Country boy

Here's The Lad, looking all countryfied...

He looks like he's smoking there - but he's actually chewing on a bit of grass, as one does in the country.  This was taken a while ago - in the pre-Clare days.  You remember Clare, of course - the one with the shoes.  Not that they'd be any good for a stout walk in the country...

That sinking feeling

I try, I really do, to carry some sort of (film) camera with me as often as possible.  But why is it that the times when you don't have one with you, there's something worth snapping?

Take the other day, for instance.  It's been blowing a gale here since about 2015 and so when I take The Hound to Portstewart Beach in the morning I usually stick the little Yashica T4 PointNShoot in me pocket.  Perfect, it is - I can operate it (i.e., press the slider to open the lens cover and press the button to take the snap) with my gloves on.  And if it were to fall on the sand or even worse I probably wouldn't be too worried.

So, there I was on the beach and snapped away at nothing in particular except the roaring sea and what have you, when it indicated the film was finished.  Now I didn't hear it automatically re-wind the film into the cassette, as it normally does at this point.  But this didn't unduly concern me, since a) I have very poor hearing at the minute, since my tinnitus is back with a vengeance and b) it was blowing a gale.  Back in the house I made the mistake of opening the back to see what gives and of course it hadn't rewound anything, so most of the film will be horribly light-leaked - as you will no doubt see over the next few days.

Anyway, I threw the camera into the darkroom as fast as I could when I realised the situation and left for my Tai Chi class in Portstewart (which is going Great Guns, by the way).

But that's not really the point of the story - which is coming, OK?  Just to set the scene, here's a shot of the Usual Situation in Portstewart Harbour sometime in 2014.  The Pilot boat there does the job of guiding larger boats into the Barmouth and up the Bann Estuary, which you might remember from these snaps.

Yes I know there's something going on there with the old sprocket holes along the top there - I think my agitation was a little too energetic in those heady days.

So...all the talk in the Tai Chi class was of the Pilot Boat sinking in the harbour.  But since I only had me phone with me, humble apologies for the pixelated snap.  In my defence you don't see many of those in This Place.

Now it's a bad job when the Pilot Boat sinks, I can tell you.  The sea has been particularly rough as of late but still, you'd think it would be all right just sitting in the harbour there.  Just goes to show, eh?  Now how are the bigger cargo boats going to navigate the Barmouth?  The Liberties won't get no...whatever-they-bring any more.  They used to bring coal, but I'm not sure what they bring nowadays.  I suppose I'll find out when I go into the shops and there's empty shelves...

In the Bükk Mountains

Continuing their sightseeing around Hungary, The Uncle et al found themselves in the Eastern Bükk Mountains.  The Palace Hotel in Lillafüred was, and still is by all accounts, the place to go, as this period postcard shows:

And here are the lads, in situ:

It's pretty strange the stripey blazer in this shot - this was the 'summer blazer' of my old school, Coleraine Academical Institution.  Pretty fancy stuff.  Not that I ever had one - we had to make do with plain old black blazers, winter and summer.  Eh, times were hard in the McNeill household...

The waterfall here by the Anna cave is pretty impressive:

But the star of this snap is undoubtedly the lady in the foreground.   Not one to be messed with - she looks like she could give you a quare clout with that handbag, should the need arise...

Ballywillan Old Church

Just outside Portrush lies the parish of Ballywillan, or Ballywillin and particularly interesting Church ruins.

Not that this set of snaps is particularly interesting but there you go.  This was a bit of a scouting mission to see what was there and the plan is to return here and have another go at capturing the essence of the place.

Dates back to the 12th Century, apparently.

Unusually, inside the walls of the ruined church is full of gravestones.

Now there's a bit of a story about the oldest gravestone in this place, which goes like this.  Once upon a time - 1689 to be precise - the King of England, James 2nd was travelling through this area.  Now if you know your dates, this was an important period of time.  He was en route to Derry, which was under siege.  The story goes he took a shine for a local farmer's daughter and the farmer, thinking it would do no harm to curry a bit of favour with the King, allowed his daughter to be entertained by the King of an evening.

 Now eggs being eggs and Kings being Kings it comes as no surprise to the intelligent reader that a child was born to the farmer's daughter approximately 9 months later.   King James, of course, was nowhere to be seen and denied all.  (He had, apparently, seven illegitimate children during his life).   And so the child, Dorothea, was born and raised locally, unfortunately to die in her twenties.  She was buried in Ballywillan churchyard and her headstone is said to have been erected by Queen Anne, her half-sister.  Had she lived to survive William 3rd and Queen Anne she would have had claim to the Throne of England.

I think I'll come back here armed with the Sinar once it warms up a bit - try to capture some of the texture on those old stones and Celtic Crosses, y'know.

On the Prom

On Portstewart Prom the other day and noticed all the seagulls were facing the same way:

Presumably they were facing into the wind, otherwise they'd get their feathers ruffled or something.

Inishowen nearly covered by low cloud in the distance.  Raining again there.  And that usually means it'll be raining in Portstewart in about 30mins.  Still, at least you can see it coming and dive into Roughans or even Warke's Deli for shelter and a cup of green tea.

On that note, the last few times I've noticed something funny going on.  I have a suspicion they've changed their brand of tea in my usual haunt as it just doesn't do it for me any more.  I must admit I'm kind of addicted to Suki Sencha Green tea, which is what I drink at home.  I even took some to Bath with me but the water there is very different to The Liberties and it was almost undrinkable.  I had to buy bottled water to use - I know, very decadent and very fussy.  Still, when you know what you like...

They're in the process of ripping up The Prom as I write - taking out the old railings and putting in new ones.  And taking out the pavement at the same time - not that I noticed anything wrong with the pavement as it is, mind you.  The rumour is that they are putting in some sort of pavoir brick paving.  Sounds nice, although apparently it will need power-washed every so often to keep it looking good.  Still, the ratepayers will just pay up, as usual, so it's all fine.  Right?

On the beach

My constitutional on Portstewart Strand one morning last week:

I know - the sun was out!  As you can see, 'tis the Done Thing in this country to, whenever possible, drive your car onto the beach.  Pretty risky if you're not careful.  And pretty annoying to those who come to the beach to do normal stuff, like walk.  To be fair, these are probably the tracks of the 4x4 used by National Trust volunteers to help keep the beach in order.  But sometimes you do get eejits who just drive at speed along the full length of the beach - because they can.  And that doesn't half get my goat.

That one looks like it was taken on a different day, where the sky was full of cloudy stuff, as per the norm.

Walk on by

That's what these people were doing on Railway Road one day, so I snapped them up, as you do:

Why is it that the streets near railway stations are never the most salubrious?  This area of Coleraine is quite run down, as you can see - even the bus is Not in Service.

I like to study people walking...I've a thing about people's gait, you see.  Comes from having a very poor one myself, due to the old spondylitis and ceramic&metal bits when me hip joints should be. Leg extension, heel strikes, flat feet, oh yes, I would come top of the class on that topic.  Years of being edumacated by physical therapists...you can tell I listened, too!

Probably the same reason why I love ballet.  I'm just in awe of the grace, poise and power of dancers.  When I lived in Brighton I used to travel up to London to see the odd performance - anything by Tchaikovsky does it for me, I'm not that sophisticated.  Now that I'm in The Liberties there's less opportunity to see decent stuff, but we get the odd one from time to time.  I saw one a couple of years ago in our local Riverside Theatre.  Unfortunately I can't remember the principal dancer's name, but he was, even he would admit, past his prime.  However, he still had it and the nice thing about the Riverside is that it is small, so we were very close to the action.  When you can see the effort on the dancers' faces and hear their breathing it actually gives you an insight into their world which you don't get at the bigger venues.  It seems to be a tough profession and not that well paid for most.