Party miniatures, its the little things.

Last night was good fun! As mentioned on my twitter page prior to the event, we were headed to a family 50th Birthday party and it proved to be just the thing for us all to have a good laugh and catch up with fun people we usually only get to spam through Facebook. Such is the way of the world in this day and age. Its almost like these events are suffering a real shortage.

After a taxi to the venue we arrived only to find that we had perhaps got there a little early. Well, we were on time but just early for everyone else but it wasn't so bad though as we had time to get settled down and get ourselves comfortable for the evening. The tables were all nicely decorated with balloons, party poppers and foil shiny shapes with stars and '50's and Happy Birthdays and the likes which I found to my satisfaction to be immense fun to play with, especially with a camera around.

Before long the bar was opened and the drinks were in. Several of the decorations ended up in and around my pint of Guinness. The foil shapes tended to float which was good, after becoming a little daring we also found that with the flat edge of a halved peanut, the said half a peanut also sits nicely on a head of the Guinness... one to try when you're next at a bar.

The evenings festivities got under-way and everyone had a good time. The live band were great and the inflatable zimmer frame was in full use. A tasty buffet filled us all and camera's were flashing all the time. Sober or drunk everyone was dancing, singing and laughing in their seats or on the dance floor... me being a member of the first group much to my wife's dissatisfaction but sometimes two left feet really are best left under the table.

Time flew by and it was soon last orders and time to head on. The birthday boy, Norngirls Uncle, seemed to have had a brilliant night which is what its all about - slightly tippsy in the small hours he was trying to fathom who was the most sarcastic between Norngirl's sister and cousin... its a tough call as both have a refined talent seemingly honed by the inter-webs and a similar taste in TV shows.

There really are too few good excuses to have a good party and by party I don't mean the heading out to the clubs and throwing up in the streets at 3am type party. I mean the type of party where you have chance to take some photos and catch up with people, good times.

What a difference a wave makes, 2.4 little seconds.

When heading to the coast, sometimes you need to be prepared. For instance, sun cream isn't something you'd often consider taking with you on a trip to the Giants Causeway - such is the usual weather around this part of the world... however maybe it should be. In a Sherlock Holmes style of deduction, the pinkness of our necks and faces was narrowed down to either one of two possibilities; either the government had created a giant S.A.D lamp on a very tall tower somewhere off the coast in an attempt to reduce suicide rates, or the sun was actually unobscured by cloud. Having then worked out the odds on the powers that be up at Stormont being able to agree, yet alone follow through on anything - even a crazy mad capped scheme - it became clear that the ball in the sky had to be the mythical orb others call the sun.

So there we were, surrounded by not just one, but two of natures wonders - a basalt wonderland bathed in a stream of sun light.  It was in this setting where we discovered another natural phenomena to look out for when on a trip to the North Antrim coast, but thankfully for us sunburnt eejits, it wasn't us demonstrating what happens this time.

There were hundreds of other people out on the rocks with us, clambering about making the place look like a busy multicoloured bee hive. Like all good worker bees we eventually made way for the masses, went about exploring parts of the hive largely neglected and at the tip of the causeway where it dips into the sea, there just so happens to be a large chance of unexpected waves - as widely advertised around the shores of the national trust sites such as this.

Enjoying the sight but wary of the undulations of the water and overly happy people with jazzy hands, we preceeded with caution to areas of the causeway which are subject to the waves. Around us were yet more adventurous people doing the same. The natural beauty of it all was awe inspiring - as you'd expect from one of the natural wonders of the world - but we all headed back to higher columns as the sight of a swell appeared... well I say all... all but two. Some say love is blind, well on this evidence I'd go so far as to say it's at least a little distracting as this couple in the photos below found out the hard way when an unexpected wave probably put a slight dampener on their day after giving them a rather salty cold shower.

As the 1st wave hit the Causeway

By the time the 2nd hit

And thus we all learnt a valuable lesson that those signs about unexpected waves aren't just an excuse to sneak up on people, wave your hand close to their face and point at the sign. An expected wave can be an awesome sight, but an unexpected wave could lead to your significant other being plucked from the sea by a Scottish Trawler, hampered by a mystery amnesia and you might find them years later playing the bagpipes for a Salvation Army band. You have been warned!

What's that small moon shaped ball in the sky?

Tonight I finally managed to get a half decent photo of lunar proportions and that was before I'd even seen the news. That news was highlighted to me by a friend on Facebook... yep, that high quality source of information... that tonight's full moon is the Sturgeon Moon. That means that our favourite natural light reflecting satellite is at its peak of veering off course for a wee while before twirling a little closer again soon. Here is the National Geographic's description of the wee moon in the sky which gives a little more detail of such events. According to the Farmer Almanac, it is a full moon named after the slippery scaly water dweller which the fishermen seemed to catch a lot of around the time.

To say the moon was meant to be smaller,  it seems its absence managed to make me notice it even more, even through the glare of the street lights of lower North Belfast. Maybe a vague absence really does make the digital camera zoom closer? No, that's not right...