Summary
IN weather forecast terms, our sail round the UK on board the Fred Olsen Lines' cruise ship Black Watch had so far taken us from Dover to Wight, Portland, Plymouth, Sale, Fastnet, Lundy and Irish Sea to Malin.
Our next port of call was Bangor, Northern Ireland and with Black Watch at anchor off the coast we took the tender boat ashore with fellow passengers, one of whom was Sidney from Margate. Sidney told me that he'd taken up cruising because his inside leg measurement was 37 inches. "I've had it with aeroplanes" he said. "Having to sit sideways in my seat all the way back from Kuala Lumper finished me off." While there was plenty of leg room on Black Watch, there wasn't on the tender, so Sidney had to stand up for the ten minute crossing from ship to shore. To his credit, Sidney saw the funny side of this. Any anyway, he was too excited to sit down, as he knew of a men's outfitter in Belfast that catered for the gent of a longer leg persuasion. "It's the only shop I've ever bought a pair of trousers off the peg from" said Sid. "Found it while I was there in the army during the troubles". We'd decided to go to Belfast too, though not to buy trousers. Various organised excursions were on offer, such as a trip to the Giant's Causeway, a coach ride round the Ards Peninsular, or a tour of those parts of Northern Ireland's capital that are reminders of the bad old days - Shankill Road, Falls Road, Crumlin Road and so on. But who wants to be reminded of all that? Being of a keen horticultural bent, the illustrious Mrs B and myself had Belfast Botanical Gardens firmly in our sights. But first we had to find the railway station in Bangor, so we asked a Hobbit the way.See the full content of this document
Extract
The Friendliness of Locals
Actually he was a postman, but with such impressive dreadl...
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