A day in Leeds

Well two days actually! We spent Wednesday with Jo visiting Leeds Metropolitan University where she is doing a degree in PE - and had a very healthy lunch (as seen above) in the University area. In the evening we went to see the latest offering from James Bond - which was OK as Bond movies go. I thought the new 007 did a fine job in the role.
On Thursday Mo and I took a long walk to see an Industrial museum - which, much to Mo's disgust, was closed at this time of year! We came back into Leeds by bus and visited the Art gallery - partly because they have a nice resturant where we got lunch and partly to see an exibition of Leonardo da Vinci drawings which have been kindly lent by the Queen. His drawings are amazing but I couldn't help thinking of the corpses he had cut up to draw the bone and mucsle structures of the human body!
In the afternoon we went to the Royal Armories museum where they have a huge collection of all maner of equipment used in warfare down through the years. The photo shows Mo standing beside the only set of Elephant chain mail on public display anywhere in the world.
In the evening we rounded off our holiday with a meal at "Nandos" which was very nice. Nandos is a chain of Portugese resturants which started in South Africa and is expanding rapidly through the UK at present. Not sure if they have got to Australia yet but if the do you should try one.
We had an early start this morning (4.30) to carch a 7.00 flight to Belfast and a busy day shopping for tiles for the new studio so are ready for bed now. Goodnight.

Taking a break

Mo and I have taken a few days away from teaching and building to visit Jo and Nicky in Leeds. We had an early start this morning (5am) and, after saying our goodbyes to Sam and catching a Jet2.com flight, were in Leeds by 9 o'clock. We made our way to J&N's flat and had a quick cuppa before heading out to York for the day. Jo was at Uni so Nicky, Mo and I made the half hour trip to York by train (the first time any of us had been on a train for a long time!).

We had been told by a friend that when we made it to York we had to have lunch at "Betty's" so first priority was to hunt it out! That proved not too difficult but when we got there we discovered a long queue waiting to get in. We persevered, in spite of the cold (about 6 degrees) and the wait was well worth while. We had a lovely meal and very nicely presented. Betty's is probably York's equivalent of Bewley's in Dublin.

After lunch we wandered through some of the quaint little streets and ended up at Yorkminster cathedral. What an amazing building! They started building it in about 1240 and it took 274 years to build. It replaced an earlier cathedral and incorporated some of the stained glass windows from it - so some of the windows we were looking at were over 1000 years old. In the 1960's while doing some work on the foundations they found the remains of a Roman building dating from the time the Romans established the city in 71ad. York seemed to be the roman headquarters in this part of the world and the Emperor Constantine (a christian) had been proclaimed as emperor in York in 308ad.

Yorkminster is the second biggest Gothic cathedral in the world - after Seville in Spain and has more medieval stained glass than any other building in the world. Just to give you some idea of the magnitude of the windows - one in a gable wall was bigger than a doubles tennis court! They are going through a process of restoring some of their windows at the moment and it's going to take 10 years and 23 million pounds to restore that one and it's surrounding wall! The whole building was extreemly impressive - especially when you consider that it was built on soft ground with no piling and no cranes to lift the enormous stones 100's of feet up to their positions.

I guess such buildings were erected to bring glory to God - I wonder if He was impressed or if He was more concerned about the hardship which the common people were put under to contribute towards the enormous construction costs. I'm sure that some of the planners of these buildings did so with worthy motives but I'm left with the feeling that they are more of a monument to man's capabilities than they are items which draw attention to God and His glory. Maybe that's my reformist background speaking - probably those from more traditional roots would find those comments quite heretical!

Anyhow, we had a great day out and, after a visit to another lovely little cafe, Made our way back to Leeds where Nicky and Mo cooked dinner while I caught up on blogging! I think we plan to watch a movie tonight or maybe play a few board games - very relaxing and just what we needed.

Rugby results

Today was what I would call a perfect day Rugbywise - Australia won, Ireland won (as did all of the other celtic nations) - and, wait for it, England lost. That takes them to 7 losses in a row - the last time that happened was 140 years ago! Today their loss was to Argentina - the first time A have beaten them - and it was at Twickenham!
Ireland played really well to beat South Africa by a very respectable margin.
I've been encouraged by the response to my last posting of photos of the Mournes to post some more but I may leave that till tomorrow - bed beckons!
I had an extreemly useful conversation with Matthew this evening (hope I didn't keep you late for church) and have hopefully been able to sort out my posting problems - and learn a few new tricks. Thanks Matthew!
Well maybe just one photo for tonight!

Sam's day out

Sam and I took a day out from building yesterday (9/11) and went for a walk in the Mournes. It was an absolutly glorious day - as the photos will show. I had intended to have a day of silence and solitude but I had only just arrived at the top of the mountain when another bloke came up behind me. We got chatting and he turned out to be a retired teacher who had spent most of his life in Canada and Australia. He is now volunteering at a christian reconcilliation centre in Co. Antrim and we have an invitation to come and visit them sometime. His home is in Vancover Island so we might call in there some day as well. We spent a good while talking - and finding out that we had a lot in common - and when he moved on another man appeared. He was a BB leader from Omagh and we sat and had lunch together. We couldn't sit too close as he also had a dog with him and Sam was showing signs of wanting to have this dog for his lunch!
Sam just loves getting out for a walk in the mountains (as do I) so we must do it more often.
I don't think I was cut out to be a person who spends a lot of time on their own!
The TV programme came over very well and we will get a DVD of our segment from the producers. Perhaps if my skills as a blogger improve significantly I will have a go at publishing it. Watch this space!

Blessed...

17 GORGEOUS GRANDCHILDREN - HOW MUCH MORE BLESSED COULD A GRANDAD BE!
I hope this note will accompany a slide show of the said grandchildren which I uploaded to Photobucket tonight. If they don't appear I'll have to consult with Matthew again tomorrow!

Way Behind!

It's been a while since I've posted. That's partly because the site has been closed for maintenance the last two times I tried and partly because I feel my postings are very inferior to some of the others which I look at regularly! I have managed to work out how to include photos but still haven't managed to create any links with other blogs and certainly don't have a clue about drop shots! I do enjoy reading and watching these other blogs and maybe one of these days I'll become more adventurous.

We had a glorious day today. It was cold overnight but the sun shone out of a clear blue sky all day. The temperature probably only got to 10 or 12 degrees but there was little wind (in contrast to this past few days when it has been blowing a gale) so it was very pleasent.
Mo is on her half term break so has enjoyed a few days at home. On Monday we had some Ukranian friends for lunch - together with their interpreter -they are the two in the darker clothing in the photo (If I knew how to work drop shots I'd include the little video clip we took of them!). We really enjoyed their company and look forward to catching up with them again next time we go on a trip to Ukraine.

Mo has joined the church choir and had rehersal on Monday night. I went over with her and sat and read my book while they sang. What I heard sounded really good and I look forward to their first performance in a few weeks time. The church are going to make a worship CD in the near future with the choir having a prominent role - so watch the charts!

On Tuesday we had a meeting with a gentleman from a company which specialises in outdoor pursuits and adventure education. Now that we can accomodate about 20 people in the cottages we are looking at trying to attract small conferences and linking up with people who would be able to provide team building activities. It was a very good meeting with both of us seeing mutual benefits from the link. Watch our web site for developments (www.slievemoylecottages.com).

The plasterers are coming to render the walls of the new shed later this week so I spent today putting in door frames etc to prepare for their coming. We have the windows in (that happened yesterday as well) and will start this week to build the internal walls to create a new studio for Maureen. Hopefully that will be completed in the next couple of weeks so that we can make a start on cottage no. 4.

The TV programme which features Mo's painting workshop hasen't gone to air yet but should be on in the next 3-4 weeks. We are not sure what the response to that will be but need to have the studio prepared in case there is an immediate demand.

Last night we went to see a movie called "A Good Day". It is set in France and reminded us very much of the place where we spent the month of October last year. It was also a good little story and worth going to see if you are looking for a night out. Talking of nights out - I noted the invitation to an Italian resturant on The Rocks and may well take the said blogger up on that!!

Sorry I haven't been posting comments on other blogs but my password seems not to be recogonised when I try to do that. I will keep trying.