She Falls Up Stairs: Mini Ireland Adventure- Part 1!

Good evening ladies and gents! If you're on Facebook, you'll know I have just returned from a mini trip to visit my lovely friend Laura in Northern Ireland! Born in Bangor, she's lived in Hong Kong as a child and then moved to Peterborough, where we met when we were about nine. We went to the same church and later the same secondary school, and have been friends ever since.

Laura's always been an Irish girl at heart so she picked Queen's Belfast as her Uni of choice, and now lives out there with her aunt and cousin, so I don't see her very often.

Fortunately I was able to take a few days off work though, and took the opportunity to go and pay her a short visit! It was so good to see her, and we got along so easily as though neither of us had been away for long. Those are the best kind of friends, aren't they? The dynamic I have with each of my close friends is different- of course, as we are all different people- but the feeling of ease and affection, whether born during the last year at uni or built through growing up together, is the same. I am so thankful for the wonderful friends I have.

This was my first time visiting Ireland so it was all very exciting. Laura lives in Ballyholme, which is a little seaside town just outside of Bangor (hometown of Snow Patrol's Gary Lightbody in case you didn't know).

I thought I would show you some photos of my trip- starting with Ballyholme and Bangor, and then moving on to part II with our day out in Belfast!

Hope you enjoy.

When I arrived on Sunday we went straight to Laura's Grandparents' for Sunday lunch- there were some other relatives over from Wales so there were large amounts of delicious food, including this pavlova made by Laura herself and those cute lemon moussey thingys in the background (I'm sorry, bakers among you, I don't remember what they were called!). Laura's family are all great fun and her Granddad was just the sweetest. He was a bit deaf, as Granddads usually are, and very Irish and funny. He kept on asking us both if there were any 'nice boys' at our unis!

After consuming large amounts of food it was quite necessary to walk it off (and what better place than the beach, which was a five minute walk away?) When I landed at the airport it was raining horrendously (welcome to Ireland), but it cleared up in the evening thankfully!

Laura and her twelve year old cousin Iona thought having a race in icy cold water was a really good idea. I declined, using my lace-up shoes as a pretty valid excuse. We did do the slow-mo Chariots of Fire run though, in some kind of silly homage to the Olympics.

I asked Iona if she wouldn't mind posing for a photo. This is what she did.

She was so cute, very smart for her age and using words like 'picturesque' which legitimately sounds better in an Irish accent.

I love this photo of Laura so much.

I asked Iona if she would take a picture of Laura and I but I don't think we were quite ready for the snap, judging by the looks on our faces!

That's better!

We were in Belfast the next day so an awful lot of photos were taken and I shall post them tomorrow- for now let's jump forward a day to our afternoon in Bangor.

This is Bangor's pretty harbour. Proof that it's not always raining in Nor'n Ire'n! In fact it was actually very warm, so I was glad I'd chosen to wear a dress despite the morning rain. The weather changes a lot there it seems.

Laura looking very cool in her new John Lennon sunglasses she found in Belfast's most awesome vintage shop (more of that tomorrow!).

I'm not quite as cool as that so I stick to my staple forties/fifties inspired summer look.

In Bangor they have a little fun park with some water-based amusements. They have a pool with swan-shaped pedal boats. It was warm. Laura and I are kids at heart. Why not?

Come on, why wouldn't you want to ride on one of these??

Our swan was not very well-behaved and kept turning right when we wanted it to go left, but we had fun!

After swan adventures/eating huge amounts of chips/walking around the harbour, we headed up to the high street for a little shopping, where I found the loveliest dress on sale, yay!

Afterwards we walked all the way back to Ballyholme along the coastline (a good hour or so walking that way). My feet were dead when we got back, but the views were worth it!