Sunday 27 July 2008

it's raining so it must be ballymena

well it's that time of year again and the ballymena steam engine rally was last weekend and for those of you who are not quite sure what a steam rally is well i will give you a quick tour - it's a weekend where big men get together and play with their engines and tractors and compare how dirty they can get and who can make the most steam or noise and be big kids for the weekend.
and what were you doing there i hear you ask? well for the ladies the are plenty of stalls and a craft tent to help them pass a few hours and hopefully spend a few pounds
so after an early start on friday morning i reached ballymena and got the car unpacked and set up it was time for coffee and as hubby was working all week at sir thomas and lady dixon park at the world famous rose week he had the large flask so i had to fall back on plan B. beside me i had a lovely lady selling jewellery and on the other side i had a gentleman doing your family name. being the generous type i offered him a cup of tea and he said that if there was any going that would be very nice and when he saw what plan B was he was well impressed and as you can see i was very comfortable
well the gentleman introduced himself as Ian and we had great wee chats over the course of the next 2 days and some good exchanges on the topic of the ulster-scots language in which i'm fluent and we kept an eye on each others stall and had great craic. turns out his son works for the same company as me only at a different site, later that day mum and the boys and my brother came up for the day and between the showers they had a walk about and then came in and joined me for a while - saturday was a better day weather wise and the craic was just as mighty although we all noticed a shortage of £20 and takings seemed to be down for everyone on last year, but not to worry we all enjoyed the tome there and on one short trip out of the tent i managed to get a picture of the engine that was beside the tent
bit of a beauty this one but the mud dosen't do her justice

ps. this is the sort of things i grew up with and my dad was a great one for bits of engines and tractors so it was a bit of a busmans holiday as well


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