12th parade in the town

It was raining quite a lot today. So, I had thought that we would stay at home when the Orangemen came back to the town in the afternoon. Luckily it was sunny and I heard Lambeg drums from far away around 4.30pm (the newspaper said that they would start marching from 5pm!), so I dashed out of the house and picked my girls up at their friend's house,
to see home-coming parade in the town centre.

The crowd has just started gathering when we got there and as usual I was the only oriental-looking one among them. (We spotted several foreigners, though.) This year, we spotted more people in the parade, our neighbour, my girl's friends, schoolmates, etc. It was nice to wave at familiar faces and get a smile or a waving back to us. Must confess that I had been a bit wary of staying in the crowd until yesterday because I always went to see the parades with my hubby. It was a sort of telling the strangers "Look. I look like a Martian but I've got a connection with the locals!". But this year, I was only with my girls. But nobody bothered me or paid any sort of special attentions, which I liked a lot.

Happy with the annual dose of Lambeg drum. The sound always reminds me where my eardrums are. And also reminds me that you don't hear sound only with ears but also feel it with your whole body. I will definitely miss Lambeg drums if I ever move out of Northern Ireland.

On the way home, we met our Orangeman neighbour and his friend by chance. They put their orange sashes on my girls for a laugh and I took the photo. Lovely. Pity that the friendly side of Orangemen are never shown outside Northern Ireland. They are just a bunch of ordinary folks with a certain belief, like the rest of us, you know. They won't bite your head off just because you are not one of them! Look at me! I came home unscratched!