Playing Flounders

We use to play "Flounders" when we were at school. Now on a boxing-day visit to Crail, some of us indulged in a post-christmas game.

Merry Christmas 2011

Merry Christmas to everyone, from the Candlishes.

Back next year :)

Mushroom Cloud over Newtownards

What kind of cloud is this?  Answers please...

To be fair, I was planning on taking a few pictures and properly blogging the pre-christmas day-trip to Belfast, but the 3:30 am start, kind of knocked the edge off the day.  It was great to meet the outlaws, and cousins and take some time out.  That was one fantastic breakfast!

Then back on the boat around 7 pm and home just after midnight. Thank you Radio 4 for keeping me awake with "Brain of Britain" then Whispering Bob Harris did the last shift with me.  Excellent Tunes.

So this is the cloud over Northern Ireland pictured from the ferry. That's the photo I took.  :)

HSS

Another in the series of "Ferries I have travelled on". The HSS from Stranraer to Belfast was the fastest way to cross the north channel for some time, until they discovered that you could run it on 3/4 power, save 25% of the fuel, and take 30 minutes longer. The captive passengers then spent 15% more in the shops, and drank 20% more coffee. So ended the days of fast ferries to Belfast.

The new port at Cairnryan has now opened, and I wait to see it working properly. It does seem strange that when the boat docks from Belfast there are no Stena Staff around to meet and greet you.

Isn't it a good job that the carpark cash machines weren't broken and you could easily validate your parking ticket, and leave without having to get security staff to manually open the barrier to let out all the passengers.
 

After all, if that happened, you might find that customers decided to try an alternative carrier for their next crossing.

Luckily that didn't happen.

Or did it?