It has been a very mixed week and loadings this season continue to baffle us! On Sunday I had 25 for the Cliffs and Chris only 4 forCork so it seems the madness is over for the moment! We have been plotting an escape for a while but believe me it is not easy however we are heading over to UK for the day tomorrow but why we are going is to remain a secret! We were secretly hoping that we might have no bookings for today and we might be able to have a night with my parents but we both knew that would never happen and I have ended up with a group for the Cliffs today so dreams of a curry at our favourite Indian restaurant in Sunderland – The Moti Raj and a pint of good English ale will have to stay on hold for a while! We are flying out to Newcastle in the morning and back late tomorrow night to Dublin then driving home before the tour on Saturday – a long day but it will be great to see my folks after the long season and better still they are coming to see us in a couple of weeks so happy days!
It will be great to have Chris with me this time as last time I went toUK a few weeks ago I had to go on my own. The secrecy around these trips will be lifted soon and next week we might have some good news for Barratt Tours and our customers!
I’am often asked if I miss anything about living in England and there really isn’t much but here goes:
1) My friends and family – because we are so busy and tend not to do the same thing as other couples our age it is really hard to make friends mainly as we do not have kids and tend to go away for much of our free time so we lead a fairly solitary life.
2) English Ale – I do really like Irish stout but I crave the kind of variety and character that can only be found in English real ale. It always baffles me how the large breweries have such a stranglehold over the pub trade here and it seems crazy that we have an endless selection of bland euro and US fizzy lagers but virtually no real ale. My favourite UK brews include Greene King Abbot Ale, Batemans XXXB and Caledonian Deuchers but here really are too many to mention!
3) The Sea – When we lived in Sunderland we were a 2 min walk from the promenade and we both really miss evening walks along the seafront.
4) English Indian Food! Now there is a contradiction in terms but we miss the cheap and cheerful cuisine that is so typical of an Enlish Tandoori restaurant! We have some great Indian restaurants here but nothing can beat the 7 pound three course special at our former local!
That really is about it and there are a great many plus points of living in Ireland that can cancel most of those out!
Music – it has been so hectic lately that I’am still catching up with CD s that I got for Christmas but one that needs urgent attention is the Paul Wella compilation that Chris bought me! Looks to have some great stuff from one of my all time favourite artists on it.
Book – “This is not a drill” by Paul Carter is proving to be every bit as good as the last one and I can empathise with a lot that he writes about in particular his father who was in the RAF got me thinking about my late grandfather who I never knew and his RAF career, anyhow the author likes cats and motorbikes so that makes him a decent sort in my book!
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Is there any real ale in Ireland?
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