Hello From Ballymoney

[weymouthPIE]

Evening all, thought I'd just drop by to say hello

We landed in Belfast at about half 8 last night, ten minutes ahead of schedule which was nice. By the time we got to our friends place in Ballymoney it was gone 10pm so we just had a drink and a chat and went to bed.

Today I went for a look at Ballymoney United's ground. I did get a look at it but because its owned by the council the gates were all locked up meaning I couldnt get in to take any photos. I'm hoping to go back later in the week to see if we can get in.

From there we went to Coleraine. Luckily one gate was open as the groundsman was cutting the grass, so I was able to get some photos of their ground which I will try to post on here when I get home if i can work out how to! The ground itself was very nice. Theres a seated main stand on one side with an uncovered bank terrace opposite, and two fairly well sized covered terraces behind each goal.

This evening we also visited the giants causeway. We've been there 3 or 4 times before but it nevers fails to amaze you. Its an amazing thing, and it just shows you what nature can do (no, not the giant lol).

Hope your all well and everythings fine back home.

We're off to Belfast tommorow to visit the Titanic museum and hopefully a few of the Belfast based football clubs. I'll let you know if and where we manage to visit tommorow.

Take care everyone

[super_ram]

Glad you're enjoying your holiday, Weymouth.Looking forward to your next update.

[Chris]

Here's PoN's version... What's the story in Ballymoney, wouldn't you like to know? I've watched far too many childrens shows over the years! (if you laughed click like)

We already miss ya buddy, though it's great to read on your adventure/trip so far. I bet it's lovely and fresh over there, all the countryside and peaceful surroundings. I look forward to seeing any ground photos and I hope you have a brilliant time in Belfast,

[Fan of Big Tone]

I laughed Joe, I've watched loads of kids progs too :-)

Weymouth - have a great time in Ireland, we've often thought of taking our van and camping over there. The forecast is good so hopefully you will get some sunshine.

[GrannyPie]

I hope you enjoy your holiday and the weather is good for you.Looking forward to your posts

[weymouthPIE]

We didnt go to Belfast in the end today, we're leaving that till Monday so we can get a full day there.

Instead we drove down to Mcgilligan point and caught the ferry over to Donegal. From there we had a leasurly cruise back to Londonderry to see our friend. Passed some wonderful scenary along the way. It was nice to just relax. Didnt visit any football grounds today although we did drive past Institute's ground. Got a fairly good view of it. Looked like it had a seated stand of no more than 5 rows along the length of one side, with terracing behind one goal. Didnt really see the rest.

Hope everyones ok and the weathers being kind back home.

Good result for Notts today. Although results are irrelivant in friendlies its nice to get a win, and it sounded like a good run out for the lads whens our next friendly?

Take care everyone

[GrannyPie]

I hope you're getting the same lovely weather that we've had today

[super_ram]

And the weather is set to continue very hot and sunny.We'll be complaining it's too hot .

[weymouthPIE]

Evening all, hope your all enjoying this wonderfull weather thats taken over the UK, pre-season weather

We're having a great time. We didnt really do much yesterday, me and Ian - one of our friends - went to watch some stock car racing on the outskirts of the town in the evening. Great nights entertainment, all good fun.

Today has been nice. We went for a walk through portrush along the seafront, then we drove on through Portstewart and all the way up the west coast to Ballintoy where we had an ice cream.

Had a chinese tonight and now just sat in front of the tv

I see the Lions beat the Aussies comfortably to win the series, the beggining of a miserable summer of sport for the aussies hopefully

Enjoy the rest of the weekend everyone

[super_ram]

Yes Weymouth ,the weather has been brilliant today. Me and Will did some more gardening,catching up  on the neglect from the time the pratt neighbours lived next door and we didn't enjoy our garden then.

 

Glad you're having a good time in Ireland.

 

I know its not everyones 'cup of tea' but have you heard any of the traditional Irish music.I'm a great fan of the uillean pipes.

 

Thanks for the update.

[Fan of Big Tone]

It certainly has been lovely weather, we came back from our camping trip in Derbyshire just as the weather got really hot. We fancied staying longer but hadn't booked and the campsite was due to be full. So we came home to enjoy the weather in the garden instead.

What's the beer like in Ireland Weymouth, is it all Guinness or can you get normal beer?

[weymouthPIE]

@super_ram I've not heard any of the traditional Irish music this time but I am quite a fan of it also, especially the older songs. Theres a show on at the Weymouth Pavillion every year called Essence of Ireland where they play all the traditional old "knees up" songs, thats usually a brilliant night!

@tonyhately there is as you would imagine a lot of Guiness on offer but plenty of other beers too. Dont forget they do Magners over here too. Only been in two pubs so far but I noticed neither of them served Fostors. I dont really drink (yet anyway) but thats normally one of the main beers!

[GrannyPie]

@super_ram I've not heard any of the traditional Irish music this time but I am quite a fan of it also, especially the older songs. Theres a show on at the Weymouth Pavillion every year called Essence of Ireland where they play all the traditional old "knees up" songs, thats usually a brilliant night!

 

Yes,Super is always listening to The Dubliners, Fureys,Planxtey,Chieftains ,etc and Irish pipes(if not its The Sixties).He got me to go and see The Chieftains and The Fureys at The Theatre Royal and I'm hooked too.

 

Thanks for the updates and enjoy the rest of your holiday.

[super_ram]

@tonyhateley there is as you would imagine a lot of Guiness on offer but plenty of other beers too. Dont forget they do Magners over here too. Only been in two pubs so far but I noticed neither of them served Fostors. I dont really drink (yet anyway) but thats normally one of the main beers!

 

You know my opinion of lagers,Fosters in particular.Seems they are sensible over there by not serving it!

 

 

@super_ram I've not heard any of the traditional Irish music this time but I am quite a fan of it also, especially the older songs. Theres a show on at the Weymouth Pavillion every year called Essence of Ireland where they play all the traditional old "knees up" songs, thats usually a brilliant night!

 

Yes, I admit I'm a bit of a nut with Trad Irish music,but as with any type of music there is also a lot that doesn't appeal to my taste.

 

Thanks again for your updates and keep on having a good time.

[weymouthPIE]

Best day of the trip so far today. We had an early start today as we went to Belfast for the day. Stopped at the Ballymena Showgrounfs - home to Ballymena united on the way.

We then went on to the Titanic museum which actually sits on the slipways from which the ship was launched. Its an amazing experience, truly fascinating. There are no artifacts from the wreck but there are things like letters. The path tells you the story of Belfast itself, the early years of Harland and wolf, and ofcourse titanic itself. If you ever get the chance to go, do it, I promise you wont regret it.

From there we had a walk around the city centre before going to Windsor park - home of Linfield and the Northern Irish national team.

One of the people we stay with - Ian, is a huge Linfield fan but today was his first visit to Windsor Park for over 30 years, so it brought back many memories for him. Unfortunatly the club shop is closed on Mondays.

We then visited Seaview Park - home of Crusaders, and we also stopped at Larne FC but sadly couldnt get in.

Stopped for a meal on the way home, now sat outside enjoying the last of the days sunshine. Been between 25 and 30 degrees all day, beautifull.

Tommorow we're heading back to Belfast to visit Glentoran's ground and go back to windsor park so Ian can go in the club shop. Then we'll be off to George Best airport for our 5:30pm flight home.

Hope your all enjoying the sunshine, what have you all been upto?

[Chris]

I've been out today, we decided to treat the children. On the way home, I tend to scan Facebook because a) I have the time and I hate being on public transport (it's not always so bad but our line tends to attract idiots).

I noticed a certain PoN member had shared an image, very excited to see it and it's a cracking photo.

Personally I would share it (if I knew WeymouthPIE better), though I'll wait for James because it's his and it wouldn't be fair. I will say it looked to be a very nice stadium and I had to refrain from making a comment about what appears to be a ditch (though I still think it's so they can feed poor players to sharks). LOL

These updates have been great, really enjoyed them and I'm glad you're having a nice time).

[Fan of Big Tone]

Keep the updates coming Weymouth, it makes interesting reading and I look forward to seeing this picture that Joe mentioned.

[liampie]

yes keep the updates coming, thanks for sharing! Ireland is a nice place, been a couple of times on short trips.

[GrannyPie]

Glad you're  getting the nice weather and enjoying yourself.Thanks again for sharing.

[super_ram]

I'm just getting used to looking forward to these posts and your holiday is nearly over. Thanks for sharing.

[weymouthPIE]

Well we're home, and although the new season is just around the corner part of me is already missing Northern Ireland. We have been countless times before, but we havent been there on a proper holiday as such since I was probably about 13, and that usually involved me following Mum around shops bored. This time we didnt do shopping but had a proper holiday.

 

Over the past week I have formed a really strong opinion on the country itself. Yes, the secterianism is still there and very visible particularly at this time of the year - marching season. You cant drive through a town without seeing the Union Jack and the red hand of Ulster hanging from every lampost or pole. But when you go into Belfast itself you do find areas where the Republic flag is flown. Thankfully its not too bad anymore. I think the media make a lot more of it than they ought to. Ireland is one of those places where you only tend to hear bad news coming out of. But you need to look at the bigger picture. There is so much stunning scenary both inland and along the coasts, theres so much to see and do, the capital city itself is a beautiful place. Yes, Belfast has its run-down areas, notably around Windsor park but what city's dont? One thing I really liked about Belfast was the fact that almost anywhere in the city, you can still see the countryside from the buisy streets. And the people are so friendly too! I ended up talking to 3 complete strangers just because they noticed my Notts County cap. It's a wonderfull place.

 

I'm planning to upload all of the pictures onto my laptop tommorow. There's well over a hundred of them including the football ground photos so I'm not sure if I'll be able to get them all onto here unless there's any way of uploading an album of pictures.

 

In fact, I've just tried uploading a couple of photos as attachments but it keeps saing "upload skipped (this file was too big to upload)"

 

 

[Chris]

Attachments within the community are quite minimalistic, it's mainly so people will create galleries. I think the limits 500k, which I can upgrade if required. There's no such limit with gallery albums and it's pretty easy to upload the images in bulk, sometimes the browser fails to complete the file and I have to click the upload button, then press cancel. It will then confirm the files been uploaded but this doesn't happen much these days for me

If you'd like to attach a gallery album, if this is the route you choose to go down.

Click inside the text editor 'My Media', Your Media Library will popup.

You can then choose to select the whole album;
 

http://prideofnottingham.co.uk/community/gallery/album/15-/

or,

Selected images;
 

http://prideofnottingham.co.uk/community/gallery/image/337-/

http://prideofnottingham.co.uk/community/gallery/image/342-/

If you need any help mate, just pm me or message me on fb (or reply here).

[GrannyPie]

It seems like you really enjoyed your time in N Ireland.Looking forward to seeing the photos. Welcome home.

[super_ram]

Yeah, Welcome home Weymouth. I'll keep a lookout for the photos

[cheeky~k8]

Glad that you enjoyed your holiday and great news that we all had good weather too.

I'm looking forward to the photos!