second visit, day 5 (more adventures)

Now Playing: The Mask of Zorro.

26 May 2008. I woke up tired again this morning. I got up, did my devotions, woke L, and went downstairs for breakfast. Of course D and Logan were already up. While I ate my breakfast, they made PB&J sandwiches for us for lunch today. We chatted with Rachel and Samuel, who both drifted in. D had to wake P. We were finally ready to go by about quarter to eleven. Emma said good-bye to us as we went out the back door to the car park—she was sitting in the sunshine, revising. I piloted us down Sandy Row, onto the M2, and from there to the Antrim Road, where we turned into Cave Hill Country Park. The road wound up Cave Hill, winding through green woods, huge rhododendron bushes on either side. We parked just outside Belfast Castle and stopped there to look around. The castle is small, fairly recent, built in the 1800s, I think. Behind it are some small, neatly-arranged ornamental gardens—a fountain casting sparkling arms in the sunshine, tessellated pavements with cat patterns, a little patch of herbs in a warm corner, topiaries, crimson poppies like fine silk. We went inside the castle, which is a honeycomb of small rooms, used mostly for weddings and meetings. We climbed a long tightly-wound spiral staircase up the main tower to the visitors’ centre on the third floor, where there were displays about the flora and fauna and history of the area, and we had views out of narrow windows onto Belfast Lough. The rooms were empty, quiet, still patches of sunshine lying on grey carpet. At last we went back outside and started our climb up Cave Hill. We took the Cave Hill trail, the trailhead near the car park. At first we climbed up through the forest. Vetch, Queen-Anne’s-lace, and other yellow clover bloomed on tall stalks on either side. The sunshine lay warm on the long green grass, warm smells eddying up toward us. Then the woods closed over us, cool and green, sycamore, birch, beech, and oak, thick canopies of green-gold rippling overhead. A few pine trees. The path wound round the bottom shoulder of Cave Hill, then sprang out of the woods onto the steep tumbled slopes. We scrambled up a long dusty path to an actual cave in the side of one of the cliffs. It wasn’t too impressive: a ragged scoop out of the cliffside, painted with graffiti inside, and reeking of stale cigarette smoke. Logan, P, L, and I climbed up to it, but D sat on a knoll, surveying the scene. From there, Logan found a narrow trail springing straight up the side of the cliff, and he went for it eagerly. The rest of us followed. The trail went up steeply, straight up, between the two big shoulders of the hill. One last scramble brought us up over the edge—I was up first, and my heart rose. A great sweep of moor spread before me, with the huge sky close overhead. Brown heather and dun grass, swept over by the wind, great buffeting sweeps of wind. We climbed and ran over the brow of the hill, the great knoll on the top, McArt’s Fort. From there all my best-loved places could be seen: the wind generators on the Antrim hills to the north, the stack of the old linen mill near Trinity RPC, the tower of the power plant near Carrick Castle on the far side of Belfast Lough, the green trees hiding Belfast Zoo below, the creamy crescent of beach on the other side of Belfast Lough showing Helen’s Bay and Crawfordsburn, the two yellow splay-legged shapes of the H&W cranes, the white dome of the Odyssey, the tower of City Hospital near Queen’s, and out beyond, in the hazy pale distance, the pinnacle of Scrabo Tower near Newtownards, and away out beyond that, the high forbidding slopes of the Mournes, rearing like the body of a monstrous snake on the edge of the world. We ran about on the hilltop, and D found a steep small hollow where we at last sheltered from the wind. We sat down there on the short green grass and D and Logan brought out the snacks they’d carried up in their backpacks. I lay on my back on the warm grass, looking up at the sky. White clouds skirled high over the pale blue, and swallows flashed, black above, copper beneath, dipping and turning, wheeling over our warm place. Wind ruffled the green grass running up to the lip of the dell. At last we moved on. We found another path leading down, after a false start, and followed it down around the bend of the hill, down around its foot, past the cave, and into the woods again. It was about two o’clock. We sat down on a green lawn outside the gates to the castle, under a big pine tree, to eat lunch. The lawn was steeply sloped, scattered with people sitting about, eating, sunning, etc. We ate our PB&J and crisps (everyone makes fun of me for liking salt and vinegar), then drove back to RH. We were back by three o’clock or so. Rachel and EMM were chatting in the common room, and I bounced in and gave EMM a hug, and we wrestled and had a pillowfight to show how happy we were to see each other. :o) After awhile, D, L, and I went to Tesco (we go through bread at an amazing rate!)—EMM had promised to make dessert for a couple of nights. The afternoon was still beautiful, clear and sunny. Back at the house, we lazed around in the common room for awhile. P stole my laptop; I read the latest “World” that D had brought over. L and I fixed tea together: I made chicken and directed her while she fixed raspberry surprise. We had tea at about seven o’clock (the boys went outside and played ultimate with Ian, Matthew, and Andy M.). CMAM and EMM ate with us—good fun, EMM, P, and I horsing around plenty, rehearsing old jokes. After tea, she went to study, and now D, P, L, Logan, and I are sitting in the common room, watching The Mask of Zorro. Ridiculous. The evening is becoming overcast, but still fully light. (9:24 p.m.) – ERN (FB)