Ulster Museum

Sophie and I visited the refurbished Ulster Museum today for a couple of hours. One of the first things I noticed was this handwritten sign in the superb gift shop, which struck me as a bit odd following a £17M spend. Just a small but important point – standards, people! My first impressions in general were good – bright and cheery staff, and the open plan centre of the entrance hall was very inviting.

With hindsight, visiting the museum in the opening week and on a Sunday with an eight year old wasn’t really a good move. Sheer numbers of visitors meant that you couldn’t get a good look at the exhibits for any length of time without feeling you were hogging them. However, it was great to see so many people taking an interest. I’m sure the museum authorities were delighted with the turnout.

I’ll need to go back on my own midweek to get a real feel for the new set up but my initial observations of the exhibits were mainly positive. The wide variety of items displayed was encouraging, however, the number of items in each section were at times small. I wasn’t really sure why there was a room with a number of black and white picture boards with some text describing “the Troubles”, in my view, a little too early to become a museum exhibit. My daughter was particularly enthralled with the many natural history features and the interactive exhibits.

I can understand why the gift shop and cafe were given pride of place at the front of the museum, as every opportunity to help fund the museum should be taken, however, I was underwhelmed at the space given over to art. Is this intended to provide space for functions in the future as a revenue stream? A missed opportunity in my view.

Overall, in view of my shortish visit, I hope I’ve missed some of the more in-depth exhibits on NI history that I had hoped to see. My feeling at the moment is that we’ve swung a little too far along the spectrum from museum to tourist attraction which has resulted in a little dumbing down and a lack of depth.

The building’s new layout allows for a pleasant meander around and up and down which is perfect for a museum visit, so I’m looking forward to my next trip already.

Going Postal

The current strike at Royal Mail has met with a poor reaction in some quarters among my friends and acquaintances due in part to the portrayal of the union as intransigent and irresponsible and over playing of the impact of the two day strike in the media.

We have short memories. The labour movement has fought for many years to obtain the freedom and rights which many of us have come to take for granted. Government ministers, starting with Thatcher and ably carried on by the arch conservative Bliar (not a misspelling) have rolled back many of these rights encouraged by their backers in big business. This assault on workers rights over the last thirty years has emasculated the unions and their members and has seen their protection from autocratic and profit-at-any-cost managers greatly eroded. Thankfully but coincidentally, left-leaning and socialist political parties in some of the more liberal societies in the EU have slowed this tide and advanced some individual protections which have been hard fought for and are now enshrined in legislation.

Thatcher’s intent was to create a large pool of cheap untrained labour to satisfy the needs of her industrial backers – a return to Victorian Britain. The workhouse is just around the corner – last month Gordon Brown advocated a situation where:

Teenage single mothers will be “placed in a network of supervised homes,” shared homes where they will be taught parenting skills and given other skills.

Almost neutered unions are fighting for their members’ livelihoods and trying to protect work practices agreed with the managers that are now trying to divi up the Royal Mail for privatisation. Assailed on all sides, they are struggling for membership and support from the public. Can anyone remember the “benefits” of privatising BT, British Gas or any of the other projects other than the short term share issues (bribes!) that we were bought over with? We’ve had the piss taken out of us ever since with prices!

We now have many overpaid faceless fatcats living high on the hog, while hundreds of thousands of workers face redundancy followed by McJobs until retirement on a laughable state pension. The gap between rich and poor is now 20% larger than it was in the 1980s. Thanks Maggie!

Remember that, when Sally Starbuck is serving your next skinny Mocha. She’ll need to rush off to her other job just to make ends meet.

The best opportunity to see what is happening all around us is to look west. There, in the US, the free market reigns supreme. Read Naomi Klein’s No Logo, Barbara Ehrenreich’s Nickel and Dimed, Eric Schlosser’s Fast Food Nation or almost anything by Michael Moore to see that the all powerful profit ethic is destroying US society. It’s happening here, it’s happening now – we just can’t see it because of all the celebrity mush fed to us daily that passes for “news”.

Broad strokes, I’m afraid, but this is real and it’s happening now and no one seems to care very much.

Mentor

This is Sam Lynn. I first met Sam in Bangor’s Carnegie Library when attending my first meeting of Bangor Chess Club in the late 1980s. Sam usually officiated at these meetings in some capacity and was certainly seen as a go-to person when things were being organised. Sam lived, breathed and slept chess, but he also had many other activities to keep him busy and alert. He was an avid reader, with his own supply of “order cards” for Bangor Library and when reading his Times, he’d fill one in if there was a book review that piqued his interest. In the early 1990s, he moved house from Ballymaconnell Road South down to Parkmount, beside Ward Park in Bangor, so that he’d be closer to the library but also for a bigger garden and proximity to his third love, after gardening, lawn bowling. I think he moved down to Parkmount around 1992, at which stage he was already 84! His energy and alertness at that age was amazing and not a little inspirational.

Back to chess; I was lucky enough after attending two or three meetings to be invited to Sam’s house on a Sunday morning for a game or two. That Sunday visit ended up being most Sunday mornings for around fourteen years. I look back on those Sunday mornings as being oases of calm, a welcome break from a busy week and my young family. We would play in complete silence, interrupted only by Sam’s internal clock telling him it was time to put some milky coffee on the stove and to dig out a couple of chocolate digestives, and then it was back to the board for another ninety minutes or so. We were fairly evenly matched with most days play ending at 2-1 to me or Sam. I learnt loads though. Sam was a “book player”. He knew dozens of openings and studied chess books regularly. My game was and is mostly instinctive but I learnt calm, thoughtfulness and thoroughness from him. On a few occasions, he or I would play despite not being in great form and make some silly mistakes. He was polite enough just to say “we’re a couple of pockles” (no idea where the word comes from, but I’d be interested to know more). At one point, I bought a small trophy and had it engraved “The Ballymaconnell Challenge Cup” and this passed from Sam to me and back again as each of us were “first to ten wins”. Each set of ten wins was recorded by a coloured dot on the side of the base. Best £10 I ever spent!

Apart from the chess, we also became good friends and talked for hours about anything under the sun. I learnt, for example, that he was headmaster of Dunlambert High School before he retired. I asked him once why he had a plaque of the Scots Guards on his wall in his conservatory (I imagined at some point him being an officer in the armed forces given his confidence, and sometimes gruff and forthright manner) and he explained that when he was teaching, the CO of the regiment came to visit his school and presented it to Sam. He also went on a trip to Tennessee for two months on behalf of the NI education department as a research trip in the 1950s and shared his collection of photographs with me. It was, however, the experience of his first wife dying of cancer when his two boys were young that I believe formed the basis of his friendly and charitable outlook on life. I was told by a mutual friend that when he was younger, he was a Presbyterian Elder in his church, but when he saw what his wife went through when she died, he lost his faith. For all of the years I knew him, he was a Humanist. He didn’t proselytise nor preach against organised religions and was always interested in learning more about them. He did share a poem he wrote though which described his puzzlement, frustration and curiosity with Gods.

The Problem
We come out of the great unknown We go into the vast beyond And we’re here because we’re here Because we’re here …
The cruelty of ignorance The frustration of not knowing - So the universe began as a big bang An it’s expanding; well, let it expand. Where does that leave me? At least I’m alive
And can eat, and drink and be merry, Can enjoy the sun and the wind and the rain And the grass growing and the buds bursting And the birds singing and the waves crashing And can exercise my mind and my skills.
But I keep coming back to one sad truth: Life to live has only life for food. Nature, red in tooth and claw Kills and devours. And the so-called highest form of life -
Mankind itself - Rapes, tortures, kills and slaughters The wide world over. The survival of the fittest Is the destruction of the many.
But this is God’s plan! Which makes it very difficult to believe in God. Yet life without God is meaningless. That Is the Problem.

I called this post Mentor, and my purpose in doing so was to recognise the mentoring qualities of Sam Lynn. Sam almost never gave me advice but from the many, many hours I spent with him I learnt so much about how to treat people, how to give and not expect a reward and how to contribute. He was generous with his time to many people and his home had a open door policy as long as you had time for a pot of tea and a game or two. I was very pleased that I could bring him his shopping most weeks to save him a journey to the supermarket and help him a little when his house caught fire following an ill fated attempt to light his fire when creating a draught with a newspaper so I like to think we evened things up a bit, but I know I definitely got the most from the relationship.

Sadly, Sam died in November 2002. I miss him.

Regrets

@Braziel’s Tweet a few nights ago (Can you recall the first time you ever got seriously drunk? Meeting an old friend online just reminded me of mine. Tell the story.) led me to think about a seriously drunk night but it wasn’t my first.

Back sometime in 1981, my best friend and I frequented a bar that was next door to the bowling club where my parents went a few evenings each week. Once the bar closed, we would call into the club for the keys to my dad’s car and wait in the car for him and my mum while listening to the radio. We would then drop Martin home on the way to our house.

I had my provisional driving license at the time and had been driving alongside my dad for a few months, and on occasion, had driven Martin illegally the two or three miles to his house and returned to the bar to wait for my parents, pretending that Martin had decided to walk home.

On this particular evening, there was a Smethwicks event on in the White Fort Inn. I think it was a “buy one, get one free” mechanic, but I have a recollection of a bar table full to capacity of bottles of beer and there was just the two of us. I vaguely remember being concerned that the bar might run out of stock so we were getting ours in early. Gluttony was the order of the day and we were really stocious by the end of the evening.

Later, after chucking out time, I got the keys to my dad’s company car. It was a Fiat 132 – a two litre, twin overhead camshaft, four door saloon in silver. Beautiful car!

Not long after Martin sat down, I accelerated sharply out into the road without looking for any oncoming cars. I roared along the road weaving in and out of the traffic. After a mile or so I turned left and shot through a housing estate and out the other side onto another main road. Across this road was the opening to where Martin lived. We made it across safely and we again roared along a mainly residential street. Travelling around 50mph, I asked Martin which of the five openings to my right was his. He indicated a fast approaching street and I swung the power-assisted steering hard round. Now I’m sure that even if I were sober, I couldn’t have made the turn. From where the car was positioned, it was about an 80° turn. I managed 45°! The car hit the kerb, which meant that it jumped slightly so that rather than go through the wall, it landed on it and went on into the garden knocking down a small tree. I found out later that the wall had just been rebuilt following a similar incident the previous weekend.

Martin opened his door and asked me what he should do. I blame the adrenalin…and the brewery…and my own lack of decency.

Rather than sit tight and explain to the house owner what had happened, I shouted at him to “get to f**k out!” I promptly reversed the car back through the wall and out into the street. Of course, Martin had forgotten to close his door and between the door being bent back towards the front wing, the remnants of the wall ripping the sump out of the bottom of the car and the damaged steering resulting the steering wheel being almost horizontal, I struggled to get the car back to the pub. I made it though, with some strange looks from people on the way as I feathered the clutch while waiting to emerge onto a main road. I think I remember telling myself that everyone would blame joy riders rather than a nice grammar school boy like me. When I arrived back at the pub, I parked the car in exactly the same place and went into the club to get my parents.

I think my dad knew something was wrong. I said “Dad, I’ve done something wrong”. He said, “What did you do? Smash up the car, haha?”

My Dad managed to nurse the car up to my grandmother’s house and we got a taxi home. My mum was in tears and when we got there, she headed up to bed immediately. We sat down at the kitchen table and he started to ask me what exactly had happened. As he spoke, the doorbell rang. The hall was filled with, I think, eight RUC men, some with M1 carbines, and Martin. He had ran straight up his street and into his house and a neighbour reported seeing him – so much for his street smarts and a future life of petty crime! Dummy. Subsequently known as The Tout for the rest of his years by my mother, Martin, being the quiet decent chap that he is, had told the truth and not some tale about being given a lift by some bloke he met in the pub (my mum’s suggested outcome!).

That night, as I was taken from my house to Musgrave St RUC station for a blood test, the PC in the back of the Land Rover with me warned me about his colleague being a hardhead and not to say too much as I might regret it later. I was being fairly open about what had happened and I appreciated his advice, as I was sobering up fast. I remember watching closely as the doctor put the needle into my vein. Later that night, I was transferred up to Woodburn RUC station and interviewed. The police was cute enough to leave the top of Martin’s statement visible for me to know that they already had it, in the hope that I would spill the beans too. My dad had advised me to say absolutely nothing, but being a 19-year-old smartarse, I thought I new better…

Some months later, I was in court in Belfast. Charged with Driving without L-Plates, Driving Unaccompanied, Driving Without Insurance and Leaving The Scene Of An Accident. Apparently, I wasn’t charged with drinking and driving as I had got home and could have claimed that I’d had a drink to settle my nerves.

I was sitting among a number of real joy riders and other minor criminals and frowned when, as my charges were read out, one of them said, “He’s for the bloody high-jump!”

I was suited and booted and very embarrassed as my solicitor tried to mitigate my actions. I was fined £110 and banned from driving for a year. I had to walk to the front of the court to hand in my Provisional License.

Over the years, I have related this story as a tale of “derring-do” as I’m still about 19 on the inside, but I realise how stupid I was to put myself, Martin and countless other people at risk of death or serious injury and how I might have ruined my relationship with my parents if they weren’t the solid loving people they are.

Any wonder I worry about what my own 18 and 21 year old kids are up to at night? They couldn’t be as stupid as me, right?

BarCamp Derry

I crawled out of bed yesterday morning at 0500 to attend the first Barcamp Derry at Magee. It was worth the effort. Around 120 attendees arrived before 10:00 to a welcome selection of fresh scones and coffee provided by the university.

The “talk” grid was almost full on arrival and after making my first few choices, I made my way to the Lecture Hall to listen to @jasebell (www.jasebell.co.uk) orate about “bootstrapping a startup”. Jason’s session was very honest and in layman’s terms (which suits me just fine!), around his experiences so far in his drive for success.

My next choice was a talk on marketing from @unacoleman (CodegaConsulting). Una is obviously very experienced in her field and this was evident in both the preparation she had done and the manner in which it was delivered. Great stuff!

Before the free pizza arrived, I had time to hear @sharonhearty (HeartyIMC) speak on the importance of  personal branding, with great passion. Her inclusion of her audience and the discussion during the talk was very enjoyable.

Free pizza next, always welcome! The opportunity to network and catch up with acquaintances was seized with some excited conversations happening within earshot.

After lunch, I listened to @cimota’s talk on Digital Circle, who they are and what they do. Matt’s delivery was clear and to the point – Digital Circle are there to influence government on digital issues, among other things, and membership is a wise option if you want to be heard. The Steering Group are elected by the membership and have real sway and influence in important matters.

Next up for me were Michael Callaghan and Kerri McCusker from UUM who gave a very interesting talk on Virtual Worlds. Using software like Second Life as a learning tool seems to be a sensible means of engaging and then educating students who are already very familiar with these environments.

Ted Leath’s “Time Travel” Post-It on the grid was a bit of a puzzler at first. I thought some wag was at his work. I gave it a shot anyway and it was “right up my street”. Ted, along with other things at Magee, is responsible for their archive of community photographs going back many years. One he featured was of a gathering for employment of casual workers in The Diamond, in Derry. The talk went past that of course to involve an interesting discussion around how the “growing past” can affect our futures. An interesting concept. He was my winner for the “shirt of the day” competition too

Barry of @niftynosh (www.niftynosh.com) gave my last talk of the day. It is “experience shares” like his that I enjoy most at these events. Given in a matter of fact manner, it was very clear that building and trading a business has to balanced with fundraising and working with mentors to succeed.

At four bells, we had to leave, and missed the free beer at the Student’s Union. However, I’ll be back next time. A great day and thanks to all involved especially @iddictive  (marknagurski.com) and @grib (www.beanandgone.com) for the delicious coffee.

Open Coffee Belfast

Open Coffee meetings are great opportunities for entrepreneurs, computer developers, designers and geeks and nerds to get together to network and bounce ideas off each other. I’m not sure where they originated, but in NI we now have Open Coffee meetings regularly in Belfast (2), Coleraine, Derry, Mid Ulster and Lisburn (apologies if I’ve missed somebody out).

I qualify as none of the above, although I enjoy the cleverness and design of all things Apple like most of the Open Coffee attendees, in my experience. I also carry a torch for the thought of some sort of business of my own but after 30 years as an employee, I have neither the energy nor the courage to do much about it. My experience of the retail industry, however, allows me to take part in the chats and hopefully add some value to the proceedings.

I fell into the habit of the Thursday evening OC at Charleys in Bradbury Place, due to contacts made at NIMUG and have enjoyed the meetings because of the  atmosphere, the relaxed and welcoming attitude of the participants and of course, Karen’s Beef Panini Special.

The bottom line is that anyone thinking of a start-up business, or who has an idea that they want some feedback on, or who just wants to chat with like-minded people and relax away from their daily grind for an hour or two could do much worse than turn up at a meeting.

Open Coffee Belfast

Open Coffee Belfast on Twitter

Living History

My previous post has given me some pause for thought. Not only have I had some great colleagues over the years, I’ve also been lucky enough to get to know some fantastic customers.

Around twelve years ago, I met Mr William Hunter McGiffin while managing Crazy Prices, Springhill, Bangor. Mr McGiffin was elderly, perhaps in his eighties, not very steady on his feet and always seemed to be in a rush. He explained that his wife was ill and that’s why he rushed around, as he didn’t want to leave her alone for too long. Over a period of some months, I helped him find a few things and away he’d go, back out the door again. At one stage, I delivered some shopping as he too was ill to come out for it himself.

On one of the days when he seemed not be in too much of a hurry, he thanked me for my help. Always addressing me as Mr Parte despite my protestations, he spoke quietly with a NI public school accent. It sounded like what Radio 4 call “received pronunciation”. I cannot imagine him ever having raised his voice in anger.

During one of our conversations, the subject of the Second World War came up. Always a favourite subject for me, I asked him if he was involved. He modestly talked about flying in the RAF, how he flew Short Sunderland flying boats out of RAF Castle Archdale on ASW duties. At one stage he also flew the Armstrong Whitworth Whitley two-engined bomber, Hawker Hurricanes, and so on. His middle name, Hunter, must have been fairly apt at this time of war. He glossed over most of what must have been a horrendous time for him and his family. He told me also that in 1946, he got married and that he and his new wife bought the red brick house on the left set back from the road when coming out of Holywood on the bypass, for the sum of £4500 and that he was sorry he ever sold it!

I found him fascinating and regret not getting more of his story. Before I moved out of Springhill in 2000, he approached me in the shop one day with a woman who he introduced to me as his daughter. She was home from Germany on holiday. I was a little embarrassed to be introduced as “this is the man I told you about.” Any help I had been able to give him during the time in which I knew him was a pleasure and an honour, but it was lovely to know that he seemed to appreciate it.

A few years ago, as I was browsing history books in Easons, Bangor, I saw a picture of him in uniform. The book noted that he was now deceased. It turned out that he was not just a pilot, but at one stage a squadron leader and then a wing commander. I believe that he was with 502 (Ulster) Squadron. This evening, I managed to find a picture of him, on the internet, taken in Wiltshire in February 1943. He is in the second row from the back and fifth along from the left. He hadn’t changed much from the picture when I knew him.

Mr McGiffin was a real link with history for me, as well as being a lovely man. He must have been a great husband and father also. I am honoured to have made his acquaintance.

I’ve always been fascinated with history. Not with the Greeks and Romans, but local fairly recent history. I’ve researched my own family history going back some years and I enjoy the sense of history that old buildings bring, for example. However, I think that we all miss opportunities when we fail to talk to the elderly within our communities and families. All of my grandparents are dead and I have a number of aunts and uncles who are in their sixties and seventies. I’m going to make an effort to talk to them specifically about our family and local history. They are a living resource!

Thirty Years

Thirty years ago this evening I started my first official part-time job, in Crazy Prices, Dunmurry. I was fairly nervous. Dressed in one of my dad’s crimson red shirts and a navy blue kipper tie (it WAS the 1970′s), I was introduced to the rest of the staff and then shown how to gather shopping trolleys from the car park in Kingsway Shopping Centre without damaging any cars. 73p an hour was my starting rate and I felt like a prince collecting my pay the following Friday. After deductions, it came to £14.73, of which my mother promptly deducted another $10.

The retail grocery trade then was vastly different to today’s slick operation. When I moved onto the Dairy Cabinets after a few weeks, I noticed that we could sell three or four full pallets of whole chickens on a Saturday. Now it’s all chicken breasts and added value prepared meals. All of our chickens came from Moypark in Dungannon and most of our butter came from Mourne Maid in Banbridge. Other differences include the introduction of sell-by dates on biscuits and breakfast cereals around 1982 – a real shock to us at the time. Now we were going to have to pack out stock in rotation on the shelves; something the customers caught on to very quickly. I used to wonder what eejit would ever buy bottled water. At the time, we sold only Perrier Water and it wasn’t exactly in demand for anything other than it’s novelty value. Now water has meters of space, sometimes half an aisle! The introduction of barcode scanning brought us into the twentieth century and there were many other changes that made it an eventful time.

In 1982, Crazy Prices was bought over by Associated British Foods who also owned Stewarts Supermarkets Ltd and Quinnsworth in Ireland and Fine Fare in GB. Before very long, we had a trainee management course made available to us and I was signed up. Out of the six trainees, four of us still work for the company as senior managers and I still see the other two regularly. We were a tightly knit bunch. It was a two year course but after ten months (and the unexpected dismissal of a hooky store manager) I was promoted to assistant manager at Crazy Prices, Springhill, in Bangor. Back then, the store didn’t open on Mondays and only opened one late night a week. We also traded on Sundays only once a year, the Sunday before Christmas. And at the time, I thought I was overworked!

This was a store that was to feature a lot in my future. I was sent there as a trainee manager on my first trainee day. I couldn’t drive so I blagged a daily lift from one of the bread delivery men in Boucher Road and generally got the train home. It was in this store I would meet my future wife, Geraldine Morrow, who worked on the health & beauty section. We had many run-ins before I asked her out. She told me years later that she called me “that bastard Parte” when talking to her mother, who was rather surprised, it transpired, when she brought me home to meet her family. As I lived in Belfast and she lived in Bangor, logistics could be a bit of a problem. We generally met in the disco at the Stormont Hotel. Strains of Spandau Ballet and George Benson remind of this time… Anyway, that’s another story – back to the exciting world of the NI grocery trade in the 1980s. In March 1986, I was made store manager of Crazy Prices, Central Arcade, Belfast. We bought our first house in May and got married in November – a busy year.

I managed the Crazy Prices, Springhill, store for ten years as store manager until 1999. Between 1984 and 1999, I must have had hundreds of students working for me before they went off to university or obtained full time jobs. I have met a number of these guys and girls over the years since, usually when they’ve come into the shop with kids of their own and introduced themselves. One night, I was treated rather lightly by an RUC man after running a questionable red light coming along the Holywood bypass at a rate of knots – once I’d been admonished, he reminded me that he used to work for me. Lucky me! I might have had a a few penalty points – I must not have been too bad to work for then

Over the years, I’ve had a store blown up while I’ve been managing it (Dunmurry), a colleague shot in the leg during a robbery (Newtownards Rd), my cash office door blown off by a shotgun in an attempted robbery (Donegall Rd), many, many wrestling matches with shoplifters and a few other remarkable incidents, such as Stewarts in Clandeboye Shopping Centre, burning down. Despite all of that hassle, I’m delighted to say over the past thirty years, I have never personally experienced any political or religious-based animosity from any colleague at any level or in any store, even when Northern Ireland was going through it’s most difficult times – something I’ve always been proud of my colleagues for. I’ve worked in Dunmurry, Springhill, Belfast (Central Arcade), Newtownards Rd, Donegall Rd, Carrickfergus, Glengormley, Ballymena, Craigavon, Newcastle, Portadown, Lisnagelvin, Coleraine, Bloomfields and Newtownbreda, and probably a few more I’ve forgotten about.

In 1997, Tesco took advantage of the looming peace in NI and bought Stewarts and Quinnsworth off ABF. At that late stage, ABF was losing £1M every four weeks in NI. It was a welcome relief when it happened. This last twelve years in Tesco have been fast and furious. At times, it felt like I’d died and gone to retail heaven. Of course, at other times, I’d wish I’d worked harder at school and become the photojournalist I had always wanted to be. Tesco brought (much!) better pay and benefits, innovation and drive and are a great company to work for.

After some illness four years ago, I decided to step down from the responsibilities of the store manager role. I’m now deputy in a bigger store and enjoying the work even more with a better work/life balance than ever before (most days!).

I’ve made many strong friendships for life and run multi-million pound stores – not a bad result for someone who has yet to pass his maths o-level!

Bottoms Up!

Last post on our trip to Cong, Co. Mayo. This was taken in Clarke’s pub in the village. We had a great lunch and afterwards walked it off, down to the river to feed the ducks a loaf of bread.

It was great to have a few days to give Sophie our undivided attention. When our first two were growing up, I always seemed to be working. While Gerry can barely resist the “best lager in the world”, Sophie is happy with her Ribena!

I’m looking forward to watching West Side Story with her when I’m off next week. She’s loves musicals. Current favourite is Meet Me In St. Louis! Obviously a cinema buff like her old man

Roughing It

This was our home from Thursday morning until Sunday night last week. It’s a 2003 Fiat Ducato Carioca 10 motor-home which was a gift to me and my siblings from our dad. In this picture, the night-blinds are still up and we’re plugged in so that we can have a cuppa as we couldn’t figure out how to work the gas!

It’s not much fun to drive, at least not for six hours on the trot. I had quite a few nervous moments on some bends when I thought I might not be able to keep her upright due to her height. Still, very little damage was done over the four day trip. When we arrived at Cong, I was shocked to see the size of some of the other motor-homes, two of which towed trailers with small cars on board. One had a smaller version of a Smart Car and the other, a 2CV. Having a runabout is sensible when using a motor-home, to save you having to put everything away and disconnect as well, just for a run to the shop etc.

On the way south, I opted for the GoogleMaps suggested route – Bangor – Belfast – Dungannon – Enniskillen – Sligo – Charlestown – Claremorris – Ballinarobe – Cong. This was a reasonably quick and interesting journey. Being the cleverdick I am, I decided to travel a more direct way home, however. BIG mistake.

In order to have an almost diagonal line across the middle of Ireland, I ended up zigzagging and adding needless miles. Cong – Ballinarobe – Claremorris – Ballyhaunis – Roscommon – Longford – Cavan – Clones – Monaghan – Armagh – M1…and it felt as long as it sounds!

It didn’t seem to faze Sophie much though. She was kept amused by DVDs and my iPod and seemed oblivious to the journey.

On the plus side, there were many positives – as I said in my previous post, we got to see part of Ireland I’ve never seen before. The driving position allows for great views. The “stop anywhere and brew up” aspect of these vehicles is fantastic and the ingenuity of the internal design is superb.

I’m looking forward to my next outing which may well be on my own. The van will be very handy for extended photo-walk weekends – once I figure out how to used the damned gas.