hmm. I’m not really keeping up with this am I?

Anyway.  It’s August, and i see today would have been the Queen Mother’s birthday.  I dunno who else’s birthday it is today.

Since I last wrote (I haven’t even blogged on my own blog never mind here!) I’ve moved to Belfast, had my new bicycle stolen, and bought another new one, with a stronger lock.  It wasn’t a nice part of 12th July in Dublin.

I managed to top off my bicycle woes with wrecking the rear wheel on the North Down Coastal path near Carnalea last Sunday.  I’m doing well… but I got a new wheel on Monday, and the tools to move the freehub cassette, and changed it over.

I had some good news in amongst the bad news.  I’m not being prosecuted for cycling into the back of a 306 three weeks before Summer Madness (although I’m still waiting to find out how much I owe the car’s owner for the damage to his rear windscreen) and I’m getting my promotion at work.

I’m currently lying on my bed at home in Bangor – came home last night, going to head back tomorrow I reckon.  I’ve enough clothes left here to be able to afford to be lazy like that!

Summer Madness was great, which is what I’ve meant to write about for ages.  Doing photography and the seminar CDs meant that i was in worship for all of the sessions (bring Ryan back next year!), although I cut it fine for Powerpoint in Late Night Worship each night, sometimes very fine.  I was also half asleep on the Thursday night, which meant I was usually at least one slide out – my excuse is I’d cycled 43 miles around Belfast in the previous two days, with plenty of hills (Duncairn Gardens and the Shankill Road) on the Thursday.  Thankfully I was awake on the Friday…

My itinerary was something like this:

Wednesday:
Sandy Row
Lower Shankill
New Lodge
Ballymacarrett
Sydenham (round the back of Strand Presbyterian Church, funnily enough)
Knocknagoney (that hill’s far too steep!  Met a girl who was in my class in 1st Form at Regent)
Beersbridge (the teams were cleaning up the Connswater river where it had flooded in June – and were making quite a difference!)
Willowfield (youth event in Cregagh Methodist – and I got a lift back on the bus!)

Thursday:
Holy Lands
Ballynafeigh
Willowfield (Ravenhill Road end)
Short Strand
Tiger’s Bay (know how far down North Queen Street that is?)

Then I cycled across to the Shankill Road, and up as far as Woodvale where I found some Streetreachers – and got a lift up to Glencairn in a passing BELB bus.  Who made Glencairn so far up the hill?

I then cycled down as far as Ballymurphy and got the bus from there.

Friday:
Holy Lands again (it was on the way – and we assisted a broken down car – also have photos of a house being painted)
Sandy Row (visited their prayer room)
Custom House Square (Ballymacarrett/Short Strand party – and I got a shoulder massage!)
Ormeau Park (Willowfield barbecue)

Saturday:
Late start, left the bike at the King’s Hall and got the bus (for free!) into town.  Spent the afternoon there and then joined the big walk back to the King’s Hall.

Photos of the lot are at https://www.andyboal.co.uk