Off yesterday. Katie called over with Reuben and then Freddie, Linda and Sharon all came for tea and to see "The Queen". Helen Mirran gave an excellent performance of a Monarch struggling to come to terms with a changing Britain, as highlighted over the death of Lady Di. Spent a nice evening together, Lilian away all day Saturday on a Focusfest "Quiet Day".

Had a trustee's meeting for Asha Kiran in Bill & Catherine's house on Friday evening. Stopped on the way down and had a quick walk through Killynether Wood and had a look out over the County Down countryside from the top near Scrabo.

Also stopped at Greyabbey. The old abbey was built in 1193 by Affrica, the wife of John de Courcy. Took Saturday off and stayed overnight at Karl and Mavis' in Donaghadee.

Saturday turned out to be another cracking day and we lay out in the back garden and read the papers.

Dinner's great when you can feed yourself! Caleb at his lunch!

Celebrating Winnie's birthday with Dave, Stacey and Caleb in Canada by webcam.

Using Winnie's grandmother's china teaset, (how old is that!) for her birthday.

Went down to Ricks to watch Super Saturday Six Nations. (Ireland v Italy in Rome, Scotland v France in Paris and England v Wales in Cardiff.)Disaster for Ireland, despite hammering Italy, France beat Scotland by an injury time try to score enough points to take the Championship.

All went out that night to "The Saltwater Brig" for a meal to celebrate Winnie's special birthday, Mothers' Day and whatever else we could think of. Nice meal and despite the rugby result, nice day out.

What we call in Ireland, "A soft day". Still, quiet, colours muted and the finest of drizzle. Heading off to see Freddie and Linda this evening. They have just returned from visiting Johnny in California so they are unlikely to have seen any soft days for a while.

Rick, Katie and Reuben arrived for my birthday this week. Grannie took him out for her first walk with the pram!

3/03/2007 I normally take a Friday off but I had to work this Friday so I took off Saturday instead, which was our wedding anniversary, (34th). Good call! Friday had been wet and windy but Saturday turned out to be a cracking day. Went up the North Coast and discovered this cracking cave not far from the Giant's Causeway.
Had a picnic and walked along the cliff tops from The Giant's Causeway towards Port Ballantrae.
Beautiful bright windy day and a really bracing walk. Had planned to have an anniversary meal in the Causeway Hotel but the owner's daughter was getting married that day, (same day as us!) and guests had taken over the whole hotel for the weekend! Some party. So we had an anniversary cup of coffee instead and bought a couple of steaks in a butchers in Bushmills on the way home and had a meal in!

24/02/07

Back home from our holidays now and everybody gathered into our house for the Big Match, England v Ireland at Croke Park, Dublin. What a match and what a score. 82,000 people watched as we demolished England. Ireland 43 England 13

We just ran all over them! The Irish back line at the moment must be the best in the world, including the All Blacks!

Tickets for the game were going on ebay at £1600!

After the game Pearl & Archie, Rick & Katie, Winnie and Lilian and I all played a card game called "Phase 10" that friends from Texas sent us. Good game.

12/02/2007 OK I know this one is out of sequence, that's the consequences of falling so far behind that you forget what you did when! Another beautiful bright day. We headed down to the River Bann where it opens up into the Atlantic. At this point it runs alongside Castlerock Golf Club. Beautiful quiet and secluded spot and a lovely walk on a day like this. Had our lunch in the sun down by the bar mouth.

As the sun went down it started to get cold and it was great to get back for a meal and snuggle down with a book in the cosyness of the cottage.

14/02/2007 Another nice winter's day. Went for a walk along the beach in the morning. Everything is very quiet except for the occasional guy walking his dog or exercising his horse.

13/02/2007 Went to Roe Valley Country Park today outside Limavady. Limavady means in Irish "The Leap of the Dog". Legend tells us that a faithful hound of one of the O'Cahan chiefs jumped a gorge on the River Roe to get help during an unexpected enemy attack. Thus giving rise to the name "Leim an Mhadaidh" and is today anglicised as Limavady. Limavady is also the town where the tune the Londonderry Air was collected by Jane Ross in the mid-19th century from a local fiddle player and later used for the song Danny Boy. On the way back I noticed a sign above the door of this cottage and stopped to investigate.

12/02/ 2007 Headed off towards the Murderhole Road which used to be the main coaching road across the mountains from Coleraine to Derry via Limavaday. During the 1700's and 1800's highwaymen roamed these bleak moors robbing and killing unwary travellers.
We stayed in a Youth Hostel here about 40 years ago and we haven't been back since.
No sign of the Youth Hostel as far as we could see but a very pleasant picnic site beside a wee burn.

11/02/07
Weather was pretty good and we got out every day. Some really spectacular countryside around here on a clear day.


Did a lot of geocaching which took us to places we hadn't been before. Brought a picnic with us every day and made a big meal in the evening when we got back to the cottage.

Sorry this hasn't been updated for a while. We were on holiday had really haven't had much time to do it since we came back. I'll do a couple of posts every day to catch up.

9/02/07 Spent a week up in a friend's cottage in Benone. Just crashed out for a week, lying on in the mornings and walking the hills. Really was such a relaxing time.