You gotta have rain to have rainbows! (or Fairy Liquid)

Friday I was stranded out in Ormeau Park. It had drizzled a wee bit and I thought my nice £2.50 Save the Children (I have a social conscience) umbrella was enough to withstand any onslaught the weather might throw at me.

This was proved wrong the first time I opened it. Not by the weather but by the umbrella's eagerness to "BREAK THE MOULD" and fly off like a bad tribute to all the merry chimney sweeps in Dick the Dyke's Mary Poppins.

Then it pissed down, out of pure schadenfreude, and I was left huddling under a tree thinking if that thing I heard at school about not huddling under trees in lightening storms was true (it is - just in case you think I'm a reliable source and I'm disputing it [we were all told a lot of lies at school]) and thinking I should have got in that taxi that my girlfriend offered me a lift in.

Then it stopped and I saw this (see below)



And it reminded me that we see a lot of rain in Northern Ireland but not a lot of rainbows. And I immediately thought about a metaphor for the troubles but didn't write it down for lack of a pen.

I'm sure it lives on in the hearts of the people, and in the wind that smashes into the side of cavehill and carries many a lowly scoutmaster sordid dreams (oo er!) but I forget it, (it was something to do with George W Bush being a total mutherfucker and like totally being a dick, dude I'm like into peace and stuff and if you're not then you can totally go hang with all the racists I'm going to defeat when they hear what I have to say about them the stoopid gang of asswipe mutherfuckers).

Anyways. I remembered that you need a lot of rain to get rainbows but also that you had to have a dick, to have dick in your mouth, and off I walked back towards town hoping that there were still some skaters at custom house square to have a laugh at (only when they fell really badly - other than that they were slam dunkin da funk).

Lost in the Forest

Just got back from visiting my folks in Ballymena with my good lady friend. It was a fun time and did not involve any bad stuff. Except one, me with my good lady friend getting lost in Glenariff Forest Park near dark. I had ran about the forest as a kid and my man ego dictated that I still knew my way.

Conversations with my good lady like:

Good Lady Friend: Are you sure this is the way?
Me: Sure, trust me on this.

were all too reminiscent of a bad remake of spooky movies like The Blair Witch Project and bad (see good) Hammer Horror.

I was just about to give up on my man ego and suggest retracing our steps, another throwback to Blair Witch, when we ran into a nice couple, another throw back to bad (see good) Hammer Horror films.

The nice couple were going our way and let us tag along. Very nice indeed, especially when it turned out that my man ego had been way off and missed the way back completely.

Once safely back though and all thoughts of Blair Witch and bad (see good) Hammer Horror films safely out of our heads we'd a nice pint in a country pub.

In retrospect our getting lost had been good for two reasons though and that was firstly, the part of the forest I'd wanted to show my sweet honey pie was down by the river when the waterfalls and the huge rocks make it look like a jungle and secondly, the heavy rains that day had washed down through peat bogs making the river look like Guinness. Really beautiful.

Though when we were walking about lost this song by The Cure was going though my head the whole time (and yes that is Robert Smith):