The epic canoe trip

Pete, Zeek and Corbin were going to go on the canoe trip to an island in the lough. It is a one night event, with a paddle to the island in the evening and then setting up camp. Enjoying supper and then doing those mysterious manly things that men do on a camping weekend. Then after a rough nights sleep they break camp - after a delicious Ulster fry - and climb back into the canoes and head home.

But Pete was sick, and I had to tell my boys (after they had spent the night before packing their bags) that they couldn't go. Obviously I didn't want to do this, so I asked their ever kind and wonderful Irish uncle Donovan if he would consider taking them with him. He very kindly said he would. They were so excited.

Donovan fetched them after school on Friday and off they went. They say a picture tells a thousand words, so I'll let them do just that.

The strong man carrying all his things and his brothers too.
The boats that they... got a ride in (I wanted to say paddled in but realized that that would be stretching the truth)
Setting up camp and deciding where everyone wanted to sleep. Zeek thinks something is great here.
Breakfast the next morning, look how tired we are as we stayed up very late chatting, but hey, isn't that what these weekends are for?
Nearly ready to go.
Thanks to anyone else who helped in any way with my boys: Ben, Ewen, Richard, Graham, Russel, Simon and Michael. (I hope I didn't miss anyone)

And this photo I saved to last because it was what everyone came up to me on Sunday to talk about. Corbin decided that he wanted to sleep out by the fire under the stars, on the log pile! He thought it was a great idea and he assured me that it was very comfortable. He still landed up sleeping in the tent though.
What a fantastic time, one they will remember for a long time I am sure. Thanks again Donovan.

Corbin doing his tie

He is so cute! Enjoy

Happy Birthday Zeek

11 years old now. We had a barbecue (braai) in the evening and ran out of gas, so finished it inside on the stove. Oh well, aside from that he had a great day.

A belated happy birthday Pete

Pete decided that since he had already done the paddle across the lough, he wanted to do something else biggish on his birthday, so we decided to climb to the top of black mountain. (Now I have to smile here because when they say mountain, well.... I would call it a hill, but anyway.)

We drove through the 'rough' part of Belfast and enjoyed seeing all the wall murals. It is amazing to me that even in the worst part of the city, there were still moms pushing prams, kids playing on the streets, old people walking alone. Anyway, back to Pete.

When we got to the 'mountain' we parked and walked across the road to start hiking. Well, this is a first world EU approved country, so there was a well marked, tarred road up to the top. Oh well, so we walked up, not hiked up.

The view was really beautiful, we could see pretty much everything around for miles. Pete took some pics on his phone.

38 years old, and still the love of my life.

A red fox in our garden

This morning I was in the kitchen and I heard Corbin shout: "Wow, what is that?" Then I heard Zeek say in a very excited voice: "No way, it's a fox!"

Well I came running and there it was in our back garden, just standing and looking at us. I wasn't able to get a picture, but it was a very exciting moment.

Then an hour later I was standing by the back door doing some laundry and I looked up and there it was again, trotting right up to me! It came within less than a meter and walked by with only a single glance at me. What an exciting moment, half of me wanted to run away (why was it coming straight for me, was I in any danger?) and the other half wanted to reach out and touch it (I could have if I wanted to)

This is the first time I have seen a fox in Northern Ireland. What a special moment that was for me.

Pride comes before a ...

Capsize!

I had my first sailing lesson today. It was great fun sailing along in a little GP14 dingy. (GP=general purpose 14=14 foot long). I really thought I was getting the hang of things - sailing straight, tacking, jibing and then suddenly...

...with awful inevitability I realized that no matter what I did we were going over. The other learner in the boat with me was a rather large man and somehow both of us ended up on the same side of the boat as the sail.

Time slowed as the sail got closer and closer to the water and eventually we were in and the boat turned turtle - right over.

It was a mad scramble to grab the center board and pull until it righted. I jumped in and tried to help my partner in. He slipped from my grasp and suddenly the boat was sailing off with me trying to figure out what the heck was going on and my partner's anguished cries fading in the distance.

All's well that ends well - I go again tomorrow - let's see if he volunteers to come with me again or if I'm the leper.

Cheers

Pete

Don't they look like Oompa Loompas

Donovan and Eva were kind enough to give us some gym equipment, they no longer needed it as they are the proud new members of the gym (lucky them! I love going to aerobics classes.)

These are the things Pete already had in his office:These are the new additions: (Thanks again.)

And as you can see he uses the equipment to get these smashing results: (he doesn't know that I put this picture up, so we'll see how long it stays, hee, hee)And these are the oompa loompas that work the equipment making chocolate waterfalls:

You know you live in a wet country when...

Mushrooms are growing on the trees!

Across the lough on a kayak

I paddled from Bangor to Carrick Fergus this morning. It's about 7km across the Belfast Lough.

I was planning to do it on my birthday (I have to find adventurous things to drown out the feeling of getting older) but the weather was fine this morning so I went rather than risking bad weather in a couple of days.

I thought it would take almost 2 hours but I got there in an hour and 5 minutes - I must be fitter than I thought. In fact I got there half an hour before Gillian arrived to pick me up.

Paddling in the Irish Sea requires a wetsuit - the water temperature is about 5 deg C which is like the rivers in the 'berg (in the winter). I wear one without arms because it's too constricting to paddle with a full suit.



This is me paddling off - without the seat! I forgot to grab it when we left and I had numb legs and a froze bottom all the way over.

Back to School

The three primary school children went back to school yesterday, and Cheryn today. So I got a picture of all of them this morning.

Too bright mom, we can't look at you properly.
Aaah, much better.

For Judi

Hey, you asked about the boy's haircuts, here they are:
What funny faces they pull!