Thursday 7th January took me to Lagan Valley Island in Lisburn for an adaption of the traditional ‘Jack and the Beanstalk’, performed by the Lambeg Players. My first experience of their annual pantomime was way back in January 1993 and we have been going as a family ever since, with this year being my 23rd outing.
Wednesday 30th December
My short break (with someone else called James) to London didn’t get off to the best start with Storm Frank causing some minor chaos to flights in and out of both Belfast airports. Frank resulted in my inbound flight to Belfast City not arriving on Tuesday evening, so BA cancelled our 07:30 flight so we had to re-book for the midday flight.
I remember the day in primary school when someone from the City of Belfast School of Music (CBSM) came in to my classroom. She had all sorts of equipment with her and for whatever reason I was given a bit of hosepipe to blow into. Whatever my technique was, it was decided that I was destined to be a trumpet player and a few weeks later a brass Yamaha trumpet arrived and my association with the CBSM began.
On Friday 21st December 2007 I was part of a group from the City of Belfast Concert Band playing carols in Forestside Shopping Centre, raising money for our tour to America the following summer. I was there with my cousin (also in the band), his parents and our granda.
My granda sat as close as he could to us both, feet tapping throughout, and seemed to be really enjoying his night. After I had been left home, my uncle was due to leave my grandfather home but phoned to say that my granda was complaining of not feeling well and that they were taking him to hospital where he was admitted.
The following day I was bag-packing (again as a fundraiser) in Sainsbury’s at Holywood Exchange. I noticed my dad outside a lot earlier than I was expecting him and he told me that my granda had died. A part of my world fell to pieces. This was the person who I had spent the majority of my summers with growing up, had travelling the length of Northern Ireland and further afield with and who I had seen on a daily basis for the majority of my life.
It is Saturday 19th December 1981. The weather in Cornwall on the south coast of England is horrific – winds are gusting at up to 100mph (hurricane force 12 on the Beaufort scale) and waves are up to 60 feet (18 meters) high.
Over recent years I have started some new Christmas traditions. One of these is going to the “Ireland in Christmas Praise” concert by New Irish Arts, which was last Friday night in the Waterfront Hall.
For those who have never heard of New Irish Arts, they were formed in 1994 by the Irish contemporary hymn-writer Keith Getty. They now have several hundred members in both a choir and orchestra and a few years ago formed a Youth Choir.
On Thursday evening I listened to an amazing interview on BBC Evening Extra with Lindsay Robinson, wife of East Belfast MP Gavin Robinson. 
She talked openly and honestly about her battle with postnatal depression (PND) after having blogged about her experiences in recent weeks. Her interview with Sara Girvin was brilliant and incredibly honest.
My final post about my cruise holiday includes a visit to Cannes, a behind-the-scenes tour of the ship, Palma and home. You can read the first, second and third posts by clicking on the links.
Day 8
Our penultimate stop took us to France and the city of Cannes. We had been here while on holiday to Nice in 2006 so just took the local bus to the village of Antibes, just a few miles around the coast.
We started off at the local market with my mum forgetting we were in France and thanking people in Spanish, but that was an easy mistake to make having visiting three different countries in under a week.
The market in the middle of Antibes
The third instalment which includes a visit to Rome and Florence. You can read the first, second and fourth posts by following the links
Day 6
Our second stop was into the port of Civitavecchia, which is the main sea port for Rome. However, it had rained most of the night and our first experience of Civitavecchia more resembled a cold and wet Portrush.
Fabrizo met us, umbrella in hand, with the lovely greeting of “you have brought your UK weather to Italy…why?” We drove the 90 minutes or so into Rome, with the wipers constantly on, and Fabrizo telling us some of the history about the city.
The second instalment in my travel diary (you can read the first, third and fourth posts by following the links) and is my day at sea and then a stop at Naples with a visit to Pompeii.
Day 4
Our first full day on board was a day at sea which allowed us to explore some more of the ship. The only thing that we had planned was a “meet and greet” event for the members of the Cruise Critic online forum. This is a great website to allow people to meet up before hand and allowed me to book private tours for some of our stops, but more of that tomorrow. The event allowed us to meet some of the ships senior management for some questions and answers and then some of us took part in a gift exchange. As the name suggested, this involved bringing a small gift from home and have a sort of raffle to get something else – I had brought some tea from Titanic Belfast which seemed to be very popular.
The Meet and Greet gets underway
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