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Happy Birthday Zoe!



D'ye know if you upload a photograph to Flickr and tag it 'pregnant' loads more people look at it than if you didn't? What's the big deal? That is what I ask myself. There are a million-zillion people on this planet and each and every one of them represents a pregnancy and a birth. It's not as if it is a 'miracle' or anything. Pregnant-schmegnant! Big whoop!


Except - unless it's me or mine. I got pregnant when I was 20 and about 10 days before I was 21 I had a daughter. That was Zoe and it's her thirty somethingth birthday today. Big whoop!


And even better! She's pregnant! Another big whoop!


Happy birthday Zoe! Love you and love your bump and all belonging to it.
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Happy Birthday

This blog is seven years old today! Yay! Yay! Yay! Yay! Yay! Yay! Yay!
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In Which I Am Rather Peeved

Above - an item from the country's most expensive lending library courtesy of the British Heart Foundation. Charge £2.50 for a crappy book then ask you to bring it back! This irritates me. But then I am rather easily irritated.
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Posterise Martha



Posterise - a fun application on Gimp.
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The Women In White





Earlier today a few of us were discussing the apparent lack of innocence in today's children. I opined that there seem to be very few young girls around between the ages of 11 and 15 - not because they have all been imprisoned in nunneries but rather because they have taken on the appearance of girls of sixteen and older. Young boys don't seem to be able to pull this trick as easily.


Children really do seem to grow up fast these days. It has been reported that more than 40% of young internet users over 10 have been exposed to pornography and you can be sure that it is a lot more extreme pornography than the likes of my generation ever caught sight of.


I remember listening uncle telling my father a joke when I was about eight years old. I was smart enough to pick up that the punchline of the joke involved a word that ended in 'uck' but was not the word you'd expect it to be. I vividly remember walking through Paddy's Field on the way to my Granny's shop and reciting this list of words to see if I could identify what this word could be, buck, cuck, duck, fuck, guck, huck, juck etc. etc. Nothing seemed to fit the bill.


It was three or four more years before I heard the F-word courtesy of a fellow pupil in St Louis Convent Grammar School. The same girl brought tampons into class for our edification and education. I was most bemused. So that's what Tampax were for!


I'd spent my entire childhood pondering the magazine advertisements, looking at those pretty and lively women in pristine white clothes and wondering what Tampax could be. I searched for clues in the text and being a real innocent had no idea as to what 'internally' or 'applicator' might signify. I made up my mind. It was obvious really. All the ladies in white were healthy, active and sporty so Tampax must be some kind of aid to sportiness and vigour.


Oh innocent days. I was over sixteen before I sampled the product myself, only got it halfway in and waddled about in some discomfort through two periods of Anatomy and Physiology at Antrim Technical College. Ironic or what?




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Little Children

Nellybert has been getting out and about recently, taking advantage of the esteemable Pearl-Ri being in The Home For Crabbit Oul Dragons for a fortnight. Of course, anyone else would have taken a holiday but, what with the Martha sitting, the signing on the dole and the hospital appointments, we hadn't a minute.


So we took a 24 hour break to the Inishowen Peninsula at the end of last week and today we went to Derry City on the train.


Let the train take the strain. Hardly! For some reason the world and his wife was out today with all their whinging, squalling bratlings in tow. A young one screeched its head off from Ballymoney to Derry on the way down. I was harbouring nasty thoughts. Then when we got off I saw its wee face and it looked so miserable that I felt bad for wanting it and its Ma thrown off the train. But here's a thing - during the entire journey, during its intermittent yelling and screechings the mother never once spoke to the child or tried to comfort it. Expect if I'd been it I might have hollered my head off too.


There were more monsters on the way home. A wee lad, probably about 4 or 5 wailed himself into sobs and hiccups for twenty minutes steady. I think he wanted something he didn't get. Once again there was no interaction from the parents. The child was completely ignored.


I'm sure it's not universal but I do notice that lots of parents do not give their children any time or attention when they are out in public. Even the seemingly good kids get ignored. There were three generations sitting opposite us - a little girl of about eight, her mum and the granny. Mum and Granny had a continuous and very repetitive and dreary conversation for nearly an hour. The child was hardly spoken too. When she got excited about something she spotted from the train window she was roundly ignored. Wise up adults! Children, if you give them a chance, can be interesting too.
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I Miss My Baby Owls


baby owl springhill 2009, originally uploaded by NellyMoser.

For the second year running there has been no long eared owl babies at Springhill. I miss them very much.

We think that buzzards took over their nesting site. Last year there were at least three young buzzards reared on our land. Buzzards are OK but I'd much rather have owls.

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