DATE: Saturday 19 August, 1995
PLACE: Stranraer to Larne (Strathtay to Belfast)
WEATHER: Damp and humid
REMARKS: Up before 0600 to complete packing and leave by
0730. The drive to Stranraer goes according to plan; the route
is straightforward and easily followed (a pleasant and reassuring
change). The ferry is boarded immediately and has a separate
motorists lounge, which is less crowded. Entertainment for
the kids and a mercifully brief trip. The sea is covered in
haze/mist/fog so visibility is very poor.
Larne is a small town and we don't stop.
Belfast is barely visible through the haze, but strikes me
as depressing and forbidding - vast acreages of repetitive
red-brick housing arranged in unimaginative rows. We have
to find Kirsten and Adrian; eventually we discover their tenement:
barely wider than our car is long and 2-storied in a truly
'mean street'.
We're staying not far away in a family home in a Terrace
- larger (3-storied) but not much. It is however a real family
home and the kids are very taken at finding toys belonging
to the owners their own ages.
The area is deep in loyalist territory - Protestant East
Belfast and Desiree is clearly uneasy about this. But we have
been told to make ourselves at home, so we do!
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