Birmigham

I've just returned from a relaxing weekend away in Birmingham, thanks to my darling husband Dan and my friend 'Shanksy' who organised for some flights for me. Dan was adamant that I had a bit of a break before the baby arrives so we found some extremely cheap flights and off I went.

I had a lovely weekend and was thoroughly spoilt and looked after. It was great to see my friend 'Darwi' before she moves away to California in a few weeks time. We took a wander around Birmingham City Centre (an extremely slow 8 months pregnant speed wander - in which I almost fell over at one point!) where I met the 'floozy in the jacuzzi', walked along the canals and saw the barges trying to turn. We sat in a pub along the canal where we drank tea and chatted for hours, and where I discovered that Darwi has an almost encyclopedic knowledge of everything. I loved learning about her job and the study of the sun and outer space. It was intriguing. Especially as at the moment I have a severe case of pregnancy brain and can't remember facts at all.

Neil took me on a drive around Warwick and Stratford-Upon-Avon. I really miss the English countryside and started to feel quite home sick for the country that I grew up in. We stopped to see Warwick Castle from the outside and then walked around Stratford visiting some of the Shakespearean sites. We saw the house that Shakespeare grew up in (theres a photo of me standing in front of it below) and stopped for a well earned cuppa and a cheese toastie.

I ate a lot of bad food over the weekend, and nearly died when I weighed myself for the first time in this pregnancy. That probably wasn't a good idea. I almost died of shock. All in all it was a lovely weekend away and I was glad of the break before the madness of having a new baby in the house unfolds. Thanks Dan and Neil for organising it, and thanks to Neil for feeding and driving me all over the place. I never realised that Birmingham was such a nice place. Well, I've never been there, but it was far more like the England I grew up in than I had expected.

Goth nights and wet hair

I'm back from a fabulous weekend away in England. The purpose of the trip was to see one of my favourite bands in concert. H.I.M - a gothic love metal band from Finland. Unfortunately they didn't include any part of Ireland on their tour, so I arranged to visit an old school friend in England and we went to the show together. (HIM are the band that I danced to in the gothic bellydance show).


The concert was held in the Guildhall, Portsmouth, which was a grand old building that looked like a cathedral. Caroline picked me up from the airport and we drove straight to Portsmouth. Had some dinner then headed to the show, only to discover the biggest queue I'd ever seen to get into the building.


Killing Hannah were the support act (although I didn't know who they were at the time and didn't see much of them). H.I.M were pretty much as I expected - awesome. I got pretty close to the front. Close enough to see Ville Valo as he sang. He has just the most amazing voice. I took a few pictures and videos on my camera phone but its hard to get a good pic in that sort of dark environment.










There are a few pics of the show, and of myself and Caroline in the concert and outside of the Guildhall.





We drove back to Kent late that night and crashed into bed totally exhausted. That was on the Friday. Then on Saturday I had arranged to meet a dear friend of ours, Neil, in London. He travelled down from Birmingham, and I got the train up from Maidstone. It was only an hours travel for me, much longer for him I think.


The weather in London was miserable. However, I'm from Northern Ireland so the weather just doesn't really bother me, I'm used to it. It rained all day and we got thoroughly soaked. We went to several musuems (including the Tate modern, as Neil wanted to show me the huge crack in the floor!), looked at lots of artwork and photography (I discovered some of the paintings I'd written essays about on my Open University course a few years back), walked for miles around various places (Picadilly, Leicester Square, Carnaby Street etc). We saw the biggest environmental protest march go past, and queued to get into Hamleys toy store. Oxford Street was absolutely packed with Christmas shoppers. It reminded me of New York. I've never seen so many people crammed into shops like that. The queue into Hamleys was phenomenal and caused a human traffic jam. Inside the shop was just as packed. People just go mad at Christmas! I'm now trying to do all my Christmas shopping online.



















At the end of the day Neil took me back to Victoria station to catch my train (because I was totally lost in London, lol). That evening my good friend Tabi (from grammar school days) came round to Carolines and we all pigged out on Chinese food, told funny stories (I wont embarass Tabi by telling her embarassing waxing story on here, lmao) and talked about bras a lot. LOL. Typical girlie evening. It was great to see Tabi and Caroline again, although it was such a flying visit. But I had a wonderful weekend.

This weekend Dan and I are off to Dublin for 2 nights to see Apocalyptica. I tell you what, nothing happens for years and then it all happens at once.

So many plans

Our house is finally on the market, and we have had one viewing already. I've seen two houses I'm interested in buying but can't really put in a serious offer until we have a buyer for ours. So for now, I'm patiently waiting. The plan is to get rid of our mortgage. It is more than likely that we will be closing our wee shop in January, and so having no mortgage will be a huge bonus, as we dont yet know how we plan to make money.

But as I've mentioned before in this blog, we plan to take a trip next year, with our children. We are finally in the stages of planning this now. If we dont sell our house on time we may still go on the trip and leave the house on the market while we are away.

At the moment we are planning a 19 week trip. Steve found a 'round the world' ticket company in the paper that are offering an amazing deal on flights. If we go with the tickets for which we've been quoted we will be flying from London to Los Angeles on February 11th, and spending 10 weeks in America, travelling around the west coast (California etc, all the beaches) and around the Grand Canyon and surrounding area. Then we will be flying from Los Angeles to Aukland in New Zealand and spending 8 weeks touring the north island of New Zealand. From there, we will fly to Hong Kong (this is not optional, its part of the deal!) and spending anything from 3 nights to 2 weeks (depending entirely on funds), before flying back to London. Once in London we may take a week or so to visit with family, or we may just be desperate to get home!

So now we are just mulling it over in our minds before we decide whether to book these tickets and make it all final. I'm so over excited about it all!

While Im hear blogging, I keep meaning to write another blog post about Tinkhani but just havent found the time yet. He has had his sentece reduced from the death penalty to life imprisonment, but he is hoping that he may get this reduced too. If anyone wishes to send money for him again, please let me know. I have just sent him $30 as he was desperate again for food. But I'm sure that is probably all spent by now and I really need to send him some more. If you want to know more you might like to read this blog post about Tinkhani and the conditions in Zambian prisons. As I said in one of my other blog posts, Tinkhani did put on weight from the food he purchased from your donations, and his improved dramatically. His doctor was shocked at the improvement.

Tentative Planning

Whether we do take the 7 month trip in January 2008 depends largely on whether Jimmie's school will keep his place open for him. They are meeting to discuss this next week. Until then we are trying to hold back on planning too much, or getting too excited. But this is difficult.

After much discussion we have decided that a tour of America will be the best for us. It's maybe not as exotic as the far east or scary as Africa, but it will be the best trip for us to undertake as a family with children. It will be the cheapest trip for us too.

Last night we tried to work out where we would visit and how long it would take etc. We know nothing about America really and so our initial plans could be way off and could change drastically. But taking into account the weather in the USA and Central America we decided that it would be best to arrive in Florida (see the blue dot on the map) in January, and travel around the southern states and central america before it gets to the heat of summer. So last night rough diagram shows our suggested route (honestly, we don't have a clue what we are talking about - so would greatly appreciate comments from our American blog readers!) Travelling from Florida (visiting the Everglades) we would go up to Georgia and visit my death row penpal, and then westwards through Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana (possibly up a bit to Arkansas and Oklahoma) into Texas. From Texas we would travel down south to Mexico, Guatemala (I might pick up an orphan or two there!), Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Panama, not heading any further into South America. We would then head back northwards into California (plus Disney World), and then spend some time in Nevada, Arizona and Utah (visiting the grand canyon for a week). Then we would travel up into Wyoming and from there eastwards through either the top of America, or the middle, until we got right back to the east coast. Then we would travel down into Virginia, North and South Carolina and back down to Florida.

So that was the first attempt at a travel route. As I said that plan could change, and we would appreciate suggestions from anyone who knows what they are talking about. Is there anything in the USA that we just should not miss? We will obviously buy lots of books to plan with, if we get the all clear from the school.

The question is, are we brave enough?

Well, there's been a lot to talk about here the last few days. As anyone working in the music industry will know, the whole CD business in general is slowly dieing a death. Music stores all across the nation are closing down and many owners are looking for new jobs or ways to make money. We are noticing a sure change in the amount of Cd's we are selling and will more than likely not keep the shop open once our contract is up in January. This is quite sad. For many years Dan has worked so hard to provide for his family in this way.

So we got to talking about what to do next. We decided that we have two options. 1) Feel sorry for ourselves, worry about the future, panic and generally stress. Or 2) See this change as a great opportunity. There have been so many things we have wanted to do but couldn't because of the tie of the shop and Dan being self employed. Come January we will not have these ties or any kind of responsibility, and will theoretically be looking for new jobs.

So why not take some time out? For years I've talked about selling everything and travelling around the world. But after talking with Dan this week we have come to realise that we wouldn't need to sell our home to do it. So what we are thinking about is freezing our mortgage for a year, renting out our house to a family, selling everything that is cluttering up our lives and taking off on a journey, with the kids for 8 months.

Why eight months? Well, in September 2008 Annabelle is due to start high school and Luke will be the age to start primary school (although we haven't yet decided to send him to school). What we are seriously considering is a big journey, by road, across a continent or two. We have so many ideas and feel a little scared by it all, but we've talked about it so much now that I really can't see us not doing it.

The question is where to go? At first I fancied a trip across Europe, and into either Asia or Africa (or both). I started researching on the Internet and found some fabulous sites recording journeys that people are currently undertaking.

• The Africa Overland Network which actually covers the whole world, not just Africa
• Magbaz travels
• RV Life the story of a family driving (RVing) across America
• London2Sydney the story of two guys travelling from London to Sydney by car

The Africa Overland network contains hundreds of blogs written by people travelling across the world. Its an amazing read.

The possibilities of where to travel are endless and planning a trip like this would take months. We have 4 possibilities.

1. Travel in campervan from Ireland, through the UK, into Europe stopping at as many countries as we please along the way (France, Spain, Portugal, Bulgaria, Norway, Denmark, Greece, Turkey - the possibilities are endless) and then travelling on into Asia through countries such as India, Nepal, China, Laos, Thailand and Malaysia.
2. Travel in campervan from Ireland, through the UK, into Europe stopping at as many countries as we please along the way, and then travelling on into Africa (Morocco, Tunisia, Egypt, Kenya etc)
3. Flying to America or Canada and travelling in RV across the Americas, (Alaska, Canada, various states of the US, Mexico) and then south into Guatemala Costa Rica, Panama, Peru, Brazil, Chile etc)
4. Flying to Australia and spending 8 months driving across the whole of Australia.

Dan is keen to do the Americas. I wasn't at first but after looking into it the prospect is more appealing. We could fly there cheaper than Australia, and we could buy an RV there which we could sell before we leave. We would speak the language in the north and break ourselves in slowly. America is a vast land with every type of scenery and landscape and weather possible. Then travelling into the South we would see more exotic lands and different cultures.

I was more keen to travel through Europe, as there are so many countries to see, all vastly different, and then into Asia or Africa. Travelling by car to Asia or Africa un-nerves me a bit and I'm not sure I'm actually brave enough! Travelling to Australia would be the most costly, for the flights.

So we are not sure what we are doing. But one thing is for sure, life will be changing round here come Christmas time, and I'd prefer it changed for the better, into something exciting and adventurous. It's also just occured to me that I may well be able to meet with one of my prison pen pals on two of these journeys. That would be exciting!

So what do you all think?

DUBAI - The United Arab Emirates

Dubai was fantastic. Excellent, memorable, exotic, hot. I had a fabulous week there, although I was glad to get home to my lovely family who I missed deeply. (Erm, I can hear them all down stairs arguing! But yes, I guess I even missed that!)

I don't know where to start writing about it all. I could do a day by day account of where I went and what I did, but I think I will just talk about it randomly, as things come to me.

Well, Dubai is part of the United Arab Emirates, situated between Saudi Arabia and Oman, and across the water from Iran. The Persian Gulf is the sea along its shores. Only 20% of the residents of Dubai are Arabs, the other 80% are made up of ex-pats from all across the globe. The city really is still being built and is to some extent a massive building site. The main language spoken in Dubai is English although many languages can be heard. All the street signs and menu's etc are written in both English and Arabic, so it really is an easy place to tour around. I didn't have much idea at all of what to expect before I left.



My flight to Dubai went via Paris, from Dublin. The flight from Dublin to Paris took 1 1/2 hours, and then from Paris to Dubai was a further 7 hours. It is possible to get direct flights but these cost a lot more. I flew over night and arrived in Dubai at 8 am on Wednesday morning (3 hours ahead of UK time).

The weather was gorgeous for the entire week - not a single drop of rain, so no humidity. I didn't find it too hot the majority of the time. I think the temperature ranged from about 32 C up to 46C on one of the hotter days (when I actually did have to get a taxi to the villa and sleep off my headache!) Anyone thinking of travelling to Dubai, just remember, don't go in the summer when it gets to over 50C and even the locals don't venture outside!

I'm gonna just post some photos and write a bit about them rather than going through a day by day run down of what I did.... You can view all of my photos in my flickr account by clicking here. (there are 3 pages of photos so don't forget to click through the pages to see them all) Also, the photos posted below can be seen full size by clicking on them.



This is me at the entrance to the Irish Village! Since Dubai is so multi-cultural it is possible to eat any type of food from any country. We had a few nice meals here. I must have put on a stone in weight!








Talking of food, this is me with one of the waiters at the Meridian Hotel. They were having a South African evening and all of the waiting staff looked like something out of a Tarzan film! For the cost of about £20 we could eat and drink as much as we wanted. There was an African band playing, and authentic African food. I was lucky enough to sample crocodile steak, crocodile salad, stir fried ostrich and BBQ'd wart hog! Being a natural coward, I decided to pass on the big black worm salad (basically massive black marinated caterpillars - think of those witchety grubs on 'I'm a celebrity get me out of here', just black !!!!)



This photo was taken on the same evening at the African dinner. These two Arab men offered me some chewing gum as they were walking past! "For you" they said. So I said thanks and asked if I could take their photo. At this point I hadn't seen many people in authentic Arabic clothing and I wanted to show my kids what they looked like. So they said yes, and posed for me. Later that night to my horror and amusement they had called a cab and were expecting me to go somewhere with them!!! Well, I laughed my guts out. I had no idea that accepting chewing gum meant so much more to an Arab man that it does to a Caucasian woman. LOL! That night (Thursday night - the start of the weekend in Dubai) I was propositioned by no less than 8 men, including the 2 Arabs, 2 Jordanians, 2 Syrians and 2 Iraqis! Wow, so popular! One Jordanian dentist even offered very kindly to give me a thorough dental examination with his tongue!!! Well, I almost wet myself laughing and he was not impressed.

Here are my Dubai friends D & W who kindly took me out for that evening. I think they are trying to avoid my camera in this shot.

D is working in Dubai on business and has a lovely villa there with a swimming pool. During the day if I was home I had the place to myself, including the pool!

(Yes, that is me in the pool - jealous yet?)



I did so much while I was there, including the open top bus tour (mandatory tourist adventure for any city holiday!) One of the highlights was definitely the beaches. In particular Jameirah Beach Park.













This is Jameirah Beach Park from the air (no I didn't take this photo myself, lol)









I spent 2 full days on the beach, sitting under the shade of a palm tree. This was my view on day one, of another palm and the sea in the distance. The sky looks quite dull in this photo because I think it was full of sand!


















As I looked the the left or right of where I was sitting on the beach I could see palm trees and the odd little hut, plus a few sun bathers.
















OK, so it was quite tough to get photos of myself on the beach, but just to prove I was there here is a photo of me - the whitest legs in Dubai.


I must say that I really enjoyed those two days on the beach. Just lying there relaxing, with nothing to do - no dinner to make, or children to bath, or Cd's to sell. It was just heaven. I even managed to swim in the Persian Gulf a good few times, the water was lovely and warm. It was so clear that I could see blue jelly fish (no one seemed worried about them so I presumed they weren't poisonous!), star fish, and shoals of little fish swimming around in the shallow waters!


On one of his days off work D took me to some of the city's huge shopping malls. These malls are like nothing that I've ever seen in the UK. They are more like palaces. Because of the heat most of the shops are inside big air conditioned malls. Two of the malls we visited were out of this world. The first one (I forget its name) had different levels decorated as various countries (china, India, Tunisia etc). One of these area was lit and decorated to be permanently dusk - with twinkling stars in the ceiling, dim street lamps - it really felt like shopping at sunset! Here is a little photo of it (click to see larger)








Every area of that mall was decorated like a palace. I just had to take a photo of this starbucks cafe where we had a cup of coffee. Just look at the ceiling! I felt like I was inside the Taj Mahal or something! Have you ever seen a Starbucks like this one???? Everything in Dubai is the best in the world. Anything you could look at would be the tallest in the world, or the oldest, or the widest, narrowest, longest, shortest, in the world. Anything that they build has to be the best. You simply must click on this starbucks photo to see it full size. It blew my mind!

The second mall was called the Mall of the Emirates, and this one had an indoor ski slope with REAL snow! Honestly, I stood in my summer clothes in this huge mall looking through a huge glass window at people in ski clothes with hats and woolly scarves! The adults were skiing and the children were throwing snow balls and tobogganing. Only in Dubai!

D took this photo of me in the mall toystore. Even the toy store is larger than life. This truly has to be the biggest teddy bear on the planet! I was chuffed that 3 Arabs walked into my photo as well, to make it truly middle eastern.

Whilst shopping in one of these malls we found a shop selling the clothes that the local Arabic muslim people wear. A very helpful lady told me that they sell a lot of them to tourists and both D and I went a little crazy thinking that they would make good souvenirs. So I bought Dan a full Arab outfit (long white robe with red and white tea towel type head scarf!) and bought myself the muslim lady's Abaia! When we got back to the villa and I tried it on D almost wet himself laughing.

I do have a photo of Dan in his outfit but I don't yet has his consent to put it on the blog. Give me time though ;)

This is how the local muslim women dress when they leave the house. Whilst walking round the malls there would be many women dressed like this, and they were exactly the same as the western women. They did not walk three steps behind their husbands or anything like that. The muslim families out shopping in their beautiful traditional clothes were just like everyone else - friendly, polite, walking hand in hand with their children. In their own homes the women take these coverings off and wear jeans and a t-shirt like the rest of us.

The other day that I really enjoyed from my trip was the day that I travelled to the Old Souk and Gold Souk area's of Dubai. These areas consisted of hundreds of little streets filled with souks selling all sorts of wares. I spent hours walking around these streets (this was the hottest day when I ended up feeling quite ill). Every street I walked down the sellers would call "madam, madam, look what I have for you", or "Madam, shop here please". At the start I found it quite intimidating being there all alone, but I soon discovered that all the sellers were friendly and pleasant, and I quite enjoyed myself. It didn't take me long to realise that the price I was quoted at the start was not nearly the price that they would sell at. I looked at some postcards and asked "how much". "Two durhams each" was the reply. So I looked for a bit, then walked away and heard "but for you madam just one durham each", and then finally "but I will sell you 6 for five durhams". LOL. I had the best time shopping in some of the belly dance shops and came home with 12 new shimmy belts (6 for me and 6 for Mum).

This is the front of one of the belly dance souks in the old souk area (note the Arab costume on the left - which is identical to the one I bought Dan).

And here am I in the belly dance shop where I spent quite some time. I'm sporting a pink shimmy belt in this photo - on the other photo in flickr you can see all the belts out on the table. The man on the right who looks like he's from Albert Square insisted on undoing the knot in this belt with his teeth!!!

Here is a photo from one of the antique shops selling everything that your heart could desire.

This man is filling little bottles up with different coloured Arabian sands. Somehow he manages to draw camels in the sand and write the word 'Dubai'.

Well, I took many more photos but I can't possibly put them all on my blog. I had a great time - relaxing, exciting, adventurous, scary, fun. And at the end of it I was so glad to get home to my beautiful family. Dan, being his usual romantic self, was waiting for me at the airport (all dressed up) with a boquet of flowers. I, on the other hand, had developed a stinking cold on the flight home and looked like I'd been dragged a hedge backwards. I did so much more than I've written about here, but writing this so far has been like a project. Things will come back to me over the next few days and I may come back to write more about it. But all in all it was a great adventure, one that I will never forget, and I am extremely grateful to my friends in Dubai for putting me up, or putting up with me - THANKS GUYS. I had a lovely time and have many precious memories. And let me just say a HUGE thank you to Dan as well for making me go, and for keeping things ticking over here in my absence.

A weekend away

Dan decided that we all needed a break, so this Easter he took us to Londonderry to stay in a very posh hotel for two nights! It was so nice to get away and we all had the best time. We made no plans at all, we just got in the car and went. But we had great adventures, beautiful weather, and some lovely family bonding time. There is a slideshow of all the photos which you can see if you wish by clicking here. We took so many lovely photos and I just want to put them all on my blog!

Well, our trip started on Friday. In an effort to be as relaxed as possible we got up late, didn't pack until it was almost time to leave, and just mozied out of the house whenever we were ready. The drive to Derry took about 4 hours because we stopped a few times to eat, stretch our legs and admire the view. Some of the scenery along the Glenshane Pass was breath taking, so we stopped to explore it a little. Here are some photos of that. You can click on them to see the bigger photos.












All 3 kids were great on the journey down. When we got out of the car they climbed trees, jumped across streams and burnt off energy, ready for the rest of the journey. We had to stop at a garage to buy duck tape to tape up one of our windows which is falling down all the time, and is going to cost £110 to fix! (I'm happy enough with a duck taped window for that price).

When we arrived at the hotel I was surprised at how posh it was! Dan had managed to get a really good deal for the two nights. I don't know how he managed that at Easter, but we were paying substantially less than most of the people there. And the place was full to capacity. As expected the kids rushed into our room to check it out. They ran into the bathroom, opened all the drawers, exclaimed in delight at there being a TV, and bounced on all the beds. The room was very nice. The favourite spot in the room turned out to be the window where many moments were spent gazing out over Derry City.

On the Friday night we mostly chilled out in the hotel room. Dan brought back some pizzas, which was better than going out for a meal as little Barney didn't have to sit still. We did take a trip to the hotel swimming pool, jacuzzi and steam room, and were provided with lovely matching swimming hats! Yes, I had to wear one too but there was no way any one was getting that on camera.




















Saturday turned out to be a great day, despite our lack of arrangements. We all piled into the car and had a vague notion of heading towards Donegal. We ended up driving along the Lough Swilly coastline and through the mountains of Inishowen. We made various stops along the way at beaches and in mountains, all of which the kids loved. Dan was particularly inspired by the mountain scenery (anyone who reads this blog regularly will know he has a passion for mountains, LOL). Barney was a different child on the beaches. The incessant talker we all know and love turned into a quiet, focused child, who was basically in a world of his own. He was so taken with the beaches that he couldn't even answer questions, as his mind was so deeply engrossed in his surroundings! It made Dan and I laugh, but was lovely to see.

Dan and Barney were the only ones brave enough to paddle in the freezing Irish sea! Even Jimmie thought the water was too cold for that. At the end of the day the back seat of our car was completely caked in sand. Even now I keep finding little mounds of sand around the house, where someone has emptied another sock or shoe.

In between beach stops we drove through the Inishowen mountainous countryside. The scenery here was awesome, although it never looks as good in a photo. We stopped and got out for a walk. As soon as the car doors opened Jimmie and Barney raced up the mountain, Jimmie in the distance with little Barney hot on his heels. We had to run after Barney and I found a smaller mountain to climb with him whilst Daddy and the big kids hiked up the bigger one. Barney and I amused ourselves with our little mountain, and stumbled across some mountain sheep. Jimmie came back down the mountain with the skull and bones of a dead mountain sheep! These items are now taking pride of place in our home. Boys, you gotta love em.

After heading off in the car again we stumbled across a museum, in the middle of no-where! The Guns of Dunree Military Museum, to be exact. The boys (especially Dan) loved all the big canons and guns, and the views from the fort were spectacular.

(In this last two photos you can see our Dan going back to his childhood! The first photo, with the big red gun, he is making horrendous machine gun fire noises, and shooting down passing sea gulls. In the second image (with his arms in the air!) he is proclaiming himself King of all Ireland! LOL, it' so great to see him really relax!)

When we got back to the hotel the kids all said that the weekend so far had been better than they had expected. We'd enjoyed fresh air, scenery and quality family time, and everyone was happy.

Sunday was out last day but we still made the most of it. Dan took the kids back down to the hotel pool whilst I packed our bags to checkout. We couldn't stay in Derry without a walk around the Derry City Walls. So that's exactly what we did. Derry is a walled city. The walls were built in 1613 to defend the city from English and Scottish settlers.

We didn't walk around the entire circuit but we did enjoy a 30 minute stroll.

The walls looked out over the entire city, and were fortified with old canons. I'd like to do the whole walk one day, without the kids maybe.

Here are two photos of Derry taken from the walls. I think it is the bogside? Not sure. Anyway, if you open the larger images you can see the typical Irish murals on the houses, and some of the Irish flags flying. Many of the murals in Northern Ireland have been changed from paramilitary images to historical paintings now, celebrating Irish culture instead of promoting sectarianism. (I've just noticed the pub in the first photo is called Bogside Inn, so it must be the bogside. The bogside is the area where the poorer Catholic families lived after the end of the potato famine - so I read on one of the City Wall signs!)

After our trot around the walls we headed home in the car, stopping at Dungannon Park for a picnic of fruit (we all needed a detox by this point!) and a walk around the lake there.

I still have to do my Easter blog post! I'll get round to it soon. But thats more than enough for now.