Back in the Saddle

I was starting to wonder if I'd be able to remember how to get into my blog, but by some stroke of luck, when I typed blogger into the url bar the dashboard came up straight away!  So, I have no idea what my blogger username or password are, but I'll make the most of it while it lasts. 

We had a fun trip over this year; my friend Annette flew over with us and it was fun to have someone to travel with.  We let the kids have all the cokes they wanted on the plane in return for peace and quiet while we sipped our (complimentary) drinks.  We navigated our way through LHR with a bottle of Captain Morgan that we bought in duty free on the plane, but despite our panic that the Captain wouldn't make it through Flight Connections at Heathrow, he did. 

We started out with a day for R&R, which for Annette equals Shopping.   We had time to browse and wander round as my mum kept the kids with her. 

Tuesday, there was no rain in sight so we set off for Tullymore with Joy and Ken for a bbq. 

 Everyone was pretty happy to be back in one of our favourite places. 

Cole had to go and take a picture in front of the monument.

After Tullymore, we took a quick drive over to Newcastle to buy ice-cream and to check out Uncle Ken's boat in the harbour. 

Picnic

Making a cup of tea on Newcastle promenade.  This is like something from 1978.  (Though the people at the next table were real townies with a loaf of bread, a pound of butter, chips, and a bottle of coke.) 

Bloody Bridge

All 3 of my kiddos love to go to the Bloody Bridge.  They love to say Bloody Bridge, over and over again.  Kind of like the time we went to the Hoover Dam and they wanted to stand on the Dam wall and visit the Dam shop.  Never gets old. 

I wrote a whole history lesson of a blog post about the Bloody bridge a few years ago.  I will have to see if I can find it because I can't be bothered rehashing it.  I just found it and there is one sentence worth copying:

The bridge gets its name from some sort of bloodshed that occurred here, way back when in 1641.

Very in depth history lesson there.

Today the weather was too nice and everyone (under 12) just wanted to get into the water and climb on the boulders. 

Some of us brought our book in case of an emergency 10 mins when we had nothing to read. Speaking of which, Cole has read 4 books since Sunday.  One of them was about a farting gladiator, Farticus Maximus, but the rest have all been Roald Dahl's.  Luckily for him, Gwyneth got him some new books today (she works at the library). 

There were little glimpses of the sea on the path down. This is part of the Brandy Path, a route that was used for smuggling. 

I thought it was pretty cute how Carys was using Chloe to balance.

Here's the lifeguard.  She sat on the edge and yelled every so often.

They wanted to go bouldering up the river, but ... uh, no.

We always thought that the bridge got its name from the reddish colour of the water.  We were wrong.

We left the river and went down toward the sea.

Maybe that's the secret to a good (ie. non goofy) photo of that child?  Zoom lens. 

Getting Our Groove

I've been better at taking the camera with me so far this week, and we've been better at going places.  I think the kids were wiped out from the flights over and the week in London.  Plus, with it being light out until after 10pm it is extremely hard to convince them that they need to go to bed. 

We had brilliant fun on Monday when we went to Lindy's for lunch and dinner.  Her 3 and my 3 get along so well together and they all love to put their wellies on and go over the fields and down into the river.  Carys took her bike with her and had a great time cycling around with Catrina.  We were aiming to go to the beach for a walk, but we never made it. 

We drove to Kilmore to get Granny G and stopped to feed the horses on the way.  Cole made the mistake of calling the wee one a foal.  Carys was very indignant and soon put him right. 

We picked Granny G up and went to Maghera for lunch and then on into Newcastle.  Look at the lovely Mournes.  We were at the top last year!

Carys and Chloe played for ages in the playground and Cole ran around singing to himself.  After a while they wanted to go and play in the water.  We left Granny G on a bench.

Cole soon came back up from the water with some fine examples of rock.  We discussed metamorphic, sedimentary and igneous rocks while he tried to look for examples of all 3.  I think I need to learn more about rocks; I can't keep up when he starts with this lecture. 

Onto  Tuesday evening ~ the 2 wee ones were playing outside until Carys and Alex came in to eat lollies.  I sent them out after a while to Alex's house to tell Cole to come home and so Alex could go to bed.  Less than 2 minutes later, Carys and Alex were back at the door, Carys screaming and covered in blood, and Alex shell shocked beside her.  Carys had fallen off her bike, split her head open, had a bloody nose and hurt her teeth, she had a fat lip, road rash everywhere.  We called a friend who is a nurse to come and assess the damage to see if we needed to go to Accident & Emergency for stitches, but she thought we could get it sorted out with steri strips.  We managed to get her nose to stop bleeding and get ice on to the rest of her injuries.  Karen taped her head up.  By this stage it was 10:30 and Carys was getting really tired, but I didn't want her to go to sleep.  I let her snooze on and off for a while on my lap, but she seemed to be ok every time we woke her.  When she got up to go to bed, she realized that her knee was pretty banged up too, there was blood everywhere and it was full of stones. 

She's a tough wee thing, I'll give her that. 

Granny  G called on Wednesday to see if we wanted to go for lunch, but there is no way we can let her see Carys at the minute (she'd go on and on and on about how dangerous it is to ride a bike/play outside etc), so we said the weather was too nice and we were going to the beach instead. 

Off to Kilclief, our favourite beach spot. 

The tide was out the perfect amount and the girls set off over the rocks.

Yes, Carys is wearing a swimsuit, a rash guard, a sun hat and a cardigan.  She took the cardigan off eventually.

The girls found "Shrimp City" in the rock pools.  Then Chloe discovered that if she went out a bit into the sea, she could find large crabs.  That kept them entertained for a few hours.

Cole wanted to climb the rocks because "I haven't done it for a long time and I need some action in my life".  Here he is pretending to fall.  Luckily, he didn't.  At least not today.

See the mark to the right of his face?  That was our Friday night excitement.  He was playing 40/40 and he was running, but he was running so fast he ran straight into the corner of Alex's playhouse.  He managed to knock himself to the ground and hit his head when he fell.  He also hit his knee. 

Anyway, Kilclief was fun, and Cole managed to swim for about an hour (I'm pretty sure the water temp was mid 60s), Chloe was in and out but she did a good bit of swimming too. 

On the way home we stopped in Annacloy to visit Dolores and her crew.  Carys and Cole played with the twins and Chloe had a great time with Ciara when she came home from school.  However, when we were leaving there (to take Carys to the dentist to have her teeth checked) Carys's eye started to swell.  I gave her some Benadryl and we went on to the dentist; when the dentist saw her she said "I'd take her and have her eye looked at .... but her teeth are fine!".  Off to the dr and then the chemists, where we came to the conclusion and it was allergy related and got her some eye drops.  But this stage, I was ready for a large gin and a valium.   

 

Here's my patient tonight.  She's obviously feeling ok; as soon as they'd had dinner, the 3 of them took off to the farm with Kerrie. 

Let's hope tomorrow is boring. 

Ready, Set ..

I'm trying to get ready to hit the road again and while I was looking at my blog, I decided to change the photo at the top. Then I started to look through photos and found this little gem from 2007.  At first glance, it might appear to be a badly centered photograph that my mother took of me in Maud's in Newcastle a few years ago.  But, if you are from Norn Iron, your eyes have already started to focus on the lady in the background.  And on the food that she has on her table.  I remember laughing with my mum and we took this photo of all the desserts that woman had.  Her husband was with her, but he'd gone back up to the counter for something. On the table, they had a piece of pavlova (haven't had pavlova?  you haven't lived.  quintessential NI dessert), a tray bake, a muffin, an apple tart, banoffe (? I'm not sure, it could be something else),  a serving of whipped cream, a serving of ice-cream, a milkshake and a cup of coffee. 

Time photo was taken?  About 3pm, so we were fairly certain they'd just called in for "a coffee".