When Danny and I were doing the Camino he would have a quick chat to his mum every day and I would be sure to yell hello from the background as I’d met Danny’s mother, Kathryn, years ago… decades ago, actually! So we all met up for brunch at an art gallery in the middle of the city. Somewhat embarrassingly for the rest of us, Kathy was much more fashionably dressed and had also been out filming interviews for a community project while we’d been dragging ourselves out of bed.

Brunch was lovely and the cafe was quiet despite the city being very busy when we got outside.

While in the gallery we went to look at an exhibition of teapots, which I thought I’d send photos of to Charmaine since we’d been to a tea cosy festival last year.

We did not manage to find the teapots but did spend a surprising amount of time in the lift going up and down looking for them. Oh well!

The exhibitions we did find were a bit sparse.

Much better to be out on the streets where Belfast really shines.

Excellent!

Such fantastic diversity in themes and styles and so huge! Many were commissioned as part of a festival.

Being a Saturday afternoon, all of Belfast’s demographics were out in the cathedral quarter.

We walked through a covered market and I bought some hand-painted cards.

I’m very curious about this cheese.

This one reminded me of Lea, who loved sticky toffee pudding but maybe not enough to try it as a cheese flavour.

Peter always describes people who behave wildly as ‘wee hallions’.

More art.

It’s almost everywhere you look and really contributes to the vibrant character of the city.

We popped into The Sunflower for a drink. It has one of the last remaining entry cages from The Troubles.

Nowadays they do pizzas and music and it’s very relaxed.

Yet more art, this one is one of my favourites.

Before going back home, a visit to a fancy cheese shop.

I didn’t mention Freddie yesterday, he is Peter and Danny’s dog and a cockapoo. He is very cuddly and spends almost all his time doing this.

It makes me miss Bonnie even more!

We had a very fancy dinner booked at restaurant called The Muddler’s Club so we got changed then headed back into the city. I had been feeling the hay fever again so I took some tablets, not thinking that one of them acted like a sedative and I was drowsy all evening.

Despite my sleepiness the food was amazing; two entrees, two mains and two desserts with bread and a plate of tiny appetisers.

We had matched wines and they were really well matched, especially the entree that was a scallop with iberico ham in a butter and pea sauce. I think of all the courses, that’s the one I won’t forget.

After dinner we went for a drink in this fancy building.

The drinks were absolutely delicious but they were at the top of the scale, price-wise too. Worth it for the very luxurious atmosphere and they did come with some snacks.

Slightly worried about the end of public transport time, we caught the glider (a bus/tram hybrid) back to Ballyhackamore and had a last couple of drinks at a very buzzing brewery (Bullhouse East) that we had visited the night before.

On returning home we watched a few episodes of a very Trailer Park Boys style show called Hardy Bucks, a show about some complete drop kicks, set in small town Ireland. As you could probably predict, Luke and I understood about one word in ten and none of the Irish in-jokes but found it amusing anyhow.

I was in bed by midnight, Luke, Danny and Peter stayed up chatting about music for several hours.

Tomorrow: wild weather, icecream and magic mushrooms!