ITINERARY:
Monday 30
June 19:50: arrival in Dublin
Monday 30
June 20:30: take our hire car to Dublin City Centre and check in to our overnight
accommodation
Tuesday 1
July morning: drive to Leitrim, stay at a local holiday home for a week while
we prepare our new home
The rest
of the week: make the place liveable
Tuesday 8
July: move in
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| We're here |
We landed in Dublin bang on time at just before 8pm. The flight was incredibly uneventful, thankfully, and the children had a marvellous time just enjoying the fluffy clouds and talking to the lovely Irish lady in the same row as us. The doors to the plane opened to a fresh Irish Sea breeze and the soft light of a northern summer evening. We walked across the tarmac and into the airport terminal. The word terminal is actually a very good word for this building – it goes on for miles. And miles. And miles.
Reaching the
luggage carousel, the bags were dancing round already. We gathered the array of
belongings we brought, stacked them on three trolleys, and went through to the
public area to locate the hire car office. I had booked an SUV for 4 weeks, but
the guy at reception took one look at our luggage and said it would never fit
in the one he’d reserved for us. So he went to the back and brought some other
keys. He upgraded us to the largest monster he could find for no extra cost. I
know there are other customer service motives behind all this but it certainly
left an impression.
We had to
continue our pilgrimage from plane to car via terminal, as he told us it was
parked at the very end of the car rental zone, but I don’t think any of us
minded because we had so far managed the impossible: we seemed to have
extricated ourselves from Valencia with all the belongings we could carry, and got
to the car that would take us to our next abode.
It was an
almost brand new Volkswagen Tayron with enough boot space to hold the Champions
League Final, and fit all our bags with a little to spare. It was still a tight
squeeze, but we managed it. We had even brought the three child seats with us
as it was cheaper than hiring them from any car rental company.
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| Not the place we stayed in, but a typical Dublin scene nonetheless |
But it was
late, so in anticipation of our late arrival, we had booked a night in Dublin
to give us a good run the day after. Our accommodation was apparently a guest
house by the River Liffey with views onto the embankment. There was still an
hour or two of light, but it had turned overcast and by the time we had pulled
into the car park near the guest house, it had started to rain. We left most of
the bags in the car and pulled out a couple of pre-packed overnight bags and our
laptops. This was the moment Livia chose to have a complete meltdown: entering
the rain-soaked streets in her summer clothes was always going to be risky, but
that was just a little too much for her and she went into a full public
hysterical diatribe that caused even passengers on passing buses to glance down
to see what the issue was.
The map on
my phone was telling us we were outside the guest house, but all I could see
was a row of shuttered shops, except for a particularly dingy-looking sandwich
shop, and a rather dodgy bus stop in front. I looked at the doors as we passed
and there was nothing that resembled the entrance to a guest house. I looked at
the app and checked the messages the owner sent me the day before, which said
the door shared space with a tea and sandwich takeaway shop. Oh yes, we saw
that…
The windowless
door required a code to enter, which was in another email. This was now looking
like a rather bad choice, but it was half the price of the place we stayed in
last time. We lugged our stuff inside, not forgetting the appalling complaints still
being emitted from Livia, and I looked in yet another email to locate our room.
It was number 11 on the first floor. We got to the door of number 11 where we
heard cries from a baby inside.
Using a code
to open the room door that was sent in yet another email, I found an entire
family of five, the mother feeding a baby, the father folding a packet of
biscuits into an overnight bag, and two other young kids munching on them.
“I think
we’re supposed to be here,” I said to him.
“Yes, we
arrived here only an hour ago to find someone else.”
I suddenly
got a huge sense of foreboding. We hadn’t come all this way to have our
belongings stolen by one of the previous occupants who knew the code. The guy
said he and his family were only going to be there another half hour as they
were leaving. This made no sense to me, so of course I smelt a very stinky rat.
The guy called the owner for us, to enquire about the current uncomfortable
situation. He put me on speaker and told me he was going to send us another
email and give us a room further up.
We had a
little chat with the family and headed up to find our room. We wondered what we
would find up there – a lonely cat lover with a bunch of felines spread out on
each bed? A French Revolution reenactment group practising for a beheading in
the morning? A bunch of nuns in their briefs having a pillow fight? A Swiss on
an Alphorn and an Australian on a didgeridoo having a parp-off? The opening
scenes of Les Misérables being performed by the employees of Hooters? Two
oiled-up Turkish wrestlers grappling with each other? Or the worst of all, a
couple of teenagers ignoring each other as they stare at their own phones? As
it was, the room was empty, and we opened the window to let in some air before
we went straight out for food. Bonny Bee thought we shouldn’t leave our laptops
in the room, and I agreed.
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| On the way to Leitrim |
Walking a
few hundred metres with some uppity hungry children at 10 in the evening (it
would have been 11 for us), we stumbled upon a famous burger joint. To
desecrate my chain outlet principles twice in a day would probably drive me to the
edge of existential doubt. But next door was a fifties-style diner, which had a
more appealing menu and people who brought you your food. The adjacent place
could learn something about that… We tucked in to some tremendous fare – I’m
not a big fan of vertical food, but they made it look worth eating. And the
chips were the best I’d eaten since I was last in Belgium.
We were all
tired and ratty, so we just ate up and left. It wasn’t the cheapest fast food
dinner we’d had, but at least we could sleep now. When we arrived back at Iniquity
Towers, everything was still there. We used the communal bathroom to give
ourselves a decent wash and went straight to sleep.
The morning
revealed a moderately humdrum sky and a fair amount of rain was forecast. In
all truth, there wasn’t that much in the end, but I once spoke to the makers of
a weather app and they told me they always went with the worst-case scenario,
so people were pleasantly surprised rather than furious because they had to
cancel their barbecue.
We removed the car from its overnight stay in a nearby car park and made the choice to drive to Longford on the way. We knew a splendid little café called Ménara tucked down a side street in the city with a range of imaginative sandwiches and cakes. The kitchen is the size of a telephone box, but what comes out of it is remarkable.
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| The house and garden we stayed at for our first week |
We spent the
week getting to know the area and introducing ourselves to a number of locals,
such as the girls in the coffee shop, the staff of the butcher shop, and the lady
at the bits and bobs shop.
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| A local traffic signal in Cloone |
We also got
to know the best place to get what: we went to McHugh’s Furniture in Cloone to
look at beds, sofas and wardrobes, but they were new and we weren’t going to be
spending a lot of money on something that could be temporary. Jordan’s
Furniture in Ballinamore was a far cheaper option – most of the stuff in there
is from either salvage or house sales.
Then there’s
Carrick-On-Shannon, a lively town of just a few thousand inhabitants that
punches well above its weight: with a vast choice of pubs and restaurants, this
place is known as Ireland’s stag- & hen-night capital.
Longford was
also a place we would be frequenting – not the prettiest or the safest city in
Ireland, but a real hotbed of activity. Both places have a refreshing number of
international food and drink shops, and I introduced the children to some
sausages from Poland: kabanos to nibble on, kielbasa for the frying pan; both
greatly appreciated.
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| Great pancakes at this place |
We collected
a few items we would need to move into the static caravan the following
Tuesday, such as bed linen, kitchen equipment, cutlery, plates and bowls, an
air mattress, some cleaning fluids, and a couple of extension leads. We also ordered
a fridge, a washing machine, a mini induction cooker, and an electric fryer
with a lid. The larger things were to be delivered the following week, which
would be a great start to our residence.
In the
meantime, we took a few trips to some of the local pubs and cafés. Considering
this is the most sparsely populated part of the country, there is a surprising
amount to do, and the place is often teeming with people. I freely admit we’re
not in a metropolis, we’re not even in something equal to a suburb of a small
country town, but that was the reason for moving: we needed a gentler pace of
life. In Valencia, things never stopped – it was a relentless bombardment of obligations,
hindrances, and requests that gave us so little time to enjoy life, and when we
did have the time, we were too tired. Paradoxically, because of all the venues and
events around us, we suffered from extreme choice paralysis.
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| A trip to the Druid's Altar |
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| The Druid's Altar |
They say if
you show up to a place in fear and dread with no intention of participating in
local life, you will hate it. If you come with an open mind ready to integrate
and adapt, you will thrive. This is our intention here, as it always has been
wherever we go: as Irish people are so kind-hearted, decent, sociable and witty,
it just might be a little easier to succeed.
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| Pub and Funeral Director: ideal for wakes |
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| One of the many magical trees |
In the next part, we will describe our first impressions and experiences of moving in to our new dwelling.
