Sheep

You never forget how to do it, how to pull on the wellies and muck in...
Yesterday I had a phone call from dad en route to the mart at the foot of the mountain.
"That ewe in the field across from your house - can you see her lamb?"
I looked. There's only a hundred ewes in the field, each one with her new babies.
I said, "Black face ewe? Staring at the hedge at the back of the hay barn... No lamb."
"I think it's stuck in the ditch," says my father.
So I pulled on the wellies and went out to the field and climbed into the ditch and walked up and down it and saw rabbits and fox holes and some hidden primroses and got my hair caught in the brambles but I didn't find the prodigal lamb.
I told dad: "Let's leave it alone and it'll come home wagging its tail behind it."
Then today the post man stops his red van and knocks on the kitchen window and says: "There's a ewe on her back in that field."
So I pulled on the wellies and went out to the field and in the midst of the hundred there was a wee hogget, heavily pregnant and stuck on her back with four skinny legs waving at me. Just waiting for a crow to sweep down and peck out her eyes.
I couped her back over and went back to the postman.
"Anything for me?" I asked him

Home Sweet Home

The joke is wearing a bit thin - that I've escaped from the volatile Middle East to SAFETY in Northern Ireland...
Coleraine is a town near the coast, it's reached by a wide sweeping road with wide verges, a footpath and neatly trimmed hedges. The farmhouses en route are grey pebbled dashed with little sparkly mirrors in the pebble dash...
In Coleraine everybody talks to you - the security man in Dunnes Stores took five minutes to tell me there was no food court, the Fitting Room man in TK MAX was as thrilled as me when I found Vera Wang bras for a fiver, the woman in Laura Ashley explained with great charm their interior design service...
I popped into a shop - they sold sweets in glass jars- I bought a quarter of butterscotch tablets...
I'm thinking perhaps I escaped from the volatile Middle East and went back in time 60 years...

Evacuation

Nick's company has asked us to leave Bahrain until the thing settles down. Women and children first. They have offered us open ended tickets. They will fly us out ASAP. I've told the children to pack their school shoes for my sister's school in NI has kindly offered to educate them while they are refugees.
Of course I'm rather exhausted with the stress of living in a war zone - until the military moved in there were a shaky few days when I wore an abaya and headscarf and sunglasses when I went out to the shops - rogue protesters were attacking ex-pats....
"Take your flute, Maud," I said, "Aunt Lesley's school has an orchestra."
"Shin pads Rex, they play football."
"Plastic coat, Florence, it rains every day."
"Beatrice you don't really think you're going to wear shorts and sandals in Ireland in March?"

Breaking News

The army are clearing Pearl Roundabout. We ran up onto the roof to watch but the teargas smacked us in the face, it was in my mouth like acid, so we came back inside. From my office I can see black smoke rising up, there are military helicopter circling, heavy arms fire and the scream of ambulances.
Maybe I won't go riding today.

Operation Banner

The Saudi troops arrived last night in convoy over the causeway. They're here for an indefinate time period to provide back-up and support to Bahrain's police force.
Same scenario as August 1969 when British troops arrived in Northern Ireland for an indefinate time period to provide back-up and support to Northern Ireland's police force.
Do you know how long the British troops stayed?
38 years.

Apocalypse

So, I was down the stables last night teaching the nine year olds how to tack up, and lamenting to Omar, my colleague, that the schools have been closed again because of the civil unrest. He asks me: "What age are you?"
"I'm not telling you that!"
So he asks a child instead. She tells him: "I'm 9."
"What year were you born?"
"2002."
"2002 + 9 = 2011"
Omar is a bit of mystic. One never knows what he's going to say next. He says: "I am 42 this year. I was born in 1969. 1969 + 42 = 2011."
"And your point is?"
Well, according to Omar this mathematical phenomenon occurs only once every 823 years. It foretells a year of catastrophic upheaval with governments overthrown, dynasties destroyed, earthquakes, famine, pestilence; chaos. Not just in the Middle East, but everywhere, all over the world. Oh, and October will be the worst month...
I felt a delicious shiver down my spine. My throat went dry, my scalp crept. I felt the flames of hell starting to lick round my feet - just as I used to feel them when I was told from the pulpit at home: Repent for the end of the world is nigh....
I said: "I'm still not telling you what age I am."

Helping

Nick has flown to England this week to visit his very frail father.
The children said: "Don't worry, Mummy, we'll help you!"
This morning they brought me a cup of tea to bed. They said: "We are making school lunches."
School lunches as made by the children consist of apples, bananas, raisins, popcorn, Babybel cheese, cherry tomatoes, sliced cucumber, baby carrots, cashew nuts, Ritz Crackers, plastic bottles of water...
Maud said: "And I have made Mars Bar sandwiches."
Quite an improvement on the soup in a thermos I took to school as a child.