The last few days have literally flown by as my lovely parents have been visiting from England, they came on a few tours and we had a couple of nice nights out it was great to have some company – it has been a long time this year and it has been a tough season in every respect. I went back to Dublin on Wednesday with my parents in their car (they were going back by ferry from Dublin the following day) so we had a look around and an early dinner in one of my favourite Dublin haunts – The Porterhouse in Nassau Street, not only is the food good but the beer is great, Porterhouse brew their own beer and their Oyster Stout went down a treat, it was such a change from the bland Irish brews, if you want to taste real stout give it a visit! I headed back on the last train to Limerick Junction and again Irish Rail were great the train was modern clean and bang on time, I cannot believe how more people don’t book our rail and coach breaks but choose to spend 14 hours on a coach, if any of you have any ideas how to spread the word get in touch!
Now I have to share some more serious news, Chris has been unwell for a while now although she puts a brave face on it and has worked throughout now things are quieter it looks like she needs quite a major operation and so is likely to be off the road for October, we will know more on Monday though. It really has broken my heart to see how she has struggled through these last few weeks but has still been remained bright and bubbly and giving great tours, it has only really been after work that I see how tired she is. The result of this is that I will be the only driver for October and we will still run our Cliffs tour five days a week (not on Friday or Sunday) and Blarney on Sundays but it will limit our ability to do pick ups for tours, after all even I cannot be in two places at once so please bear with us, as ever we will do our level best!
All in all this really has been another tough season for us both on a business and personal level, we have taken the decision to have a shake up next year and whilst we have not finalized our plans it is fair to say we will be making big changes, we will still be doing what we do best but because of the level of competition we face in our key markets we have to be that little bit smarter, I feel sure we can rise to the challenge and we have been testing a few ideas over the last few weeks and the signs are there that we can again capture our rightful slice of the market, I feel that our policy of never compromising on tour quality or content is paying off, so keep on spreading the word and help Irelands’ smallest tour operator show the big boys a thing or two!
I will keep you all posted of Chris’ progress over the next few weeks but please excuse me if my blogs are not too regular, it looks like I may be a little busy for October!
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