Richards Blog – 30.11.08 - End of our Annus Horribillis – Thank goodness!

We ran our last tour of 2008 on Saturday and typically for this year it wasn’t without its problems but at least it draws our hardest ever season to an end!
Business wise it has been very challenging with poor visitor numbers and the absolutely terrible weather we experienced particularly through what should have been our “peak” season in August. We have also had a share of vehicle related problems but nothing too serious, just expensive! We have, as always, survived and will come back stronger and wiser and ready to fight the recession that everyone is talking us into! I think a good thought for us this season is “if it doesn’t kill us it can only make us stronger!” Believe me we are certainly stronger and so the competitors that have taken some of our business this year had better beware – we are spoiling for a good fight – so bring it on!

Personally our lives have not been great this year and it really started back in February when we got back from Thailand and were faced with being involved in a court case that went back many years but caused me a few sleepless nights but came out ok at the end! Next came the tragic death of Chris’ brother Michael and the stress for both of us in making funeral arrangements etc. Now unfortunately Chris’ mother has been taken ill and will be having a major operation early next year forcing us to cancel our holidays in Thailand after Christmas.
So all in all not too happy a picture but at least we have a bit of time to ourselves although we are currently busy planning for next year and preparing our sales vehicles, in fact it is all go at the Silvermine Garage at the moment, cleaning servicing and repairing vehicles as well as having a long overdue clear out including re cycling our stock of old brochures totaling 15 boxes!

I suppose finally I should tell you where I’m writing this, delighted to say in my chair in front of the telly at home with a nice pint of Marstons beer, so heres to 2009 – it can only get better – cheers!

Richards Blog – 29.12.08 - Merry Christmas!

Further to my last blog talking about the end of our most challenging season it is time to look forward to next year and enjoy the Christmas and New Year Celebrations. I’am typing this at my mothers in Sunderland in North East England where we are spending Christmas, our celebrations started back on 20th December when we headed over to Manchester to join my sister and see The Pogues at Manchester Arena, it was a great show and many of my fave tracks were played including my all time fave “Rainy night in Soho” and “Broad Majestic Shannon” but one of the highlights for me was the support – The Stranglers no less who were superb! We enjoyed Manchester as well and the Christmas markets were really great – a festive time was had helped by some great Manchester ale – Holts Bitter being the best!

We headed over to UK on 23rd December by ferry and had an early Christmas present when we went to see our new coach and we are absolutely delighted with it – watch this space it will be heading back next week! We had a lovely break and a great Christmas with the families, we are heading away for New year but I will report on that in the next edition !

Finally I would just like to pass on the compliments of the season to you all and we hope we might see you on one of our tours next year.

Richards Blog – 22.11.08 - Absent friends !!

Its been a tough week for me as on Monday I parted with “my” bus – Celtic Explorer or Perry to his friends! We really do get far too attached to our buses but as you may have gathered if you read my blog regularly Perry has been a bit special! We have operated it (him?) for 6 seasons now and other than one fairly minor breakdown with Chris a few years ago it has been really superb and it was really hard to part with particularly when you don’t know if its’ replacement will be anywhere near as good! Perry has gone to Flynns coaches in Castlemaine, Co.Kerry and we hope they have as good luck with him as we have!

I actually typed this weeks’ blog in 2 sessions firstly in O’Connors pub in Doolin and currently in the departure lounge at Shannon Airport as we are heading to UK again on business and pleasure, we are going to check the progress of our new coach which is now painted and should be going for trimming soon so we are hopeful that we might take delivery before Christmas. It’s been a long time since we have bought a coach that has had as much refurbishment as this one so it will be really exciting to see it taking shape. Our new purchase means that we will have air conditioning on all our tours for next season so lets hope we have the weather to make good use of it! We are heading back on Friday with one of the Mercedes Vario coaches we have bought which has been painted and paneled so will be as good as new and up for sale very soon. Incidentally we are flying back on a new service from our fiends at Ryanair fromShannon to Newcastle which is great for us so lets hope it lasts and might be extended to daily soon.

Before leaving our yard after spending hours removing signwriting!

Richards Blog – 08.11.08 – A week away - bliss!

Writing this at our new coffee break – The Burren House as Caherconnoll has closed for the winter and it is a wild day but I must admit to being in good spirits as we had our first real break for 27 weeks last week. We have been over to Birminghamto attend a coach trade show at the NEC we really enjoyed our few days and saw some interesting things which will be used in our new vehicle (which should be painted now). As usual we looked at all the new and exotic coaches and I was just musing over how my attitude has changed since we first visited the show in 1997, then I looked at the coaches and thought “one day we will have one of those” but now I ‘am older and wiser I look at them and think “very nice but how do you pay for it and what happens when that swanky computer screen flashes up a fault right in the middle of the Burren on a stormy day in Novemeber!”

If you think this shows a lack of ambition you are dead right – I’am quite happy with what we have and our current vehicles are plenty complicated enough thank you! I must admit to currently worrying how good my new purchase will be since its predecessor has been so great! But such is progress…….

After attending to business we went to Chesterfield to visit my sister, Linda, we had a great time there and celebrated Guy Fawks night (5th November) by going to a firework display with bombfire and the most terrifying white knuckle fairground ride (a very lame ghost train!) but a great laugh was had before flying back from Birmingham to Shannon (Ryanair again and no problems at all!!).

Instead of books and music I'am starting a new feature and putting some pics into my blog each week:

Us and Russ (my sisters' partner)

Chris (with ears!!) with Linda and Russ