NI Bound

We made it here safe and sound, albeit a little late, yesterday afternoon. Our flight out of Toronto was delayed due to thunder storms in the area. We had quite the light show in the lounge before we were finally able to board the aircraft.

Both Kyra and Gavin were real troopers in our travels. Gavin fell asleep just before boarding the plane and Kyra settled in to a short television show before taking off and fell asleep not long after we were off the ground. She only woke just before we landed. Gavin woke bright-eyed and bushy-tailed about two thirds into the flight. He watched a few movies and had a very hard time using his indoor voice with everyone around us trying to sleep.  All in all the Toronto – London flight was extremely rocky. The storms we flew through made more people than I can count air sick. Our group was so oblivious to what was going on around us, that I felt the need to tell Elliot to keep his “LOLïng to himself while he watched Modern Family.

It was a great time of day to fly through Heathrow airport. Our midday arrival made the, usually very busy airport easy to navigate and I was not nearly as anxious as I thought I would be. Our flight to Belfast was also delayed. A large group tour was on the plane. They had checked in on the internet, which would have normally saved them  time but this particular group were all wheelchair bound and web check in does not take special needs into account. Needless to say the crew at the gate had to reconfigure seating of the aircraft to make it so these passengers were in appropriate seats, all the wheelchairs needed to be tagged for sky check and the passengers of that group had to be loaded on one by one before the rest of the plane could board.  When we did finally get on the plane, Gavin fell asleep fairly quickly and since I once again dozed in very short spurts.

We finally arrived in Belfast two hours late, tired, but anxious to see Chris. Gavin had told everyone close enough to listen to him at the last gate and on the plane that he was going to see his Dad. We had a short drive to our new home and the kids excitedly checked out their new stopping ground.

We took a walk up the main road in town towards the queen’s residence when she stays in NI and took a picture of Elliot standing in one of the guard’s stands. He has joked with Kyra that all the money has his initials on it and of course, the guard stands have the same, ER, and insignia on them.

We had a lovely dinner at the local pub, The Parsons Nose. The food was fantastic and we hobbled home stuffed. The kids all easily went to bed and Gavin was the first to wake up at 11:30 the next morning.

Our Monday has been fairly laid back. Since we all slept off the time change and didn’t have our breakfast until after noon, we took an afternoon walk up to the local tourist information office and got enough brochures to make one of the reception rooms, here at home, look like a tourist office too. We took a look around the courthouse here and Kyra got in a slight bit of trouble...

On the other side of the road, a beautiful gate led to the old fort.  The lawns are well kept and a great spot for a future picnic. Behind the fort is a small lake with many resident swans. We took the trail that wrapped around the lake and enjoyed the forest for the different trees to what we are used to back home.

Our walk back home took us back through town. We stopped at the fruitier and butcher, where the kids were offered “lollies”, and picked up a small sponge cake for Chris.