A visit from Neil

This weekend we were delighted to see our friend Neil from Birmingham who came to stay with us for a few days. He's never set foot in Ireland before, so we were more than happy to show him a little of the north. The weather was pretty dismal all weekend (no surprises there) but the sun managed to shine whenever we stepped foot outside of the car.

I picked him up from Belfast City Airport on Saturday morning and took him on a little driving detour of Belfast city, before driving home to Banbridge. We saw some of the murals around east Belfast (where I used to live) and then drove through the centre to see the City Hall, University, etc. Since the sun started shining in the afternoon we decided to make the most of it and took a drive with the kids to Newcastle, Co Down. As we stepped out onto the beach the sun started beaming down for us! Barney, Annabelle, and Annabelle's best friend from school all got totally covered in wet sand, but had a good time digging about on the beach. We then drove up into the Mourne Mountains a bit and stopped at the Silent Valley Dam. You can see all the photos from Newcastle, and the Giants Causeway by clicking here.

Although the weather on Sunday was pretty awful we still took our trip to the Giants Causeway in county Antrim. The coastal drive to the causeway is beautiful, although far more spectacular when not raining. The queue to get into the Causeway car park went on for miles. I've only ever been there in the winter when its quiet, so I was surprised to see it so busy. Despite the rain we still managed to have a walk around the causeway stones without getting wet (except for Jimmie who almost got swept away in the waves!) The sun stayed out long enough for us to explore.

It was great to have Neil over to visit. Barney just thought he was great, and had him tortured playing games of hide n seek. Hopefully next time he will come for a little longer and we can show him some more of the delights of Northern Ireland.