The past 10 days we’ve been in Northern Ireland, or Norn Irn as it’s pronounced… We were there partly for work reasons and partly for a nice relaxing holiday!

The work part was visiting the Wycliffe office in Belfast. I’m supervising Stephanie who is working with 18-25s in Northern Ireland, so this was a good chance to visit her office for the first time and to see a little bit of the cultural context in which she’s working. It was actually quite eye-opening to see some of the differences between England and Northern Ireland, and how that means that her job will be quite different to that of Kat who is working with 18-25s here in England.

On the Saturday we had a “Wycliffe and Me” day in Belfast, which we only had 4 people for, but it went well. It was quite an informal thing, but I think it was useful for the four participants who were there.

Next we spent a couple of days with our friends Andrew (who I shared a house with in Tanzania) and Louise who live in Carrickfergus, just north of Belfast.

And then it was on up to the beautiful north coast, staying in Portstewart. We had a little bit of snow (although not as much as back in England!) and it was freeeeeeezing cold, but the coastline is really spectacular. We stopped off at the Giant’s Causeway, and Carrick-a-rede rope bridge – a rope bridge that you can walk across to a small island.

On another day we went west from where we had a great view over into Donnegal – the most northern part of the Republic of Ireland.

And now we’re back home again, but we have some nice photos so we can look again at the beautiful views… without having to freeze!