some quick notes on Belfast

[kaberett]

• There's a panoramic viewing platform at the top of the Victoria Square shopping centre, The Dome, which we finally made it up day-before-yesterday. It's nice to be closer to the hills and it's lovely to be closer to the sky, but the thing that amused me most was just how many of the Important Sights That Dominate The Skyline had... utterly vanished behind tall newbuild. Some planning permission decisions definitely happened there.
  
• There are stone gutters everywhere. They run cross the pavement in the city centre every ten metres or so. I was initially baffled and a bit cross -- they're open, without grating or grilles, so they're a nuisance to navigate with a wheelchair, especially given the camber on most of the pavements -- but then it spent at least some of pretty much every day of the first fortnight I was here raining and I, er, rapidly came to understand the point.
  
• Kinda-sorta-relatedly, Belfast really is bafflingly bad at dropped kerbs. I don't get it, but... it really, really is. There's at least one route to and from the hospital I am Never Taking Again because the utter absence of dropped kerbs means that the step-free route involves being on the tarmac for a non-trivial portion of dual-carriage A-road. Similarly, our flat's right on the river, and there's a gate between the pedestrianised tow path and our block that is open 7am to 7pm. Outside those hours, I need to take a 5-10 minute detour via a route that, again, has no dropped kerbs. It is genuinely impossible for me to access my flat without spending time on roads in the dark after 7pm.
  
• There is A Lot of excellent ironwork and colourful architecture and I'm enjoying it greatly.

Comments

[kaberett]

Alas no, we are firmly expecting to be heading back permanently at the end of Feb/very beginning of March!