Adventures in Northern Ireland!

You know it’s been one hell of a weekend when you round it all off by falling into bed at 9pm on a Sunday night and sleeping for fifteen hours. Let’s start at the beginning, shall we?

It started on Friday morning when we picked up our lovely English friends from Belfast International for a weekend of Northern Irish adventure. Needless, to say, we spent most of their first day with us at the very up-and-coming Titanic Quarter area of Belfast, starting with breakfast at Cast and Crew . This place does great food, but in particular I can’t praise their breakfast enough. If I could have finished what was on my plate, I would have!

Without much time to dally about, we headed off to Segway NI, as we’d booked for the some of the group to take a segway tour of Titanic Quarter.

Some of the guys were a bit tentative at the beginning, but it wasn’t too long before they were ready for their speed restrictions to be lifted. Meanwhile the rest of us took a slightly more leisurely tour of the area, not forgetting of course to take a few pictures and videos when we saw the others zooming about the place. The guys loved the Segway tour and they really enjoyed hanging out with their tour guide, who discovered quite quickly that he was dealing with a bunch of nerds and advised them that the segways traveled at ideal Pokémon egg-hatching speed.

We met up again after the Segways to check out Titanic Belfast, admittedly a slightly less active tour than the one just passed, but a really interesting experience nonetheless and a must-do when you’re in Belfast (and I’m not just saying that because I work there)!Of course, we were sure to make our English friends feel extra welcome while we were there…

I’d actually never managed to get my husband over the door before – he’s not really a big fan of museums – but he had a good time messing around with the interactives and touch screens. The Nomadic in particular went down really well because it was an actual piece of living history and was a bit more hands-on.

After that we were all pretty wrecked, especially our guests who’d all been up before dawn to catch their plane, so we headed back to Carrickfergus to get changed and let the guys unpack.

We had a table booked for dinner at Harlem Café back in Belfast. This place is amazing, by the way. I don’t know what was better between the food and the excellent service! Two servers in particular, who introduced themselves as Max and ‘Eagle’, were just so lovely and took time out of all their rushing around to chat to our party at considerable length. They made us feel special and really contributed to a lovely first night out in Belfast for our guests. The live musician was excellent, too, though unfortunately I didn’t get his name.

If we thought day one had been exhausting, we were in for a shock on day two! We set out in the morning in two separate cars to head for the North Coast. Given that there were a few Game of Thrones fans in our party, it went without saying that our first stop was Ballygally Castle, where there was plenty of information on the show’s filming as well as one of the Game of Thrones doors made from the fallen trees from the Dark Hedges. This is a really beautiful hotel with tonnes of its own history too – definitely worth a look if you’re ever visiting the North Coast of Ireland.

After stopping at Ballycastle for a quick lunch, we headed on to Carrick-A-Rede to check out the rope bridge. This was a spot I’d actually never been to before, but the views even before you get near the bridge itself are absolutely stunning. However, one look at the steep incline that I’d need to climb in order to get BACK from the bridge told me I wouldn’t be hauling my pregnant backside along the path, so I hung back with another party member who didn’t fancy it and soaked in the sunshine and the beautiful sights.

It took about two hours for the others to cover everything beyond the ticket barrier, and the walk back really seemed to take it out of them. Totally worth it, though, for some of the beautiful photos they got out there.

We were bound for the Bushmills Distillery next, and unfortunately got stuck behind a tractor along the way. That meant we were juuuust about too late for the last tour of the distillery. My husband and house guest Jonny were both very disappointed to have missed it!

Plenty of whiskey and souvenirs were bought at the gift shop, though. Some really nice stuff in there!

One of the cars headed on to the Causeway, but us old farts in the Couldn’t Walk Anymore Car skipped it to check out on another visit when we’d have more time to explore, and headed on to the dark hedges – a priority since we had some Game of Thrones  fans in our car.

The place is, as everyone knows by now, absolutely beautiful. I really hope that they stop letting people park right on the road, though, before we lose more of the trees. There is, after all, a perfectly good car park less than five minutes’ dander away.

That was it for us, so we piled back into the car and headed home to get ready for everyone to pile down to our house for the evening. Cards Against Humanity was played, whiskey was enjoyed, takeaway and cake were eaten, and fun was had (sadly El Preggo faded at around eleven and went to bed though!).

The following day was just a day for relaxing, a quick dinner at Nando’s, and emotional goodbyes. I’m going to miss them, but I loved showing them our tiny, beautiful little country!

What about you? Where are your favourite spots in Northern Ireland? Let me know!

I’m having a baby!

It’s been, what, nine weeks? Ten? Sorry about that. Unfortunately when I haven’t been working or eating my entire weight in cheese, I’ve spent the majority of my time sleeping. As it is I’m sorry to say that this will be a Long Post, and probably quite boring and drivelly if babies and pregnancy aren’t your thing. I won’t be offended if you skip and wait for the next post, honest!

As I mentioned briefly in my last entry, I’m having a baby (around twenty four weeks at this point), and it’s been both an exciting and terrifying experience.

We had been trying, but had only started seriously trying in terms of checking dates on calendars and things like that for a couple of months, so we count ourselves ridiculously lucky in that way, so much so that, in the beginning, I was a bit in denial and ignored a couple of the early signs that I really should have been looking out for.

I first realised that something might be up on St. Patrick’s day. I was singing at a small gathering at a fellow church member’s house that evening, and even on a chilly mid-March night, all I could bear to wear was a floaty knee-length dress that was about three cells thick, and conceded to wearing a pair of black tights only because I didn’t want to look like a complete lunatic swanning around in a summer dress when it was barely ten degrees. Anyway, we played our set and headed home, and I decided not to think much more of it. I was probably just coming down with something.

The next day I got into my car to drive to work, and I wondered what That Smell was. It was like a really powerful, industrial cleaning product, and if you’ve ever seen the state of my car you’ll know how unlikely that is. I realised it was my beloved candy floss car freshener, suddenly for some reason reeking of Domestos and betrayal. Then there was the printer, which also decided to assault my poor nose that day. Then the return of the hot flashes. When I was having a good whinge to one of my friends at work about the heat in the office, she pointed out that it was, in fact, freezing in here, and was I quite alright?

I decided it was probably a good idea to buy a test. So, I left work and headed to Abbeycentre to enjoy a not-at-all-excruciating fifteen minutes in that aisle in Boots gawping at the three billion types of tests for sale. Blue ink? Pink ink? Digital? Week counter? I cheaped out and got the least expensive one, obviously. Why drop twenty quid on something I was just going wee all over? Then I bought a nice pair of shoes and a pretty notebook, because, you know, treat yourself.

Three hours of hanging out in a state of false nonchalance at my mum’s and desperately holding my pee as-per-instructions later, I was standing in my bathroom with a positive pregnancy test in my hand.

I’d like to say that I was instantly flooded with motherly instinct and joy, but honestly at first I felt a bit numb. With Dave out for the night with friends, I went about my normal night time routine and headed to bed. I was a little shocked, maybe. This was what we wanted, and yet for some reason I still hadn’t honestly believed it was going to happen. Babies were something that other people had. It felt bizarre to think that I was carrying one myself. I struggle quite badly with poor self esteem and anxiety, so maybe a part of me had assumed that this was a Nice Thing, and therefore I couldn’t have it or it would get taken away from me (a battle I also faced early in my relationship with Dave). It took a little while for me to relax into it and start getting excited.

Still, we couldn’t keep it from our parents for long. We told our folks on Easter Sunday, and thankfully chose to tell Dave’s granny as well just a few days before she passed. We waited until twelve weeks before we told anyone else, and we think our favourite reaction came from my partner-in-crime, baby’s honorary auntie Emma:

She got so excited that she cried and couldn’t concentrate on finishing her Chinese! If you know Emma, it takes a lot to distract her from a really good takeaway. She’s already full of fun ideas for Baby Wharry and summer holiday adventures – such a good auntie!

It’s true that from the moment you find out that parenthood is on the horizon, you never stop worrying. From a run-in with a very doomy-gloomy out-of-hours doctor to a bit of a bleed at eight weeks to a minor car accident at ten weeks, suffice to say we heaved a sigh of relief when we hit the golden twelve-week mark.

I like to think that this has all been practice for what’s to come, though. I can tell myself that we’ll be relieved once Baby Wharry is with us and in one piece, but that’s just not true. We’ll likely start by being up every hour just to check they’re still there, then proceed to why are you crying I have literally run out of ideas when will you learn to talk to us, then move on to the Toddlerproof Everything stage. Then there’ll come worries about how they’re getting on in school. Will they make friends okay? First sleepovers. Do they miss me? Are they feeling pressured at school? What if someone breaks their heart? What if they go out at night with their friends and they’re late home? Is that new boyfriend/girlfriend going to be good to them or mess them around? Are they going to be okay living on their own? Do they need my help? Are they okay?

It’ll go on and on, and God willing, we’ll have the privilege of worrying about them for the rest of our lives.

What about you? Have I missed any biz with you lot since I last checked in? Let me know!

-Nicky x