Ireland and other wanders

As you may have guessed from the title of this week's blog dear reader (readers if I'm feeling optimistic) my wanders this week took me a little further afield than England (or even Wales). I made it to Ireland this time, to visit my grandparents on the west coast.

Monday was spent travelling, which didn't take very long at all actually. Tuesday was spent settling in and going on the first granddad shop (quite a holiday routine) for the all-important elevenses (scones and homemade marmalade, what more could I ask for). That night we all sat and watched an Australian film called 'Red Dog' (believe it or not it was about a dog, well done if you guessed that dear reader). We had no clue what to expect, but it was a beautiful film about what Red Dog meant to a mining town in the outback (there's far more to it than that but I really don't want to ruin it in case you should ever see it dear reader). It’s a film that manages to perfectly mix comedy and sadness.

Wednesday was shop number two and I made a carrot cake. Gran always makes the best carrot cakes, but this time I was allowed to use the recipe and make it (it seemed to go down well dear reader as there wasn't much left). That evening we went for a walk along a nearby beach as the sunset (quite a site!).

Thursday we did shop number three and visited Kylemore Abbey (we've been before but it’s always nice to go for a wander) which is an old abbey (who'd have guessed) with some lovely gardens (and a tea room, but I'm fairly sure that's not a feature of the abbey). On route home we stopped off at a waterfall, went for a wander and met a donkey, before returning back to base. Come Friday and we had to head back to England (before shop number four I should add).

Again as ever on Saturday I wandered off (what do other people do at the weekend I wonder) this time to Manchester. This week’s event was the Starburst Film Festival. Whilst the event goes on for three days we (Dad and I) only went on Saturday. We started the day with a fascinating talk from Peter Beale (he worked at Fox and was heavily involved in getting Star Wars off the ground). He talked in depth about how the film came to be made and how the team was put together. Neither of us had expected to listen to the talk, but we’re glad we did! Following that, we watched an episode of The Sarah Jaen Adventures with Katy Manning, as well as two Doctor Who episodes with the producer and writer or director. Amongst all of this we also stopped and met a few people (Katy is always great to meet). Amongst the various screenings, we watched the three newly animated Thunderbirds episodes which were very faithful to the originals as one would expect; a real labour of love for all involved it seems. The day finished with a very advanced screening of Inside No.9.  As it was such an advanced screening I can’t say anything about the episode, but it was great and as ever, very funny!

Come Sunday (today) I was finally able to catch up with my packing following on from my week away, although I’m losing track of the days (and weeks!).