Cresfest 2025 in Creswick

by Miss Penny Black

For many years my friendship group has been tossing around the idea of all retiring to a country town where we can all be within a few minutes of each other. One of my friends is very keen in Creswick being the destination and, since I’d never been, I decided this year, while I wasn’t working, would be a great time to check it out. Cresfest is an annual folk music festival that happens in April so it seemed like a good chance to see the town at its best.

I left Melbourne at midday on Friday and it took a bit over two hours to get there from Heathmont. Creswick is near Ballarat, which is on the opposite side of Melbourne and, unfortunately, involved driving down the Calder freeway. ‘Godforsaken’ might be a little dramatic, but it’s a drab and dull drive for an hour on a rubbish-strewn road with sad old farms every so often.

Creswick itself is surrounded by small hills and forest, making it a bit of an oasis in the somewhat barren landscape of central Victoria.

I arrived a bit after 2 and had a look around the Airbnb I’d booked (‘the house on the hill’ if you like the look of it). The house was very nice and well appointed except for the fact that all the lights, bar the lamps, were fitted with cold white globes, there by reducing the coziness of the property by half. Why anyone, anywhere outside of a medical setting, would put in blue white light over warm white is a complete mystery to me.

The house is built on a hillside overlooking the town but the front of the house is just bedrooms so there is a pod on the side of the house with a glass wall and a lovely view.

It has a log fire and some uncomfortable single wicker chairs, which is a shame because lounging in front of a fire in really comfy chairs is a premium night time experience.

After poking around the house and making a mental note of all the things I’d change if I owned it, I went for a walk down the main street, which is about 200 metres away down a steep hill.

The main street of a Creswick definitely has a fancier end. There is a French patisserie with very posh case of pastries, several historic pubs and restaurants and a local library that looks like it was built very recently with zero concern for the gold rush era streetscape.

No photos of the library, it was too ugly.

After a lap and a detour down a side street I walked back to the house and jumped in the car to visit the local lake.

Very pretty, possibly enhanced unfairly by the flawless weather. Jane tells me the water is always freezing.

For the rest of the afternoon and half the evening I drank wine, listened to the Parenting Hell podcast and did some drawing. I watched the sunset, birds flocking around, and ate a slice of cauliflower bake that I brought from home.

Jess and Christophe arrived mid evening and we had a few drinks before going to bed at a very sensible hour.

In the morning I was pleased and surprised to wake up without a hangover.

We had all bought Saturday tickets for Cresfest so the first order of business was getting our digital tickets translated into wristbands. Our first act of the day was a duo of Indian guitarists who played bluegrass (so they said, folk music is a whole new world to me) and got the crowd to sing along to Home Among The Gum Trees, which was twee but cute.

Jane and Ash were driving up on the day so I went back to the house to meet them then we walked back down the hill together. After not being able to get into a show that Jess and Christophe were already in (there were 20 venues spread out around the town) we sat outside the pub for a chat, got some lunch then went to see The Tuck Shop Ladies, who were very entertaining, playing short, funky, original songs.

We walked to the primary school to check out what was there and Jane booked a session with a fortune teller. We also caught a bit of a lovely father and daughter act who turned out to be friends of Kat’s. Small world!

I got a bit tired of wandering and headed back to the house in the late afternoon to sit in the sun and relax. Eventually I lit the fire and then everyone else came back and we sat and had a very pleasant chat for a while before Jane and Ash headed back to Melbourne.

The overall assessment of the festival had been that it was a bit overpriced, poorly signed (the food vans that had set up at the primary school were completely out of sight of the rest of the festival) and it would’ve benefited from more stalls. However the acts we saw were good, the crowd was lovely and the weather was 10/10.

Being so used to electronic music festivals, it was strange to be sitting down listening to people play, but it all felt very civilised and I expect it’ll get better every year.

14Oct2024

PAX 2024

by Miss Penny Black

Two of the most fun cosplayers of the event, these guys walked around with a boombox, dancing and handing out stuff.

What is PAX? It stands for Penny Arcade Expo, Penny Arcade is a web comic but the two guys who started it, plus some other guys, created this convention about all things game and comic/manga related. This means video games, board games, cards games, Dungeons and Dragons, model making, merchandise, hardware, software and more.

Trialing games and competing in tournaments

More than 80,000 people attended over three days in Melbourne’s massive convention centre at Southbank. I had never been before but some of my friends go every year, some work there too.

Izaac (my nephew), Nikki and Tim came down from Orange for the three days. Tim got a one day pass but Izaac and Nikki came to all three days. Kat kindly let us use her apartment in Fitzroy so we got to stay pretty close by.

This guy had made the entire outfit by hand and it contained a water cooling system for hot days

They arrived Thursday night and stayed at our place then I had a day of leave on Friday so we went into the city, dropped our stuff at Kat’s and then caught the tram to the event.

The event space was two aircraft-hanger sized rooms plus three big theatres and a bunch of smaller rooms. The first talk/panel we attended was called ‘Creating Games’ but it was more about creating interactive experiences and the people talking about how simple games can be and how they personally got into making games. It was ok, I think I found it more interesting because it was the first one.

Next up, Izaac entered a Fortnite tournament. It took a while to get started.

While we waited, I managed to have a chat to the guy in the armour who was with friends who were also in the tournament. Having previously made costumes, I was blown away by his efforts and the amazing array of costumes on display everywhere. His name was Lance and he showed us photos of other things he’d made. A great chat!

His gun had a secret compartment for holding his phone.

Izaac was hoping to come in the top 20 and ended up placing 9th in the tournament out of 66 people.

There were video game, board game, card game and DnD tournaments going on continuously throughout the weekend. Also Dodgeball in a big netted area with a touch sensitive floor. Very futuristic!

We ran into Twigz and Ash soon after, friends of ours who were in the play testing area. This is where people with new games can get people to have a go and get feedback.

We had a look around some of the stands. So many things for sale!

We bought a mystery box and so did Nikki and Izaac. Each box came with three games, one big, one medium and a card/tin-sized game. Our two boxes had completely different games in them. I didn’t take photos of many of the stall but they sold everything from dice to weapons, wigs to Pokémon terrariums.

Later that afternoon, Luke and I watched a TTRPG (table top role playing game) called ‘Call of Cthulhu Live’.

The story was about a mad scientist who had cut a body into pieces then brought it back to life, whereupon it had tried to kill him and the goal of the players (four others with their own back stories) was to capture the runaway body parts and try to destroy them or save them, depending on their own motivations. The person running the game did a great job of describing the gross aspects and the players were very humorous.

Most of the rest of the day was spent walking around taking photos of people.

I was so excited to see someone dressed as a video game character I actually recognised (from Luke’s gaming)

That evening we went out for ice cream on Brunswick St before heading to bed.

The next morning Luke caught the train home because I forgot to pack his bag… he had caught the train in early with Izaac and Nikki because I’d woken up with a migraine and threw up (which made me glad I already had the day off but also annoyed because I had fun plans) so Tim offered to wait for me to sleep some more then drove us both in. Somehow I managed to forget Luke’s bag in all the hurry, so he went home for it the next morning super early. I ended up heading into PAX by myself to let the others take their time getting ready, so I walked around alone for quite a bit of the day. I spent most of the time asking for photos of people and writing down ideas for future storylines.

On my way to PAX, having taken the wrong tram

The first talk I went to on Saturday ended up being the highlight of my festival. It was an introduction to Dungeons and Dragons for beginners. The speaker was fantastic – everyone in the room played along and he explained it all so well. I run games for my friend’s young daughter but I really have no idea about some of the key aspects of the game and this taught me how to run the fighting part of adventures. I’m pretty good at making up stories and including interactive elements like puzzles and challenges, but all the technical dice-rolling that is intrinsic to real D&D is a bit of a mystery to me.

I came away from the session buzzing with ideas and went to a nearby cafe to start writing them out.

After some more photo-taking I met up with Luke and we walked around some more.

Sorry about the blur! Pin collecting is a big thing at these events

We looked at lots of stuff, ate more food, then went to a panel called ‘Yes And – Why TTRPGs Should Take Improv Classes’, which really should’ve been called ‘why developing good social skills and confidence helps you be a good role player‘. It was ok.

After this panel we went to see ‘Trope RPG’, where a panel played a superhero based story. One of the people on the panel was a member of Aunty Donna, the comedy group. It was kind of funny but I don’t think watching people role play is generally that entertaining.

Well, unless it’s everyone in a huge auditorium playing ‘The Dark Room’

We had this show recommended to us earlier in the day and it was on very late – from 9pm to 11. Nikki and Izaac had gone back to the apartment for a rest but came back in for this and were very glad they did.

The host was a manic rock-god type personality and the crowd seemed to be mostly made up of people who had been there before. The host pulled people from the crowd and made them choose options from a screen with the premise that they had awoken in a dark room. Every time the crowd chanted ‘YOU AWAKE TO FIND YOURSELF IN A DARK ROOM’ and the choices inevitably led to the character dying and everyone chanting ‘YA DIE, YA DIE, YA DIE, YA DIE’ while violent red lights flashed. It sounds weird but it was really funny and madly energetic. Even the very laconic Izaac was waving his arms in the air, hoping to be chosen.

Needless to say, the room was dark so apart from the first photo I don’t have any others.

On the walk home Izaac wanted his photo taken. But not his face!

Sunday was a bit more laid back. Luke and I went in a bit earlier, grabbing crepes on Brunswick St.

The weather had been lovely throughout and Sunday was warmer still. We had a wander and tried out a new game from an Australian designer.

Despite looking like a game for little kids, it was quite strategic and challenging. Simple rules but an interesting depth of play was available. When it comes out we might buy it.

Nikki and Izaac also did some play testing.

One of the last things we saw was a live role playing game where there was no dice rolling, the people playing the game had to do a physical challenge instead.

Luke and I headed home mid afternoon, leaving Tim to drive Nikki and Izaac when they were done and bring the box of games we’d bought. Despite the weekend being kind of hectic I felt really energetic when I got home. Being surrounded by people with such positive vibes and enthusiasm for the things they loved was really uplifting.

Part of the enjoyment of the event was seeing how well it was run. Queues were kept out of everyone’s way, crowds weren’t too noisy and there were lots of food vans and everything was open really late. Even getting in was super quick, I don’t think I queued for more than 30 minutes for anything.

We loved it so much we’re already planning our trip back next year!

4Oct2024

Raymond Island

by Miss Penny Black

Every year we catch up with Luke’s family (parents Lea and Pete, sister Erin and her partner Brendan and their three girls) and all go on holiday together somewhere in Victoria. This year our trip was to Raymond Island, which sits just off the coast of Paynesville in south-eastern Victoria. It’s about 3 hour’s drive from Melbourne through the very green Gippsland countryside. Luke’s family all came from Albury, so they drove over the mountains and Brendan got car sick. I’m sure he’ll appreciate me mentioning this in the first paragraph.

Raymond Island is in the Gippsland Lake system. Ninety Mile beach runs along a strip of land on the ocean front, which keeps the waters of the lakes much calmer.

Unusually, despite it being only about 200 metres from the mainland, Raymond Island is accessible only by ferry. The ferry only takes five minutes but if you’re outside the continuous service hours, sometimes you have to wait about half an hour for it to return. Foot traffic is free on the ferry but cars are $14 return.

We are staying about 2km from the ferry port on Western Boulevard.

The ferry crosses where it says ‘Raymond Island’ on the map.

Our house sits right next to the power pole which brings all the power to every house on the island. I probably wouldn’t have even been aware of this fact if we hadn’t arrived to discover the whole island was out of power thanks to a large catamaran catching the power line and breaking the connection.

The power pole was slightly bent by the accident and now has to be removed.

For the first day we avidly watched all the workmen come and go and talked to locals about the progress. The power came back about 7pm on the second day. Luckily we had a bbq, the hot water was heated by gas, we had a log fire and the caretaker brought us a bag of candles. As Lea said, it only makes the holiday more memorable!

Luke and I drove down on Monday and stopped at the Morwell Top Pub for lunch. I mainly wanted to write this down because the lunch was really good and if we come this way again we would definitely break the trip there.

We made it to the island by 4pm and caught the ferry over. The island has no shops or really much to do, but it is well-known for its resident koalas!

There are supposed to be over 200 but we didn’t see any on our arrival.

The house we are staying in was booked by me through Stayz. It is two storeys and has all the kitchen and lounge etc on the top floor to make the most of the views.

Erin, Brendan and the girls are in the downstairs space where there is a queen sized bed and a room with three sets of bunks. Lea, Pete, Luke and myself are sleeping upstairs, which has worked out well with the girls waking at the crack of dawn each day. I spent last week in Orange while Mum was in the Base Hospital recovering from her hip replacement, so this has been a good chance to catch up on some sleep after staying in her hospital room for three nights.

The weather the first full day we were here was very windy but it was pretty still from then on and we’ve been out walking lots and gone over to Paynesville on the ferry for coffee.

We also walked the koala trail and saw lots of koalas!

Along the koala walk was a kookaburra sitting very still and watching all the people go by.

If you’ve never heard a kookaburra’s call, search for it online and have a listen, they are very unusual!

There is a house that hires Surrey bikes to travel along the koala trail. Erin, Brendan and the girls tried them out.

Rather than slog around on heavy bikes, Lea, Pete, Luke and I went to the Metung Hot Springs, with lunch at the Metung Pub on our way there.

I hadn’t even heard of Metung before, but it’s a very posh little hamlet on the water and the pub had a lovely view over all the yachts. We arrived to find the place pretty booked out, but the waiter said a party of four was very late so he gave us their table right by the window.

I couldn’t say no to fish and chips with a view like this.

Next were the hot springs. The Metung ones are part of the same chain as the more established Mornington Peninsula Hot Springs. The ones in Metung are only two years old so they don’t have as many pools. We were lucky in our timing as there weren’t many people there so we got to sit in the hottest pools – individual barrels – that overlooked the lakes.

The barrels sit half under the decking, there’s actually lots of leg room.

The time limit for the barrels was ten minutes, so we got in and out a few times and moved to a larger and cooler barrel pool and a shallow ‘stargazing’ pool, which was sloped so you could lie back and look up.

We spoke to a staff member who said many more pools were planned and it certainly felt like they needed more, the capacity of the place wouldn’t be huge right now. I’d like to come back in a few years and see it when it has expanded.

My main tip would be to wear sandals in, don’t leave them at the lockers. I left mine and some of the paths were pretty sharp gravel.

The springs are about 50 minutes from Raymond Island by road.

One morning Luke and I took a drive across to the back of the island to Gravelly Beach, which is much more pebbly than gravelly. It was pretty much empty and the water was almost completely still. We could see tiny fish swimming about and the beach was covered in tiny shells.

There was quite a bit of seaweed but also some patches that were clearer. Everyone else went to the beach later than us when the wind had picked up some more. That’s the problem with the seaside – so often the lovely weather is chilled by the winds. The water temperature was around 13 degrees, so far too cold to be getting in anyway, although the girls have wetsuits so they have managed it.

On our last afternoon on the island we all went down to the little beach on the far end of Western Boulevard, about 500 metres from our house. Brendan played beach cricket with Evie and Lola, while Thea hid from the curious black swans.

Looks tropical until you feel the water temperature

All the animals on the island were very friendly… too friendly for some!

On the final morning Luke and I packed the car and then met everyone else at the ferry to go over to Ginny’s Cafe, which we’d all been to multiple times by then.

I like being in a place long enough to go back to the good places repeatedly. We also had dinner at the Old Pub one night, which wasn’t fancy but the food was fine.

Last thing to do was get a stranger to take a photo of us in front of the ferry before heading home.

Hopefully we’ll be back one day and when we do the weather will be just as good! As we drove out of Paynesville the first few drops of rain started falling, as if to emphasise our return to everyday life. From here Lea and Pete are visiting family, Erin and Brendan et al are heading to Wilson’s Prom then back to Lakes Entrance to spend time with Brendan’s family.

The duck family we watched from the balcony

A family of magpies kept an eye on the food situation on our balcony.

Altogether a very successful holiday!

15Jul2023

One Night In London

by Miss Penny Black

We left Belfast around midday and flew to Luton, the only London airport I had yet to pass through. Our flight was the bumpiest I’ve had in years. I won’t blame EasyJet… but should I?

The trip from Luton into the city was straightforward and we had booked a nice-ish hotel, the NYX London for the final night of our trip.

It was very centrally located in Holborn, close the the British Museum and Seven Dials, where I was hoping to get in a final visit to the Gudrun Sjoden store.

The hotel foyer looking a bit like a Vegas casino.

We dropped off our bags in our room on the ninth floor. It wasn’t high enough to escape the traffic noises but it wasn’t too bad.

We had booked the hotel because it had a pool and I wanted one more holiday swim, but by the time we got there I couldn’t be bothered. We went out for a walk instead.

On our walk we had one of the more disturbing experiences of our trip. We were by the Thames and it was rush hour, with hundreds of cyclists going by every minute. We saw a man on a bike, who was probably in his late 50s and without a helmet, go sailing off his bike. He looked like he’d just fainted while in motion and he just sort of flew onto the road head first.

It was so shocking, we were about 20 metres away and a number of other cyclists immediately stopped to help him. We stood for a couple of moments to see if he’d wake up, which he did, and one of the cyclists called an ambulance. The whole sight was quite distressing and even now, two weeks later, I wonder how he is recovering.

I didn’t even know Twinings had a store. I meant to send this photo to Jess but forgot so here it is for you!

For dinner I did a search of local pubs and booked us a table at The Ship Tavern.

It turned out to be a great way to spend our last evening. We ordered a steak and ale pie for two and sat in a cosy booth drinking wine. Lovely!

Despite being in a tiny room the pub restaurant was full of character. The staff were lovely too.

After dinner we went back to the hotel to spend some of last £20 notes. We had a couple of fancy cocktails but then discovered they don’t take cash, which I hate – if it’s legal tender it should be accepted in businesses. We tried to spend it at the airport the next day and came across the same problem. So if anyone wants to buy £80 off me let me know!

Our flight the next day wasn’t until after 8pm, so we had a whole day to fill.

First up was the hotel’s buffet breakfast, which was quite nice. I forgot to take photos, which Mum will be happy about as she told me there were too many food photos in the blog.

We went for a walk around Seven Dials and Holborn.

There’s a public art space in the area that is a huge screen that wraps around 3 sides of a large undercover area and also covers the high ceiling. Anyone can walk in and it shows a range of artworks.

This is all screens, it was very entertaining.

I went back to my favourite store to find that there were lots of things on sale (yay!) but also lots of things sold out (boo!). I bought a bunch of patterned tops and bits and pieces and the lady gave me a discount if I promised to join the store club online, which took me two weeks but I eventually got around to it. She even remembered me from my previous visit! I don’t think they’d ever had anyone so excited to be there.

After that we went to see the new Wes Anderson movie.

We both agreed that it was the most Wes Anderson that Wes Anderson had ever Wes Andersoned.

Before and after the movie we spent some time in Foyles, a five storey book store with a fairly small sci-fi and fantasy section. I didn’t find anything I wanted but I thought this cover was funny.

Last stop was a drink and some food at a pub not far from the hotel. Unfortunately it was full of day office workers but we were happy to be indoors watching the rain come down.

Some extremely unhealthy snacks for our late lunch.

Eventually we went back to the hotel to collect our bags from storage and headed for Heathrow.

We decided to catch the new Elizabeth Line. The sign at Tottenham Court Road said all trains stopped at Heathrow, but once we got on I noticed it said it was going to Reading (pronounced Redding, just to be difficult). As I anticipated, the train did not stop at Heathrow.

We were very early, which was lucky as I might’ve had an aneurism if we had come near to missing our flight. It was also absolutely pouring with rain when we got off at the next stop. A rail worker on the platform told us there would be a bus nearby but we followed his directions and found no bus stop, nothing.

We ended up catching an Uber to Heathrow and the driver was very happy to have an airport fare, so I guess that was something!

At Heathrow we found a table at one of the bars and ordered some drinks to fortify us for our plane, which had been delayed past 9pm.

The flights weren’t too bad. We slept through most of the first flight, which was the longest (14 hours) and I slept through about half of the second flight.

The changeover in Korea was tiresome as we had to go through security again, despite not leaving that wing of the terminal. After sitting for so long a bit of standing was fine.

In line for security was a woman with a small white poodle. I’d never seen a pet in an airport before, it was kind of weird.

Apologies in advance – from now on there’s hardly any photos as I was too tired and not thinking. Plus there wasn’t much of interest to photograph!

The food on the flights was good and we had an empty seat next to us on the first leg. Luke was convinced we’d have the same on the second but ended up with a fellow next to us.

We arrived in Sydney around 7am to discover my bag was still in Seoul. Sigh. I filled out the paperwork and they estimated I’d have my bag within two days. It actually ended up taking six, rather annoyingly. I did have an AirTag on my bag though so I could, frustratingly, see it sitting at the terminal in Sydney for five of those days.

From Mascot we caught the airport train to central station then a train to Bankstown, following signs directing us to change there for trains to Lithgow. My brother was supposed to be meeting us there, which was very kind of him!

Sydney was a balmy 20 degrees Celsius, lovely! But as we got into the Blue Mountains things cooled down. We also discovered that this train, which a station attendant in Blacktown assured us went to Lithgow, actually stopped two stops earlier at Mount Victoria. You’d think we’d have learned not to trust rail employees by this stage!

Fortunately Michael was happy to drive a bit further to get us and we waited in a cafe to avoid the arctic winds. Luckily I’d put a cardigan in Luke’s bag!

We stopped for lunch in Bathurst then made it back to Michael’s place, where we both fell into bed. Luke was particularly exhausted, having been up for almost 24 hours at that stage.

We waited an extra night in Orange (hoping for my bag to be delivered – it wasn’t), and I had a catch up evening with friends, which was lovely, and spent some time with mum and dad.

Next stop was Albury. I think I was so pleased to be driving a car for the first time in three months that I got carried away and did the whole six hours. We stopped for lunch in Gundagai and I, rather pointlessly, took Luke to a lookout that was shrouded in mist.

We only ended up spending one night in Albury but it was lovely to see Luke’s family and on the following morning we stopped by Kath’s (Luke’s grandmother) to pick up some gigantic orchid pots to take back to Melbourne.

This turned out to be the most harrowing part of the whole cross-planet journey, as I had not really considered what would happen to all the cockroaches and beetles and various other bugs during the four hour drive.

It didn’t take long for them to start exploring the car and thank god Luke was driving or I’d probably have caused an accident. Eventually we made it home and, after giving the house a hug, we pulled the pots of the car and I emptied a can of fly spray into it to fumigate.

Bug drama aside (and what more Australian way could there be to arrive home, really?) we were very glad to be home. The only things left to do were pick up Bonnie, which we did the following morning, and wait for my bag.

Bonnie was predictably unenthused to see us.

If it wasn’t for the fact that we’d trained her to greet us calmly you’d think she didn’t want to leave Amanda and Matt and their three dogs. that’s what we told ourselves, anyhow.

My bag eventually arrived, only six days late.

Now life is almost back to normal. Luke has gone back to work on The Hundred with Andy Lee and I’m enjoying pottering around the house and having lunch with friends. Melbourne winter doesn’t seem so bad after staying in Orange for a few days and it’s mostly been sunny. Basically, if you can manage to be away from home long enough to enjoy getting back then I think you’ve hit the jackpot, travel-wise.

So that’s it for the blog until next time! to finish here’s some food photos of dishes I’ve made since I’ve got home that were inspired by my travels.

Are you looking for somewhere to eat in Greater London? Click here to try looking through recommendations on Restaurantji.co.uk.

4Jul2023

A Big Belfast Weekend

by Miss Penny Black

For our final weekend in Belfast we did a lot of things! First up was seeing The Prodigy. I’ll be honest, I’m not usually one for going to shows like this where there’s a lot of standing around, queues for everything and apocalyptic toilet situations. However Luke was keen to go and it was a show that would be over by 11pm – a big draw for most over 40s and particularly for me, who is almost 50.

The forecast was for some rain so we (Luke, Peter, Ciara (Peter’s sister), Ash, Danny and I) took brightly coloured ponchos in little plastic balls but I also decided to take my proper raincoat. It’s such a hard decision, whether to take a coat to an event. If it doesn’t rain I’ll have to hold it all night, but if it rains and I get wet through I’ll be miserable and cold. I did wear it all evening through some light showers so I was glad I’d taken it.

I’ve always liked The Prodigy, even though almost all their music is quite angry, punk-electronic shouty kind of stuff that I wouldn’t normally listen to. Prior to the show I thought I’d only recognise two or three songs. I ended up knowing almost all of them and the ones I didn’t know I really liked. We stood fairly far back from the stage but everyone around us was dancing and having a great time.

Adding to the enjoyment of the evening, Danny had booked taxis to take us there and then pick us up outside, so the whole thing was very seamless and smooth. Normally getting home from big events is stressful with the crowds and transport but it was all so easy.

We ended up staying up until the small hours, talking and cuddling Freddie. A brilliant evening all round!

The next day (Saturday) we did absolutely nothing but sit around watching TV and chatting, as one does after a big night out. On Sunday Danny drove Peter, Luke and I to Mount Stewart, a manor house with extensive gardens.

There was a car show out the front with some very cute and stylish old vehicles. Luke and I paid for entry to the house and the ground floor was open.

After learning so much about Irish history on this trip, it’s hard for me to enjoy places like this in an uncomplicated way. Yes, I love the architecture and find things interesting, but the people who entertained their highbrow friends here so they could ‘get away from it all and relax’ in a 22 bedroom, 24,000 acre estate, were doing it while catholic families only miles away were living in squalor because the government, that these people were part of, treated them like second class citizens. Not all that different from Australian history, I guess – almost all the beautiful old buildings in Melbourne were funded by gold that was gained from the destruction of native lands and removal of indigenous people.

Still, I did like the scope of their lounge room. It managed to be enormous and yet cosy and it was interesting to think about the points made in Watching the English, the book I’ve been reading throughout my trip. The author says that at the very top and bottom of the British class ladder, people will have mismatched and old furniture. The poor aspire to matching lounge suites but the rich inherit antiques and don’t want their furniture to match, for fear of looking like new money or middle class. Very few pieces matched in this room so these people must’ve been very rich!

Luke liked these lettuce-shaped dishes where the handles were formed by the curl of the leaves.

The gardens were slightly derelict but had quite a Secret Garden feel. There was a walled rose garden with some lovely specimens.

Beautiful. Also I’m so glad I got a new phone before I left, how lovely is the soft focus!

We had a shower then sun for five minute intervals and on our 30 minute walk I think I took off my jacket then put it back on at least ten times.

I’ll only show you the sunny photos though, to give the impression we had perfect weather.

Cygnets!

The landscapes park had lots of different types of landscapes and copses of different types of trees.

After a drink at a seaside inn we dropped Freddie off home. We then headed to a venue that was usually quiet on a Sunday afternoon so we could try Belfast’s famous LASA spice bag (famous because Lizzo had recently taken to social media to complain about missing out on trying one as they were closed after her show).

However things were not as we had anticipated – a DJ was playing extremely loud music indoors and LASA, one of the food trucks lining the walls, was giving away free servings of their spice bags. Unfortunately whoever was making them had doused them in chilli flakes so we left it unfinished and moved outside.

I wish I could post a video, it was quite deafening for mid afternoon on a Sunday. There were family groups sitting around looking a bit shell shocked.

Apparently it wasn’t their normal fare – as you can see, pretty plain.

Peter got us all some slices of excellent NY-style pizza, which were much more satisfying.

The whole time we were outside there was a man with a dog and the dog was standing either on the table or trying to get to our table to get our food. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a public eating place that allows dogs on tables.

A bright rainbow came out over the rooftops.

We spent the rest of the evening at different bars. Being a Sunday, it wasn’t too busy.

This pub had live music and way too many things that required dusting.

So many flowers decorating the pubs and bars.

‘Baby Guinness’ – Tia Maria with Baileys

But all good things must come to an end, and on Monday morning Danny drove Luke and I to the airport.

Goodbye Belfast!

If one picture encapsulates our meteorological experience it’s this one.

Danny and I made vague plans to do another walking trip, possibly around The Ulster Way, which is in Northern Ireland. That might be something we do next time, who knows?