May beach day

Great day at the beach at Benone - and many happy memories of growing up and messing about in the sea and sand.

Lucy and her wee friends weren't deterred by the water temperature (Baltic) so no choice for the parents but to get stuck in too. Many sleepy, sandy children by the time we headed for home.

Finding our way in the garden

This is our first crop of spuds - OK crop is way too grand a term for it, but I am inordinately proud of our first ever potatoes. We planted three seed potatoes in a sack on 4 April and today rifled through the bag (after the tops died back) to find the best part of a kilo of beautiful, delicate Maris Peer earlies. Ah lovely. Can't wait to eat them - wonder what to cook.

A few other pics from the garden - for a variety of reasons we can't plant anything in the soil itself and have had to adapt in a variety of ways...

Like pots of many varieties - of lettuce and mange tout
 - we've enjoyed plenty of both already.

Lucy likes to get involved in one way or another

Often its eating the produce of the garden - she gobbled up the first strawberry before I could capture it on camera

 A droopy cherry tomato wondering if the Belfast climate is right - wettest June on record.














And some lavendar picked this evening - all this gardening is enough to make you sleepy.

World Conference of Friends

A blessed, rich time at the World Conference of Friends in Kenya back in April, hard to believe its already two months ago! I was privileged to help plan and to attend this once-in-a-generation event and it was a precious time that I'm still digesting and responding to.

I must have been too busy having a good time to take pictures, as I have a very small collection. But here are a handful. Thankfully lots of other people were much more snap happy - they can be seen at www.saltandlight2012.org

Belfast travelling companion Pleasaunce with Rajendra on our transport to Nakuru

Some Irish Friends registering...

Rift Valley

Team Ireland

Nakuru Friends Church choir

Ben Guaraldi tries fried termites

My mum's support group!

Roommate Aimee - I was so lucky to get paired with her!

Tea - the main event of every day.

Some Spanish-speaking Friends

 

 After the final night celebration for 850 people - sigh. 

Paul's birthday and other adventures

Birthday boy and chief fan! Paul thought I was getting up for work as normal, but actually I was scheming. I made bacon and french toast for breakfast and laid out a treasure hunt of his presents and when he came down to say goodbye before I went off to work, I broke the news that I had arranged a day off and we were off for a day out instead - can't believe I didn't give the game away, as I usually do!

And so we headed off to Castlewellan Forest for a walk around the lake, then Newcastle for a dander/dig on the beach and a wee ice cream. I think Lucy thought it was all for her, but whatever the excuse, it was just a great day together and we were left saying, why don't we do this more often? And determined to make it a regular thing...

Learning about velcro-like burrs

A few days after the official birthday, we were blessed with a visit by Paul's two sisters, Mhari and Barbara and Belfast brought the sun out to welcome them. We had a fantastic day just chilling out, sitting the garden, introducing them to that Belfast institution Maggie Mays, wandering through the Botanic Gardens (with the compulsory stop at the swings) and generally just relaxing. It was great. Here's farmer Lucy inspecting our Mange Tout seedlings

And Barbs trying out hte hammock...

Lucy's aunties keeping her on trend...

And a few other pictures of us getting settled in to live in Belfast.






Bedtime story from Granny and Dawn Marie (another Julia Donaldson classic and Lucy is gripped)

Teaching Lucy colours

Wynchurch

Our new home - I gradually feel like we can call it that, even though there's a good 10 boxes still to unpack and a big pile of stuff to go the attic, and a few pieces of furniture to track down to hang coats, store our kitchen crockery (maybe we can improve on this below!) and hold our massive quantities of books. It's just a rental but it will be good for now.

Checking out the garden, which is a bit gravelly and shady, but our ambition certainly far exceeds our experience, talents or raw materials there - or maybe it'll be a steep learning curve?

The smallest room in the house - not the bathroom, its the kitchen...


We have lots of room for guests so come and visit!