Northern Ireland – Fergy's Rambles.

A day out on memory lane.

Good day to you one and all in whatever part of our sadly troubled world you may be. I trust the current virus pandemic is not affecting you too adversely although it is difficult to think of anywhere in the world, bar the Antarctic possibly, that has not been impacted and the Antarctic has problems enough of it’s own to worry about.

For the battle-hardened veterans that constitute my small band of regular readers, you know what to do, just skip the preamble and head South to the “main event” but for anyone who has stumbled upon this page for the first time by whatever means, a very warm welcome.

Cycling the Cut – the Newry Canal.

Hello again and thanks for checking out my blog as always.

Regular readers will know that I have just finished a lengthy piece (18 posts) about a little expedition I made as a series of day walks in 2013 / 2014 around the London LOOP Long Distance Path which circumnavigates my adopted home city. If you have not read it and wish to do so it begins here.

I thoroughly enjoyed writing it up but it took literally months and so I have decided to do a few shorter pieces whilst I decide on my next major writing project. There are a few options for this including three lengthy trips to Canada, three to Sri Lanka, a couple of trips round Northern Ireland and Scotland and several others. As always, if you have any preference as to which you would like to read about, please let me know.

So far on this blog I have back-dated everything to the relevant time in order to keep things tidy but this has the disadvantage of instantly “burying” the posts away down the order of the blog and so for these few small entries I shall post them immediately with a note as to the date they happened and see what transpires. It may work out easier, I just need to try it out. OK, how many times do I have to tell you? I am rubbish at technology and I don’t see it getting any better at my time of life.

If you want to see what I have in store for this post, you know what to do, just click on the “read more” button and hopefully I’ll see you there.

Back home – eventually!

Hello again and welcome to the final instalment of my Northern Ireland July 2019 trip. I know the last entry turned into a bit of a saga about what was effectively four hours sightseeing in Armagh and I do hope you all made it through the ordeal unscathed. This one should be shorter but I shall promise nothing as I know what I can be like when I get my writing head on! Continue reading “Back home – eventually!”

Standby for a big day out.

The road to Hell is paved with good intentions as they say and it is certainly as true of my blog writing as it was of my well-intentioned efforts to keep up with tips / reviews when I was writing for the wonderful Virtual Tourist. Nine days without a peep out of me although up until the 23rd there was damn all to report with the little there is will follow here shortly. I do hope you like images of fried breakfasts! Continue reading “Standby for a big day out.”

Lions led by donkeys – a military history.

Hello again and I’ll bet you were not expecting to hear from me again so soon with my contemporaneous pages having been so shamefully neglected for so long for various personal reasons and in favour of trying to get my numerous previous trips up to date. This is a task I realise is probably never going to happen but I’ll keep plodding on at it regardless. The Malta 2013 trip is nearing a conclusion and I am already considering what to do next. I’ll keep you posted. Continue reading “Lions led by donkeys – a military history.”

Two big days in the calender and some history for you.

Hello again and I do realise it is a few days since I last posted so I thought I had better catch up as I do not want to get too far behind. Although it was not the reason for my visit, as previously explained, I am here in the middle of what is generally known as the “marching season” which has been the cause of much contention and violence in recent decades although thankfully it seems to be relatively peaceful in the last couple of years, but I am getting slightly ahead of myself here. Continue reading “Two big days in the calender and some history for you.”

The image tells you everything.

OK, OK I know, it has been a while and quite a long while in fact since I posted anything here on the contemporary entries although I have been posting certain historical posts regarding a 2013 trip to Malta which you can read about here. Again, I like to be honest in my reporting here and I must admit that even this has tailed off recently. I fully appreciate that this is no big deal as I have such a limited readership but to those who do keep up with my meagre scribblings I apologise. Continue reading “The image tells you everything.”

This is the place to start – a site log.

Good day one and all and thank you so much for visiting my site here about my various travels both near and far and my musings on just about everything. If you wish to read my latest entries please go to the one immediately below this and work back as they go in reverse order (most recent to oldest) from there. Alternatively, if you wish to search for something in particular then please use the search panel in the upper right corner.

I have owned this site since January 2018 and have been working very hard trying to resurrect writings from long ago which were previously on other websites.

Eventually I have worked out how to pin (I believe that is the techie term) this page so it remains at the top of my list of entries. I have decided that the only way for me to keep any vague semblance of order is to backdate the entries of my various trips to the relevant dates which may make them hard to find and so I am creating this page to assist you – hopefully! I shall keep you informed below of completed travelogues and those under construction. Please do read on for the latest offerings. Continue reading “This is the place to start – a site log.”

Have you met Darth Vader?

Apparently nothing happened on the 8th as I do not have a single image but on the morning of the 9th my kid brother turned up on yet another one of his hugely powered motorcycles (he has a fleet of them) and I asked him to take an image. This one is his comfy BMW tourer that he uses to go away on with his missus. He also has a CBX which he loves and is about 40 years of age but still pristine and a VFR which is a bit rapid to say the least. Continue reading “Have you met Darth Vader?”

A strange day back in the old hometown.

Nothing to report for the next couple of days but on the 7th I knew I had to get to Belfast. As I have explained before it is ludicrously the only way I can buy a sailrail ticket back to London by travelling to the rail Travel Centre there. Still, I hadn’t managed to get to the city of my birth since I had been home so it was no great hardship.

A pleasant enough journey on the train deposited me at the station and straight to the Travel Centre where a friendly guy dealt with me quickly and efficiently (look, I have my travel writing head back on now) so the rest of the day was mine. What to do? Well, obviously a drink or two would be called for but I fancied a bit of a wander round, just for the old times. Damn, I grew up here when it was a lot different. Continue reading “A strange day back in the old hometown.”