Portugal was georgous, the weather was great and the people lovely. I ate at the roof top restaurant every night looking out over the atlantic.
My one day off was spent taking three flights to finally arrive in Ireland. The work there was good too and again the people I was working with were so friendly. I had one day off and Phil flew over to see me for the weekend as it is only an hours flight from Manchester.
He wanted to do the tourist thing and see The Giants Causeway. I had been there many times as a child, because my Grandfather was born near there and I have lots of second cousins who live all around the area, so we took the train on the Sunday and had a lovely walk along the cliffs, having spent a bit of time at the causeway.
We had a strange experience on the train. We got on the train bound for Londonderry, intending to change at Coleraine and get a bus up to the coast. We had been travelling for about 30 minutes when an announcment came over the tannoy that the train would not be going to Derry, but to Portrush instead. We asked the conductor what had happened and he told us that the majority of people on the train were bound for Portrush and would have had to have changed at Coleraine, so they decided to make the people bound for Derry change instead and to divert the train to Portrush!! We wondered if there was anywhere else in the world where a train timetable could just be changed on the spur of the moment at the whim of the driver and conductor!!
We had a lovely day out and I really needed the fresh air and sun, having been cooped up for days.
While in Belfast I stayed at the most bombed hotel in the world. It was always at the centre of 'The Troubles' but happily that has stopped now. On my last day my hosts drove me back to the hotel via the Shankhill Road. Because of the Queens Jubilee there was bunting and flags and orange Ulster flags everywhere. I felt quite uncomfortable as I passed murals celebrating soldiers of the UDF and memorials to Protestants killed in past bombings.
On my way to work in the mornings the taxi had often driven me through the catholic areas where the murals of the IRA celebrated hunger strikers, political prisoners and army officers from their ranks. I found it all very unsettling and although the talk is always of 'The Troubles' in the past, I still felt a fair degree of tension there.
It was lovely to get back to the Marina. I bumped into so many people who stopped to chat and said they were glad to see me back. I was given a 'Titanic' rubber duck when in Belfast - there is an exhibition on at the moment to celebrate the centenary of the Titanic and I got back one night to find that the cleaner had left a souvenir rubber duck in my bathroom. The only person I know who has a bath on her boat is T, so I gave it to her. Her engine has just packed up so I thought it was quite appropriate really.
It was a lovely day and I should have been doing paperwork but I have been so tired I decided to have a day off.
Then came the bad news..... Phil took me to the allotment. He had warned me that the weeds had taken over but I was shocked when I saw it:
Luckily son number 2 had volunteered to come down and help us clear the weeds, but I think even he was shocked at the state of it, he's looking kind of phased!:
We set to and after a couple of hours it was looking better:
We had to drag the lad away as he was really getting into it:
On arriving back at the marina, Jack came to see us. He had given me a great welcome earlier and he came in and rolled over and just wanted his tummy tickling! I gave him a tin of tuna, to say sorry for going off and leaving him for weeks. He's not really bothered as he does have his Mum, but it is lovely to have him turning up every so often. I then sat out in the sun and read the paper, something I haven't been able to do for weeks.
When I stepped on the boat for the first time in 3 weeks, I smelt that familar damp smell. Phil didn't seem to notice it, but he hadn't kept the wardrobe doors open like I do whenever I can and sure enough, when I looked inside, all my damp proofing things were full of water. Amazing at this time of year, but I do need to order some more and really get on top of this. The most effective are the ones that hang on the clothes rail at the same height as the clothes. As the weather was nice, I opened the doors at both ends of the boat and the duck hatch and left both wardrobe doors open and it was amazing how soon everything freshened up.
While I was away things had really kicked off on the marina. Many other people have been experiencing the same problems as us and it had come to the notice of the management who decided to take speedy action as quite a few berth holders were threatening to leave. They seem to have sort of addressed the problem, but there are still problems and I'm not sure things are going to really change until they remove the cause of the problem. We will see, but at least we now know that we are not alone.
Today, I have been doing lots of paper work and we had to light the fire as it was so cold (in JUNE!!!). We are going to take the boat up to our favourite mooring this week, but I still have work to do tomorrow and the few days after that are forecast as windy, which is not good boating weather, so it's looking like we won't be moving until Sunday, but I will post the adventure when it happens!
Al :)
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