Since I got the good news and the roadtrip ended, life briefly slowed down, and I was enjoying the relaxing feeling for a while! Had a great night out with people I used to work, and a few of us were quite sloshed by the end of it, and I've been out trying to take a few more photos during the summer sun. Went out to the Dogleap Rally near Limavady for one of the stages but didn't quite go as smoothly as I had hoped. There was no sign of a stage map on the internet so I headed down to the service area first hoping to find one, but with no luck and no one to ask, I drove to the forests named in the stage timings to see if I could find them. Luckily I met some of the cars driving between stages and followed them. Got a few great photos and had good fun, even chatting to a few of the other photographers. At one point when I was looking through the viewfinder waiting to time my next shot, I couldn't see that the driver had lost it slightly on the straight and entered the corner wide, wiping out one of the signs, and sliding much closer to us than expected, spraying us with debris before tearing on around the corner. Unfortunately I made a rookie mistake and at the end of the stage I let my stomach lead me, and instead of following the other photographers, who knew where to go, I left and headed to McDonalds for lunch, even though I had enough food in my bag to keep me ( and probably some of them!) going. So when I returned I again had no clue where to go and just had to wait at the start of the same stage, waiting for them to return. Next time (at the start of September!) I'll be arriving much earlier with a packed lunch!

One night with a clear sky, I headed out to Greenan Fort, a ruined fort on top of a hill, to take some star trail photos, which are very long exposures that show the movement of the stars across the sky as streaks of light. It was my first attempt and I checked all my gear was charged and clean before leaving and was pretty raging to find that, even though it had been working at the house, the remote that allows me to take multiple long exposures automatically, died as soon as I plugged it in. Luckily I was alone at the fort so no one was offended by my language. I managed to set something up anyway and sat down for a few hours of boredom. Unfortunately the photos aren't great, but I learnt enough that it will work much better next time!

Had another appointment at the hospital at the start of August so that they could work out how often I need checkups over the next 5 years, and to tell me roughly what was gonna happen. I still have to go back for the scan that they use to actually decide my schedule, apparently it was too easy to arrange it all for the same day, but hopefully from now on I will only have to return about every 6 months.

Mum took the caravan down to Bushmills on the coast for a week of peace and quiet, and Joanne stopped down for a few days so I headed down to keep them entertained! It was quite good fun, and we went on the tour around the Bushmills Distillery, which had restarted operations since I visited with Lindsey and Danica, meaning it was a bit more interesting to see the place actually working. Out for dinner in the evening then I headed home after the obligatory ice cream from Morelli's in Porrtstewart.

By the middle of August it was time for the annual Big BBQ, which is a bbq at our house (it used to be held at the caravan oon the coast until we sold it) for friends and family, and between Camp America and Australia, I had missed the last 5 years. During the day beforehand I headed up to Irish Street to watch the Apprentice Boy's Parades, celebrating one of the pivotal moments in the history of our city. It had been far long than 5 years since I had seen the parade and Iw as surprised how I excited I was to be back watching them again. Around 15,000 people in probably hundreds of bands marching through the city was an impressive sight, although the huge lambeg drums didn't quite rattle my ribcage as much as they did when I was 7!

The BBQ was good fun, with the usual motley crew turning up, and everyone seems to have matured as there was no throwing clothes lines and knives at each other, selling food to the local kids, 'borrowed' signage from elsewhere or marshmallow based endurance games but it was still a good laugh. The tradition is that by around 9pm the 'young ones' head out on the town, but our numbers have been dwindling and even with my little cousin James, who is 10 years behind us, old enough to hit the town, he had other (probably cooler) plans so Neil, Joanne and I went for a few quieter drinks in one of the bars across town.

Tuesday after the Big BBQ Neil and I headed down to Belfast to see Kasabian, supported by Northern Irish band Ash, perform at a week long music concert called Belsonic. We had also hoped to see Florence and the Machine on Thursday but I didn't know if I could afford either concert and my dithering meant she was sold out by the time we bought tickets. But we drove down and after not realising that my window was still wide open and getting caught at a petrol station 'discussing' how a guy managed to even get into the car of a girl so far out of his league she may as well have been playing a different sport (I suggested the only answer was that they were related), we then tried to get into the wrong (thankfully empty) house after getting Cod's address wrong, before finally we met up with a few of Neil's mates and headed to the concert. It was a great night, with quality performances by both bands, but sadly we afterwards we got separated as I was a bit drunk and strode out of the arena at top speed, insisting that Neil catch up rather than me waiting, and by the time we rejoined, he had lost his other mates so we tried to get into a club which was predictably full, so we found a bar and had a couple of drinks and headed home. The next morning we met up with Neil's friend Janet who now has a 6month old kid who took one look at me and started laughing! I'd feel offended except babies usually cry when they see me so it was an improvement.

Next weekend I'm bacl living it up and heading over to Edinburgh for a few days at the festival and catching up with a few friends, including Jo, who I stayed with a few days in Oz outside Perth.