Sir Didymus Jones - b. 26 April 1996

The day Sir Didymus came into our life is still very much a part of the family history. The boys have birthdays close to each other so we’d decided to get them a dog as a joint present. We picked Didy up on Michael’s birthday, which came first by four days (and it helped that it was a Saturday). Tim was turning nine years old and Michael six.

We tricked the boys into the trip by saying we had to go out to Kate’s work and needed to visit a house along the way. The lady who owned Didy had put him in a box and wrapped it in a ribbon. The boys were a little unsure why they had to open a box in a strange house but all this dissolved into the most unbridled joy when Didy, this white furball of a puppy, emerged from the box. Didy had entered our lives and they would never be the same again. The boys’ grandparents, Claire and George, still remember how excited the boys were when they took Didy around to show them the wonderful present they had just received.

Didy also made his mark in a different way at Claire and George’s place that morning. He was three months old and had been trained to wee on newspaper that had been placed on the floor. George had a habit of leaving his newspapers on the floor while he was reading them and doing the crosswords. The outcome was inevitable, but it did take George a little while to see the humour in a newspaper with a big wet circle in the middle of it.

It’s not exactly accurate to say we’ve been a one-pet family – we have had at different times a rabbit (Foxy, and a feral piece of work he was too), a rat (Denny, who was a lot more friendly and affectionate than you might imagine) and fish (unnamed and which are, after all, not the most emotionally responsive of creatures) – but Didy has been so much a part of our life for so long that it is hard to imagine how we could ever replace him.

Of course, it would be easy to think that a dog with the name Sir Didymus, hailed from a rather bourgeois background, but this was so far from the truth. Didy was three quarters Maltese terrier and one quarter Sydney Silkie and he looked and behaved quite a lot like a muppet character in one of the favourite family movies, Labyrinth, who went by the name of Sir Didymus. So, that was that. Of course, it got abbreviated to Didy, which sounded a lot less pretentious (though it was only some time later that I found out that Diddy is also another name for a woman’s breast (derived from titty) – which did put a whole new spin on wandering the streets and calling out Diddy whenever he did a runner).

Didy was an absolute ball of energy and did a brilliant imitation of a white ball of fluff on a very bouncy spring. It was quite remarkable how high he could jump. A feature of his jumping was that after he had reached the apex of his jump and had started to descend his floppy white ears were always a second behind the rest of him. That meant that it wasn’t unusual, especially if you were eating at a table, to look up in time to see a disembodied pair of ears hanging there just above the table top.

Didy had not only joined our immediate family, he become part of a much wider extended family. And their dogs. In the early days his closest canine friend was a big black Labrador, called Diva, owned by the boys aunt, Leonie. They were such an odd couple, big black dog, small white furball. And Didy was a real Speedy Gonzales. When they played Didy would run rings around Diva. I can still remember the look of surprise (and what certainly seemed like deep embarrassment) on Diva’s face when Didy turned on a dime when she was chasing him and then shot back between her legs. She’s been nutmegged and I’m pretty sure Diva hoped that absolutely nobody had noticed.

Before heading south we nipped back  into York for a final wander around the Wall, on another glorious autumn day. We also scored something quite unexpected. Courtesy of the need for me to find a toilet, limited parking time and a shortcut that turned into a longcut I found myself running through the wrong part of a lawned garden. There was an impressive number of squirrels here, totally unconcerned about people, and as I was glancing at them I noticed a squirrel that looked a bit different. As I glanced again I realised that not only was it a different squirrel it wasn't even a squirrel at all. It was a hedgehog! There followed a mad dash back to the car, dropping my jacket along the way (a nice lady retrieved it for me), a quick coercion of Kate because we were overdue on the parking, and we both ran back to check it out. It was still there. So cool. So damn cool.
Then on to Ilmington, in the Cotswolds, where we'd booked a B&B. Suffice to say, the B&B totally lived up to expectations - great room, including spa, great breakfasts, totally  charming. We spent two nights there and used it as a base to explore the Cotswolds.
On the way we'd dropped into Stratford-Upon-Avon for the afternoon - the weather still sunny and warm. We had a great time wandering the streets and checking out some of the old houses Shakespeare was associated with. That night we had a delicious meal at the local pub/restaurant.
The next day we devoted to visiting the small villages around the Cotswolds. It would take far too long to describe them in detail - take it as read that they were everything we could have hoped for, and still the weather was kind. The shopping list of villages we visited was: Chipping Campden , Broadway, the Slaughters (yep, they've named two towns Upper and Lower Slaughter - thus the Slaughters - gotta love the British - Lower Slaughter was just about the perfect village), Stow-on-the-Wold, Chipping Norton (which was the only one we didn't think much of) and Morton-in-Marsh. In Morton we bought some great antipasto, which we ate on returning that night.
And, so to today - our last day. But because our flight was leaving so late, we still managed to pack plenty into it. In the morning we visited three more charming villages, Bourton-on-the-Water (situated on this really charming stream, thus the name), Northleach and Burford. Then, because enough is never enough, we spent the afternoon in Oxford, which really is a freakin' awesome place. So many amazing buildings that half the time you don't even know what you're looking at.
We got one final surprise when our eldest son Tim, turned up at the airport to farewell us. One of the great, great things of this holiday is how much time we did get to spend with Tim and Michael. We really appreciated the time they gave us.
Now, here I am at Heathrow typing this last entry. We saw so much, it's hard to believe. We also learned plenty too. Like, don't worry about road signs in Ireland, just go with the flow. And no road is so narrow that you can't fit a bl00dy great tractor down it. And if you find yourself moving freely down an English road don't get worried, the truck will be there in front of you around the next corner. Oh, and always have loose change on you in England - chances are you'll need it for parking, for bus fares or to take a pee (and you'll need a good range of coins because you never know what they'll charge). That sometimes you just get surprised by things (like finding yourself near Hadrian's Wall, completed with rude roman carvings - or the unexpected appearance of hedgehogs). That a Peter and Janice (and family) were great and kind company. That beer over here really is much better than Australian beer. That everybody is nice, generous and courteous. That you can have just too many full English breakfasts (the body simply isn't designed to confront that much bacon). That people over here have heard of Tony Abbott, and it's pretty clear that they all reckon he's a knob. 
But most of all, that travel is brilliant (especially when seeing family and friends) - and coming home isn't too bad either.

The next morning Michael and I went for a walk in the woods around Grantown. Not only was this cool in its own right, but what should we see but an elusive red squirrel! And better than that it was being chased by another squirrel from tree to tree. A total display, and about as close to elusive as Tony Abbott and his crew of muppets are to having a conscience.
Then we headed down to Edinburgh, which really is a cracker if a city. I'd go so far as to say I prefer it to London. We dropped Tim off at the train station and said our sad farewells (we'd had a great family time) before finding our Edinburgh digs for the night.
Once settled Mick and I headed straight out for a walk up Holyrood Hill, to Arthur's Seat. This proved to be one of the highlights of our trip around Scotland. It's really quite damn tall, which meant we both got a good leg stretch as well as an incredible view. Had another great pub meal that night.
We spent the bulk of the next day in Edinburgh with Mick. We did a hop-on hop-off bus tour, like the one we'd done in Bath, which is a lazy and easy way to see the city and find out interesting things along the way e.g. They nearly moved the capital of Scotland to Glasgow because Edinburgh was turning into such a hole. Took the building if the wonderful New Town area to stop King George the Something from doing this. We also spent a fair big of time walking the streets if the Old Town, which was really cool.
Then to the airport to drop Mick off. Another sad occasion as we'd got to spend so much quality time with him, but you can hardly complain about having good times I guess.
We'd decided we did need to get on the road towards York and rather randomly we'd chosen a hotel in a place called Chollerford that was well reviewed on Trip Advisor. This proved to be an inspired decision. The afternoon drive was rather stunning, the pub was great and damn-me if we weren't right near Hadrian's Wall.
So close in fact that we walked to it the next day. The weather was blue-sky perfect again and we found ourselves, by ourselves, standing on this amazing piece of ancient architecture on a beautiful morning. To add a certain amount of colour to the experience there was a rather bold piece of Roman carving. It depicted a certain male appendage, in all it's excited glory. Apparently this is a symbol for good fortune and to ward off evil, but I reckon this is just a load of cock and bull put around by Roman males to see what they could get away with.
Then into the car again and off to York. Yep, another ancient city, and another cracker of an experience. Of course, it always helps to have grand weather, and this we had in spades. The city is just brilliant to wander around and the cathedral is just something else. Not sure how much the church must have done for the poor in those days but they certainly invested in outrageously grandiose architecture. It certainly rivalled Salisbury, though I'd still give St David's in Wales the edge over both of them, just for its authenticity (and more understated grandeur). Anyway, it was brilliant, we had another top pub dinner before walking home passed buildings as old as the white settlement of Australia.
Tomorrow the Cotswolds.
As long as things don't go belly up and we end up somewhere in a Turkish prison this should be our penultimate travel log. Actually, if we do end up in a Turkish prison the chances of sending any more emails are probably pretty remote. Can't imagine the broadband would be that good, and I'd most likely be more concerned about the large gentleman I was sharing he 4 x 4 cell with.

We left Windermere and headed to Glasgow via Grasmere, Rydalmere and Thirlmere, this time with Michael in tow. We'd had a very pleasant dinner the night before at one of the local pubs and had followed this up with another great breakfast at our B&B, which Michael definitely enjoyed. The weather had again turned grey, but it wasn't raining so we did get one last good look at this really wonderful part of the world.
From there is was pretty much a solid drive of a few hours before we found ourselves in Glasgow, grabbing a quick pint at the local before we picked up Tim. The barmaid at the pub was the first person we'd spoken to in Scotland, and she had such a broad accent that a translator would have been helpful. In the end we smiled a lot, laughed at jokes she made we couldn't understand before downing the pints and finding Tim.
Now the family was back together, for the first time in around ten months, which was great. Our first night was on the west coast in a village called Connel, just out of the town of Oban. The weather had continued to be a bit on the damp side, though we'd had a good view of Loch Lomond on the way. Oban was a very picturesque coastal town, but when we got there for dinner the wind was blowing hard and cold. Nonetheless we wandered around and found a great little pub for dinner before heading back to our digs.
A word on the place we stayed at. Great food, fine rooms, interesting owner. She could really cook, had a sense of humour, but somewhere along life's journey she'd picked up a little bit of Basil Fawlty. She was clearly a stickler for the rule and heaven help the poor lady who accidentally poured out too much cereal and then used her hand (which she shouldn't have of course) to put some of it back. She might as well have farted in front of the queen. The same poor lady got in trouble for asking for access to a different toilet and trying to sort our an earlier breakfast. The curious thing was the owner was quite within her rights, it's just that the way she dealt with the person was straight out of The Basil Fawlty guide to customer service.
Now to a cock-up. We knew Oban was worth a visit in its own right, but we'd also planned to catch a ferry from there to the Isle of Mull. What we hadn't done was actually book the car on the damn ferry so, long story short, we'd missed out. In truth missing the ferry really wasn't a bad thing - actually it probably worked in our favour. We really didn't have the time for much of a tour of Mull, and though the day had dawned sunny the wind was still up, which meant the boat trip would have been rough (we noticed, for example, that the boat trip to the seal colony had been cancelled due to the winds, and rough sea).
In the end we had a very pleasant morning in Oban, which really was worth the visit, before heading to Loch Ness. Along the way we dropped into a Scottish wildlife sanctuary, which turned out to be a real winner. Awesome aquarium, great views of the coast, and pine forests perfect for the red squirrels which we looked for in vain.
That night we stayed in the awesomely named village of Drumnadrochit. We had a wander through the woods, down to Loch Ness, before having another great pub meal. The rooms at the B&B were really spacious and we wound up the evening drinking whiskey and eating local cheese in our room.
For the record we saw as many Loch Ness Monsters as we had red squirrels.
Next day took us to Grantown-on-Spey, in the Cairngorm Mountains, via Inverness. Inverness is a pretty cool place, at least the old town is, and worth a good wander through, checking out local ales along the way. Grantown was a bit of a gamble as it hadn't been on our radar until the day before, but it proved a great decision. It was right in the middle of a forest and we stayed at a quirky old pub. There was plenty of woodland walking, followed, by an evening of good food, a sampling of many fine whiskeys, card playing and a heckofalot of laughter.
The staff at the hotel were wonderful and just about as quirky as the establishment itself. We really liked them both, and they clearly got on well. The barman was very friendly, but deeply focused on doing his job right. The woman who was also working the bar with him, was garrulous and friendly but not necessarily as organised as the barman. They more of less did a Laurel and Hardy routine, the highlight being when we ordered a bottle of wine. The bar women went off to find the right wine glasses. Then the barman turned up with the bottle of red, and a set of smaller white wine glasses. We were just pouring ourselves a glass when the bar woman turned up with the red wine glasses and another opened bottle of red. There we were with two bottles of red and eight wine glasses. She rolled her eyes, and we all had a good laugh. In fact, that summed up the entire mood of the night - a damn good laugh.
Next stop Edinburgh.

We left Tarporley early and that gave us plenty of time in the Lakes District on the first day. Our base was a really cool B&B in Windermere, which served awesome breakfasts.
Booking in to our room we headed straight out to Tarn Hows which was reputed to offer a very pleasant easy walk around the Tarn. The description was spot on and we caught it in its full glory in the afternoon light. It's also supposed to be good red squirrel country so we took plenty of time to look up trees - without seeing even a red whisker.
The weather is always a player when it comes to travel and for the first two weeks it was playing on our side. The next day was the first day the weather wasn't friendly (they call it mucky up here). Actually, initially it was just misty and lowering which was really an impressive way to see Grasmere and Thirlmere, but then the rain just got pretty persistent.
It was at this point that perhaps a poor decision was made and perhaps it was made by me. We were heading up Whinlatter Pass, which was really impressive, when we stopped at a sort of lodge for lunch. Apparently there were red squirrels around here, so I dragged us into the woods, optimistically predicting a break in the rain. I was wrong, by a country mile, and the damn red squirrels were far more practical than I was. They'd taken a look at the mucky weather and said to themselves 'Bugga this for a game of soldiers'. Again not a sight of the Red Devils. At least we gave the rain jackets a good testing.
We headed home via Crummock Water and Buttermere. They were again quite beautiful, but the weather was not great. We had a really enjoyable dinner that night at an Italian restaurant. We'd mostly been eating pub food, which is often really interesting over here, but it was great to have a change. Curiously, food like Chinese is much less common and often quite expensive.
On our third day in the Lakes the weather dawned clear again so we headed out to Ullswater and the Aira Force, which is actually a very picturesque waterfall - apparently one of the UK's finest. Ullswater was impressive and the Falls lived up to their name and were well worth the walk. Stunning.
The weather was so good that we headed back the long way via Whinlatter Pass and Crummock Water and Buttermere, which were just magical.
I should mention the roads in this area. There are the A roads, which are meant to be quite wide - which translates to narrow and winding. Then there are the B roads - which are meant to be a bit narrower - which translates into buttock-clenching, white-knuckled joyrides. We spent a lot of time on B roads. You basically can't pass cars on B roads. You have to find a specially widened part of the road - sort of pullover spaces - that they've added every few hundred yards. Of course they're only useful if they're handy, and then you've got the challenge of coming around blind corners sharing the road with oncoming traffic. Still not enough of a thrill. Right then. Let's throw in the not infrequent and often rather sudden appearance of a truck, tractor, or even a tourist bus and see how tight your muscles end up being in certain orifices. Oh, and sheep too. They can appear just about anywhere. 
The highlight though, came when we were driving a narrow B road and cane across a free range guinea fowl farm. The damn birds took the term free-range on face value and they were everywhere. Picture driving a narrow, one lane road, with on coming traffic, trying to dodge random birds appearing out of the roadside bushes. It's no wonder there appeared to be a few rather flat birdlike shapes on the roadside.
Oh, and I do have to divert back to a pet topic - how they come up with certain town names, without pondering whether or not it was such a wise choice. Well, I think we found the one to take the cake. How would you feel about living in Cockermouth? Honestly? Cockermouth? Did they not think about having a vote on this at some point? Imagine having to tell people you came from Cockermouth. To be honest, we didn't actually visit the place, which was a bit of relief. Really didn't know what I might have been getting myself into.
Later that day we picked Michael up from the train station and got ready to launch into Scotland, where we would pick up our other son, Tim.

We arrived at Janice and Pete's in Eaton, Tarporley for a three night rest and they treated us royally the whole time (royally as in very generously, not as in chopping off our heads - just thought I'd clear that up). Their two children, Bethan and Sam, were there also and our son, Michael joined us for the weekend. Awesome.
We dined on mince and slices of quince, which we ate with a runcible spoon - well not really, but the food was brilliant - from the Sunday morning fry-up to the roast pork dinner and even the meal out at the Pheasant Inn (oh and yes we have seen pheasants, and seals and red and grey squirrels - but no badgers) we ate like a king, queen and prince.
We also went out a fair bit. Janice took us to Chester on the Saturday, where we were suitably impressed by the architecture. The cathedral was brilliant as was walking the walls of old Chester. Actually, the whole inner city was just a really cool place right out of the English past.
Then on Sunday, thanks to a tip from our good friend Pete Ryan, we returned to Wales for one last treat - a visit to Llangollen where we climbed up to Dinas Bran. This is reputed to be one of the best views in Britain - and hang me for a badger rustler if it wasn't. Stunning day, and stunning 360 views, all from the ruins of an old castle. It was a fair haul up there but we survived to tell the tale and earned the preemptive pint we'd had before we started.
Have I mentioned British beer? Well you know how it's supposed to be warm and pretty much flat - that's true. But what they don't tell you  (unless of course they're British) is that it tastes soooo much better than our beer. Reckon I'll have to work these pints off, and not sure how I'll take to our Aussie beer again.
We also went to the Llangollen aqueduct - which is active - and walked across a river at a damn great height. What was even weirder was that a canal boat went passed us while we were up there and I even saw fish swimming by - at least 100 feet in the air - talk about flying fish. If only they knew.
Another highlight was travelling in Peter's Rolls Royce - what a totally cool, outrageous thing to do. Smooth as silk, the genuine greased lightning and total comfort. Reminded me of a joke from teenage school days, that went along the lines of 'What's the difference between a [nearby school of your choice] girl and a Rolls Royce? Answer - Not everyone's been inside a Rolls Royce. Now before you cry out in horror at the sexist nature of this, which it was, it's time for a little honesty. The truth is that all that joke reflected was wishful thinking that would remain unfulfilled from a generation of boys who didn't know anything about [nearby school of your choice] girls and certainly wouldn't know how to handle one even if they did.
Anyway, we had a brilliant three days and Peter and Janice were truly great hosts.
Monday morning we said our farewells and headed off to the Lakes District.

We left Bath and headed deep into south west Wales. On advice from various sources we aimed first for a place on the Gower Peninsular called Mumbles - yet another fine example of weird-arse town names. Lovely little town - touristy but charming. Then we headed around the peninsular taking in Southgate which the locals claim have the second best cliff view in the UK. Not sure exactly how they know this but, to be fair, it was pretty awesome.
We also ate our fill of blackberries. At this time of year you could possibly survive just on blackberries eaten from roadside bushes but, based on some of the droppings of birds that appear to have taken this option it may play merry havoc with the digestive system.
Our goal was Tenby but along the way we saw amazing countryside, including one area where the road went through a commons area. We found ourselves sharing the space with sheep, cattle and roaming mobs of horses. Quite a strange experience - especially when standing at a lookout, eating lunch, surrounded by horses.
Tenby itself is spectacular - old walled town - great views, perfect weather to see it in - great pubs. Can't believe how much ale I've drunk over here. Loving the stuff. Tenby is an absolute must visit in this part of Wales. Accommodation was Ok, but the room small, and the landlady, garrulous to the point of madness.
Next morning we headed to St David's - which took us about as far west as we were going in the UK. Incredible old cathedral in the city (which is only a city by a historical technicality and is the smallest city in the UK).
Then, on advice from the talkative landlady, we detoured to New Quay, which she told us was Wales's equivalent of the Gold Coast - it was a pretty cool place, but the comparison to the Gold Coast was a tad optimistic. But it was very warm, hot even, and we saw something we simply weren't expecting to spot in the UK - not badgers, not hedgehogs - but something rarer - people wearing bikinis and budgie smugglers!
Then onwards and upwards to Betws-y-Coed, via Harlech Castle. Just in case you weren't aware of it the Welsh weren't even in the room when they were giving out the vowels. Which is Ok, because they've claimed a few consonants to do the job. Made a dog's breakfast of the pronunciations, of course, but you try and get Betws-y-Coed right the first time.
Anyway, Betws, was really beautiful and we stayed at a great B&B.
As charming as Betws was, the drive the next day would be even more stunning. We started with the rather cheekily named Swallow Falls and wound our way up the mountains to the tallest peak in Wales. The day started quite misty which gave the landscape an eerie feel and then as we reached the top of the pass the clouds and mist began to peel back and this stark, rocky, mountainous countryside that climbed sheer up from the side of the road unfolded around us - bathed in sunlight. It was such a stunning sight that we drove down the pass and then drove back up and down again.
We reached Llanberis at the foot of Mt Snowdon and decided against catching the train up it (there was a real crowd and we probably didn't have the time) and on a whim took a side road. By sheer chance this took us to a wonderful old Welsh tea room, complete with fascinating owner, amazing furniture (e.g. A very old family bible in Welsh - as if that would make understanding religion any easier for the English speaking punter), great coffee and cakes, really cool artworks and even a generous helpful guest (who actually made the coffee). A trip highlight.
Then off to Caernarfon Castle - one of the finest castles in the UK  - and it was. Clambered around battlements for a while and then headed westwards out of Wales to stay with some friends the English village of Eaton. Wales had proved to be awesome, and it would deal one more great card in two days time.

By the time we got from Cardiff airport to the hotel it was quite late so we didn't get to appreciate it until the next morning, and appreciate it we did. The city centre has real charm and I even purchased a grey bowler hat.

I should mention a curious fact about bathroom showers in the UK - no two have ever had the same tap arrangement. This may not sound much, but honestly they can be totally different and it regularly took some nipple-stiffening moments before the mechanics could be figured out. The low point of the journey so far came in Cardiff when I found myself googling up instructions. Will we ever find two the same? Only time will tell.

From Cardiff we headed out for two nights in Bath. This would prove to be one of the highlights of the trip so far. Bath has to be one of the most amazing cities in the world for architecture and character - and we saw all this in weather so balmy we were regularly hot. We did bus tours, we wandered around, we visited the baths (far more interesting than I expected to honest) and were gobsmacked by the cathedral. Oh, and we drank plenty of pints.

Not only is Bath brilliant, it's not far from Stonehenge and Salisbury and both are worth a visit, so we did just that. Stonehenge has an awe and aura of such a different time, and Salisbury cathedral has to be one of the greatest churches in the world. Words fall short - awesome will have to do. And Salisbury itself is a really amazing city - sort of like Bath, but sort of not at all, if that makes any sense.

To top it all off we've stayed at this charming old village pub in a charming old village called Hinton Charterhouse. The Rose and Crown - http://roseandcrown.butcombe.com - brilliant. 

One thing you really notice about England is the strangely disturbing names they give to their towns and villages. When we were in London our tube line went to Cockfosters ... Made me smile every time they announced it. We'll probably visit Upper Slaughter in the Cotswolds, and we're currently staying near Limpley Stoke - and yes there is a Lower and an Upper Limpley Stoke - the latter sounds distinctly painful. I'm expecting that on one of our trips we'll be driving along and find ourselves entering somewhere called Upper Bottom, Nipplestoke or Fondler's Knob.

Oh, and one last feature of driving around rural England ... If you're not in a narrow winding lane stuck behind a tractor or truck then you're not really in England - you're probably at home, still asleep dreaming about wonderfully empty country lanes.

Tomorrow back into Wales, where the surname Jones isn't as rare as it is in Australia.

On advice from our b&b host we left Doolin and headed to Galway via an area called the Burren. Just when you think you've probably seen enough stunning coastline Ireland dishes up something totally different. The Burren is this incredibly rocky, primitive landscape that, in its own stark way, rivals the Ring of Kerry. Well worth a visit.

From there we decided to go to Galway. We had the option of going to the town centre or taking in a bog. The later may sound rather unpleasant and lavatorial but it was supposed to be interesting. Indecisiveness would lead us a merry dance, as would the the Irish street signs which one suspects may have been designed by a demented leprechaun with a nasty sense of humour who was currently on a bender. So, what did we do? Drove essentially all the way into Galway and then, for want of an obvious parking spot, and because I rather liked the thought of the bog, drove all the way out again - only to discover that the road to the bog either didn't exist at all, or the dang leprechaun was changing the signs again. Honestly, it didn't seem possible to head in the direction we wanted. So, what did we do? Drove all the way back into Galway, of course, and found a parking spot easily. We could now add some rather less salubrious streets of Galway to those we had seen in Cork - and get to Galway Central only an hour later.

For the record, the old town of Galway is really cool and we had a very chilled couple of hours there before we drove over to Dublin. That night we hooked up with both boys and then wandered back to our hotel in the sticks (the only one that had vacancies in all of Dublin that we could afford - it turns out that there was a major comedy event on this weekend which had led to the shortage of rooms).

The next morning we headed down into Dublin City and did the touristy stuff - Temple Bar, Trinity College where the a Book of Kells is, and the Guinness factory. Following that we spent the late afternoon and evening in a really charming seaside town near Dublin, called Howth. We even saw more seals. Today we headed further up the coast to another seaside town called Skerries, where we had a relaxed breakfast before visiting the local castle (which really was more like a manor) and wandered around the huge grounds admiring the awesome views.

Then, off to the airport (gotta learn to cope with airports if you ever want to travel) where first Tim, then Michael flew out before we hopped our flight to a Cardiff, and a new country - Wales.

The next 24 hrs would teach us a few lessons. First of all, and we'd really been learning this one from our first day in Ireland, you need to have continual access to the web. We'd opted not to get an Irish SIM card and this was really silly in retrospect. If we'd had one from Day One many of our problems would simply not have been.

Our night in Glenbeigh would dish out another fine lesson - don't leave booking travel or accommodation to the last minute in major cities, especially on weekends. We were to meet the boys in Dublin on Friday night and had agreed to fly them over, but what with one thing or another had left things late. What does that mean? Expensive flights and buggerall accommodation. In the end Kate found something through Airbnb, we booked it in relief and sat back, satisfied .... Only to receive a message 10 minutes later from the property owner that the rooms weren't available. Now there's a real sting here with airbnb - they take your money and a booking fee in advance. So now we had no accommodation, we were considerably out of pocket, we we had to go through some sort of resolution process with airbnb, the property owner was refusing to answer anymore emails and it was 11 pm at night. This proved to be an excellent cocktail for the nerves.

Eventually, by around midnight, we had tracked down another place - not exactly charming, not exactly cheap, not exactly in a convenient location, but better than trying to sleep four adults in a car or on a park bench. We hit the sack, still out of pocket with airbnb.

The next morning we did our best to smile about it, through somewhat gritted teeth, packed up and headed towards Doolin and the Cliffs of Moher.

The lack of sleep and the frustrations of the night before seemed to colour the day. The countryside didn't have quite the same charm and now getting lost was becoming more of a frustration than a joke. Another lesson we learned also cropped up - check things out before you head off, especially if you don't have internet access. We missed the car ferry at Tarbert by five minutes and had to wait an hour. This delay would set us up beautifully for our next major frustration.

We had reached a little town when we noticed signs about some event called Hell of the West ... Little did we realise how accurate that name would be. As we left the town we discovered we were caught up in the middle of a cycle race, and there was nothing we could do about it. The roads were narrow, there were no side roads, and we couldn't overtake (we did try that once but got pushed off the road by a support vehicle). This meant we got to travel for an interminable period at cycling speed. At one point we did take one side road and even got ahead of the pack - there was this wonderful moment of freedom and joy BUT the police had blocked off the entry back onto the road until the cycle group passed - even though the damn group didn't get to the intersection for a good five minutes. So, we found ourselves back exactly where we had been. Oh, did we laugh about that. (NOTE: this particular cycling event turned out to be called Ras na mBan but Hell of the West was more appropriate).

I should point out that there are plenty of hills around this area of Ireland, so the going had wonderfully slow periods. So slow that when a tractor with a huge bail of hay cut in in front of us, and began to chug along (eliciting some bitter laughter and the occasional expletive) it really didn't even slow us down a second.

Thank God for the final lesson of the day .... Always hang in there when you're travelling. We arrived, more than a little cheesed off, at the Cliffs of Moher -and they were as spectacular as we'd been told. Of course it helped that the weather was perfect. And then things just spiralled upwards (such a pleasant change from the downwards spiralling) from there. Our b&b was great, the host really affable and we even snuck onto an evening cruise below the cliffs, with the locals telling us we had lucked out on perfect conditions for it - full sunlight and a dinner plate flat ocean. To round off the day we had pints of cider at the local whilst listening to an Irish band. Doesn't get much better.

What a Doctor Jekyll and Mr Hyde kind of day. Tomorrow Dublin and seeing the boys.