Blood, Sweat and Tears
The above sums up my weekend, minus the blood thankfully. I decided a good few months ago that I would take some girls from work to Belfast for the weekend and this was the weekend we went. When it comes to flying I’m not a happy bunny. So with a reasonable wind predicted for Saturday when we flew to Belfast and gale force winds predicted for Sunday night for the flight back I was less than pleased.
I spent the days running up to Saturday until we touched down in Birmingham on Sunday night in a permanent state of stress. The flight over was not too bad but the flight back was something else.
We had had a nice day in Belfast and all of us went down to my parents house for Sunday dinner. As it got darker it got windier. You could hear the wind racing outside forcing the letterbox open and howling down the chimney. There were moments when I thought I wasn’t going to make it onto the plane that night and was looking at alternatives to get back. The only other thing was the ferry but it is an eight hour crossing and with the wind might have been a tad choppy.
There was nothing for it, I had to down the second glass of Brandy my Dad gave me (these old medicinal cures work a charm) and force myself to get onto the plane. As soon as I got on I asked the air hostess if it was going to be bumpy. Her words were “I’m not going to lie to you, it not very smooth, this particular aircraft isn’t very good in rough weather”. S**T! I really thought about getting off but I didn’t and I lived to tell the tale. I am actually quite surprised at how calm I was even though it was bumpy. I think it’s the anticipation more than the actual flight that gets me and once I accepted there was nothing I could do about it I calmed down.
Well apart from the flying the weekend was really good. The B&B (Taralodge) we stayed in was well positioned to get into the centre of Belfast and it was clean and comfortable. The breakfast was also really nice.
The one thing I miss when I’m in Coventry is fresh fish, something I was used to having at home in Northern Ireland. I always make an effort to have something fishy when I’m at home, which isn’t usually a problem as my Dad loves fish. We went to a bar/bistro in Belfast called The Cloth Ear, which is adjoined to the new very exclusive Merchant hotel (needless to say we didn’t go in there, looks like the kind of place where they ask for your gold card before entering). The bistro itself is nicely decorated and more importantly the food is good and not highly priced. Three of us had scampi and chips, which was lovely and the other two had a chicken pie and chips and sausage and champ. I would recommend for anyone to go there for lunch and the cocktails looked good for the evening but we didn’t get a chance to go there later. Instead we went to a bar called the Apartment, right next to the city hall. I had been there before and liked the cocktails. It was very busy but it didn’t take that long to be served and more impressively when I ordered 10 cocktails for all of us the bar tender remembered the lot without asking again what they were (I couldn’t even remember what I’d ordered!). I have heard that there are some nicer bars in Belfast so I might try out some more next time I’m out.
There are continental Christmas markets on in front of the City Hall until the 19th December so we went there both days. There was such an amazing range of foods from different places such as huge pans of paella, fantastic bacon sandwiches, mulled wine, hog roast, fudge, chocolates, crepes, waffles, delicious patisserie, bratwurst, French and Irish cheeses as well as arts & crafts and small Christmas trees & holly bushes. One of my friends bought a raspberry Breton cake to take down to my parents. It didn’t look that great but we warmed it up and had it with some vanilla ice cream and it was absolutely gorgeous. It was a really soft but slightly dense cake probably made with ground almonds and it had a layer of raspberry jam in the middle. I will have to try and find a recipe for it and make it, either that or go back to the market when I go home for Christmas in less than two weeks and see if I can charm the recipe out of them.
Well I think I need a while to recover from the weekend, but it was good and the girls seemed to enjoy it. It would be good to do it again if someone can do a Mr T on me and drag me onto the plane.
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