An Ornament, Some Progress, and Ireland -- Again

Greetings, all!  I'm back in the blogosphere...at least for a little while!

 

I got the JCS ornament issue a few weeks ago and there are a few designs that appeal to me.  I sat down yesterday afternoon and stitched one of them while watching football:

 

It's called Peace Bird and its from Rosewood Manor.  I stitched it on a piece of 28-count white Jobelan I had in my stash, using the called-for DMC flosses and Mill Hill beads.

I've also been making progress on some WIPs.  I finally finished that big ol' orange pumpkin, so the end is in sight for Plumpkin.  I just need to stitch her shoes and finish the word.  The chart calls for star buttons, but I'm not sure I'll use those.

I've also got some more of the border done on Isabella Johnstone:

DH and I had the opportunity to go back to Ireland last month, so we went back to the north to see some of the things we missed the first time around.  Once again we flew into Dublin and drove to Belfast; on the way up, we stopped in Hilden - just south of Belfast - for lunch.  We got there around 11:45 and the restaurant didn't open until 12:30, so the owner suggested we take a walk down a canal towpath behind an abandoned linen mill.  It was quite a lovely walk.

I didn't get the best picture of these little orange flowers.  I'm not sure what they are but I think maybe they are scarlet pimpernels.

We don't usually do bus tours, but this trip we did .  It was a two-day ticket; day one was the tour of Belfast with the option of getting off and back on at any of the stops, and day two was the Titanic Experience.  I saw this mosaic at Belfast Castle, so of course I had to have a picture!

A section of the "peace wall", dividing the Catholic and Protestant neighborhoods in Belfast.

 

This is what we had for breakfast at the B&Bs.  It's called an Ulster fry -- sausage, ham, eggs, soda bread and potato bread.  Healthy?  I doubt it.  Delicious?  Oh yes!

The Titanic Experience tells the story of the Titanic from planning, design, and building in Belfast through the aftermath of the sinking and the discovery of the wreckage in the late 20th century.  The building sits at the top of the slipway where the Titanic was built.  The four sides of the building are designed to look like a ship's prow.  It's extremely interesting and well worth the time and money.

White Point Bay, along the north coast.  The tiny town at the bottom of the cliff is called Portbradden.

We stopped at Bushmill's distillery and took the tour.  Photography isn't allowed on the tour -- they don't want to risk a flash or any kind of electronic whatchamacallit igniting the, umm, fumes.  But this little guy was in the waiting area where we bought our tickets and queued up for the tour.  I asked if he was the distillery cat and the ladies there told me that he belongs to a local minister and comes down to the distillery every day for his nap.

One of the rock formations at the Giant's Causeway.  The legend is that the giant Finn McCool brought a camel back with him and disguised him as a rock formation so he wouldn't be stolen.

At the Giant's Causeway.  DH is in the middle of the group in the brown jacket and blue jeans.  He has several commemorative patches from the Apollo moon missions on the jacket and, after the tour, Catherine, the guide (red jacket), asked him if he had "been up." (He hasn't!)

Giant's Causeway:

Sunday, January 31, 1972, is known as Bloody Sunday, when a civil rights march in Derry turned deadly when British troops opened fire on the marchers.  The original investigation determined that the troops were responding to violence begun by the marchers; however, another investigation was opened in 1998 and, after 12 years, found that the fire was unprovoked.  The Free Derry Museum in Derry tells the story of Bloody Sunday, as well as of the events leading up to it and the aftermath.  The white-haired gentleman in this picture is one of the docents; his younger brother was killed on Bloody Sunday.

One of the banners carried by the marchers on Bloody Sunday.  The stain in the middle of the banner is actually blood.

The Peace Bridge is a footbridge across the River Foyle at Derry.  Derry is a lovely town. 

This picture is the outside of the Free Derry Museum.  These are the only two unfilled bullet holes remaining from Bloody Sunday.

We saw this restaurant when we were in Derry back in the spring, and this trip we stopped in and had dinner here.  We had to.  How could people from West Virginia not eat at Hillbilly's Fried Chicken in Northern Ireland?  It was actually not too bad; tasted kind of like KFC.

That's all for this post; I'll try to post a little more regularly in the future (hmm, haven't I said that before?)  Wishing everyone a great week and happy stitching!