I have headed over the Irish Sea to Belfast to visit my friends David and Katey Guthrie. I have known David and Katey now for many years having met through the One to One/One UP/now to be called SUbmerge Scripture Union holiday for 11-14 year olds, which I have helped on since 1991! Katey is head cook and David is in charge of shopping! The Guthries are also responsible for providing me with the General Knowledge Crossword from the The Telegraph on Saturday, which I do on a Sunday morning after church whilst eating brunch!
I have been keeping busy over the last week, but not done a great deal really! Last Saturday, Andrew, Tamkeen and I went into Manchester shopping. Andrew is determined to redesign my wardrobe and so I am now the proud owner of a linen shirt and some Lacosse shoes. Tamkeen also managed to buy two pairs of shoes at massive discounts and came home a very happy little lady!
Sunday was church followed by a quiet day at the flat watching the West Wing and Fraiser whilst getting on with my current cross stitch project.
The rest of the week was spent keeping Andrew entertain as he has been off school with 'flu. So I popped round for a couple of hours each day and had lunch with him and play Risk and Scrabble. Andrew held the upper hand in Risk and destroyed each time we played, however, the glories went to me!
Thursday I boarded a BMI flight from Manchester and 40 short minutes later touched down in Belfast and will be here until Monday evening.
Today we went into the city centre and had ago on the Belfast Wheel and saw all round the city. This now means I have 'flown' on the London Eye, the Manchester Wheel and the Belfast Wheel and I am hoping to add the Yorkshire Wheel in York next week. I'm not sure if there are anymore in the UK, but if there are I may have to see if I can get up on there!
After the Wheel we went shopping and now have a second linen shirt and some new polo shirts.
Today is the 11th July which is the day before the 12th July. Now this may seem like a 'statement of the bleeding obvious' as Basil Fawlty would say, but here in Belfast the 12th July is know as the Glorious 12th, and is a major celebration here. It celebrates the victory of William III over James II at the Battle of the Boyne. This anniversary is marked with bonfires on the 11th and the Orangemen marching on the 12th. This also means the city will be more or less closed for the next three days as Monday will be a Bank Holiday as the 12th has fallen on a Saturday.
I return to the Mainland (as it's called here) on Monday and then on Tuesday before heading off over to Great Houghton and then on to Darlington for the rest of the week, I am hoping to learn AS geography in an afternoon so that I will be ready to teach it in September!
I will be going to the theatre on Thursday to see my friend James in his show and then on Friday, Meg, Dot, Wendy, Sue, Roz and I are off to see Singalong the Sound of Music!!!! If you could see me now you would see me clapping like a demented seal!?!?!?!?
If you are not a close friend or associate of mine you, may not know about my love of the world's greatest musical! I love the Sound of Music and my party piece is to perform the whole of the of the SoM on my own singing all the parts and telling the story. This has even been a command performance before the Bishop of Doncaster!
I inherited this particularly party piece from Sylvia Stevens who was chaplain to the Clifton Site of the Nottingham Trent University during my time there in the late 80s and early 90s. I first saw her perform this at a CU weekend away and we even did a duo performance on a subsequent year.
Singalong TSoM is exactly what it says on the tin, you get to watch the film and aing a long with all the songs, and I am very very excited about going along. Apparently, dressing up in costume is almost a required part of going and I am sure the auditorium will be full of nuns and people dressed in curtains, my suggestion to Meg was that we all should go as the Alps...
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