Foreign Perspectives

Archive for the ‘Society’ Category

John managed to have freshly prepared custard spilled over his hands last Monday and has ended up having to go to the doctors every day to get the dressing changed which is a bit of a nuisance.

Whilst plonking on cream and bandages seemed a sensible way to go initially, this far down the line it’s not so clear-cut as to whether or not it’s a good idea to continue. For instance, although he knows to be careful with that hand, little boys play and over the weekend he caught a ball with it which left it bleeding, unknowingly, under the bandages. Had it not been bandages up, we’d have known that it was bleeding right away instead of hours later.

Anyway, all being well, it’ll be healed up enough to leave the dressings off later this week.

Having a continental market in the grounds of Belfast city hall is a tradition started a number of years ago to liven up the city.

It’s expanded over the years and the original Christmas market has been joined by a similar production in the Spring and, I think, there’s another one or two variants at different times during the year. I say “I think” because the city hall grounds have developed over the years to the point where they host a considerable number of events of various types almost right throughout the year.

The Spring market is quite similar to the Christmas one, being mainly a varied collection of food stalls from various (not just European) spots around the world. Thus, not only do you get the various French style fast food outlets with their crepes, croque monsieurs, and the like but there’s alsor representation from Germany, Poland and even Lebanon plus I’m sure a number that I didn’t identify.

Mixed in with the food stalls are a number of rather expensive sweet outlets and an eclectic mix of gift stalls selling everything from native American wares through to several that sell handmade woodwork productions.

Anyway, it’s open from Thursday the 15th of May through to 6pm Monday the 19th of May this year.

There’s been a bit of a run of retirement do’s to go to over the last year or two and one a few months ago prompted the thoughts of a reunion of our team from around the 1990s which ended up being held a week ago.

Despite almost everyone having moved on over that time, we ended up with around 40 people turning up. My first thought was that I’d not recognise any of them or that it would be a crowd of doddery old men and women on their way to zimmer frame territory. However, it was nothing like that at all and in fact not only did most people change relatively little over what’s been anything up to 25 years or so but one even managed to look years younger than she did 20-odd years ago!

As usual with these things it was mix of reminiscing over the good old days and pumping people for information about job prospects (the grass always being greener elsewhere, of course). Although set around lunch, most people stayed on ’til into the evening and the last stragglers only heading home around 10pm.

Coincidently, I ran across and even older friend at the family fun day on Saturday and it looks like there’ll be a reunion of our merry band from the 1980s in the not too distant future too.

My grandparents on Mum’s side were from the Killinchy area originally. Although they moved to Belfast in the 1920s, they still rented a cottage just outside Balloo village, moving once or twice and by the time I was born they were in a cute little thatched cottage on the top of the first hill out of the village.

We spent from two to four months a year from the 1960s through to the early 1980s and it always felt like home. Each summer, we’d basically up sticks and move to the country. Gone was the electricity, gone was the mains water in the kitchen and gone was the indoor loo! Still, it was nice and I managed to get through an awful lot of reading there over the years.

In 1969, we paved the front and as part of that Dad put a little square of plain cement so that I could put a handprint, footprint and some details for posterity, all of which were still readable up to a year or two back. But no more, as we found out when we called by last week as a big weed has grown through the little square. The flush toilet arrived in 1974 and comes with a fetching string vest pattern all around the septic tank courtesy of the vest my Dad was wearing that day. The thatch became increasingly difficult to maintain as the thatchers are dying out and it was replaced with a corregated iron roof sometime in the 1990s I think.

It’s seen better days for sure but is doing pretty well for a cottage that was built over 150 years ago.

However, the flush toilet has now gone as the garden has been bulldozed for the construction of a new bungalow.

The cottage is still there for now, but probably not for a whole lot longer.

The family used to go to Portrush every Easter Monday when I was a child and we’ve restarted that tradition since getting back from France.

Over the years lots of things have changed but not really that much in Portrush. It takes a lot less time to get there these days not so much because the roads are better but rather because there are fewer people doing the trip which is very noticeable in terms of the lack of cars there relative to yesteryear.

Barry’s, the entertainment complex, seems hardly to have changed at all. Aside from two newish (a number of years old) outside rides for the kids, not much has changed. The roller-coaster and dodgems seem pretty much identical and electronic games have largely passed it by.

One thing that did change for a brief period was the arrival of the Dunluce Centre but that’s closed down now as indeed have several of the non-chippy food outlets which had arrived a few years back.