Sometimes Google Is Just No Help

This morning I went for a walk in the Glens with Nez and Fly. Nez knows the name of all of the hills and has tramped over the most of them. Fly likes to run the drains and culverts but then he is a water dog. While we were out I found myself remembering all the times I'd spent in the Glens as a child.

Our parents would pile us into the car, Matty would have made sandwiches or maybe a ween of wee currant buns. We'd go to the beach, usually Waterfoot or Cushendall, and sometimes Daddy would park up on the way down and we'd run down to one of the streams that ran through the Glens and play in the water and jump from stone to stone and eat our picnic there. Sometimes I thought I liked the river better than the beach.

During my childhood there was a landslide in one of the Glens that made headline news on local television. Those were the days when events in Northern Ireland didn't regularly make the national or international news and this event was very notable. If I remember it correctly some livestock was lost, a cottage was swept away and a farmer had a narrow escape. Some time afterwards Daddy drove us down to look at the aftermath. I remember seeing the brown earth and boulders where the grass, plants and trees had been.

But I cannot remember where it was and an hour or more of research on Google has not made me any wiser. It would have been sometime in the 1960s. Anybody out there who might have an idea when and where it happened?

But anyways - my research turned up the BBC archive site and I found this clip of a 1964 Fleadh Cheoil in Clones. There are quite a few well known musicians playing including Luke Kelly and Andy Irvine. They'd only have been in their early twenties then. Luke's long away but Bert went to see Andy Irvine in Ballymoney last week. It's worth a look if you like that sort of thing.

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The Loan Hill

Loan Hill from the Killyless Road

I thought I spotted the Loan Hill from Drumkeeran the other day so I borrowed Matty's birdwatching binoculars to see if I could get a better view. It's only a mere ten miles away with no high ground between.

Loan Hill from the Ballyconnelly Road

We used to enjoy walking up there to admire the view but now there is a firing range beside it and, to tell the truth, I'm heart scared of getting shot. Those dirty devil scunging dogs would often be around it in their dirty devil scunging days but now Rosie, poor thing, is long gone and, these days, Paddy is far too old and lazy to get off the sofa.

Uncle John came from 'Hunshin and he said their dogs often escaped the leash and headed for the Loan Hill for which they had a fondness. It is a very rabbitty place.

One of the views from the Loan Hill

I had no luck with the binoculars today as it was far too hazy. They were heavy old things and I was going a bit further so I stashed them in the hedge for collection on the way back.

I only had thirty minutes as Cousin Pauline was sitting with Matty. I found a bit of the moss I'd never been in before. It was actually a wild birch wood growing on the edge of the moss. I raced about it for a while, managed to trip on a bramble and fall flat on my face. Thankfully peat makes a soft landing so no harm done.

On the way back I walked right past the spyglasses for I was deep in memories from long, long ago. I had to return but damned could I find them. I'd left them behind a mossy stump near some holly and the whole bloody hedge was mossy stumps near some holly for about forty feet. I persevered and found them. I was at least ten minutes late for Pauline although she didn't seem to mind. She's a good girl. There'll be another day to search for a sight of the Loan Hill from Drumkeeran.

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Big Mother

Day 2 in the Matty house.

You'd be sitting there and suddenly a Marie Curie nurse would come bouncing in and say,

I'm here from half three to half five if you want to go out.

And what else can you do but go out. Thing is you haven't planned anything. Quick! Rack brains. Matty requested ham and there was none. Go to Asda, buy ham. Then go for walk in the Castle Grounds. Could have went to visit Wee Laura K and Baby Caitlin but no present organised. A walk in Castle Grounds and listen to audio-book. Damn. Forgot earphones. The Castle Grounds is having some work done. The paths are pure glaar. My trainers are bogging and yet I have left Hunters in the car. How disorganised is that?

I meet Eugene walking a Parson Russell terrier. He's somebody I know from decades ago and I hadn't seen him for decades until a month ago when I met him and his wife in Lidls. We chatted dogs for a while. I walked away thinking about the olden days when Antrim people didn't speak with a Belfast twang and we were all full of beans and the bull.

On the way back I avoided the soggy, disgustingly wet Castle Grounds and walked past the chapel where I looked in on Daddy's grave. It has been well over a year since I visited. His grave is just next to the plot where the babies are buried and there was a new headstone. It was very small, said BABY and had the child's name. On it was inscribed,

I will never forget you

I held you in the palm of my hand

Who wouldn't weep?

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What I've Been Missing

So I says to Bert,

Y'know how long it's been since I walked the path to Gillies?

No. How long's it been?

I've not been on that walk since the 9th January, 2010!

Why'd you leave it so long?

Last time I was on that walk some boy yapped at me for not having Bonnie on a lead.

What did you say to him?

I said nothing to him.

Coofy!

No. I never said a word. I just punched him to the ground, kicked him in the balls and rolled him into the river.

Was he an oul' fellow?

Nah. He was some young buck. But that's why I wanted to avoid that particular walk for a while.

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Shiny Man

I was really looking forward to my wee lunchtime walk today because I've not been getting so many of them recently as I usually spend the time at Matty's. I decided to go a bit further afield from the office. There was a road I wanted to walk down as a neighbour had recently built a fine house there and I was keen on a nosey.

So I parked the car on a wide verge and headed down this road. I was stepping out smartly plugged into Proust (I'm on 'The Captive' now) when a jeep stopped beside me. I took off the headphones thinking I'd be asked for directions and hoping I'd be up to the job. The shiny man in the shiny car said,

I hope you don't mind me asking but you're parked outside my house - can I ask what you're doing?

I was puzzled. Surely it was evident.

I'm walking. I'm going for a wee walk.

There's you and another lady who make a habit of parking outside my house. I just want to know what's going on?

I don't know about anyone else but I haven't walked on this road for over a year and the last time I parked there I had a different car. As I said I'm just going for a walk.

I glared at him as I said this and he drove off, turned in the next laneway and headed home-wards.

I was miffed and resolutely ignored him so I've no idea whether he ignored me as well. And that was that. I continued with my walk as planned, 20 minutes down the road and 20 minutes back. But I was pissed off. Thought he was a wanker, so precious about his house that he couldn't bear people parking near it. I wasn't blocking his access. I wasn't making it difficult for anyone to get past me. I was parked on a bloody verge that belonged to the DOE. Not him! Maybe he was one of those prissy types who cuts the grass on the road opposite his house in case it makes his property look untidy.

I told the tale later on at Matty's and it turns out one of my cousins knew who this man was. Not his name but his profession. He's a police officer. Clink! Penny drops. Ah well Mr Shiny Man. I'll forgive your intrusion on my wee lunchtime walk - even though you're not as bright as you're shiny.

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Walking the Dog (and the Pig and the Cat)

I used to think it was cool when we took the dogs for a walk down the back lane and through the wood, that Holly de Cat would come too. Now we take the dogs and Lily and Rusty and Holly de Cat comes too. I don't think she's crazy about the pigs. But she comes too.

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