ballymena. Around one-third of it is taken up with the beginnings of an Eleventh Night Bonfire made up of wooden pallets interspersed with tyres. Near the main bonfire there is evidence that there has already been a smaller fire. The car park surface is damaged. Household furniture and other rubbish is scattered around and one of the two entrances to the car park is blocked. Several young boys are clambering over the pallets and hanging around. Most are under sixteen years of age. A vehicle pulls into the car park, inside are two young girls and their grandmother.

Six-year-old child: What is that Granny?

Granny: It's a bonfire.

Six-year-old child: What is it for?

Granny: Well, there are some people who have a special day when they like to watch marching bands, and people called Orange Men and Orange Women walk in a parade and lots of people come out to see them and the night before this special day they like to light a big fire and that's what that is.

Six-year-old child: But why is it so messy?

Granny: I'm not sure.

Six-year-old child: When is the special day?

Granny: It's the 12th of July, twelve more days. The fire will be lit on the night of the 11th of July.

Six-year-old child: So it's going to be left all messy until then!

Granny: Probably.

Six-year-old child: Will they clean it up afterwards?

Granny: (laughs) No. No they won't. It will get cleaned up afterwards but not by them. They should clean it up but they don't.



And this is a village that prides itself on being one of the best kept in the area. Apart from the annual eyesore in the car park it is a well-kept little place. Ah well. I expect the residents think it's an improvement on times gone by when the bonfire was built in the very centre of the village and they lived in fear of their homes and businesses being burnt to the ground. It's an odd thing, this culture lark.

Killing Slugs

The very minute you arrive in my yard I'll be saying,

Well! What do you think? Did the vote please you? How do you feel about it now? What about your silly oul'  Da that was for voting Leave because there was too much paperwork and regulations. What does he think? Your Ma, who was voting Leave because there were too many Eastern Europeans in the town, is she happy now? 

Or, if you're English I'll be saying,

I know you voted to Remain but what does it feel like knowing that everybody hates you? And that we're all thrilled that Iceland fucked you out of the European Championship.

And if you arrive in my yard and I know you voted to Leave I'll pretend that I don't care, mutter some banality and avoid you. It's a big yard and a big enough house so it's easy to do. And that's if I like you. If I don't like you, you're going on my list.

I thought I'd have to sort my Facebook friends but nobody that voted Leave is on there gloating so I haven't had to do that. If any of my Friends voted Brexit they must Regrexit so I'll leave that for now.

A casual friend turned up the other day with his delightful two year old. We went out to view Honey's chick,

Well Rodders, how did you vote? 

I voted Leave. 

Did you? Do you realise this means we can no longer be friends?

I mentioned my list. I kill slugs. I grow things, gardeners kill slugs. It's not a pleasant thing to do and I wish it wasn't necessary but I crush those slugs under my heel and I do it fast and hard and I only kill the sort that eat seedlings. When I kill slugs I have a mantra, it goes something like this,

Boris Johnson. Theresa Villiers, The Ballymena UKIP councillor, Michael Gove, That Unmentionable Harridan who writes for the Daily Mail, Gregory Campbell, The Daily Mail, The Telegraph, Kelvin Mackenzie, The Sun, Jim Allister, William Wright, Arlene Foster, Donald Trump...

The Bad Thing That Happened To Bert Before That Other Bad Thing That Happened

Here it is. My first post since England and Wales carelessly waltzed Scotland and Northern Ireland out of the European Union. I still cannot gather my thoughts to blog about it. Maybe tomorrow. There is still so much going on.

This has been such a difficult fortnight. I'd been so agitated about the upcoming referendum results not to mention the appalling horror movie that was the endless commentary. I was fearful that the result would not be the one I wanted and even fell out with Clint because he was voting to leave.

Then, a week before the referendum Bert bashed his ribs in an accident involving a cow. He was helping Clint dose cattle and standing on a five bar gate when the big beast banged into it, causing him to lose his balance and fall on to the gate on his left side. When it happened he was winded, could hardly breathe and was very shocked. Bert never, ever expects bad things to happen to him, unlike his wife who envisages her immediate death every time she descends the stairs.

Clint was his usual unsympathetic self and carried on dosing the beasts. What else would you expect of a stoic?

Poor Bert. He was in so much pain and discomfort but all his friends rallied round and soon the painkillers were rolling in for it is a tradition among country folk to use up all the old medications before new ones are sought. He was even given Tramadol that had been subscribed for a dog but, I’m glad to say, he did not try it.

He seems to be recovering but it is such a slow process. When all his decent pain relief ran low he went to see his GP and she pronounced the ribs badly bruised. One of our friends is in the farm supplies and animal feeds business and he told Bert that there is hardly a week goes by that he does find one or two of his customers nursing bashed ribs because of rampaging beasts. See Bert! Now you know why I am timorous around cattle. You can never mock me again.

A Message From My Father

Sorry Reader. I cannot settle myself to properly update Nelly's Garden until this bloody referendum is over. Who cares about Trump? Even though I have detested him since first becoming aware of him. He'll be a disaster for the world and the USA if he gains the presidency but, at worst, it's only eight years. For us, leaving the EU will be irrevocable. I just can't understand why anyone, anyone with a grain of intelligence would think leaving would be a good thing to do. I hate what the debate has become, the exaggeration, the lies, the fear of  'the other'. I also hate that Northern Ireland's particular position has been almost totally ignored.

And another thing, you people, you otherwise good people who do not exercise your right to vote - it is time to grow up. Opting out is Not An Option. Opting out is not you being too fine a person to get involved in ugly old politics. Opting out is letting the bad guys win. It's Father's Day today and my father Seamus Byrne would metaphorically kick your arse. He always said that those who don't vote are like beasts in a field. Think about it.

Seamus and Bert. They always voted.

Another Only Child

One egg hatched. The rest, major disappointment. We have a two-day-old chicklet born on Sunday, probably half-Silky. He/she is very tiny. More learning. Flour is sitting on three, due to hatch in just over a fortnight. She is isolated from the flock, seems contented and I intend to - Let. Her. Be.

No interference, no moving, no disturbances. Every broody period is a learning experience.

On Eggs

I'm on eggs.

That was an expression I often heard my mother and aunts use when they were nervous or apprehensive about something. Well. I'm on eggs and I'm on eggs because Honey the bantam is on eggs. There were six, now only five and they are due (I think) to hatch this weekend. One broke on Friday, inside one rotten little embryo roughly 10-12 days developed. That is when I went on eggs. There was also a thunderstorm and Bert, teller of old wive's tales, informed me that electrical storms play havoc with developing eggs.

Who told you that?
Pearlie. But everyone knows that. It's been well-known for fourteen million years.
Rubbish. There were no chickens or people fourteen million years ago.

I know. I'm a pedant.

But it worried me enough to go on the internet and there I found that half the folk there believed it to be nonsense and the other half said it was true. I was unnerved. And when the little rotten egg was found next day I started to fret that poor Honey was wasting her time and energy sitting on a clutch of dead chicks.

I've been in and out of the hen house a dozen times today. Bert said I might hear tapping or cheeping but the country is so noisy you could hardly hear a thing. The songbirds are the noisiest, then the traffic on the road. At one point I thought I heard tapping but I might have been imagining it. I'd like to move her to the other house where she can have peace and quiet but I'm worried it would put her off. She is very easily put out, unlike Flour who is already in the spare house sitting on three eggs. I'll be up tomorrow at daybreak to see if anything has happened. So, on eggs, Honey, Flour and Nelly.

Eleven Years

Eleven years ago today we lost the kindest, funniest and most decent man ever. He was a much loved husband, father, grandfather, father-in-law, uncle, brother, friend and neighbour. Seamus, still very much missed today. Grateful to have had you in my life for fifty one years and sorry about that rough patch between 1968 and 1973 when I didn't appreciate you enough.

Bad Start To The Day

After yesterday's post I'm looking for a loaded shotgun myself or maybe even a  ball peen hammer. Coming downstairs I see The Bastard Fred playing with a piece of something on the hall floor, a wine cork maybe, or a piece of dried grass? No. A dead wren. We had a wren's nest this year in an old rusting piece of farm machinery and now there is one less wren in the world. Sometimes I hate cats.

Update: Once again I got it wrong. I didn't examine the corpse very closely and judged it on size. The little bird was a goldcrest. Bert is fit to be tied.

The Birds

Last week we went to visit Bert's Aunt Lizzie who had been in hospital. She was in a cranky mood, very cross with the magpies and the crows that were taking the food from her bird table. For Lizzie's birdy feasts are for pretty little songbirds, the blue bonnets and the finches, not the great greedy members of the corvidae family. She said to Bert that she wished he'd brought his gun, as if he was in the habit of travelling around with a loaded shotgun ever ready to blast crows and magpies off old ladies' bird tables. She went on at length about how much she hated magpies because of the damage they do to smaller birds. I pointed out how domestic cats are very hard on birds and she wouldn't want Bert to shoot them, would she? Lizzie is very fond of cats. I'm afraid that she is, like her sister Pearlie before her, very particular about the kind of birds she likes. 

Pearlie hated magpies, buzzards and pigeons. She loved blue bonnets (tits), robins and swallows. She looked forward to the swallows yearly arrival and there is a piece of family folk lore that has her saying,

I wish the wee boys were here. It'll be great when they come.

There has been swallows nesting in the sheds for as long as anyone can remember but this year there are none. They were spotted briefly but did not stay. Pearlie would have been disappointed.

Evie is a keen observer of birds. She is always pointing them out to me and is good at identifying them. She spotted one in the car park outside her nursery school and asked me,

Granny! Do you see that bird? Do you know what it is?

I wasn't sure and answered,

I think it's a starling.

No Granny! It's a jackdaw.

As Les says, 

Every day is a learning day.

Bert's Tough Day

Bert had a tough day yesterday. First of all he had to move the herd, all seven of them, from one field to another. This involved shunting them out of one field, crossing a busy B road, and shunting them into another. He had at his disposal three sturdy cow hands, Les, Peter and myself. Les was in charge of halting the traffic at the Portglenone end, I took care of the Cully side and Peter and Bert gathered them up. That was the plan anyway. One of the 'bastes' was a visitor, a young bull belonging to Clint - that was in with our lot to act as a teaser. A young Lothario there to help Bert figure out when the girls were ready for the AI* man. And he was a teaser all right. With no intentions of doing the right thing he made a mad dash for the hedge and charged through a barbed wire fence into another man's field - and the two calves along with him. Meanwhile the cows were all in the new field enjoying the luscious grass. Peter and Bert did their best but they hadn't a hope. We brought one of the cows back and eventually the calves joined her and back to the luscious grass they went but no sign of Clint's bull. Bert tramped the fields but no sign of the teaser. He had to tell Clint who, it turned out, took a philosophical view of the matter.

They both went out to look for the bull, Clint driving the roads and Bert tramping the fields in torrential rain. At last the bull was found and penned and Clint drove off to get a trailer. Bert trudged home, soaked to the skin. He had just reached the end of the lane when one of the neighbours stopped him, a trim woman in her fifties, driving a smart little car. She called him over.

Bert, I was meaning to ask you. What are you doing about the trees?

The trees? What trees? 

The wood. The wood at the back of our house. What are you doing about it? 

Nothing. Why do you ask?

It's just that we were told it was only going to be there for fifteen or twenty years and now we can't see the road or the nice green fields. All we can see are those trees. We all hate them. 

Well I have no plans to do anything with them in the near future. They'll be there for a while yet.

Bert was disconcerted about this exchange. It never occurred to him that anyone would have a problem with the wood. He loves it, loves the wild life that lives there and is delighted that bluebells are beginning to flourish in it.

He told Clint who was practical as always.

Huh! If she doesn't like it she should move house. It's the countryside. Things change.

Later that afternoon the AI man turned up. Not Henry VIII this time, his brother Prince Arthur. He'd been caught in a short, sharp hailstorm where big chunks of ice had hit his car. We could actually see where the paint had flecked off. That made the downpour we'd had seem like a treat.

It faired up later and Bert took four dogs and the wee grey cat for a walk in the woods where they saw a fox. It wasn't a bad end to the day but it made me nervous for the hens, especially as he'd spotted fox cubs earlier whilst tramping other fields looking for Clint's young bull.

Bert's Wood

AI* Artificial insemination.

Dreamland Rejection

If I'm only going to write this blog when I have interesting thoughts or experiences then I'm not going to be writing it very often. That being so, I have decided that from now on I am going to report on mundanity and tedium until the cows come home. Who knows, some may even find it mildly interesting.

So, shall I start with this morning's dreams or my current method of menu-planning? Definitely the dream. I'll share the one where I attempted to enlist with the Parachute Regiment. This is something I'd never wish to do whilst awake but in Dreamland it seemed like a terribly good idea. I went along to the recruiting office where I was interviewed by one of those English military types, tall and thin, wearing slacks and a regimental blazer and sporting a little white moustache. He was awfully polite and turned me down on the grounds that my fitness levels weren't up to scratch. Nobody mentioned my age. I was thanked for coming and offered a lift home but I declined saying I had my bus pass.

I got up at seven o'clock, attended to the chickens, then put the kettle on.  My next task was a visit to the downstairs bathroom. As I sat there pondering my narrow escape in Dreamland I heard this crunching noise,  looked to the left and there, sitting in the corner was that big ginger bastard Fred, eating a pied wagtail. Not a pleasant sight. Feathers everywhere and he'd already demolished the head. I tried to forget it and made coffee. I'd clean the birdy mess afterwards. Coffee upstairs but before I even took a sip I stepped on my new scales. Three pounds lighter than yesterday. This was unacceptable. I stepped off, got on again and was only one pound lighter than yesterday. Not too sure about these new scales. I've dropped twenty pounds since January but when the old scales packed up the replacement  ones immediately showed me a gain of six pounds which took the nice look of my spreadsheet chart.

So much drama and it wasn't even eight o'clock! But at least I didn't fall off the back step like Monday, two weeks ago. The black eye has almost disappeared but the staved left hand is still a little achey.

Stop Thief!

My youngest brother was robbed of a shed load of gardening equipment this week. The most expensive item was his ride-on mower. The thing is, his own lawn is tiny, he mainly uses his gardening tools to maintain our late mother's home.

This is the time of year for garden equipment thefts. I'm informed it is big business. Tools, garden ornaments, patio furniture, barbecue equipment  all make good money when the weather improves and we get back into our outdoor spaces.

I sometimes wonder about these daring daylight robbers who break in to sheds and garages and make off with people's belongings,, I wonder too about the people who buy these ill-gotten goods. Do they ever consider the misery they bring to their victims? I expect they don't. Ride-on mowers and quad bikes are particularly popular with thieves. Which means, of course, that there is a ready pool of punters prepared to buy these items at knock-off prices.

I'll never forget a night, a few years back, when I was driving on the A26 between Antrim and Ballymena. There were blue lights flashing ahead, an accident. As I drew abreast there was a dead bullock, being winched on to a truck. Other cattle lay in the road waiting to be removed, It was a horrible sight. Next day I heard the story. A local farmer, someone I knew, had a quad bike stolen from his property. The thieves, in their rush to escape, had left gates open and cattle being cattle, they strayed on to the dual carriageway at evening rush hour. One vehicle ploughed into them, injuring several of the animals and the car driver. It could have been a lot worse. Just one man in hospital, the injured animals shot by a vet and removed from the scene. And all for a stolen quad bike. I wonder who bought it? For it was bloody - it may only have been cattle but they hurt too.

Garden Show Ireland, 2016

For the third year running I attended Garden Show Ireland in Antrim's delightful Castle Grounds. The first year I went on my own. But for the past two years I've been going with Martha, Evie and Zoe and it has been much more enjoyable. It helps that we are all interested in gardens and plants. Martha saw lots of show gardens that delighted her and made sure that I got a picture so we could remember them.

This was a feature in a 'fairy' garden. Both girls liked it very much.

Take a photograph Granny!

So I did.

There were a couple of mildly unfortunate incidents.

Evie's strop. It didn't last long.

Martha not making it to the top of the climbing tower. She did very well for a first-timer.

Martha and Evie take the weight off their legs.

Zoe admiring the wonderful willow baskets on display.

It was a very enjoyable day and I even bought some plants - some variety of comfrey, unlabelled.  I'll take a chance. And inspired by all we had seen I actually planted out my allium pots today, weeded and watered, made a start on the sweet william and now have a very sore left paw. Despite my achey hand I henceforward mean to spend all fine days in the garden. The housework can go to pot!

Yes We Have No Bananas

1st May - Martha and Evie were here for a sleepover. We had fun. They watched Charlotte's Web again and I caught up with  Indian Summers which is silly and enjoyable.  We had stories at bedtime. I read Rapunzel to them, then told them stories from real life. Martha wants to hear stories about her great-grandmother Martha and I was happy to tell them. Both girls managed to sleep through the night without falling out of bed.

2nd May - Bank Holiday. It started badly for me when I tripped on the back door step and fell on the side of my face on the asphalt. Massive black eye, cut brow, grazed knees, very sore left hand and cut right hand. I was enraged. Bert  got up to see what I was roaring about, decided my injuries weren't life-threatening and returned to his bed. Once again, I was enraged.

The day after. 

I had promised Martha her favourite dinner and had a lot to do. Later that day someone asked if I'd put ice on my eye. I said I hadn't, instead I baked a cake. Martha's requested dinner was pepporoni pizza and cake with icing and sprinkles for pudding. So that is what we made. My hands were very sore but adrenalin kept me going. That night I was exhausted.

3rd May - I was expecting visitors, Peggy and Jim from New Zealand and Jim and Val from Australia. The house was a tip. I got up at seven and started in. Originally I had intended to bake scones and apple tarts and other homely fare but there was no time and my hands were too sore. So I went to the local bakery and bought what I needed. The visit went well. I hadn't seen the New Zealand cousins for years and I'd never met the Australian cousins. Swisser turned up too and the entertainment went on for several hours. It was a great bit of craic but that evening I was super-exhausted.

Cousins big and small

4th May - did a little bit of gardening and an awful lot of slacking.

5th May - The Assembly elections. I had Martha and Evie all day because both school and nursery were closed to facilitate the elections. I took them with me when I voted and had great fun explaining to them what elections were all about and I think Martha thoroughly enjoyed my explanation of the proportional representation system and how the single transferable vote works. Evie's advice was that I should vote for the Garden Party so I may have to think about starting it. That afternoon we had Laura and her three daughters and Hannah and Fergus. There was great deal of bouncing on the trampoline.

6th May - lots of gardening and partying. Swisser came and offended me when she said that Indian Summers was a ridiculous show because there were banana plantations in the first episode and there were definitely no bananas growing in the foothills of the Himalayas as she'd been there and didn't see any such thing. I was sure she was wrong. She also said the doctors think she has some kind of tropical disease which would serve her right for swanking. To make up for this evil thought I gave her my last bottle of the dandelion as she said it gave ease to her tropical disease. We were already drinking an elderberry which she wouldn't even taste because she was driving as even a sip would impair her driving. I have evil thoughts about this as well but that's as far as I'll go. Anyway she went on about how delicios the elderberry smelled so I gave her a bottle of that too and lifted a damson to be going on with. A couple of people turned up and they had a small glass of the damson as well and Bert had two glasses and I had the rest.

7th May - woke up very early and there were two things bothering me. One was the effects of the wine and the other was Swisser correct about bananas not being cultivated in Shimla? I couldn't stop fretting about it and got the laptop fired up. Wikipedia suggested that there were no bananas in the foothills of the Himalayas. I have to research this matter further and it's not that I need to be right. I just want Swisser to be wrong.

Then I put it all behind me, got up, showered, dressed and went to Garden Show Ireland with Zoe and the girls. I'll blog about that tomorrow. This banana thing is killing me.

A scene from Indian Summers. My new theory is that these are not even bananas. I will win the banana argument, win it or die trying.

The Daily Photograph 17 and 18

Banjo Man!

I am cheating today. There was no daily photograph blog on the 29th April because this crazy guy turned up accompanied by his wife and their youngest son.

There was quite a bit of this kind of behaviour...

and camera shake was rife. Which is why Bert's left ear is so big. But he doesn't care.

I really need to get to grips with the camera settings.

Jazzer's photo face

An unhealthy snack

Then another guy turned up at 11pm, en-route to a session. The men packed up banjo, guitar and clarienet and headed off into the night to play music, while Jazzer and I had the early night. I'm told they didn't get in until the wee small hours.

So what will I blog about in the month of May? What about Daily Annoyances. I fancy a bit of a regular rant.

The Daily Photograph 16

Today was rather mixed up. Snow again this morning! I don't approve of this kind of weather at all. Then Clint called for Bert at a quarter past nine, his first words,

Is that brute still in his bed?

Apparently the vet was standing in Clint's yard ready to start testing cattle and Bert had promised to be there. Now if I knew I was likely to get a call first thing I'd be ready from dawn but not Bertram. He always reckons another few minutes snoozing will work out OK for him. I was doubly not pleased with my husband because he'd not told me about this and Thursday is my day for making two runs to town to pick up the girls from nursery (late morning) and primary school (early afternoon). I coped by walking down to Clint's, where they were all knee deep in milling cattle, throwing the house keys at Bert and stealing his brown dog and his van. I even had enough time to walk that brown dog for half an hour before collecting Evie who made me listen to Downtown radio on the way home. A far cry from the days when I could lull her to sleep listening to Radio 3.

Back into town for Martha at two. I had Ziggy to deliver to Hannah and Martha and I went upstairs to inspect the beardlessness of Fergus for such a thing might never be seen again. Martha persuaded me to go to her favourite charity shop as she needed a new onesie. There were two. Martha preferred one, I preferred the other. We bought my one. It's miles too big and I'm to take it up. Job for the weekend.

I was, this afternoon, in what Matty used to call 'a bad twist'. For why I'm not certain. Because it was so cold? Because I was being bored to death by someone and tangled up in dogs. Perhaps because I was cross with myself for thinking mean thoughts about the someone and his dogs. I need to do something about this but I'm not sure what.

Anyways girls get collected, high-fives all round and I knew I had to take a photograph and I couldn't think of anything I wanted to photograph and I needed to put the strap on the camera and I couldn't get it right, so....

The Daily Photograph 15

Quick post tonight as I am tired. It was Matty's anniversary today (five years!) and I spent in a way which she would have approved. Gardening. Sowed leeks, cauliflower, French marigolds, sugar peas and kale. Planted out lettuce and a couple of stray brassicas, haven't a clue what they are. Watered everything and started weeding the garlic.

The day didn't start well with hail, snow and power cuts but it faired after lunch. Still cold. I was all layered up.

And I photographed the pigs. Kune kune means fat and round in the Maori tongue and this picture illustrates it very well. But before the animal welfare people report me, let me stress they are not quite as fat as they look - it's the camera angle.

They are coming in for what they hope will be a delicious supper. All they care about is food.

The Daily Photograph 14

Freezing cold day. It is supposed to be Spring dammit! My poor Thalias were cruelly buffeted by Arctic winds and blasted with sleet. Needless to say I did not do much in the garden except a bit of watering in the tunnel, a bit of basil potting on and, as always, made a list.

The pigs were only out for a few hours. They hate cold weather and would far rather lie snuffling in a bed of straw in their cosy warm shed. So no photograph today.

Just tunnel pictures. Here they are...

Kale. Going to seed. We feed it to the cows when it gets like this.

 Honesty. On Zoe's bit of the tunnel.

 Peach blossom beginning to fade. The pollinators were in so fingers crossed for a better crop than last year.

List of recent sowings.

Zoe's bit. The willow twigs are to keep cats and dogs off.

The Daily Photograph 13

The thing about this daily photograph is that it is supposed to be taken with my new camera and as today was just a wee bit hectic I just went over to the corner of this room I'm sitting in and took a picture. That's a spare office chair which Les donated to the hoard and it's covered with a hammock I bought from Lidls many years ago. The cushion was made by Leitrim Sister and the bear was purchased in Burnham Market the year Katy got married.

Martha and Evie were supposed to have a sleepover on Friday evening but it was cancelled because Sheena's funeral was an early start on Saturday. To make it up to them I said I'd make a special meal today. Monday is Zoe's gardening day and I always make supper. Because Evie missed out on the funeral (too young) she got to choose the menu.

Martha had particularly enjoyed the funeral reception. She never knew there were so many chicken goujons in the world and even went up for a second helping. Of course, she went home and told her sister all about it and poor Evie was raging that she'd missed out.

Zoe told me that they both really loved hot dogs with ketchup and Heinz tomato soup so that's what I prepared. But Martha was miffed. Apparently the menu consisted of Evie's favourite foods and not hers. She didn't like soup out of a tin, she only liked home made tomato soup. And she didn't want hot dogs. So we had a chat. Next week she gets to choose the menu and we're having pepperoni pizza and, for pudding, cake with white icing and sprinkles. I'm adding salad and garlic bread to the pizza and custard to the cake. The week after that it will be Zoe's turn to choose, then Dave's, then Bert's. I know what Bert will choose - mince and onions with spuds. When it is my turn we're having beans on toast.

Tomorrow I hope to get gardening and I might even take a photograph of the pigs.

The Daily Photograph 12

Above - some of the firewood that Evie, Martha and I collected from under the beech trees on Thursday. I was far too tired today to even take a single photograph never mind gather wood. That is what comes from attending two social gatherings in one day coincidentally both at the same hotel. The midday funeral reception were taken at the Dunsilly Hotel outside Antrim. The evening found us back at Dunsilly for a  wedding party. First go round we went in the front door, later on through the tradesman's entrance for we'd got a lift with the band. The backs of hotels are a lot different from front entrances I can assure you.

Sheena's funeral was very traditional, and very Tannaghmore which is just how she'd have wanted it to be. The choir sang all the old hymns, even a beautiful rendition of Tantum Ergo, a hymn I have always loved and which brought back memories of all the Benediction services we attended as children.

In the graveyard the subject of this blog was raised (it often is at funerals) by one of the cousins, who made sure to tell an old school friend all about its delights. This made me feel a bit worried as I was back in a comfortable way of thinking that there are just the three readers, Ganching, Grannymar and Brighid. And this oul blog is just a bit of nonsense I keep up out of a sense of duty.

The school friend asked,

How long have you been doing it?

And I replied,

Ten years, maybe eleven. 

Then I added, rather sadly,

And I never got offered a book deal.

And I thought to myself,

Nor even got short listed for the Irish Blog Awards. Hell damn the Irish Blog Awards. But at least I got to be part of the UK Web Archive. Then I noticed that even they stopped archiving The Garden four years ago. That must have been when I got boring. Sigh.

But back to the Dunsilly. The wedding party was excellent, lots of sparkling alcohol and nibbles. There were people of all ages from three months old to older than me. The craic was mighty. There were awkward moments. One when I'd just got myself a finger of wedding cake and then struck up a conversation with a very tall young man. I did not like to stuff cake into my mouth as I gazed up at him so held it casually in my hand. Then it started to melt. What else could I do but accidentally drop it on the floor and kick it under a chair. Actually there were probably a lot more sensible things I could have done but when the sparkling alcohol is in, the wit's out.