Reuben is so talented! He can sing and play the piano at the same time!

Used my rail pass to go up to Derry/Londonderry on Saturday with Bill and Carl. Caught the train from Carrick to central and then from Central to Derry. (Actually the line is being repaired and you are bussed from Ballymena to Coleraine and then put on the train again. Great day out. Derry a hive of activity with cross border shoppers picking up bargains with their strong Euro against our weak Pound.

Someone gave me a ticket for the Ospreys v Ulster game at Ravenhill on Friday night. Ospreys were the better side and Ulster's performance somewhat lacklustre. Final score Ospreys 16 Ulster 13.

Rick, Katie and Reuben all arrived on Friday morning. Rick and I went off to Bentra to play golf. (See previous post).
It was Win's birthday and so we Skyped Dave and Stacey and Caleb and Grace in Canada and blew out the candles 4000 apart!

Went down to Rick's in Greyabbey on Saturday afternnon to see the Big Match on his Big TV! A real nailbiter of a finish, but the last time Ireland won the Grand Slam was the year I was born.
Took Reuben out for a walk down into the village before the game. Had chocolate and walked back.

I wandered lonely as a cloud...

Spring is here again. Great to get out into the garden and a game of golf at Royal Bentra!

We had a St Patrick's night bash at the church on Saturday night, (14th March 3;- days early!)

Great night with the Bentra school of Irish Dancing, some diddle-le-de music and a brief talk on St Patrick. Lots of eople turned up, about a quarter of whom I didn't know. We finished with bowls of Irish Stew and then Apple Tart and cream.

Friends bought us an overnight in a B&B in Fermanagh for my birthday last March. It was such a busy year that we didn't get time to take it so I had to take it before it ran out! We went down to the Marble Arch area on Friday and stayed overnight and went for a walk on the Saturday morning, but had to be back for a church event on Saturday night.
Fermanagh is great walking country. I really must take an extended time down there.

Being out west it is pretty damp and on our walk up the Cladagh River everything was covered in moss.

The walk up the river takes you to the Marble Arch Caves, which were closed. I think they are usually flooded over the winter and open up again at the end of March.

Belcoo Police Station, being on the border is still heavily fortified despite the "peace process"!

Haven't posted for a long time. In February, Lilian and her mum went to Canada to visit Stacey and the kids as Dave was on an eight week course in Ottawa. He came home for the weekend while they were there, which explains his appearance in some of the pictures!

Thought you might enjoy this!

I'm reading a book at the moment by Charlie Connelly called, "Attention All Shipping". It's a journey round the BBC Shipping forecast on Radio 4. The nightly shipping forcast is one of the iconic broadcasts by the BBC. I have listend to it late at night driving home with the rain beating off the car windows or tucked up in bed with the duvet round me thinking of fishing boats battling though a force 8 or 9 in the Irish Sea.
In the book a mention is made of that fine poem by Sean Street and I thought I would share it with you.

Shipping Forecast
The Fisherman and His Wife in Donegal

They have shared still late October,
but salt stones and a broken tree,
the peeled paint on the lifeboat house
chime with places where the glass falls,
prime sources encountering night’s bald predictions.

Everywhere winter edges in,
and now the time is ten to six...
Lightness and weight, air’s potentials
pressed into words, implication;
here – on all coasts – listening grows passionately tense.

Fair Isle, Faeroes, South East Iceland,
North Utsire, South Utsire,
Fisher, German Bight, Tyne, Dogger...
This pattern of names on the sea –
Weather’s unlistening geography – paves water.
Beyond the music, the singing
of sounds – this minimal chanting,
this ritual pared to the bone
becomes the cold poetry of information.

The litany edges closer –Lundy, Fastnet and Irish Sea...
Routine enough, all just routine,
Always his eyes guessing beyond
the headland, she perhaps sleeping, no words spoken.

He stretches forward to grasp it,
claims his radio place – and now
the weather reports from coastal stations and then:
Malin Head – such routine
that she barely glances up, but hears now falling.

Haven't posted for a while.
Had a good but busy Christmas, the way it fell this year.

Winnie stayed over Christmas, which was nice and Rick, Katie and Reuben came up on Christmas Day. Freddie and Linda and the family came on Christmas night.
On Boxing Day went down to Carl and Mavis' house and had a meal and the traditional Christmas Pud.
Stayed overnight. and awoke to a bright and frosty morning.

Went sailing on New Year's Eve.

Just to make it clear, this is not our house, it's the house next door!
Reuben wasn't too sure whether he liked the Santa Bear or not.

Christmas time is a bit hectic in church.

We added to the pressure by having a Baptismal service in December. Ten people baptised, and the church packed.

On the following Saturday we had our Senior's Christmas Dinner.

Sixty or so of our Seniors and their friends were taken to do their Christmas shopping in Ballymena and then back to church for a Christmas Dinner and a short Carol Service.

On Wednesday 17th we went carol singing.

Started in Tesco's and then went to Northland Court and sang to the residents there and then off round the streets before coming back to the church about 9.30 for May's soup and hot chocolate and mince pies.

Friday night was the Annual Gingerbread Housebuilding Competition. Reuben made (and ate!) the popcorn





















This year the competition was particularly fierce.

May and Campbell had brought a Gingerbread House Kit home from Chattanooga, and Alison had baked her own kit from plans she found in a magazine.








As usual Pat was the honest judge! (Honest in the sense that she made it clear from the start that she was open to bribery!)











In the end Rick and Katie won with a modified kit. from Ikea.

We took a week's holiday at the end of November.
A friend of us has a house in Cranfield, which he wasn't using and very generously loaned it to us for the week.
It's in a beautiful location just at the beach with the Mourne Mountains behind us.
Weather was beautiful, clear blue skies all week but frosty.

It was great to sit reading in the conservatory and watch the light changing around the Haulbowline Lighthouse.

The lighthouse was built in 1818. The original light floated on a bed of mercury and was turned by a heavy lead weight on a chain which slowly dropped the length of the lighthouse. One of the Lighthouse Keeper's jobs was to winch the lead weight up again every 40 minutes!
We spent a lot of time walking and geocaching in the Mournes.

Rostrevor village is a couple of miles down the road. Pleasant village and the birthplace of Major General Robert Ross, after whom the village is named, and who burned the Whitehouse in Washington, during the American War of Independence. Visited his Monument on the outskirts of the village.

(The following is from Wikipeda.) "Rostrevor was the birthplace of Major General Robert Ross-of-Bladensburg, a British commander during the American War of Independence. After defeating an American force at Bladensburgh in 1814, he entered Washington on August 24 and burned many buildings including the White House. Not long after, he was killed at the Battle of Baltimore."

Walked into Greencastle, a couple of miles along the beach and saw another of John de Courcy's castles. (He also built them at Carrickfergus, Newcastle, Dundrum and so forth.) The following is from Wikipedia again. "It is a royal castle built in the 13th century. It was attacked and taken by Edward Bruce in 1316, attacked at least twice by the Irish in the later 14th century but still maintained as an English garrison in the 1590s."

Also searched out a number of local dolmen. This is one of them in a field not far from the house.