Ahhhhh, July and fine weather.
We have had such a busy month which has allowed us to recover from the stress of Gail's redundancy scare. There was a long planned for holiday to Scotland with Carolyn and David which included a day trip to Antrim Nthn. Ireland. I'll tell you a bit about that first as it was a great day. We took the car on the ferry across and marvelled at how cheap and empty it was. It pays to do some deep research sometimes as the Tuesday we chose to go to Northern Ireland was the Tuesday that all the orangemen march through all the catholic streets and there is tensions and troubles and picnics and parties and drinking and fights and singing and rock and petrol bomb throwing and general merriment that only the Northern Irish know how to do.... So we had a ball. First stop after escaping Belfast with no incident was Ballygally castle for lunch.
It was open, Northern Ireland closes on march day. Another little known fact we discovered. The castle was more of your theme wedding pub but more than acceptable and we enjoyed hamming it up.
Next stop was Bushmills Eyerish Whisky brewery which Carolyn had really, really wanted to visit and do the tour of. It was closed too.
The giant's causeway was open and we crawled all over it and took thousands of shots which I won't put here, just enough to prove we went. I was not all that impressed to be honest, and I know something about tessellated basalt. We walked over some more impressive ones on the south east coast of Tasmania but that could just be me being parochial.
Then there was Carrick-a-rede suspension bridge thing that everyone raves about. Now that was worth the trip to Nthn Ireland on it's own. We got a great bit of weather, almost no one else there, did I tell you it was marching and rioting day? I can only recommend it for this venue. No words for the following photos as they say it all.
I will bring you back to our Scotland holiday but I just found these shots of me doing the recording for "The Menace at Middleton" this month and thought I'd best record the event so I don't forget. The Leeds Savage group has a writing group which I sort of control once a fortnight, Pete Etheringham, a Leeds lad and founding savage, wrote a radio script about some moles possessed by the souls of dead Polish miners that take over Leeds by turning all the civic statues into living..... oh, never mind. Anyway we went to the studio to record the six episodes along with sound effects of angry moles and these shots give a bit of an insight into the sessions.
Keeping to the artistic theme, and in the same photo file I found the shots of Rob Bailey, a Manchester professional artist we discovered at a Leeds exhibition. We bought an artist's proof of his latest series of popular dogs(he hasn't done more than one of them yet but has now got photos of our Great Danes) . We used to have an Alsatian-cross years ago, so this initial work appealed to us. It now hangs at the entry to our kitchen. These shots are of Rob in his studio and at the Leeds show.
As promised, now I'll take you back toScotland again , still doing arty stuff tho.
A while ago I saw a bloke artistically and impossibly standing rocks on a coast-themed TV show here. I wondered how the hell he did it and given that Monreith is a surf less, cold, rocky beach I thought it a good chance to try my hand. It turns out it is just about finding the balance point. Quite a bit of fun and again there were far more photos and stood up rocks but these give the idea.
Start small
Don't be bloody ambitious
And that neatly brings me back to the Monreith holiday. We spent a week doing nothing but reading, walking on the beach, drinking wine and eating and enjoying each other's company and the friendship of David and Carolyn. This was our second visit here with D&C and we had no agenda or places to be so while we did take lots of shots they resemble the ones of monreith already on the blog so these here are just nice memories of this time.
Our holiday cottage, Gail's mini and David's Audi parked outside. The cottage is actually two old mill worker's cottages joined together and comprises three bedrooms a lounge, kitchen/diner, bathroom and a couple of storage rooms. Very clean and comfortable in a beachcomber's paradise sort of way.
Just down the road a bit is the town of PortWilliam and this waiting man is a sculpture that watches the sea. I think the photo is good (seagull) but the sculpture is really lovely and evokes many thoughts and ideas.
We had a nice lunch here at the Clansman in PortWilliam.
And another nice lunch in this white pub on the way home to Wetherby on our last day in Scotland. We chose to take the coast road winding around the peninsulas and stopped first at Kipford which is a charming little port with lovely folk, a little bit posh, a little bit scruffy and rough. A gem of a place.
Further around the coast there is a place called Rockcliff and a ancient iron age ruin called the Mote of Mark from the top of which, after an easy climb, we rolled off some more photos as we walked around.
We called the hotel below our Faulty Tower. We walked there for afternoon tea and found it run by a Basil-esque sort of a bloke. When we asked if he could do us a couple of pots of tea and a cake of some sort he scowled at us and disappeared calling back "I'll see what I can do". As you can see it's a big place, lots of rooms, an art gallery, big dining room, splendid entrance, all just a little bit tired. You know. But lovely and quaint. We stood waiting while he checked in other guests to their room walking them up and returning, seeing us, apologising and disappearing again. We did get some tea and ginger cake and shortbreads but it was just the way of it, made us laugh.
As the day had sort of got away from us we decided we would find a hotel and stay a night by the Solway Firth. We eventually found Powfoot golf hotel and enjoyed a great meal, lovely bottle of wine, superb views and a curiosity.
In the photo above you can see a round thing, sort of theta shaped, in the sand on the edge of the river outside the hotel. The hotel used to be a Victorian-era mansion and the round thing is the foundation of a modesty bathing shelter for the women of the household who used it to take to the waters without being observed. Quirky huh?
Scotland done for another year we returned home and as Gail still had a few days of holiday left I decided we would head over to Liverpool to visit the Tate at Albert Docks and take in the Rene Magritte exhibition which was really really really good, The Tate at Liverpool is a world wise display of current and past masters, all the works would fall into the confronting or challenging category but the general walk through the free galleries will not ever be boring. It was worth the trip and we got to catch up with Karen, first for some great chat over drinks in our hotel and then a purely disgusting meal at Liverpool One' s Wagamama
The waterfront Mersey Side is changing very quickly, the Liver building and other graces are being joined by some spectacular new buildings housing offices and apartments,
Of course Albert Docks was the first re-development and while historic I don't think it works all that well, but you have to do with what you've got, and although windy and chill the day was sunny and clear, makes the day out so much more enjoyable.
The Liverpool museum and
The Beatles museum both make the walk along the shore front a must do Liverpool thing now. The Leeds Liverpool canal now links into the Docks and then the Mersey which is a tempting thought for our next canal adventure I think.
I don't know if I have mentioned in this blog my growing disquiet about the preponderance of penguin promotions used for advertising in the UK, I am quite over it and may have become just a bit sensitive to persistent penguin proliferation. I guess it is because they don't have penguins in their seas..... and they think they are cute or something.... gees, get over it already. I may be forced to start an anti penguin site.
So that is that for July I guess, there were other things ,
like our new neighbours Graeme and Kate came to visit and bought Bentley, their GREAT DANE BOY PUPPY!!!!! with them.
Big sigh.
Nice people lovely dane. We will no doubt see more of them all and I'll remember to take a picture. Bentley is a fawn just like Symbol and Bosco.
Big sigh.
But as there are no great dane pics, here are the furry animal shots you have to have. The cows are at Gretna Green, the baby calves somewhere near Southerness Scotland.
And I will finish with this last shot Gail took , just because I like the way it speaks of interaction between people, sculpture and scenery.
