We didn’t travel abroad; we were just at home on our farm ‘Laurel Lodge’. A week in the sun would’ve been delightful, but with a bank holiday looming there was only one thing for it… DIY! Yup, we’re now at that age where there’s stuff that needs done around the house, but you actually, secretly really enjoy doing it; like staring out the window at the weeds that have crept into the cracks in the patio with venomous eyes, until one morning you burst through the back door zapping them with weed-killer like a scene from a Tarantino film. A day later they’re withered up, brown and crispy, and you literally feel like you’ve defeated your arch-nemesis! Aside from the weeds, there were a few days of clearing out, binning and burning the biggest amount of shhhhhtuff... Do you ever wonder how you accumulate so much junk?!
We also scavenged and power-hosed three pallets of reclaimed red brick and upcycled a washing machine drum into a fire pit... All in all not too shabby!
One day we took a trip to Dunluce Castle on the North coast. We hadn’t been here since we were kids, so it was nice to re-visit! On arrival there are steps heading down towards the sea on the right-hand side, before you go into the castle. When you get to the bottom there's an entrance into a small cave, but when you climb down inside it reveals a massive cavern, with the waves gently rolling in. It was flipping class, but if you’ve ever seen the film ‘The Descent’, all I could imagine were those creepy, blind, golum-like creatures climbing down the walls. Eeep!
Before heading home, we decided to walk off the food babies we were now carrying. Portstewart strand beach is once of the cleanest and nicest beaches I’ve ever been on. There’s always tonnes of dog walkers, surfers and sandcastle builders enjoying themselves across the full length of the beach, which I think is around a mile and a half long. Plus there’s always an ice-cream van if you fancy a poke!
Speaking of such things, one rainy afternoon we took ourselves off to Spoon Street, a fairly new frozen yoghurt place at Ballyhackamore. If like us you have a soft spot for ice-cream and pic’n’mix, this is literally heaven on earth! It’s all self-service, and you start by picking what size of tub you’re gonna go for. There's small, medium, and large but to be honest, they're all too small! You’re then faced with the dilemma of what flavour of froghurt to go for. I think at any one time there’s around 12 to deliberate over, and they change on a regular basis. Between us we chose peanut butter, coconut, pistachio and chocolate. Yoghurt is Tommy’s worst nightmare, but there wasn’t one drop left in his carton.. It really is more of an ice-cream experience. The third and final step is everyone's favourite part; choosing what toppings to put on. There are so many different combinations to salivate over, from the healthy options such as frozen berries, chopped nuts and granola, to real Oreo pieces and Reece’s cups, chocolate brownies, M&M’s, smarties, jellybeans, marshamallows and giant strawberries! You can even round it off with a sticky sauce of your choice, including chocolate, strawberry and butterscotch. Sit in or take-away, you won’t be disappointed!