30.05.11 – Life outside Barratt Tours

Well with that title I’am tempted to say there isn’t any but I did manage to steal a few hours yesterday, the plan was to head out on my motorbike and take care of a bit of business but the wind and rain put me off that idea! I went into town and took care of a bit of admin in the car then headed home to do a little bit of work on our website, I then had the very strange situation of having about 3 hours to myself. Regular followers might remember that one of my hobbies is model railways and so I had a great time in my own little world creating some typical North East England “scenery” in the form of some superbly cast little allotments – very much a feature of North East life, many people still have allotments to grow their own veg and these little models are truly amazing, they are cast in resin and include crops and sheds as well as a whole load of gardening clutter. The big challenge is to paint all this detail which in the small scale is a challenge however I had a great time just fiddling on and laying a little track whilst listening to the new Elbow album, not quite heaven but nearer than I have been for a few months now! Last week really was hectic, we had a private tour on Wednesday and a transfer toDublin on Friday. For the transfer we had a small group but huge luggage so I decided to take the ever faithful Celtic Princess (AKA Curt!) with a member of the fleet not often seen, our luggage trailer. All went well and Curt was superb but coming back I headed through torrential rain and gales, I was pleased to see our yard at 10.45, yawn! This week looks like being another roller coaster ride of ups and downs in business, we are quite busy for the weekend which is a Bank Holiday here and it is rumored that the weather might be improving so hopefully things are on the up now. We are currently working on a new brochure for Limerick which is stylish without being overdone and corny it’s a hard thing to achieve but we are determined not to have the kind of tacky stuff that is out there, ours will be fun but free from sheep, leprechauns and silly claims, we think our customers are cleverer than that – what do you think? We will also be having an electronic version available to download from the website so you can let us know!