We tinkered with our route this morning and had some extra time which we used to travel the coastal route paying the dividend of more stunning beauty.  As promised, no more pics of landscape.

We entered Belfast and were immediately aware of its unique identity.  It’s a more urban feel with abundant graffiti, a little grit on the streets and a plethora of Thai restaurants (I think we are about to see Thai food hailed as the first global cuisine, it is ubiquitous).  Belfast has a little over 300,000 citizens, so a smallish city.  It’s been occupied since the Bronze Age and Queen Vickie gave it city status in 1888.  We’ll be tourist spies tomorrow on  a “Troubles” walking tour  but Belfast is now known as one of the safest cities in the UK.  We are staying just blocks from Queen’s University and the neighborhood is young, diverse, full of street life and vintage shops.

This statue sized drinking fountain is affectionately inscribed with the phrase,  “Whoever drinketh here will surely thirst again.”  Nice to know.

But now for the win of the day.  Wayne has been in search of a replacement for his threadbare 35-year-old tweed jacket.  He didn’t want something new or different – more of a reproduction.  We searched in Dublin, made a special stop in Donegal to ferret something out (see current label below) all to no avail.

We did locate the closest Donegal tweed fabric in Dublin at Kevin and Howlin where they said they couldn’t make the jacket but did cut a swatch of the fabric and filed it with his name on it in hopes that a tailor in Chicago could do the construction.  Belfast was our last hope.  So we set out with a list of tweed stores proffered by google.

The first was a bespoke shop, North Clothing, Gentlemen’s Outfitters.  The proverbial pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.  Inside, the proprietor, Michael Donnelly, a tailor in his own right was about to get a sale.    He got on the phone, talked to the store in Dublin, measured Wayne up, and we’re dropping off the old jacket for him to copy before we leave on Wednesday.  So he’ll end up with Donegal tweed from Dublin made into a new jacket in Belfast.  Couldn’t get more Irish than than that.

Michael letting Wayne know he is a tailor, not a miracle worker.

On the phone with Dublin getting the fabric sent.

Time to measure.

I’ll leave you with a quote from Mr. Donnelly, “The grief I give you is extra.”