not toronto.

we had a lovely couple of days in belfast, and now i'm back in work. i actually couldn't take the rest of the week off as planned, i was bouncing off the walls there by sunday, which is a sign of better health i'd say. i know i've been awful moany the last couple of weeks. but you'd have to forgive me. to recap, last week:

- we got outbid on another house we went for
- we found out we didn't get affordable housing in the latest draw
- i got an ear infection and couldn't fly so...
-...we couldn't go to toronto as planned

but, coming up in july i have

-a family do
-a lovely ladies lunch
-a trip to clifen for a hen
-a trip to the galway races to a hen

so, onwards and upwards!

belfast was really nice. it was lashing rain altogether when we got there on sunday, but thats okay i got to have a bath, and prepare myself for the walking tour of "mark's belfast". you may recall a similar trip - "mark's london" when we missed our flight to iceland on our honeymoon. I sense a pattern, bad luck strikes, i get to walk around some significant places in marks life.

anyway, off we went to see where mark lived once.

I will also preface this with - mark thought we shouldn't smile in any photos because we were supposed to focus on the fact that belfast is not toronto.

and in this one i was suppose to be sad because my iced latte wasn't a tim hortons ice cap, but it didn't work and i just look pale and scared. this was in a cafe called sinammon in stranmillis which is a lovely bit of belfast i'd never been in before.


after that brekkie treat, it was time to admire some flowers in the belfast botanic gardens. i liked the wilty ones best.


there were lots of structures like this around. they seem a bit pointless - the stone inset at the base all made different tones when you stomped on them but i think that was an accident. anyway i am demonstrating the scale here.


mostly everyone that knows mark, knows his general feeling about walks. he was very amenable to the idea there on monday, but sometimes, his misgivings shone through.


i also brought my antibiotics with me. sure, drugs need holidays too.


later i saw this sign. unfortunately the shop didn't seen to be there anymore, as i have to have this dress.


we went to a beautiful old bar i've never been in before - the crown bar - it was breathtakingly deadly, and this is only a tile on the outside!


we went to sainsbury's in lisburn on the way home to get some groceries, and wine and brita filters and not feel like we'd been totally screwed financially. there were no photo's of that.