Off to Donegal

On 4th July I went off to Donegal for the weekend with some people from West Church, Ballymena - the church I attend. We were going to stay in Donegal Town in a lovely 4 star hotel.

As I couldn't drive that whole distance myself, I caught a lift from Anna - it was a lovely day, sun shining though some rain to but it was a lovely drive down  - took about 2.5 hours I think, with comfort and ice cream breaks in between. 

We arrived in Donegal shortly after 6pm after leaving my house about 3.30pm. 

It was a good weekend, good craic and I enjoyed getting to know people I had not spoken to before in church. There were about 40 of us there and some came from 1st Ballymena as well. The speaker for the weekend was Desi Maxwell who is very knowledgeable about Jews and Christians and leads trips to the Holy Land each year.

Apparently when my Dad and Desi were younger there were often mistaken for brothers... thought they are not related at all.

On the Friday night we ate our meal - a lovely three course meal and then Desi talked to us for about 15 minutes, then it was time for bed for me but others went to the town for a walk - but me I was exhausted and needed my sleep!! 

On the Saturday after breakfast I went for a wee walk then came back and Desi talked to us for about 2 hours, mixed in with coffee break. He is a very interesting speaker. Around 1.45pm a few of house headed to the beach to go for a walk - it had been raining but by now the sun was shining.

I wanted to go for a beach walk, but I cannot walk very far or fast so I let everyone go ahead then I decided to go explore the sand dunes and walked along the top for a bit as it was easier than walking on sand. It was enjoyable too.

We were out for about 3 hours then headed back to hotel for a wee rest and freshen up before we went down for another three course meal - tonight I had lamb and it was beautiful. Lamb is my favourite meat of all time.  After Dinner we played a game and I have never seen people so competitive in my life - I even got scratched at one point as I was trying to retrieve lost jigsaw pieces. Our team won. It was good fun. After that we retired to the bar area to listen to some county music. And at 11pm I headed to bed - was weird because I was the youngest person there but first one to bed - that is not natural, should be the older people going first. But c'est la vie!

On Sunday we went to the local church, and then headed off to Harvey's Point for lunch - they do a carvery lunch and think my eyes were bigger than my belly at times - plate filled high with all the gorgeous food - managed to eat the starter and then the desert but struggled with main course - maybe due to the fact I did not like what was on offer - all horrible vegetables like parsnip and turnip - yuck!

It was great craic around the table and am glad I went on the weekend, met some new nice people and learned from Desi. We left Harvey's Point around 3.45pm and arrived home at 6.45pm or so. I slept on way home - I can sleep anywhere these days!