So Long Summer

The blanket is gone and the duvet is back on the bed, summer has well and truly performed its transformation into its cooler alter-ego of autumn. Plenty of breeze, storms, cool bright blue skies and yet the odd day of warm sun but at the same time clouds blowing over at a brisk pace and plenty of sharp showers. I've seen at least 4 rainbows, one being a bright double rainbow that most of Belfast seemed to spot it was very bright (sadly didn't get a photo of it though). Another was over East Belfast looking from Central station and was pretty awesome and vivid but I was on a bus and by the time I'd got off it was gone.

This one I took a photo of last weekend when my dad came to visit and we headed to see the Titanic museum which by the way was pretty good.

We ventured out and about a few times whilst my dad was here. I got my first taste of watching the Ulster Orchestra perform, it was good but I really didn't fit into the general demographic of the audience, still, I shouldn't judge a book by it's cover and I quite enjoyed it apart from the conductor pushing the limits of how many times he could walk off to receive a clap on the return. Once each piece maybe, but 3 in a row without any music in-between - I needed a protest sign from Father Ted! I felt more at home the next night when we were back at the Waterfront again, this time watching Jack Dee and his deadpan stand-up  Also in my dad's visit we squeezed in a visit to Armagh and the Armagh Planetarium.

There have been plenty more great memories this summer, it has been a very busy one. From our day trip to pretty Rathlin Island and getting soaked by the spray of some big waves to seeing the natural beauty of the Marble Arch Caves for the first time. We've shown visitors around Belfast that we know well and also visitors we didn't know so well (from another continent indeed). Watching the Olympics on TV, enjoying the odd date night to a new restaurant or the movies and saving for what turned out to be the surprise ability to afford a second holiday (mainly due to the cost of the holiday mind you), as Norngirl recently wrote, we're heading on a cruise to Italy for our anniversary in November. As they say, 'work hard, play hard'. Though not too hard, the year hasn't been that happy go lucky as Norngirl has been injured and having a tough time of it.

Moving into autumn and winter, entertainment wise there is loads happening, Sport is back (well except the NHL), new Red Dwarf, Dr Who and all sorts of other awesome TV shows, live shows, comedy and music galore. The festive period may just require a little creative budgeting, especially with trips to be made over to Yorkshire for Christmas with my family and also a relative's wedding to go to.

As you can tell, I'm quite looking forward to next few months - the usual politics and news excluded.

Sadly, yet, yet, yet again, my attempts at blogging have fallen by the wayside this summer but hopefully the frequency of posts should improve over the next few months as I hope to post about several of the things above plus anything else that might happen in the meantime. I would say 'I will' post more but looking at my blog's history, that has never really lasted long. So this time I'm not putting pressure on myself to update all the time, hopefully that way it won't seem like a 'to-do' and might instead be more of a 'I want to'. My hope being that I might re-find my bloggy shoes and walk a little further in them (these shoes are metaphorical by the way but if I were to have some bloggy shoes I think they'd have to cloggs because then I could ask people to pass me my blog cloggs and that kinda rhymes).