Sat or sitting when speaking or writing.

Point taken, Witzend.
However your examples show the Granny knows the difference between a present and a part participle.

Your Irish friend neatly side- steps past tense. There must be a metaphysical implication of "I am just after" as a way of describing the passage of time. Something to do with how Irish Friend remains the same essence through different modifications.

The short 'uh' sound for 'e' or 'a' is often mentioned on this forum. I think it's old fashioned speech (a bit like dropping final g) or dialect rather than lazy speaking. Do people fully pronounce the 'e' in a word like magnet, for example, or the 'a' in I saw a dog. What's the difficulty here?