My Wee Blog

On Saturday 16th August 2008, Northern Ireland recorded nearly a month’s rainfall in one day. In a typical summer’s August this may not have caused any problems, however as the summer leading up to this day, had, shall we say, been rather wet, problems were inevitable.

You could not have imagined even if you had tried the consequences that unfolded during that afternoon. The recently completed underpass on the West link in Belfast filled up with water, the water overflowing the top of the safety walls, some 20 or so feet from the bottom of the submerged road below. 20 million gallons of water had filled the underpass, it was reported cars had been abanonded in the underpass as driver’s could not escape the torrent of water heading their way. It took 2 days for the fire brigade pump out the water.

The reason behind this particular flooding was that a nearby river burst its banks and caused a deluge of water to head towards the underpass. A once in a life time event.

Many parts of Northern Ireland were affected by the worse flooding in living memory. In Portadown the River Bann burst its banks and the flood planes rapidly contained the water and in many cases with only inches to go before it would have overflowed into surrounding residential areas.

Here is a picture showing the extent of the flooding across the meadows – it was taken from the access road down to Portadown rowing club.

Image Reproduced courtesy of Elevated Aspects Aerial Photography

Portadown golf club was also badly hit by the flooding and a number of the greens and fairways were under several feet of water.

It took about 4-5 days for the flood plains to drain back into the river. Hopefully there will not be another flood as large as that for many years to come.

I was driving around the Armagh countryside looking for some apple orchards to photograph and stumbled upon Dan Winter’s Cottage at the Diamond Crossroads.

It was a difficult building to photograph at ground level, but was perfect for elevated photography as it allowed the apple orchards infront and behind th eproperty to be included within the photograph. More importantly, I was able to include the Diamond Hill within the photograph. The hill is very important as it is the hill where Dan Winter and his fellow protestants gathered after Dan’s cottage was set fire to by the group of Irish Roman Catholics who had gathered on Faughart Hill.

You can see the photographs of Dan Winter’s Cottage at the Northern Ireland photographic stock library – AWeeClick.com

I was fortunate enough to be allowed to take some photographs at this year’s event.

You can see all of the photos over at A Wee Click, unfortunately the racing had to be postponed shortly after the tragic death of Martin Finnegan, 29 and from Lusk in County Dublin, who died in the accident at Marlacoo Corner during the Supersport 600 race, shortly after 2pm.

Martin Finnegan (foreground)

The photograph above was taken at the chicane on the lap in which he crashed – the chicane is where John Donnan was killed in last year’s Tandragee event.

There are literally several hundred photographs to sort through, so over the next few days I will post the photographs up in the gallery at A Wee Click.com

Have you ever wondered what the birds see when they are flying around above us, or sit in a tree signing away or what your house looks like from above.

Well now it is possible with a new kind of ground based aerial photography in Northern Ireland. The thing is it doesn’t use an aeroplane or helicopter to take the photographs, but a 26m mast mounted on a Land Rover. The camera is mounted on top of the mast and controlled from the ground.

The company that operate the system, Elevated Aspects Ltd  call it elevated photography or otherwise known as mast photography.

The results speak for themselves, the subject being photographed is captured in great detail whilst maintaing an aerial dimension.

Here is an example

 This is a photograph of Scarva Park which captures the whole park in one single photograph as well as the beautiful countryside beyond.

If you would like an elevated photograph of your house or property why not give Elevated Aspects a call on 028 3884 9187 for a free quote.

Father’s Day

There is always one thing that you can be sure of in June and that is Father’s Day.

Why is it when it comes to getting a present for a dad it seems to always be the same things, some socks, some garden vouchers or another photo frame.

So I have looked around for some ideas and discovered that a really good idea would be a helium filled father’s day balloon. It is something different and would definitely put a smile on his face when he opens the box and up floats a balloon.

Of course you could always send something else like a nice bottle of whisky or something.

Anyway, I will have to wait and see what I get this year.

Ancestral Photography

The year before last I traced part of my family tree. It was very interesting seeing how the men on my Father’s side seemed to marry women from the next village over. During 150 years they managed to stay within about 5 miles of the original homestead.

However on my Mother’s side it was completely different. The men on her side moved around quite a bit, but I eventually traced them back to a small market town.

Well I was looking around and by chance stumbled on a photograph somebody had placed online of one of my ancestor’s gravestone.

I thought this was quite interesting and looked around for more photographs, but couldn’t find any.

Now my wife is trying to trace her ancestors and I discovered a very interesting website for those people researching their family tree. It is called Ancestral Ulster a site offering to photograph key locations of ancestral heritage, like townlands,family homes, places of worship, gravestones.

You can even have a 360 degree virtual panoramic including an aerial panoramic which is an interactive 360 panoramic but taken from above up to 85 feet above the ground.

Tracing a family tree in Northern Ireland is a lot harder than we first thought. I managed to trace most of my ancestors through Ancestry.co.uk in a matter of hours. The records for Ireland including Ulster are due to go online later this year – so hopefully it will get easier.

New Design For Balloon In A Box Website

The new design and layout for one of the oldest UK online balloon delivery websites is finally finished.

A brand new layout and feel to the website adds to the new concept behind this website. Originally Balloon In A Box was a website offering delivery of birthday balloons and balloons for other occasions, by post, but due to relocation to Northern Ireland they were no longer able to send balloons out directly.

A new concept had to be developed for the site and in 2007 the plan was hatched. BalloonInABox.co.uk was going to be a website that reviewed balloon delivery websites and rated them against a number of different criteria and award points accordingly.

After many years of selling balloon gifts online, we knew the industry inside out.

In April 2008 the new site was launched and the first reviews were completed for the top 10 companies that appear on Google and those that advertise using Google Adwords. The top balloon delivery company in the initial review was Bizzy Balloons/Balloon Monkey

New companies will be added regularly and the company that comes top of the table will have a selection of their balloons displayed on the website.