Today is the first day I have had a few minutes spare to think about blogging. So have a brief synopsis of the last week. Last weekend I was on a stag do to Edinburgh. It had all the ingredients of a good stag do, and that's where I'll leave it. I reignited my love affair with Edinburgh, and still wonder to myself why my father chose to move from there to a 250 year old tumbledown cottage on a mountainside outside Ballykelly in the 1970's...the Good Life has a lot to answer for.
The last few days have been spent making up for my excess and overspending by doing wholesome household tasks, doors, fences and walls have been repainted, brasses polished and garden tidyed
This was the first twelfth I have spent in my new home of East Belfast, when i have felt comfortable. Last year I was in the States, the year before I spent most of the time peering out of the window, checking the car and house.
Lots of the neighbours had outside parties for the kids, lots of alfresco drinking and the local bonfire site had a kiddies day on the afternoon on the 11th. There was a definite, noticeable shift to more family orientated events this year. The footage of the demonstrations (with a few exceptions) was a lot more positive than in recent years and I do hope this is the result of the hard work undertaken by both sides of the community in recent times.
Anyway, I had loads more to say in my head that I can't articulate, so here some photos of some bonfires I took whilst driving round on the 11th: