Go placidly amid the noise and haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence.

Well, Charlotte has just left me after a fun-filled week of staying in Holywood, Northern Ireland.  As with the previous post, bullet-point form will be best.

• Monday: Charlotte, having gotten up at 3.45am to get an early flight, arrived after lunch after her flight was delayed by 3 1/2 hours.  Ouch.  We relaxed most of the day, after having brunch in Tescos (we’re that classy), and watched American Dad and the first (properly first) Star Wars film.  We also played Mario Kart, and I’ve found out that she doesn’t like being beaten at Mario Kart.  At all.  Especially when I’m not allowed to powerslide and I have to use the wheel.
• Tuesday: We went to W5 today, and spent most of the day there, but not before going to H&M and getting the security tag removed off of a shirt Charlotte bought be for my birthday, which was somehow missed when she bought it in Chester!  We went to the Odyssey to see the Time Traveller’s Wife, and then afterwards went to the Macau, where Charlotte was treated as an honoured guest (as she had been there once before, 9 months ago).  I also got her started on the first season of 24, which she says she enjoys immensely.
• Wednesday: We set off early-ish to visit Castlewellan / Newcastle.  The plan was to go camping overnight, but we were very disorganised, and the weather could be quite unpredictable, so in the end we came home at dinnertime.  We visited the Castlewellan Peace Maze, which is the largest hedge maze in the world.  After running on ahead and leaving Charlotte to rot (metaphorically) in the middle of the maze, I went back to help her out.  Afterwards we attempted to play hide-and-seek, but I ended up going in a big circle and finding Charlotte, who was supposed to be chasing me.  After finally getting out of the maze, we went to a pub in Castlewellan for lunch, and then went to Newcastle for some walking and stone-in-the-sea throwing.  We went to a kids play-park, and I think we thoroughly freaked out the little kids, with me pushing Charlotte “too high” on the swings…
• Thursday: This morning / afternoon was a relaxing day.  However, we did take Cosmo to the beach, where Charlotte, as soon as she was given the lead, was promptly pulled through the sand and then I had to take Cosmo again, silly her.  In the afternoon, Charlotte fell asleep in my bed, so I went to Tescos to get supplies for the birthday party I was having in the evening.  I arrived back about an hour later, with Charlotte still in the same position I had left her in.  After she woke up, we got the food / drink / house ready for people arriving, and she had a bit of a go on Rock Band – she was up to “medium” level on the guitar by the end of the evening.   The party went really well – we ordered much too much pizza than was good for us, but we managed to eat a good chunk of it while watching a fairly rude “Too hot for TV” Mock the Week.  Eventually people left, and Charlotte passed the time by building a house of cards on top of me while I was asleep, being trapped for an hour in my bedroom by my psycho cat, and actually doing fairly well at Mario Kart.
• Friday: After not much of a lie in (well, not as much as previous days), we walked into Holywood and went to Skinners for lunch, where I had a bacon and cheese wrap, haven’t had one of those in such a long time.  Since we were feeling full, we thought it would be a wonderful idea to get ice cream and so we did.  Once we arrived back at the house, I helped Charlotte pack her stuff and we watched a couple more episodes of 24.  We had a roast dinner for, um, dinner, which we managed to eat all of despite our earlier full stomachs.  Charlotte managed to fly home, surprisingly with no delays, and managed to catch all of her early trains, sometimes by only a minute or two, and arrived back before midnight.

Again, photos / videos will go up whenever I have the time.