The last resort

With the economic squeeze, extravagant holidays are on the wane and people are taking time-off in their own countries again.

The seaside town of Portrush near the Giant's Causeway is enjoying a bit of a boom, with hotel bookings well up and shops doing increased business.

Quite a turn-up for the books when Britons have been shunning chilly, down-at-heel local resorts for decades in favour of sunnier and more sophisticated climes.

How my own tastes have changed over the years. As a child, I was blissfully happy visiting my relatives at Southend (Essex) and Perranporth (Cornwall), spending all day on the beach where my sister and I would climb the rocks, build sandcastles, collect shells and look for crabs.

Gradually over the years as people got more prosperous, it became fashionable to holiday in Europe, and then farther-flung spots like America, India and Australia.

Now I've been hopelessly corrupted (or enlightened) and my idea of a holiday is watching the New Year's Eve fireworks on Sydney Harbour Bridge, taking a train through the Rockies or visiting art galleries in Manhattan.

We took a two-week break in Connemara a couple of years ago but I came back disappointed. Yes, the scenery was spectacular but it was all a bit dull and predictable after what we had seen and done in other parts of the world.

I've been so spoilt that even if I were stony broke, a fortnight in Portrush would be hard to adjust to. I think I'd just max out my credit card, take off for Sydney and never be seen again. I'm sure Jenny could be easily persuaded to come with me. After all, Portrush or Port Arthur?* It's a no-brainer.

* a historic old settlement on the Tasman Peninsula in Tasmania.

PS: Jenny points out that I'm rather contradicting what I said about greed. So - I claim the right to be inconsistent....

Photo: Portrush on Northern Ireland's north coast.

On being a vegetarian

Being a vegetarian is still seen as something rather strange and puzzling, as if it's some hare-brained new fashion rather than a long-standing tradition thousands of years old and found all over the world.

When someone discovers I'm vegetarian, they usually react as if I've revealed something slightly eccentric, like ironing my underwear or collecting cuckoo clocks. They ask me what exactly I eat, as if the only options are lettuce leaves, carrots or nut cutlets, and that once meat is ruled out there's nothing else worth eating.

Even after 30 meatless years, people still think I'm in the grip of some impulsive fad rather than a rational and principled choice. They just can't comprehend the simple desire to eat foods that don't involve killing sentient animals - aren't I just being squeamish and sentimental?

I'm also accused of being selfish and demanding, putting households to the extra effort of cooking both a meat dish and a non-meat dish. To which I can only say, why not be adventurous and try something vegetarian on all of them? It's only the once after all. And who knows - they might even enjoy it. Is it really such a sacrifice to abandon meat for half an hour?

Even eating in restaurants is quite a challenge. Belfast may be increasingly open-minded and eclectic, with an amazing variety of eating places compared with a decade ago - Indian, Chinese, Italian, Mexican, you name it - but there still is no vegetarian or vegan restaurant. There are some excellent health food shops like Eatwell in Lisburn Road and Nutmeg in Lombard Street, but when eating out I usually have to comb the menu thoroughly for the one or two meat-free options. At least they exist, unlike in Connemara, where I stayed in the summer, and where the locals saw vegetarians as something akin to sheep-rustlers or petrol-siphoners, and were clearly about to tip off the gardai over my perverted habits.

Belfast is proud of its steadily rising tourist visits, but do they come back again? Plenty of those tourists will be vegetarians and when they find there isn't a single veggie hangout in the city, they are likely to strike Belfast off their list and head for other, more vegetarian-friendly capitals. How about the NI Tourist Board giving someone a grant to open a really world-class vegetarian diner? Or maybe Invest Northern Ireland? Isn't this what they call a howling gap in the market? Come on, Belfast, wake up and smell the tofu!

Photograph courtesy of Wikipedia