It's a wanderful life, so it is

I’ve lived in Belfast for only half the time I’ve lived over in Britain but I suspect it will always remain “home” to me. For the first time back here, however, I’ve started to see it through tourist eyes, as well as those of a native. I suppose that’s inevitable, given our new, nomadic mindset and I’ve found that Belfast stands up pretty well as a tourist location. 

So we thought we’d do some of the touristy things we’d never bothered with before. Our attempts at the Stormont tour were doomed due to heavy rain and the eccentric interpretation of the Translink timetable by its bus drivers. Next time, maybe.

We did go into the City Hall though and it has really upped its visitor game. With its 15 exhibition rooms, stained glass windows and the new statues outside, it is now doing a very good job of reflecting the history of Belfast. It didn’t, however, improve our selfie taking skills as we seem to have inherited several extra chins! 😂

I do love a good mural, they’re one of the reasons I love cities so much. When researching things to do for this trip, I’d spotted that the Ulster Museum was holding an exhibition of work by someone I knew many years ago. Bill Rolston’s passion for photographing murals led to him publishing several books and I relished the opportunity to visit a retrospective of his work, “Drawing Support: Murals, Memory and Identity”. It’s fascinating to see how themes and issues have changed from the days of the hunger strikes as the political and cultural landscape has shifted.

We explored some of the other exhibits in the museum and Mhairi really got into the spirit of it!

In truth, of course, home isn’t a physical place but it is where Mhairi and the kids are. And friends and family too. That’s why I enjoy coming back to Belfast so much and we had great fun meeting up with people. We missed Dermot and Catherine due to the vagaries of Covid but we’ll make up for it next time.

All the fun of a family BBQ. Amelia decided to help her daddy by creating a truly unique burger for Ryan. 😂 Full credit to him, he ate it! Niall discovered that he who volunteers to take the photos doesn’t need to appear in them. Never fear, we’ll catch him in the States.

Big shout out for Tim’s one man show ‘Ridiculous’ at a Northern Ireland theatre near you until mid December. He tells us it’s quite funny! 😉

And next it’s on to the US of A!