Ballintoy Harbour

One of my favourite places to go, just round the coast past the Giant's Thingmy and then down a very winding road - a 'not suitable for coaches' type road. This is GameOfThrones territory and in the summer it's hard to get a parking space. At this time of year though it is rather nice:

You can rent those cottages there...nice idea, but due to the tourists tramping past your front window it would only be good early morning and late evening.  You'd have to take yourself somewhere else during the day, I think.

Now there's an interesting wee cottage, hidden away it is.  Not much of a view from the back windows - if there are any - what with that big brick wall there.  But the view from the front ain't bad at all:

You could do worse than wake up to that every morning.  On a good day you'd have Bonny Scotland in the distance, but it wasn't there today, being all misty and what have you.

Farewell to the toon

Last of the Newcastle stories and snaps today.  On the Sunday we wandered across the Millenium Bridge to the Old Flour Mills on the Gateshead side of the Tyne.  Now occupied by the Baltic Arts Centre which at the time was running a retrospective of the work of African-American Artist and Photographer Lorna Simpson.

These gulls looked pretty precarious up there on the ledge of the Baltic.  Safety in numbers, though, eh? 

I liked the exhibition - there was lots of different stuff, some video, some arty and a lot of stills.  Ms Simpson gets some of her stuff from good old *bay and then curates it herself.  Other work she has photographed herself.  The video stuff I wasn't that bothered about, although it certainly was hard to ignore (it was BIG).  Some of the still photographic stuff was more to my taste - and as usual, the devil was in the detail for most of it.  Like Five Day Forecast, for example, which I did spend quite a bit of time studying.  Probably my son and his gf thought I was mad, but that's youth for you :)

Oh by the way - last weekend's exhibition at Flowerfield?  Not for me.  That's all I can say.

It was on several floors, Lorna Simpson's exhibition, and you got a grand view of the old town from up there.

After all that culture/brainfood, we needed sustenance, so we headed back to the Newcastle side for a well-deserved late Sunday lunch.  Afterwards, the young ones forced me to stop in at a hostelry for some après-dinner cocktails, as you do.  I don't remember too much about the rest of the night, to be quite honest...can't keep pace with these young folk any more, y'see.  Shouldn't really try, but sometimes your hand is forced.

Anyway, Newcastle was a right fine place for a weekend and I would go again at the drop of a hat.

Yes, t'was the reflection in that glass thingy wot caught my eye - didn't really work out, I know...

A job

Well folks I have a new job.  Not a real, paying job, mind you, but we can't have everything.  After the couple of years that the Department for Education took to appreciate my vast experience and unparalleled skills in the field of Education, I am, (drum roll...) a School Governor.  Not just any school, mind you - this old one, which some of you may recognise from the hundreds of snaps I've posted of it:

What used to be O'Hara's Castle, then Dominican Convent, now Dominican School.   Apparently, the Dominican Order arrived in Portstewart not long after the Parish was created but rather than hide themselves away they opted to start a school.  And what better place, eh?  Looks like it would be a good setting for a Hammer House of Horror film, what with those big clouds rolling in from the West and the sea crashing against the rocks below.

Apparently yer man O'Hara was an old sea dog - sorry, Captain, and built his castle with the room at the the front there mimicking the bridge of a boat.  We were sitting in there last week for my first Governor's meeting and when you are looking out of the 3 big old windows at the front it does seem as if you are right over the water.  Very impressive.

Nowadays the school is very much integrated...and I don't mean boys and girls (although it is mixed in that sense too).  In this part of the world the word 'integrated' and 'education' means both Catholic and Protestant pupils attend.  The school itself offers a traditional Catholic Grammar School education but it's actually something like a 60:40 Catholic:Protestant split.  I arrive at a good time, with the school celebrating its Centenary next year.  Big changes are also coming, with the numbers increasing by something like a third over the next few years as another school in the area is being closed.  I'm looking forward to the challenge.  Who knows, I might be able to sneak a camera or two inside from time to time and try to capture some of that wonderful Gothic architecture.

A different look

You know how I post a lot of snaps of Portstewart Strand, right?  Like this one:

Not hard to spot the grain in this one, eh?  HP5+ on the Nikon 180mm

I know, not great weather coming in there from Donegal.  Someday last week this was, and I doubt if I walked very far up the beach that day.

When you turn around this is the sort of scene that awaits you:

Not many on the beach that day...just some random footprints and, no doubt, pawprints.

I don't usually point the camera in this direction - there's only the golf club and houses and stuff there,  which aren't that interesting (although not too noticeable in this shot).  We have, like Scotland, more than our fair share of golf courses around The Liberties.  They do like their golf around here, that's for sure - Portrush is hosting <<The Open>> in 2019 as far as I understand.  Not so long ago I used to like the odd walk around a golf course, although I was never obsessed with it like some people round here are.  There are days when I'm on the beach with the Hound and it's fairly lashing it down, wind and rain and stuff.  And still those golfers are out there, trying to get that wee ball in the hole.  I don't know who's madder - me or them...

A major sense

As the painter is in there isn't much I can do today, being on 'stand-by' and all that.  My wife has been laid low by a virus and so is upstairs in bed feeling very sorry for herself, Missy is at school and while I have a film to develop there is very little chance of that happening today.

I know, it's a horse.  By Portrush West Strand it was. I have no idea how it got there but it was definitely untethered, just grazing, as they do.  I can't imagine the grazing was up to much, mind you, since I reckon the grass there is more dune-like than pasture-like.  But there you go, that's Ireland for you.

So where was I?  Oh yes, random musings.  Well maybe not random.  The Big Thing in my life the first few months of 2016 has been my hearing, or rather, the lack of it.  It is, of course, a major sense and my hearing loss has been significant, which makes life very difficult, and tiring, and wearing for not just me but for everyone around me.  And getting your mojo to do anything when you've a head full of cotton wool is not easy.  When I was in Bath in November (seems a long time ago now) my Rheumatology Consultant said there was a definite link between ankylosing spondylitis and deafness, which although is not what you want to hear (excuse the pun), might go some way to making the whole thing easier to understand.

Bernie, my Tai Chi teacher, suggested a guy who might be able to help using acupuncture.  Nothing to lose, I though, so here goes.  That was about 7 weeks ago and believe it or not, after about 2-3 weeks of treatment my hearing improved.  All was good for a time, but then Mr Kwong went on holiday and guess what, over a couple of weeks my hearing deteriorated...bigtime.

Portrush West Bay - the sort of view the horse would have if it lifted its head and looked around

The good news is that Mr Kwong has now returned from his jaunt to Hong Kong and I recommenced treatment last week.  And the even better news is my hearing has definitely improved - just over the weekend there.  It was Saturday evening and I started feeling a little nauseous, then a lot, then the vertigo started and I staggered myself to me bed.  Woke up Sunday morning and the fog had lifted, my hearing was markedly better.  Still pretty good today - not 100%, but better than last week.

So...here's the $64,000 question.  Coincidence?  Or has Mr Kwong and his magic needles helped that chi move along those mystic meridians and cleared the old aural system?  I don't know and to a large extent it doesn't matter even if it's all bunkum and a) my hearing was about to get better anyway or b) it's just a placebo effect.  I mean, if it works, right?  As it stands though, at this point in time I'm a believer, just for the record.

Portrush Harbour.  In the good old days ships would anchor off here and transport people to and from Scotland...and even to and from America during the 17th&18th Centuries.  Nowadays the lifeboat sits in there and a few fishing boats.  Still, it's a busy enough wee harbour during the summer months and a couple of decent restaurants plus of course The Harbour Bar within a gentle stroll.  

Upside down

Well the painters are in and the place is upside down.  Spent most weekend getting ready - in other words, moving everything out of one room into another, only for the whole process to be reversed come Monday evening.  It's all go here, I can tell you.  I'll be glad when Wednesday comes and we can start to get the house back into some sort of normality.

So nothing much to report photographic-wise.  But since it's Monday and we could all use a smile, here's one of herself:

Via HP5+ from the Nikon/50mm at f/1.8, or maybe 2.8.  And yes, this was one of those 'end-of-film' shots - as that guy over in Norway so rightly observed.

Newcastle

So we're still in Newcastle on The Friday Archive.  If you recall, I was there with my stepson to watch a game of footy.

On the Sunday we had a wee dander about 'the toon'.  We did a museum thing, which was excellent.  Here was my son's gf at the time, Steph, getting some fluids in.

This was the view across the road from the museum:

There was a wee Sunday street market down by the river, which was quite good I seem to recall for a present for Missy, stranded back home in The Liberties:

I've always been a sucker for motorbikes - my father loved his Triumph T500C. (The 'C' was important, I remember him telling me, standing for 'Clubman' edition if I remember correctly.  Apparently they were race-tuned, or something like that.  He sold it to get married and then bought it back a couple of years later).  Here he is on it, probably somewhere in the South of France, which was were he was usually to be found in his bachelor days once the school year had finished:

There was some serious hardware parked up at the market which were hard to walk past without a second glance: