bus stop My Belfast bus stop is next to city hall, which is in the middle of a big green rectangle and is surrounded by lovely old buildings. The bus-stop side of city hall (not the front): Across from the square is what was once the department store Robinson Cleaver: It now
Comber Greenway Our morning walk with Maysie has been citified, just like our commute. The Comber Greenway used to be a rail line and is now reserved for cyclists, dog walkers, runners and strollers. It is a short walk from the house. I'm appalled by how many people don'
Slowgress That's what you get when progress is slow. After three coats of stain on the master bedroom floor, the plan was to furnish it, set up the bed, organize our dressers, and live a bit more normally. Then we decided we should paint the wall behind where the
Michael & Faye Here's a photo of our back garden. We didn't realise the property came with two goldfish, but it did. The heron is keeping an eye on them. The camelia bush has been blooming for a few weeks, as have the rhododendron bushes. I see my friends&
David & Stuart When they had us over for dinner last weekend, David offered to come by to trim our rose bushes. He is a keen gardener and loves roses. So they came by this afternoon and I gave them a tour of our disheveled house. After which David went after our five
Billionare's club Last night I went to a Q&A with Denis O'Brien, founder and majority owner of Digicel: "Digicel Group is a leading global communications provider with operations in 33 markets in the Caribbean, Central America and Asia Pacific. After 13 years of operation, total investment to
Chester, PA Monday night I had the surreal experience of sitting in a classroom in Belfast during my environmental justice class, while skyping with someone in Hawaii who is an expert on environmental degradation in Chester, Pa. Our class read an academic piece on grassroots activism in Chester in the 1990s. Each
City life There's a lot that's different about daily life in Belfast vs. Crawforsburn. Biggest is the commute. I used to drive three minutes to Helen's Bay train station, take the train for 30 minutes to Botanic station, walk seven minutes to Queen's (and
Camp Casey After I got two coats of stain on the future office floor, we set up trundle beds like so: Notice the amount of floor space given over to her highness (i.e. round bed is hers). Despite which she had to join David on his bed this morning: While workmen
Bless this mess The living and dining rooms used to be full of tool boxes, piles of rubbish, lumber, buckets of plaster and grout and so on. Now they're full of luggage, kennels, bags, shoes, etc. That's my backpack vacuum in the foreground. We're using the rattan
Moving day, part two Today I got on very familiar terms with my new vacuum. If vacuuming were an Olympic sport, I would be a multiple gold winner. In America, I had a commercial grade backpack vacuum (think Ghostbusters). Having a dog and two cats and a dusty old house means you really have
Moving day David honestly thought we could move everything from Crawfordsburn to Cherryvalley in one day, clean the Crawfordsburn townhouse and set up pets and beds and clean plaster dust in Cherryvalley. I didn't argue with him on this because I knew he would come round, and he did. In
Staining, day 2 This is my future office. The stained section represents an hour of (backbreaking) work. This and the master bedroom have a single coat of stain. We now have to decide if they are getting a second coat of stain and whether or not to polyurethane. Partly this is a decision
Mop up I left our "new" house around noon Monday, while the electrician was just getting warmed up. When I returned today after a down day yesterday, all the lights were hung. I was like a kid, running around flipping switches. The lights look great, although I'd like
Brit TV We never bought cable in the U.S., so our TV watching consisted of watching Jon Stewart online and watching DVDs or downloaded films on the TV screen. Here, the TV (and commercials) are generally better, so we have gotten sucked in. Plus, you have to buy a TV license
And she's down I started the day at the house (where two electricians and two carpenters were hard at work) vacuuming all the sawdust we created over the weekend. I want all dust out of the house before we begin staining floors. I vacuumed door panels, outlets, radiators, stairs, spindles. I know I
Sanding, day two I got artistic: I spent years removing oriental bittersweet vines from my property in Pennsylvania. Some bright soul took cross sections of the vine bases, which have interesting colours, and laid them flat in an artistic arrangement. This is my homage to that person. Note the beautifully sanded floor--a real
Power tools We spent yesterday cleaning all the floors in the house. We didn't have face masks so heaven knows what we ingested. Today, we sanded. And sanded and sanded. This is me with the edging tool in the guest bedroom killing the floor. It is a heavy bugger and
Britain runs on . . . Tea. Oh yes. Tea and biscuits. One of the finest, most civilized ways to spend a 15-minute break from life. Last summer I was in a charity shop and I saw this service, which I had to buy because of the beautiful "A" monogram (which you can'
Ulster runs on . . . I need to write five posts today to catch up so it's a good time to run photos. If America runs on Dunkins, Norn Ireland runs on Dory's. We've been doing A LOT of work on the house lately and so the fish &
TenX9 I've probably written before about TenX9 [http://www.tenx9.com], where nine people have 10 minutes each to tell a true story. Tonight's theme was "home." Last month was "money." The idea started here in Belfast and has now spread around the
The Empire Laughs Back I went to the Empire Music Hall [http://www.thebelfastempire.com/hire/] tonight to hear some local comedians. One of the best jokes was about the guy in 50 Shades of Gray, who grew up near Belfast. The comedian said the actor had to, of course, have an American accent.
Hershey's vs. Cadbury's I heard a radio programme the other day in which people were doing a taste test comparing chocolate from a Belfast boutique chocolatier [http://www.cocouture.co.uk], Cadbury's and Hershey's. The consensus was that Hershey's leaves a chemical taste in your mouth whereas
Mixed marriage What that means here is a marriage between a Catholic and a Protestant. Someone at church this morning was talking about a Catholic boxer from her home town (Monaghan) who was in a mixed marriage. I thought she was going to say he married someone originally from India or Nigeria,