Hi,
It's been a while since a written post. So it's about time. We're 11 months married now in case anyone is interested, or is counting. Being married I imagine is a bit like having a baby, counting the months years etc. With both there is probably an equal danger of thinking everyone cares as much about the little details as you do. Anyhow, we're happy about it.
So, I (Raymond) just wanted to give you people out there a little view into our NI world. As with babies and marriages, it's probably another thing people on the outside are not so interested in, but hey when you're in it it creates the backdrop for your life so it's somewhat unavoidable. We've stuck some parade photos on here because the 12th and 13th July are public holidays here when parts of the country come to a standstill with parades and marches which date back to days gone by.
As you can imagine people have all sorts of opinions and experiences and even beliefs about these things, and just for the record we were somewhat dubious about the benefical impact of one 'side' of the community having a few days to 'do their thing' (for those that don't know, these marches are the orange order and the royal black preceptory parading. Both organisations are protestant and british loyalist. They are somewhat secretive organisations and are quasi-masonic. Obviously some see these as only serving to exacerbate the divisions here, which they probably do. One other fact about them is that there are loads of people in them). So anyhow I'm writing this knowing some people I know think this is all bad and some think it's great and cultural etc, so forgive me if I don't give my direct opinions here.
Anyhow, as these are protestant expressions, the other half of the community here tend to migrate to Donegal for 2 days to get away from it all, while the protestants stomp around singing the national anthem and making jokes about catholics and politians.
As for us, in fairness, we did make 2 attempts to be out of the country at the time, but circumstances conspired against us and on the 12th we ended up being hemmed into our home as a 3 hour long parade made its way past the end of our street. So we checked it out and this is where some of the photo's come from. The others come from a more civilised parade in a village called Scarva that my parents enjoy going to on the 13th. One thing we learned was that members of the Royal Black Preceptory or Black men as they are commonly known here, call each other 'Sir Knight'. I know it's weird . I'm not advocating it, just giving you a glimpse.
I suppose in all truth I should say for me growing up around this, I really enjoyed the family element of it and the music. That does not justify it, but it does somewhat redeem it, if you know what I mean.
So, what ya think? Leave us a post in response!!
