paul_stapleton03

Day 1: Monday 22nd April
Paul Left early this morning and went for a walk around Belfast. He was on a mission to find certain ingredients for the dish he was going to be cooking. I was very curious to see what his experience of Belfast would be. One of the things Paul asked Meabh and I before he left the house was to point out on his map areas he should avoid. I always find this a really hard question to deal with. For me I am pretty happy in most parts of Belfast, but this is because I know the place so well. I always here Taxi drivers joking about American tourists getting mugged as they go sight seeing and I didn’t want this to happen to Paul. So between us, Meabh and I marked out a few areas I thought he would be best off out of including the Falls, the Shankil, the markets and the Sandyrow. I figured as he was on foot he would not make it as far as any of the contentious parts of the north. But we did mark on some of the places further north just in case. With Map in hand Paul set off and I got down to working on a chapter of my PhD.
In the evening when Paul came home we all sat down and chatted. It was really nice having Paul around the house. He is so easy to get along with. Meabh cooked a Tuna fish steak dish (not that canned stuff in the photo). It was based on another recipe she would normally do with Marlin fish. It was really nice. After dinner we chatted a bit about Northern Ireland. Paul showed me some Pictures he had taken of a mural featuring Jim Larkin, which was painted to mark the 50 year anniversary of the Dockers strikes. I leant Paul The Dirty War by Martin Dillon. It’s the only really easy introduction to the troubles I had. But all in all it’s not too bad in terms of content.