Sunday 9th September - NI Trip (3)

Now we were heading towards His hometown, completely changed now, of course - everywhere is. I don't know if I would be able to find my way about the large village, now a large commuter area, where I grew up.

We have friends there; there was a time when we saw each other everyday at work, and most weekends, but again, thirty or more years ago our lives went on different tracks and we have only caught up with each other recently.

So, we unloaded the firewood, and settled to a good evening of 'catching up', starting with going to  Buncrana, just over the border, for an evening meal at a lovely place overlooking Lough Swilly.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buncrana

Buncrana is the place where John Newton composed the hymn 'Amazing Grace' after surviving a serious storm; he later became a clergyman and was a curate at Olney in Buckinghamshire.

We were so lucky with the weather; it hardly rained at all while we were travelling around. I think we had just the one, maybe two days with rain over the whole week, so we saw the countryside from East to West at its very best.

On the was back, we stopped briefly at the Seamus Heaney Homeplace Museum and exhibition. We didn't have time to go round - but after we left, and while we were driving through the little roads to get back on the main road, it struck me how very rural Northern Ireland still is, even that close to the main towns.