And so, it was finally time for a wee trip to Northern Ireland.
Our flight was not until 10.55am and, as we had already checked in online and didn’t have lounge passes (not that there is one at Stansted for now), I decided to cut out all contingency from our departure time from home.
Feeling more nervous about that fact than I was letting Karen know, we were pulling out of the drive at 7am. I just hoped for a smooth drive, and that is fortunately what we got.
I had pre-booked a short-stay Premium Red parking spot under a special offer and, within 10 minutes of arriving exactly on time , we were at security, which was pleasingly quiet.
I was randomly selected for a full pat-down, much to Karen’s amusement.
So, less than two hours after leaving home, Karen was drinking her wee Caffè Nero in the busy wee waiting area. At the designated time, we walked to the gate and, within a few minutes, were boarding.
Flying as cheaply as possible with Ryanair, we had, of course, booked to travel with only hand luggage and had entered the random seat-allocation raffle.
Kevin and I were given window seats on opposite sides of the plane, relatively close to each other at the front, whilst Karen was, of course, the length of the plane away at the back.
I fell asleep five minutes after take-off and was still dozing as we landed some 50 minutes later.
Belfast International was deserted as we made our way to find the Airport Express bus, which was about to pull away as I was buying the tickets from the machine.
Karen flashed her ankles and got the driver to wait a further 15 seconds for us. Genuinely and in friendly Irish manner, the bus driver said he was pleased to do so.
It was a 35-minute ride to Grand Central Station which, then was according to Apple Maps, was a short 0.9-mile walk to the Holiday Inn Express – Belfast City Centre.
Now, I don’t like to disbelieve the intelligence of the map, but it seemed a damn sight further than that.
It didn’t help that I volunteered to carry Karen’s bag – which was relatively light – all the way.
Very placid Karen barely mentioned her agreement with the distance.
It didn’t help that the route seemed to take us along some of the less salubrious streets of South Belfast. We stepped around some sort of drug deal taking place and stepped over a group of people drinking on the pavement.
I worried what on earth the wee hotel would be like, especially as we approached it from the rear, but my fears were allayed when we stepped inside.
It was a very nice and quite new wee hotel and the receptionist kindly showed us as she described it into the wee lift – which didn’t smell the way she described it.
After having a quick cuppa in our rooms, we headed out to explore.
Not having learnt my lesson from the walk to the hotel, I again blindly followed Apple Maps as it took us to the Botanic Gardens. The area through which we walked was no improvement on the way to the hotel.
However, the Gardens made up for it.
I thought the Palm House was just about interesting, but the Tropical Ravine more than made up for it.
Whoever thought of it as a concept – well done.
It was a walkway inside and above the tropical plants and was jolly well done.
We all needed a drink, so went to the café next door under the Ulster Museum, which we decided was too cultural for us to grace with our patronage.
The café served our needs well before we went for a further wander, which took us past the main Queen’s University building.
We eventually ended up in the Benedicts Hotel, where we imbibed a glass of the local brews before heading to our chosen restaurant for dinner – Villa Italia.
This, for those who have chosen this blog as their Mastermind subject, will recall, is one we went to back in 2021.
This place is large. It was heaving on an early Tuesday evening and had a lovely vibe.
We all chose different items and they were all excellent.
We thought the cost was reasonable as well.
The walk back to the Holiday Inn Express was straight up University Street.
This was a lovely road to walk along and we scratched our heads as to whether it was any longer than the convoluted and, to be frank, not particularly nice route along Sniper’s Drug Alley that Apple Maps had sent us.
Although it was early when we got back, for whatever reason I was totally exhausted.
Karen put some of it down to being dehydrated, so I drank a whole bottle of water and had two decent mugs of tea before retiring for the night.
Rereading this before publishing I think it is like a poor boring diary entry. Hopefully tomorrow will involve more interesting characters, incidents and jeopardy.
