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Showing posts with label Northern Ireland. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Northern Ireland. Show all posts

Book Review | All the Beggars Riding by Lucy Caldwell


Lara and her younger brother, Alfie, living in London during the 7os and 80s, are used to their father's absence. As a Northern Irish plastic surgeon, he spends most of his time in Belfast attending to bomb victims of the Troubles and only coming back to work at a Harley Street clinic and to his family in London every other weekend.
However, When Lara is twelve he is killed in a helicopter crash and it is then the truth of his double life is revealed. He has another wife, another family, other children in Northern Ireland and Lara's mother is, in fact, his mistress.

I found this in Waterstones in a section of Irish authors and picked it up for my granny for Christmas because she's normally all over this sort of thing. However, the blurb intrigued me so much I ended up reading it on my Kindle myself.

This book was basically everything I expected- an insight into a painful and complicated family situation that transpires as the result of one man's selfishness and the effect it then has on his children, both at the time and in much later years, as an adult Lara struggles to make sense of her childhood and understand her father for the person he really was.

One thing I really liked about this book is that there was nothing at all pretentious about it. I think this was partly down to the fact that Lara, as the narrator, is portrayed as simply trying her hand at writing for the first time in order to get her family's story down on paper. Actually, Caldwell captured the character of Lara and all of the emotion of the story so well that I  had to check to make sure it wasn't an autobiographical novel, and it wasn't. The author's life is in fact world's away from her character's, Caldwell being both younger and a Cambridge graduate which I think really shows her skill as a writer.

However, there were times when I did find Lara's character as an adult a bit annoying, mostly for her tendency for self-deprecation and 'woe is me' attitude. Also, I will say this is quite a heavy read at times and for anyone who likes to see all (literary) conflicts resolved at the end of a book, you might find this one a little frustrating. Overall though it's definitely a worthwhile read. [Rating: «««]
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Goodbye 2014 | New Years Day on the Coast


Hello folks! First of all, Happy New Year!! I hope you've all had a lovely past few days. I'm so tired at the minute- I go through phases where I don't sleep very well and only got a couple of hours last night- so please excuse me if I ramble or if this post just doesn't make any sense. 

With the coming of the new year, of course, my Bloglovin' feed has been full of new years resolutions and posts reflecting on the year gone by. I thought about writing something similar myself, a little round-up of my experiences in 2014. It seemed like the logical thing to do- obligatory, even- but in the end I've decided not to. 2014 definitely wasn't the worst year I've ever had. In fact, it was a year filled with new friendships, new experiences and an abundance of happy memories. It was also the year I started my blog, which has probably been one of the best decisions I've ever made. At the same time, though, 2014 has been a year fraught with difficulties and enormous challenges, and for that reason I'm really not a bit sad to see it go.

Instead, I look forward to the future. I'm really not sure what 2015 has in store for me but I'm really excited to find out. Ideally, I want it to be a year that changes me for the better, I want it to be a year that grows me, and ultimately, a year where I take really good care of myself because I don't feel like that's something I've been particularly good at in the past.

I spent this New Years at my aunt and uncle's house up in the Antrim coast with the pair of them, my mum, my sister and my two cousins. These are just some photos of a walk we took on the beach at White Park Bay on New Year's Day. We'd spent all that morning playing Mario Kart and eating chocolate cake and then thought it would be a good idea to get out of the house and into the fresh air before it started getting dark. The weather wasn't great, but I almost feel like the rain added to it in a way. I know I look like a little bald gnome- don't laugh at me!


Anyway, I'm going to go and get a bit of sleep now before I go stir-crazy! Sending you all so much love and well wishes for 2015. I really hope it's a great year for all of us.
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Scenes | Dinner at The Barking Dog, Belfast

One of the things I sincerely miss about Belfast when I'm at university is all of its quirky and eclectic bars and restaurants, and there really is a lot of them. I basically spent the entirety of my last week of university, in fact, dreaming of my return to my home city where I could soak in the wintry ambience of its bustling beer gardens, dining out and getting tipsy with old friends amidst the hum of city sounds.


Thankfully I have a friend with an equal penchant for alcohol and good food in Gemma and on Thursday night we decided to take a little dander into Belfast for dinner and drinks. I'd managed to nab a last minute table at The Barking Dog on the Malone Road which was really lucky since it's normally so busy, especially around Christmas time.


Our table was by the window which was nice since the restaurant is in the University Quarter of the city, right by where the Queen's University student accommodation is so you could see all the students passing by outside, heading out. The table was also candlelit and decorated with roses and holly which was lovely.

Gemma and I both opted for turkey and ham for our meal- it is Christmas after all!- and I have to say, it was amazing


After dinner we headed out to a bar called 'Filthy McNasty's', though despite the name, which my English friends think sounds absolutely horrific, there's not really anything particularly filthy or nasty about it. It's probably the most popular bar in Belfast at the minute, made up of a quirky indoor bar, beer garden, cocktail bar and nightclub, the 'Gypsy Lounge' which has an interior made up to look like an old gypsy caravan. It's one of my favourite city haunts for sure.

We didn't stay for too long, just for one drink before calling it a night, but overall I had a lovely evening and I'm looking forward to many more like it before I head back to uni!
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A Weekend at Home in Belfast

Well haaay! Firstly, I'm so sorry I haven't posted much in a while, I've been buried chin-deep from a relentless barrage of uni work and it hasn't been fun but I'm back now, thank goodness, and ready to bombard you with my usual biweekly ramblings! Also, apologies for the poor image quality, I left my camera back at uni this weekend because it was a bit too bulky to fit into my bag so all of these photos were just taken on my iPhone.

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Saturday Roadtrip | Walled Gardens & Wild Flowers

Last weekend my cousin Jenny and I took a little roadtrip around the Causeway Coastal Route around the north Antrim coast of Northern Ireland. The route has some really stunning views and its also a very very long drive, I think it took us around 7 hours and we didn't even go the whole way around! But roadtrips are basically my favourite thing ever so I was in my element.


We set off around 12, stopping for lunch at a lookout along the way, and then as we were driving along we saw signposts for Glenarm Castle Walled Gardens and Tearoom. Neither of us had ever been there before so we decided to stop and I'm so glad we did. The garden was beautiful, it was just filled with so much colour particularly from the thousands of wild flowers growing everywhere. I think that was my favourite thing about it. There were also apple and pear trees, water features, statues and a mount where you could look out over the garden. It was a really misty day and you could see the fog settling over the hills and trees in the distance which I think added to the atmosphere. I just wish my camera was able to capture it better! Jenny had brought her DSLR with her so we both wandered around for a while taking photos which was really relaxing, we both even managed to snap a picture of a butterfly that was sitting on one of the flowers.


After about an hour we heading off again and started noticing that there were quite a few cyclists on the road, then a few cyclists turned into a couple dozen cyclists and then eventually we were stuck behind hordes of cyclists before realising there was actually a huge cycle event around the coastal route. Just our luck! On the bright side, we were moving so slowly we really had time to appreciate the scenery haha.


Along the road we also stopped at Dunluce Castle, a medieval castle that sits basically on the very top of a cliff plunging down into the ocean. It's one of the more famous castle in Northern Ireland and is really very striking. We didn't go in this time as it was about to close but we took some photos from the cliffs overlooking it. It's been a really long time since I've visited properly so I desperately want to go back soon and have a proper look around.

And so we began the long journey home, though not before stopping for dinner at a restaurant on Portstewart promenade. Can we just take a moment to appreciate the sheer size of Jenny's filled Yorkshire pudding? Because it's pretty massive! One thing I love about the fact Jenny and I have grown up together is being able to reminisce about our childhoods and family, especially the ones who aren't around any more, it's nice to be able to sit and chat about everyone and just remember, which is what we spent a lot of time doing in the car and at dinner. Then, on the way home in the car we just had the music blaring, soundtrack for the day being 'Chandelier' by Sia, which is one of my favourite songs of the whole year, and also by far my favourite music video. I've probably watched it about 26 hundred thousand million times.

I know it's a bit late to say now but I hope you all had a lovely weekend yourselves!

follow me on twitter? @alphabethblog
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Coastal Adventures in Dundrum, Co. Down


Over the weekend a couple of my friends and I went on a little adventure to a place called Dundrum in Co. Down, a little town on the coast surrounded by the Mourne Mountains. We went up in the early evening on Saturday night so we were there whenever the sun started to set, which was beautiful, especially because the moon was so bright. We parked the car and headed down the pathway through Murlough National Nature Reserve towards the beach. It started getting dark quite quickly after we arrived so that was the only part of our trip I really managed to capture (my camera isn't great in the dark), but since Robin Williams's death my friend Chris (who was still a nutcase before this) has been moved to "suck the marrow" out of life- a reference from Williams's role in "the Dead Poets' Society"- so as soon as we reached the beach, he stripped down in the pitch black and ran half-naked into the sea. He has since caught a cold, but fair play to him I guess, I think we could all do with sucking the marrow a little more, because let's face it, life is short! I think Robin William's sudden death has really proven that to all of us in these last few weeks. I've certainly been thinking about it anyway.

When Chris had enough of frolicking around in the water and had dried himself off we headed back and up to Dundrum Castle which sits on a grassy hill overlooking the town. The castle was built by John De Courcy, an Anglo-Norman knight, during his conquest of Ulster around the turn of the 13th Century. As like many of the castles in Ireland, Dundrum Castle is now in ruins but at one time it was a strong and imposing structure, passed through the hands of kings, knights and earls over the course of its time, and so is seeped in history. If you'd like to read a bit more, I found this little PDF from Northern Ireland's Department of the Environment. I'll confess, the castle is pretty creepy in the dark and I was a little bit nervous but we still went up and had a good wander round anyways! Because it was so dark though the stars were really bright which was nice.
After that little adventure we headed back home (though not before stopping for a cheeky McDonald's!) and I went straight to my bed. It was a really lovely, fun night though, I really want to do it again soon!
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