Happy Birthday Katy Bo!

katy in the buttercups, originally uploaded by NellyMoser.

It is Katy's birthday today - and it is her last as a single lady. Hope she is wearing a happier face today.

Three Things

The kitchen island is nearly finished. The top has been tiled and tomorrow it shall be grouted. The shelves are full of saucepans and a cat. The cat thing might be a problem but we shall overcome it. I think a little water spray bottle might discourage them.

That's one thing.

Another thing is that I took Miss Martha Christmas shopping today. We had a nice time. She mostly slept and I mostly spent money. We're thinking of doing it again next Sunday.

That's two things.

And the last thing is - I got an email asking me to place an advertising link on the blog. Something about sport and betting. I declined. They would have paid me. I don't care for sport and I wouldn't want to encourage gambling. Did I do right?

Well I Never!

I called round to Martha's house the other day and discovered that her mother has taken to wearing the child! According to Zoe, Martha was enjoying this very much and, from what I observed on the day, I'd have to agree.



You can see from the expressions on their faces, as they admire their reflections, that mother and daughter think they suit each other very well.


But I wonder if Martha noticed the spare baby hanging in the hall?

The Dead May Go Unmourned By Me

Well for feck's sake!

Since Matty got a bit forgetful I've got into the habit of regularly checking the Irish News death notices, just in case a neighbour or far out relation popped their clogs and herself forgot to mention it to me. What could be more excruciating than bumping into an old school chum and blithely enquiring after the health of their aged parent, only to be informed that said aged parent passed away several weeks ago?

This afternoon I attempted my usual log on and found that the Irish News had removed their free access to the family notices and replaced it with a subscription only service. I suppose journalists and newspaper workers need to earn a penny too but I'll not be subscribing. Far better, if I must, to buy the bloody paper then I'll at least have something to line the compost bin with. 

Couldn't someone, anyone, get our Aunt Em, who is sharp as a tack and an avid Irish News reader, on to the web and then she could provide us with an email service, alerting those who live far, far away  in the wilds of Cullybackey, Dingle and Vancouver to bereavements in the community. I think that would be an excellent idea. A laptop in Aunt Em's Christmas stocking Mr Santa - if you please!

Oot and Aboot

One of the many interesting items to be seen at Articlave

Despite the hugeness of our kitchen I have very little workspace so, after many months of nagging, Bert started to make me a kitchen island. We discussed it for hours and I was confident that Bert knew exactly what I wanted. I was sadly mistaken.

Now Bert is an excellent carpenter and he really enjoys getting into a new project. He works a lot with recycled wood which is both economic and green. Where he falls down is in his ability to explain what he is doing and what he intends to do. This is why I ended up with what is essentially a huge table. Albeit a beautifully made huge table with a floor made out of the upstairs ceiling in the old derelict house at Clint's place. All that was needed to complete it was a tiled top. Or so Bert thought.

The unfinished kitchen island

He has been gently persuaded that a kitchen island needs shelves and cupboards and places to hang tea towels and utensils. It is not just a huge table with a tongue and groove floor for the cat to sit on.

But anyways - we decided to go to the reclamation yard at Articlave to see if we could find any old tiles for the worktop. That has to be one of the most interesting reclamation yards in the country. It was full of stained glass windows, jaunting cars, church doors, mangles, bangor blue slates and Bann brick, huge oak beams, radiators, Britain farm animals, ornate carved thrones, lamp posts, fireplaces and a thousand other things. Everything really but the sort of tile we were looking for.

Bert tries out throne for comfort

It was still a damn fine afternoon out. We'll get those tiles somewhere else.

Cauldrife

cauldrife [ˈkɔːldrɪf]

adj Scot

1. susceptible to cold; chilly

2. lifeless

[from cauld + rife]

My mother-in-law has always felt the cold. She liked to keep herself ‘well happed-up’. Indeed, so susceptible to chills was she that I don’t imagine she ever suffered herself to be naked from the day of her birth until about a year ago when the carers wheeled her, roaring protest, into our wet room for a nice warm shower bath.

Mind you, this house was, before its renovation, a big cold barn of a place with just one heated room. That was where Pearlie spent most of her time, roasting her shins in front of a big turf fire.She was a great believer in layering. She always wore two vests, three sweaters, a cardigan, a petticoat, two skirts, tights, men’s socks and an apron. The apron was very important to her. When her house-working days were over I asked her why she still wore the apron. She said,

I’d be cauld without it,

I wondered how she could find warmth in a faded square of patched cotton but she maintained that it was terribly necessary to her comfort.

In bed Pearlie had an electric blanket and used two hot water bottles. At bedtime she divested herself of the skirts, the tights and one cardigan. On very cold nights she tied a headscarf Queen-style to keep off the chill. This routine continued even after this house was being renovated and she moved to a cosy and fully central heated mobile home. She missed the open fire in the moby and often had the oil heating at full blast, an electric fire and a gas heater all going together. You could see the heat haze rising from the roof on mild days. Bert eventually disconnected the electric fire as the carers and other callers were suffocating in the high temperatures. Pearlie claimed to feel no great heat. Even then she continued to wear a headscarf in bed. Occasionally, if she had misplaced her headscarf, she’d go to bed wearing a big pair of knickers on her head.

Her present room has an open fire and it is kept alight summer and winter. She gets very cross if Bert doesn’t keep it well stoked up. She doesn’t wear knickers or a headscarf any more but she asks for and gets lots of hand towels and she makes herself a little nest because her arms get cold and if she gets too warm it is easier to remove the towels than take a cardigan off. She goes to bed with a crocheted blanket round her shoulders and if the carers take it for laundering she is very indignant. Mostly they don’t but there is one…she only does it to annoy. Nowadays Pearlie wears a pair of thick brown tights tied round her neck to keep off the 'cauld' and I think it can only be a matter of time before she starts wearing her knickers as a hat for she tells us that there is a draught coming through the light fitting.

Think Bike

Most evenings, on the way home from work, I collect Hannah in Ballymena and we continue on our way towards Cullybackey. I don't drive that fast, it's a B road, pitch black so maybe I do 45mph tops. This evening we came across a cyclist riding without lights, without reflective clothing, the only thing drawing attention to his presence the tiny little reflective strips on his pedals. These caught my eye but not until I was almost upon him. I was able avoid him by pulling out at the last minute and, thankfully, no vehicle was coming towards me at the time.

I was quite shocked. Another moment and I might have knocked him down. It's a fairly narrow road. All the way into Cullybackey I wondered, should I turn, should I tell him that he was in danger? I didn't. What stopped me? Fear of being seen as interfering, fear that he might not speak English and wouldn't understand me, fear that I'd have to go the whole hog and drive him and his bicycle to his destination.

So if a cyclist is injured or killed on the Cullybackey or Kilrea road tonight I'm afraid I will be partly to blame. What should I have done?