Tours of the mind

Richards Blog – 07.12.10 – Still alive though frozen!

2011-05-23T08:08:00.001-07:00

Well I honestly don’t know where to start! First of all as is now customary I shall tell you where I’am typing this. I’am in the Galway Clinic waiting for Chris to come back after an operation and hopefully this might take my mind off the worry!

An awful lot has happened lately, at the start of November we had a trip toBirmingham to visit the coach show, we had a great time and it was a fitting end to what has been a really tough season. We have been operating weekend tours through November and December indeed our last tour will be this Saturday.

Unfortunately most of the activity for us is away from business at the moment, Chris’ mother has been unwell lately and so she headed across to England to be with her for a few weeks ago, I followed for a brief visit and returned with my father to visit the Irish Coach show in Dublin, we had a great weekend and it was lovely to have my dad with us for a few days, he also kept me company on a couple of tours before he headed back to England.

But the big news is that Chris has been in hospital for a major operation for the last few days and as usual for us things haven’t gone to plan, she has had to have more tests and operations, today is hopefully the end of it and with any luck she could well be out on Thursday, she is in the Galway clinic which is a marvelous place although needles to say of course it is a private hospital this is despite the fact that we now pay a levy for our health service but it unfortunately proved to be entirely useless in this case.

Chris has been in 11 days now and I have been traveling between home and Galway regularly (about 1.5 hours by car) but typically even that has not been easy due to us having truly awful weather conditions. We have not had much snow but we have had temperatures down to minus 10 at night and daytime temperatures barely above freezing, because of this and to be with Chris I have spent a few nights in Galway which would normally be one of my favourite cities but it has held little cheer for me lately!

Road conditions have been unbelievable with sheet ice even appearing on major roads, I was traveling up to Galway on Sunday to pay a surprise visit to Chris for the day, at home the ice had to be seen to be believed, literally everything was frozen I even had to defrost pad locks on the gate and garage as well as door locks on the coaches. Roads from home were pretty bad but being a Sunday morning I made good steady progress until I got into Limerick, heading out of Limerick on the main Ennis Road I was steadily negotiating a roundabout only to find the back end of the car slipping, I managed to correct it but the entire road was literally a skating rink! I called the Garda to report it and apparently I wasn’t the first near miss! I can appreciate the difficulties of winter maintenance to our cash strapped councils but this really was amazing!

Also around this I have been running tours and Saturdays’ Cliffs tour was particularly memorable first of all because I had a very nice group but also because of the weather again, we had freezing fog for a while out of Limerick but it was after Ennis that the fun began, we had our usual photo stop at Leamenagh Castle before heading towards the Poulnabrone Tomb, the road across the Burren was very icy but I took things very steadily and all went well, when we reached the Tomb I found the car park to be a sheet of ice so warned everyone to take care. Once we left the Tomb we descended into thick freezing fog for a while however that cleared and the views around Black Head were stunning with a few photo stops. We reached The Cliffs safe and sound and again the views were lovely, everyone seemed to have had a great tour and my passengers mostly drifted off to sleep as it was getting dark for the return journey. After Ennistymon we ran into freezing fog which persisted all the way to Limerick. Whilst I had a great day I don’t think I have ever been more pleased to see our yard and get out the bus, this weather really does take it out of you indeed I settled into my chair with a pint of Beamish and promptly fell asleep!

Back to the patient now the operation seems to have been a success and she s now sleeping off the sedative next to me on the ward, I will leave soon for my B&B and another lonely night in the City of The Tribes, my next installment will be much sooner and hopefully more upbeat!

One last thing, you might of heard that our beloved country is effectively bankrupt and today the budget is announced which will further squeeze our slim margins and inflict untold misery and do you know something? I look at Chris sleeping next to me and realise that the IMF, Cowen and all the other misery mean absolutely nothing to me at the moment, if they bring in 100% tax, diesel goes to Eu100 per litre and Paddywagon run a free tour from Limerick that’s fine but your health is priceless and oh so delicate, indeed I may drink a pint to that thought tonight even if I cannot afford it – Slainte! more news soon!

Richards Blog – 25.10.10 – Defrosting already!

2011-05-23T08:04:00.000-07:00

As usual I type this at Caherconnoll and it is a clear day but really cold, I thought our smallest coach would do for today but we got some late bookings last night so I have my faithful stead, but great to see for the time of year!

We were both on tour yesterday and so I thought I would be clever and put the small coach in the garage after washing and fueling it so I would not have scrape ice off it but then, as I say I needed my coach which was of course totally frozen at 7.00 this morning fortunately it has an independent heater which I fired up first thing and within 10 min the ice was starting to give a little and by the time I left for my first pick up it was pretty civilised really. I must admit to not really liking this time of year and I’am starting to think that I may just be suffering from S.A.D as it is barely light when we leave home and is dark when we get back, maybe I just need a break!

Talking of break we are having one next week, we are heading across to Birmingham to visit a coach trade show – we are not really in the market for much but I do like to keep up with technology and I must admit it does cheer me to look at the amount of complication that new coach buyers have to face now, the more I look at new vehicles the more I appreciate our own whilst they are not simple they are fairly logical and can be fixed without a computer! This is not to say that we are standing still indeed I have plans to launch (or re launch!) an addition to our fleet next year which may herald a new direction for Barratt Tours, it will also strike a tear of nostalgia into these stressed old eyes – can anyone guess?

As you may have gathered we are now winding down our tour programme, this will be our last week on weekday tours however we will still be running Blarney on Sundays and The Cliffs of Moher on Saturday so why not join us? If you get the right day this time of year can be very special even if your driver is suffering from S.A.D!

Richards Blog – 16.10.10 – Jet lagged in The Burren!

2011-05-23T08:03:00.001-07:00

It has been a busy time lately and I’am pleased to report that I have not been on my own Chris is still getting by OK and is going into hospital in late November for an operation so she will have some time to recover before our holidays.

Chris’ bus also needs some surgery in sympathy to its’ regular driver! It has now been with us 3 years and the time has come for a freshen up as well as a few repairs underneath so we decided it was worth sending it to our favourite bodyshop in England, things were fairly quiet last week and so I decided to head over on Tuesday night – it turned out to be some journey though.

I left home at 9.00 on Tuesday night for DublinPort, Tuesday was a fantastic day but as often happens once it got dark and the temperature fell, fog formed. Most of the journey to Dublin was in fog and it was incredibly dangerous as I had perfect vision one minute but then the next I came into what I can only describe as a blanket of fog, visibility was terrible and literally every glass on the coach steamed up in seconds but after 5 minutes it would be clear again, quite a tiring journey! I reached the port around 12.30 in plenty of time for my sailing at the lovely hour of 02.15 on Wednesday morning to Holyhead, the Stena Nordica was clean and efficient, I got a meal (not sure what you would call it in the middle of the night!) and then had a couple of hours sleep in a cabin before the 05.15 wake up call with time for a quick coffee before heading off the ship into the romantic setting of Holyhead in Wales at 06.00!

I headed up the vastly improved road only to hit, guess what? More fog of course, thankfully this cleared eventually but I did keep hitting patches all the way up the M6 motorway. Drivers hours regulations dictated a break halfway back so I pulled into a truck stop for my second breakfast of the day. That and a good strong pot of tea restored my spirits and I arrived in Spennymoor County Durham about 11.30, quite a journey as I said!

My father then met me and the good bit started, I had a couple of days with my parents and catching up with friends before flying back yesterday to Cork where Chris was waiting to take me home.

Even after such a short break, I am finding it tough getting back into the swing of our Cliffs tour this morning but the weather is nice and we have a largish group so things are not so bad but last week was my first real time off since April so I have to be honest and say I am looking forward to our next break now which isn’t too far off.

We are running our Cliffs tour as much as we can and intend to offer it everyday except Friday until the end of this month along with Blarney on Sundays. Some attractions are closing at this time though indeed our friends at Caherconnoll Fort close for the winter on 25th Oct so if you would like to see that you had better book soon! We will be having a coffee stop in Ballyvaughan though and we will be offering the Cliffs of Moher tour on Saturdays until 11th December subject to demand.

Watch this space though for news of our 2011 tours, big changes are afoot, me and Chris are flat out working on some exciting new tours are packages these really will be different and unique – news very soon – promise!

Richards Blog – 02.10.10 – We have had guests again!

2011-05-23T08:02:00.000-07:00

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!

Richards Blog – 20.09.10 – Happy days (or weekends at least!)

2011-05-23T08:00:00.000-07:00

Business has been ok lately and weekends particularly busy, for the last 2 Saturdays we have had both the larger coaches on tour so a great bonus towards the end of season! Last week I had a really nice change, I had a group of Railway Enthusiasts from Belgium and Holland for a Cliffs tour on Wednesday and a tour to Listowel in Kerry on Thursday, the purpose of going to Listowel was to look at a very unique railway – The Latigue Monorail, this is a unique attraction which proved to be an absolutely fascinating visit both for me and my group, I could write at length about it but why not check out their website (www.lartiguemonorail.com) for the full story.

The group were all very nice and I suppose being a fellow railway enthusiast helped but whilst I enjoyed showing the group our Cliffs tour Thursday was a special change for me as the group was larger and I hired a full size coach from our friends in Limerick so a change of coach and scenery made it a real tonic for me! I like to keep my hand in at handling a full size coach as our more manageable vehicles make us a bit lazy! One thing I also enjoyed was giving a commentary with a more industrial slant, I have this dream of operating industrial archeology tours for specialist groups one day!

A very unique railway!

Richards Blog – 04.09.10 - I don’t believe it!

2011-05-23T07:59:00.000-07:00

After our break in we decided that we needed a treat as we were both a bit down, so we invited some friends from Corkfor a meal and a night out in Limerick, we stayed at Punches Hotel and had a great night, it was just what we needed to lift our flagging spirits! On Thursday Chris had our smallest coach on the Cliffs tour and I had Chris’ coach on the Galway tour, the plan was she would head straight to Punches and relax and make herself beautiful whilst I headed home, left the coach, did e.mails then headed back in with our car before going out (my beauty regime is a little quicker!)

On Friday we had a day off so we used our car and took our guests out to Killaloe for a walk and a bite to eat and got back to Punches mid afternoon, the plan was that I would then take the small bus home and Chris the car after we had said our goodbyes to our friends, all went well until I got into the minibus to find glass everywhere, some low life had broken the quaterlight and stolen our tips box which contained the princely sum of five euros and our Thai Budda (a little souvenir from holidays!) I just cannot describe my feelings at that point after only being burgled at home the week before. Fortunately I knew a fellow operator had a Mercedes like ours scrapped and so luck was on my side as the window was intact, I then spent Friday night fitting the window with the age old technique of using a bit of wire with great success, so it was easily sorted but that is just not the point, we sometimes feel we are swimming against the tide, our luck is not great this year! I do think our little Budda is going to bring the culprits nothing but misery so that cheers me up!

We have had a fairly mixed week this week but one highlights was our competitor having the nerve to call us to take one of their passengers because they had another of their “convenient” breakdowns – or I suspect the truth was they only had one booking and they didn’t want to run, I will never see a passenger stuck and so carried the gentleman but the cheek of this company running a dead copy of our tour, undercutting our price and then wanting us to help them out has me speechless! But then again last weekend I had a lovely US couple join me at The Poulnabrone Tomb because they were desperate to leave another tour from Dublin, I think they realized the reality of being on a 14 hour tour! As ever I was happy to oblige and take them on our tour to Limerick where they took the much more civilized option of taking the train back to Dublin, they seemed to have a great time with me and I would not take any money from them as they had paid our rivals but the gentlemen did give me a handsome tip before leaving, doing the right thing does have its rewards, so if you reading this - thanks again and please continue to spread the word about Barratt Tours!

Richards Blog – 23.08.10 – More misery (where will it end?)

2011-05-23T07:58:00.000-07:00

Well I’am heading to The Cliffs today and business is fairly mixed but quiet today and I have our small coach. Last week went OK until Thursday when I got back from doing our Galway tour and was looking forward to a night out. I went into our kitchen and stood on an orange which I thought was strange but I assumed Chris had dropped it leaving in a hurry as I looked round the house it started to dawn on me that all was not quite right cupboards were open that shouldn’t have been and then I realized we had been broken into again, just over a year after the last time.

Fortunately our “visitors” this time had not done much damage, they had forced a kitchen window and somehow got in there (I suspect it was a child) we had very little taken – a small amount of cash, Chris’ Nintendo and a watch which wasen’t hugely valuable but it had some sentimental attachment for me as Chris bought it me to replace the one I had stolen last year! It seems that I’am destined not to own an Armani watch!

I suppose we got off lightly as we really did loose a lot last time and had a fair bit of damage done so nothing like that this time, what is the same though is this feeling that we have been invaded and whilst we are working harder than ever to pay bills and taxes etc there is a minority here that think nothing of breaking into houses in broad daylight while honest people are at work. The law has changed here lately to give more power to home owners to use “reasonable force” to protect their property. Those of you that know me will know that I’am a peaceful and fairly level headed person but I have to admit that the way I feel now, if one of our burglers were in front of me and I had a gun, I can honestly tell you that I would have no hesitation in pulling the trigger, I really do feel that bitter and I know Chris feels it worse than me, we have only just got the house straight after last years break in and our flood damage. So now we are bolting windows shut and getting a much more sophisticated alarm but this is all big money at a time when we can least afford it!

I was listening to the radio on my way to town today and there was huge controversy about a new government idea that vehicles that are taxed for commercial use should not be used for pleasure so that means that our struggling tradesmen cannot drop the kids off at school or whatever for fear of prosecution for tax evasion, I wonder if that worried the low life that robbed my house last week! Would we not be better taking them off the streets than trying to bleed the last few euros from people just trying to make a living?

If this sounds bitter then you would be right, I have never felt much bitterer in my life, it really is hard to make an honest living in this country at the moment! I think I shall buy myself a van and blatantly flaunt the law by going shopping in it or picking up a takeaway - hows that for civil disobedience – I shall continue blogging from my cell on death row!

Richards Blog 26.07.10 – Not another holiday weekend!

2011-05-23T07:57:00.000-07:00

Well I should know better than to make those comments about hiring vehicles in as we very nearly needed to today! My coach had one of those mechanical surprises that have a habit of biting you at this time of year but we got it sorted and it is back on the road and we shall fight another day and at least it didn’t break down and it had the consideration to develop the problem at the end of a tour!

We are busy again today and I’am on our full day tour whilst Chris has quite a few people on our new bargain break from Dublin, so she gets a later start as she doesn’t meet the train until 12.16, at least we get to have a quick chat at The Cliffs!

If you are a regular reader of my ramblings you might recall that this weekend is my most hated weekend of the year – August Bank Holiday weekend, traffic is quite light today but depending on the weather tomorrow and Monday will probably bring out the day trippers and I’am looking like being in the Burren both days – happy days!

At least business is on the up at the moment and we had a great week last week (just as well as I have a huge repair bill to pay!) But we do feel more confident and ready to fight for the business that it has taken 13 years to develop and we have a couple more tricks up our sleeve to win back some more business, that’s one of the great things about our little company, we can change quickly to meet changes in the market, also we have no huge commissions to pay so what you pay for your ticket comes to us, not a booking agent or anyone else for that matter – I think that seems fair – don’t you?

Back to our home life, I never thought I would say this but I had a great day on Wednesday painting out my “railway room” it sounds strange but a bit of painting was so therapeutic, it was nice to be away from driving and oil and filth in the garage, it also means my creative modeling talents can come into play soon!

03.08.10 – God, I love bank holidays!

2011-05-23T07:56:00.000-07:00

I never got my blog finished on Saturday so here is the update from Tuesday now the dust have has settled a bit! I’am on my 4th Cliffs tour in a row and we were busy right over the weekend, I fact we were caught by surprise with some late bookings yesterday morning and ended up with a few overloads so Chris gave up her day off and helped – bless her! It was lovely having her company and we made it through the bank holiday unscathed for another year!

I must admit to not having my best day on Sunday I was doing my first of our new half day tours and again we were busy thank goodness but I did have a few pick ups and it was hard to get everyone picked up from hotels etc but everyone was ready and we were even a little ahead of time at The Cliffs, unfortunately that is where my misery began, I had a customer who didn’t think he should have to pay the one euro facilities charge to Clare County Council and then proceeded to tell me that my tour was bad as I was late etc etc, now this was one person that we picked up at the University which meant we had to make special arrangements and I had to leave early to oblige them but despite this fact this young mans’ hatred for me knew no bounds and I must admit to feeling a bit insulted particularly as this is one aspect of the tour that we cannot change!

Normally when I have a customer complaint (they are few – honestly!) I try and resolve it by trying to see it from their point of view and doing my best to pacify them by chatting and (hopefully) making them feel that they matter but this fella hated me and I must admit to being defeated! Normally this would trouble me a bit but I have to confess to being furious when I got back home after dropping everyone off, I was cleaning out my coach for Mondays’ tour when I became aware that there was a lot of bits of rubber foam around the rear which I thought strange until I got to the back and saw where my friends group had sat, one of them had decided to attack the foam moulding around the rear crash rail with a knife and throw the bits around! Now we really do care about our coaches, this felt really personal and I was a bit sore, I have never had anything like this happen in 13 years of running tours, even when we have carried school kids in the past!

I vowed not to let this get to me but I have to admit that the thought of it is still a bit sore, as regular readers will know we do get quite attached to our coaches and they really become a home from home for us, over the years mine has developed into a bit of a shrine, I have my Chinese cat from Thailand, a miniature pair of Dutch clogs that was given to me by a lovely lady from Holland years ago, my Thai Budda and garland, my mascot TJ (a reclining Sylvester the cat) a lovely homemade silk butterfly given to me by a Chinese lady last year and last but not least my Guardian Angel given to me by Chris years ago. In this respect we are not just another bus company, everything about us is personal and Chris’ coach has similar trinkets of hers, so all in all damaging my coach is a bit like damaging my living room. I harbored thoughts of trying to contact where the group was staying but what good would it do? Instead I’am relying on Karma, so to the gentlemen in question, prepare for some bad luck!

Richards Blog 26.07.10 – Phew – what a weekend!

2011-05-23T07:55:00.000-07:00

Business has finally picked up and I’am delighted to say for the first time this season we had both coaches full on Saturdays’ Cliffs tour, we were however lucky enough to have some groups which is a big help! Needless to say all our competing companies were similarly busy and I have a new pastime on tour and that is “spot the tour company” now this might seem strange, after all surely you look at the name on the side of the coach but this would have got you nowhere on Saturday, coaches were hired in from all over Ireland, so much for having a brand! Now I cannot say we never hire, we are forced into it by mechanical problems sometimes but on the whole if you take a Barratt Tour you will travel on a Barratt vehicle, that way we are sure air con and pa system etc are all working and if its not then it is our fault! As usual I suppose we just care too much but I believe our lovely fully liveried and clean vehicles are our greatest asset! I have to say when we were working together on Saturday and Celtic Star and Celtic Pride were parked side by side it is a great feeling to see your name emblazoned on the side, it makes it all seem worthwhile somehow!

Of course there are a few companies offering tours now that don’t even own any vehicles, maybe they are right but I couldn’t imagine taking an Aer Lingus or Ryanair flight without seeing a green shamrock or a golden harp – maybe I’am just old fashioned – what do you think?

Competition is becoming even fiercer now and I hear that one of our competitors in Limerick are now trying to do deals to win business, well if they read this (and I would be so flattered that they actually take the trouble!) I can re assure them we have made our one and only price cut and they can be sure if a customers’ buying decision is based on price then they will win, however it is based on quality, presentation and reputation then it could just be an entirely different story! As I have often said we have worked too hard to develop our little company to sell it out and cut corners and quality as I feel certain that it is quality that will win in the end, I hope so as we are gambling everything on it!

I hope I don’t come across as bitter in my ramblings (or rantings!) in fact I hope you deduce that I’am passionate about what we do and that I’am certain of our quality (we are certainly not cocky – just confident) and I hope some of you can identify with the fight we have against larger more faceless companies, you words of encouragement really do fire us up almost as much as the pleasure of dealing with the lovely free spirited and discerning customers we are attracting, keep in touch and I shall now be using facebook more so if you haven’t already why not become a fan and we can chat online!

Richards Blog 17.07.10 – Home on the range with colliers and teemers!

2011-05-23T07:52:00.000-07:00

Well business is still very poor, you know that I always tell how it is and I believe that our business is currently about 50% down on what was already a poor year last year, I don’t have any answers or observations to offer and so I’am not going to dwell on it and depress both me and yourself, dear reader!

With this bleak outlook for business at least things are improving at home, the best news of all is that Chris is fit and well after her operation the other week and thank you for your good wishes. Our home is also on the mend, for those of you that don’t know the tale of misery, we were burgled last year and this winter we had a burst pipe which destroyed 2 rooms and damaged much of the house but finally our trusty builder is nearly finished and as of last night we are back in the sitting room, its lovely to just flop in my armchair sometimes, we have also had a ruthless de-clutter and I’am a convert to the idea that a cluttered house makes a cluttered mind, also this means that I’am slowly mounting a take over bid for my “den” which is our spare room this contains one of my hobbies – my model railway which is to be a 148th scale model representing a fictitious part of South Shields in the North East of England near where we grew up. This masterpiece represents the legendary (to anoraks like me!) Harton electric railway which was years ahead of its time, it was actually electrified in 1904 and worked for over 80 years before coal production ceased at Westoe Colliery. The railways main function was to take both coal and stone waste (a by product of coal mining) to the River Tyne where it was loaded on ships. The coal ships were known as colliers and they would carry coal all round the UK coast but mainly toLondon and the South. The stone waste (mainly shale) was loaded onto a curious little ship known as the David Marley which took the stone about 5 miles out into the North Sea where it was dumped.

Now, as you might gather I absolutely love industrial history and one of the greatest joys of modeling for me is research, fortunately there is one good book to help me and my own jaded memory, also last winter I took the trouble to visit South Shields and spent a great afternoon uncovering clues to the whereabouts of parts of the railway and although the colliery itself is now completely covered by new housing there are still plenty of clues and relics particularly down by the River Tyne near the Tyne Ferry landing where the area known as The Low Staithes once stood, this is where the wagons of stone were teemed into ships. Teeming is the term given to the rapid unloading which believe it or not was done while the wagons were moving by gravity through the teeming shed and an unlucky fella called a teemer had to run alongside open and closing the trap doors under the railway wagons now, believe it or not, although this sounds Victorian it went on until 1987, I often wonder what health and safety would make of it now!

I’am lucky enough to remember watching this from the ferry landing when I visited with my father (the ten minute trip on the ferry to North Shields was a treat!) It was an example of the great industry and ingenuity of North East engineers how this all worked but it did, quietly and efficiently for years. Mention of the ferry reminds me that I couldn’t resist a trip last winter for old times sake and it was still great, in fact this winter I’am going to treat the old man to another trip as he gets on free with his OAP travel pass!

I hope you will forgive this weeks indulgence but it has done me good to go to a happier place away from the day to day fight that our business has become, if you have enjoyed this taste of Northern England Industrial history get back to me and I might give you another progress report!

One of the locos I will be modelling taken mid 80 s

Richards Blog 10.07.10 – Anything but work!

2011-05-23T07:51:00.001-07:00

This is my second attempt at this weeks blog, the first one was depressing even my fragile mind at the moment! We were in Dublin handing out our new brochure yesterday and I have to say it was our most depressing visit ever, we couldn’t believe the amount of competition on some of our products but I’am going to take a radical departure this week and forget about Barratt Tours altogether and talk about us (or at least I will try to!)

Instead I’am going to give you an insight into what makes us tick outside work on a more personal level, if I have one fault or virtue (you decide!) then it is that I have always worn my heart on my sleeve and probably reveal too much about what goes on behind the scenes of our little enterprise, we never have much to hide anyway! This week however has been one that has been really hard, Chris had to go into hospital on Wednesday for a minor operation but, of course we had a few passengers for our Cliffs tour and so I had to drop her at the hospital at 8.00 and then have a bite of breakfast before starting the tour. I hope I gave a good tour but have to admit to being deeply worried about Chris but my mood lifted when she rang me while we were at O’Connors pub to tell me she was alright, I suppose our job is like being on stage – the show must go on but trying to keep a happy exterior can be hard sometimes!

The happy exterior is being put to the test lately, we always get paranoid when business is not good but the market at the moment is really concerning us, we are even starting to doubt ourselves but fortunately our passengers often put our mind at ease and re assure us that what we are doing is good and that we are doing the right thing in not “selling out” for a short term gain in business, after all we didn’t risk our home 13 years ago to give up now but it does put a huge strain on us personally, we don’t need to talk to each other about how bad business is, we tend to have this ability to know what the other is thinking and unless we have come up with a brainwave there is no point in depressing ourselves further!

The other day I was out on tour and met one of our “successful” competitors tours out on the Burren now this company has had praise heaped on them by our former Minister for Tourism for being young and dynamic etc etc, I was having a photo stop and showing my valued customers a few sights at one of my favourite spots on The Burren, I had walked across with them and was enjoying the interaction but where was my colleague? Sitting on board the coach reading his paper of course, it seems that my old fashioned ways of helping people off the coach and mixing with them at photo stops is not the way to success and fame! This was not an isolated incident I look around me and see how badly people are treated but it seems service and manners are hardly a selling feature thee days!

I think I have mentioned this before in my blog but I’am currently re reading a fantastic book called “The Art of Possibility” by Ben Zandor. Now this is a book that I would often have glossed over as it tends to be thought of as being one of those “self help” kind of books but it really does help me, I wont bore you with too much about it but the real gist of it is that it encourages you to move out of “The measured world” into “the world of possibility” now this may sound idealistic and I suppose it is but how many of us exist solely in a measured world?

To apply this theory to our little business is easy, I spend a lot of time in the measured world thinking things like “we have 6 customers, but x tours has 46” or worse still “we had 46 for this tour on this day in 2006 and today we have 6” this is certainly in the measured world, if we spent as much energy considering how we could get 46 again then we would undoubtedly more efficient and cheerful but here is the problem. At the moment I’am only human version 1.0 and have never been programmed to remove the doubt and paranoia bugs that infest my operating system, I think I badly need a reboot up the a**e !

But this whole possibility thing has intrigued me and I have thought of a way that we could cast ourselves wide into “an ocean of possibility” and take away all measurement but from where I’am standing the water looks a little icy and I think I might see a shark or two! If I have wetted some of your appetites then drop me a line and I might tell you what I have in mind, it will be the bravest move we have ever made if we do it but I think we might just be able to pull it off if nothing else it will prove how much we are certain that what we do is right and honest, as always let me know what you think!

Richards Blog 21.06.10 – If we fight the good fight…….. ?

2011-05-23T07:50:00.000-07:00

Well it has been a fairly uneventful week and I have to report that numbers are still at a very low level, we are surviving but only just! Those of you that have followed our progress over the years will know only too well that we are not people to sit back when business is poor instead we are always looking to re invent ourselves to appeal to a broader market and that’s what we hope we are doing now.

The business form Limerick has always been a bit unpredictable and over the years a sizeable chunk of our business came from Dublin in the form of day tours and short breaks using our rail connection but this business has literally been snatched from our grasp by the growing band of operators offering day tours to The Cliffs offering exclusively coach travel. When these were initially launched we watched with mild amusement at their antics flying around trying to fit 400 plus miles into a day tour and thought that it would never catch on but how wrong we were, there are now 3 operators fighting over this declining market and inevitably taking a chunk of our business. So what are we going to do? The obvious answer would be to launch our own tour but that is not our style apart from the fact that we have no desire to drive over 2000 miles a week we do not feel that the bus only option is a realistic one for our passengers, it might sound great on paper but from feedback we hear it is not always so good in reality!

The train really does score highly over coach travel as a way to cross Ireland, I have to be honest and say that the scenery of the Midlands is hardly spectacular whichever way you go, so why not just relax, walk around or have a drink and arrive refreshed to board a coach for the interesting bit with a driver that is fresh and happy without having already done 150 miles and thinking about the next 250!

We have decided to launch a new tour from Dublin leaving on Saturday and Sunday at the very civilized time of 10.00 to The Cliffs using the train as far as Limerick with a simplified tour that gives a full 2 hours at The Cliffs whilst still giving a taste of The Burren for a price that is little more than the bus all the way option, this includes a reserved seat on the train for only Eu49.00.

Or what I think is our best deal ever is we are offering that tour with a hotel in Limerick on Saturday night and our Blarney tour to return to Dublin on Sunday night for only Eu99.00 pps – how’s that for value!

Now you may be wondering how we can do this well I’am going to let you into a trade secret, we do not pay agents commission on any Dublin packages – many other companies are now giving over half their fare to third parties, we don’t think this makes long term sense, we would rather pass on the savings and receive our bookings online direct. Now this might sound a bit fanciful after all doesn’t everyone book tours at the tourist office or their hostel or hotel? We don’t think so, I remember a certain well known Irish airline effectively cutting out travel agents and going to all online bookings – was this a crazy decision? I don’t think so and neither do Ryanair, they seem to be doing rather well out of it!

Our only snag to all of this is spreading the word, we are just organizing a new brochure and a flyer promoting our summer specials and we have another project bubbling along rather nicely which will involve a new website, also we have new nicetours.biz packages about to be launched – busy times but hopefully we are turning the corner and might show our competitors that this little company could just give the Goliaths a hit where it hurts but we can only do this with your help – give us a try, we are sure you wont regret it!

Personally the lack of business does take its toll, by this time of year we are normally settled into the frame of mind of working hard and devoting all our time to running tours and looking after our coaches but at the moment we are running tours and thinking of ways to create more business like web changes, designing brochures and general marketing which honestly does take its toll, all we talk about is business, be it bemoaning the lack of it or discussing ways to create it, our Thursday night out is the only “us” time left and that goes by way too quickly!

So can we win if we fight the good fight? We think so but we can only do it with passengers so check out our new offers and give us a try, you will be more welcome than ever!!

Richards Blog 21.06.10 – I try to take life one day at a time ………!

2011-05-23T07:48:00.000-07:00

………but lately several have come up on me at once! I love that quote not sure where I stole it but it would neatly sum up my life at the moment!

I think I left you last time with me anticipating our weekly Thursday night out well guess what? It never happened! I was on our Galway tour and my coach developed an electrical problem which amongst other things meant the air con died, now it was really hot on Thursday and so I had a problem, a good friend of ours came to our aid (thanks again Paul!) and leant us a coach to get our passengers back to Limerick, I then had to take that back after the tour and have a rather warm journey back in mine, so no night out but at least our passengers weren’t hot and bothered!

My faithful coach was cured easily on Friday by our electrical genius and thankfully wasn’t too expensive for once! So, fast forward to Saturday and our Cliff tour.

We had quite a large group and I had my coach again, we met the train and I headed off towards Ennis where I had my last passengers to pick up. Before crossing The Shannon I started to meet slow traffic and this continued to crawl for about 3 miles, it turned out we were stuck behind a cycle race which we eventually past on the dual carriageway but I was delayed at least 25 min, I headed to Ennis and got our last passengers but was dreading getting into Clare as we had the Tour de Burren cycle race to contend with next (yet another cycle race!)

Things went ok and there was no delay until Ballyvaughan when we came on the start although most of the race was actually returning so we headed around Black Head and I was coping ok with the oncoming traffic (the road is very narrow!) but after Black Head I met another coach in a nearly impossible point to pass, fortunately someone helped reverse traffic and get us to a point where we passed with about an inch to spare and another 15 min lost! Anyway we headed on and came to the road to Doolin which had been closed for the race so another 10 min diversion!

After a slightly shortened lunch I arrived at the cliffs about 3.40 but I really wanted to give the group our normal 90 min but that would leave us a tough job to make the train back to Dublin at 6.55 so Chris decided to meet me just outside Ennis and take our train customers straight to Limerick while I did the few drop offs we had – it worked a treat but it was quite a day!

I hope this shows that we do “go the extra mile” to make sure everyone gets the best experience possible and I think all things considered my group on Saturday felt a little sorry for me but still had a great day, I cannot honestly say that I enjoyed it much though – I prefer a peaceful life!

I think after all that I might tell you a bit more about Thailand next week – I badly need a diversion from work!

Richards Blog 12.06.10 – We should have a tour on Friday!

2011-05-23T07:47:00.000-07:00

Well it has been another mixed week in fact we didn’t run our Galway tour on Thursday as we had no passengers which meant I had an extra “day off!” I actually spent the day helping one of our friends in the trade as they were having one of those behind the scenes crisis’s that we are all too familiar with, they had a very expensive coach broken down on their busiest day and were in dire need of a trusty driver to look after the first day of a French tour so cometh the hour, cometh me! I spent a nice easy day driving a full size coach and even had the luxury of a guide – it made a nice change actually but felt strange not talking so much!

We had a nice meal out and an early night on Thursday because our main day off was looking rather hectic! Chris had been on tour with her coach on Thursday and managed to have a puncture (fortunately on the way back!) so I had nice big wheel to change! Also our small coach needed 2 new tyres so that was taken into town to our trusty tyre shop. Chris had also mentioned that her air con was not as cool as it should be so I took a look and found 2 fans not working and they were ordered to be changed next week! So all in all a busy day, and the cost of all this? – a cool Eu600.00 which we could well do without at the moment but we never skimp on maintenance – those 3 coaches cost too much for that!

Another cost of all that was that I managed to pull a muscle in my back and spent most of yesterday in agony (Chris covered my tour!) I’am inBlarney today and it feels much better, just as well as I’am heading to The Cliffs tomorrow with a largish group! Now I hope you can see why running tours every day is just not an option for safety or our sanity!

We are just putting the finishing touches to our new Limerick brochure and we think it is looking great the new brochure will also bring in some slight changes to our tours but I’am not going to divulge that just yet, after all it takes our competitors a few weeks to copy everything we do so we might as well surprise everyone this time!

Personally we are ok at the moment although I would be lying if I said that our current level of business isn’t a concern, indeed our biggest stress at the moment is because we are each working on projects to increase business well into the night and it does take its toll but if that’s what we need to do to stay in the business we love then so be it, we can always dream of holidays next January!

It sounds strange talking about the business as being the job we love but that really is the way we see it, some of our tripadvisor reviews mention our enthusiasm and passion for the business but the truth is we have worked very hard to get where we are now and we will fight tooth and nail to keep our little business, it has been really touching how people identify with our stuggle as more and more big brands try to dominate the world there does seem to be a genuine enthusiasm for smaller more “organic” businesses and long may it continue!

We are hoping to get a Thursday night off although we do have a transfer on Friday – a bit of live music could be just what we need to keep our spirits up, I will report next week!

Richards Blog 07.06.10 – We are number one in Limerick!

2011-05-23T07:46:00.000-07:00

We have just received a huge boost to moral, we have been inviting our lovely customers to take a few minutes to review us on Tripadvisor over the last few weeks and we now have 22 good or excellent reviews which has put us up to number 1 attraction in Limerick, it has been truly touching to read some comments as we are a little down at the moment with one competitor seeming determined to undermine our 12 years hard work in Limerick. One comment that really struck me was ”like traveling with friends” when I cast my mind back to 1998 and our first Burren tour that is exactly what we were hoping Barratt Tours would become and indeed it is how we hope we can remain – all we need is customers!

Mention of our competitor has got me thinking again and I would just like to take this opportunity to thank them very much for waking us up to all the possibilities that exist, I suppose we were a little too comfortable dealing with our own little business relying primarily on customers from Limerick and I suppose it has made us realise that there is such a lot of untapped business in other cities and markets and that we really need to diversify. We have been looking at other markets which we are not really strong in and while it seemed from the outside that some of them were a “closed shop” on investigation it seems people really are hungry for change and competition and guess what? Your favourite tour company is poised to move into these other markets without cutting quality, after all nothing is forever and nobody has a right to business so “vive la difference!” We are going to become not only Irelands smallest but also its most talked about tour operator with an offer that is superb value and great quality so watch this space – exciting times ahead!

I have been seeking solace through all this upheaval in one of my greatest loves – music, as regulars will know I have a love for meaningful yet slightly melancholic music, my favourites being Elbow and Doves but lately another band has impressed, they are called Delphic and supported Doves on tour but I’am ashamed to say that I missed them in Manchester last year (another love of mine – beer delayed our arrival at the venue!) To make amends I bought their album Acolyte the other week and I love it, is very wordy and catchy but with some great dance and club influences – check out “This Momentary” it is my theme tune for life at the moment!

Richards Blog 07.06.10 – We are number one in Limerick!

2010-07-06T01:50:00.001-07:00

Richards Blog 29.05.10 – We get knocked down ----but we get up again!

2010-07-06T01:49:00.001-07:00

You might remember my last blog being a little melancholy due to a large national operator moving in competition to us but as you might guess by the title (thanks to Chumbawamba!) we are back on a mission and our moods are defiant yet buoyant!

One thing that cheered us up was we went on a tour of all our friends in hotels and B&B s last Friday just to spread the word that we are open for business and hungrier than ever, we were welcomed with open arms and I guess we hadn’t realized the support that is out there for our little enterprise – after all we have been in Limerick through thick and thin for over 12 years and we like think that we contribute our little bit to the local economy but it was at times overwhelming to hear peoples words of support – to all of you thank you, we would never still be here without your support and encouragement over the years – heres to another 20 years!

Also we have found a great level of goodwill from our precious customers, I never really gave this much thought but with globalization of business and the spread of big brands and larger companies people really do like supporting the little local company, particularly if they also happen to be offering a great product like ours! Because of this I’am delighted to say we are now number one attraction inLimerick on the Trip Advisor website – again to all of you who reviewed us, thank you!

It has been a fairly busy week which was helped by a booking for a group from a US university who we had the privilege of looking after last year, this meant that on Wednesday I did a Cliffs tour then dropped the group in Galway before returning empty home – a long day but a change of scenery and good fun!

With the volcanic ash problem finally seeming to calm down business is a little better but our business from Dublinhas declined, we are therefore poised to make a vigorous attack on that market so look out for a new product that will offer unbeatable value and really show how a budget short break can and should be done!

Things are progressing well at home and most of the heavy building work is completed but now our newly decorated rooms look so nice we have decided to give some other rooms a spruce up so we are not finished with the smell of paint yet! Talk of our home life gave me a great idea the other day we are going to show you behind the scenes at Barratt Tours and show you how a typical day goes for your favourite tour operator so watch this space!

Richards Blog 19.05.10 – Kind of blue!

2010-07-06T01:48:00.000-07:00

First of all a chance to use the title of my favourite Miles Davis track but things are still tough here and became really tough on Monday when we found that we have competition on our Cliffs of Moher tour from Limerick now we have survived many competitors over our 13 seasons in Limerick (lucky for some!) but these are a particularly difficult bunch to fight, they are one company that only seems to aspire to world domination! We have lost a sizeable chunk of our Dublin business to them already and they have slightly undercut us on price in Limerick, much as I feel like turning this into another rant I’am going to be strong and resist just to say that behind all the cuddly sheep and leprechauns lies a ruthless competitor and whilst they are only promoted as being small they are turning into by far the biggest day tour operator in Ireland, in fact I think they would like to turn into the only one someday!

I have the answer, there is only one way to compete and that is to change – wait for it! Precisely nothing, we will keep on doing what we do best and what we have loved doing for the last 13 years and that is giving the best quality tours with the kind of personal service that only small companies like us can give and do you know I’am loving the adrenaline rush of fighting for our business, I honestly believe that our quality and the fact that we have perfected our Cliffs tour to give an informative yet leisurely paced tour over the last 13 years will help us compete and while we wont win all the business I hope we will still get the same kind of lovely customers we have enjoyed in the past, after all as you may know, I’am not greedy and if I can scrape a living doing the job I love then I’am quite happy, we are certainly not in the business of muscling in on markets that were adequately served by small operators – there is a living for everyone that is not too greedy!

So its business as usual and whilst I wont pretend Chris and me don’t care, in fact a few tears were shed on Monday night because the timing of this couldn’t be worse business was terrible already without loosing what precious few customers we have! Ideas are still flying round in this muddled old brain and we have come up with one that will take our business by storm, it is new and it is certainly daring but it will show how much faith we have in what we do – watch this space interesting times are ahead for Barratt Tours – bring it on!

Richards Blog 15.05.10 – Happy days (don’t tell our accountant though!)

2010-07-06T01:44:00.000-07:00

Well business is still quiet, our unsung hero Celtic Princess aka Curt, our smallest coach has been busy doing sterling work as numbers are low but it is depressing to see our shiny (and expensive!) larger coaches standing idle for most of the time.

We are lucky in that we have some very nice customers who really seem to be appreciating our personal service and smaller groups and other than the fact that we are not making much money we are enjoying the more relaxed pace!

There seems to be little news of volcanic ash at the moment so airports have been open all last week, hopefully confidence will return and visitor numbers will improve, it really is a great time to visit Ireland there are no crowds and the welcome is warmer than ever!

I have been reading some good books lately but my current book is really entertaining, it is called “Eleven Minutes Late” by Matthew Engel it is the story of a trip through England by train and highlights the chaotic and often ridiculous state of UK railways since privatisation, it really is a love hate story, the author, like me seems to love train travel but hates the way the new operating companies are ruining the sheer experience of rail travel - fascinating stuff!

I promised some more insight into our time in Thailand, we base ourselves in Pattaya which is often referred to as “sin city” and it is fair to say that it is an assault on the senses when you arrive, in many ways it is laid out rather like most beach resorts with a beach road with its bars and restaurants spread along a strip of I suppose 3 miles but behind lies a truly bewildering array of bars for all “tastes” obviously it has its very sleazy side but for a couple like us it the ultimate party town! I lierally cannot think of any entertainment that you couldn’t find, we have been ten pin bowling, crown green bowling, to waterparks, go carting golfing and fishing to name a few! All of these are so cheap and well organized also you can be sure of not going hungry or thirsty there is always food and drink available!

Pattaya is not the place if you dream of a beach holiday surrounded by peace and quiet, the beach is not exactly clean but cleaner ones are a short distance away and peace is certainly not easy to come by! One of our favourite haunts is the soi 2 (soi is street in Thai) area where live music is the main theme, tiny bars will host a 4 or 5 piece band and the amplifiers will be turned up to the max to try and drown out next doors’ band! Some of the musicians are amazing, if you like rock try out Toy Bar on the corner of Soi 2 and second road but bring your ear plugs!

Me showing my great skill at fishing (first time!) Dont worry I threw it back!

Richards Blog 08.05.10 – Harrods or Poundland?

2010-07-06T01:43:00.000-07:00

Business is still very quiet, we are trying to run all of our tours but it really is a struggle apart from the competition we are currently facing we have the continuing misery of volcanic ash that is currently causing chaos to aviation and now even disrupting Trans Atlantic flights so it is not good for visitor numbers.

Mention of competition has really got us thinking this week, we wonder is price everything in peoples buying decisions, if a company were a little bit more expensive but offered an experience that was streets apart from the “cram them in at any price” attitude that seems to prevail with our competitors would there be a market? We think there might be but we would really love to hear your thoughts. We are resigned to never competing on price or the “incentives” paid to booking staff but we really could win on quality, we have an idea burning in the back of our head but would people pay a little more for something that was absolutely fantastic and unique?

We are always thinking of new ideas and I must admit its hard to critique them when there are only 2 of us particularly when the idea really does mean risking a lot. We were involved with a great venture in tourism until 2007 which was the Tourism Learning Networks, this was set up by Failte Ireland and brought together small and medium tourism enterprises for joint training and gave great networking opportunities, it is very sorely missed by me as we were lucky enough to have a great company facilitating our area network who made a wonderful job of it but sadly all funding was cut and it died. Being a small company in the midst of all this doom and recession is an exceptionally frightening and even lonely place to be at the moment and now, more than ever we need some encouragement from government and more importantly support and development because I can sense that many small enterprises might not make it through which given the wealth of commitment and talent in our sector would be an absolute tragedy. If anyone from tourism agencies reads my ramblings please take note, these are exceptional times in tourism and we need exceptional measures, I hate to be political but if we were farmers we would have received an aid package by now!

Now I don’t want you, dear reader to think Barratt Tours is teetering on the brink of bankruptcy, we fortunately are very prudent and have not fallen into the over investment trap many companies did in our so called ‘boom years” and you can be sure we are working on our 2011 plans but there is no point in pulling punches about the situation at the moment – it is not very good, so come on, cheer me up and book a tour with Irelands, most honest resilient and hard working tour company, I think we deserve it and I know you wont regret it!

As usual on a Saturday I’am heading to The Cliffs of Moher and it is a gorgeous day, cool but clear and sunny, I have small group but they are great fun and are a good cross section of young and old, traffic has been easy and I’am relaxed with the world in general despite the misery! Today is really reminding me why I love this job, people are enthusiastic about what we see and there is a lovely interaction between everyone, days like this are a real pleasure!

Now some of you might be wondering if we are having any fun at the moment, well we decided we deserved a night out in Limerick on Thursday night so we had a great meal then headed to Smyths bar where we saw a good band called Sonic, they played a great mix of stuff including some more off beat indie stuff, I thought it was a great set and it really was good to get away from it all for a few hours! I forgot that I haven’t mentioned my books that I’am reading at the moment so I promise to put that right next week.

Richards Blog 05.05.10 – Ashes to ashes, funk to funky!

2010-07-06T01:36:00.000-07:00

Well what promised to be a lousy week has turned into a bit of a nightmare, I write this on Wednesday and again we have a small load thanks in part to the disruption to flights due to Volcanic Ash, as you can no doubt imagine this is having a disastrous effect on our business so I’am not going to dwell on it and head instead back to Thailand in January!

I left you on Saturday night in Chiang Mai, we decided to have an easy Sunday after the rigors of the mountain tour also to be honest we were a little (in fact very!) saddle sore, the bike I hired was not the most comfortable to put it mildly! So on Sunday morning we headed into town for a b it of breakfast and to make plans for the day, after a nice breakfast in a little bar I hopped on the bike, pressed the starter and – nothing! I tried tapping the starter motor and rocking the engine in gear but no joy. The bike had no kick start so the only option was a push, Chris was in hysterics at the suggestion but I convinced her and she gave a good shove up the road, I let the clutch out in third gear and bingo – back to life! We decided we would rather not continue this routine at every stop so I returned the bike to the shop and got my favourite Thai bike a Honda Phantom, I bonded with this much better and the guy at the hire shop recommended we go to the hot springs for a day out, sounded a plan!

It was a great 45 min ride to the springs and my little Phantom burbled away happily when we got to the springs we had a look round and then saw the egg stall, you can buy your own eggs to boil in the sulphurous spring to give them a unique erm eggy flavour (ok, I know but remember we are on holiday!) So fortified with eggs and Chang beer (burp!) I decided that I needed a swim in the beautiful hot though vaguely farty (sorry!) water. Only trouble was I only had the shorts I had on, still what the hell, in I went had a great swim and dried off on the road in about 20 min!

It was still mid afternoon so we decided the distant mountains looked inviting and set off on the most beautiful road I have ever ridden, every turn brought another panorama, we stopped for a drink where I have a routine of sifting out the most obscure (and cheapest) fizzy drink whilst Chris chooses coke (you can glean a lot from that!) As I sipped my lovely red fanta we talked and said, wouldn’t it be great if we could just carry on up that road and not care where it led, we would find a bed somewhere. We toyed with that idea but eventually decided we had better return to Chiang Mai as we had a hotel room and our return train booked the following morning, but it did plant an idea in our heads!

If we are lucky enough to get back next year we are just going to hire a bike in the north for a fortnight and head off with no plans, we might look up a friend in Chiang Rai then take in Laos, I think that would be a great antidote to our stress here – fingers crossed!

Anyhow to continue our tale we left Chiang Mai for a slightly more sober journey on the night train to Bangkok then a journey by coach back to Pattaya – tales of “sin city” to follow (parental guidance recommended!) bye for now!

Hard or soft boiled? (eggs are in basket!)

Richards Blog 01.05.10 – Back to work !

2010-05-19T15:23:00.000-07:00

First day of the season today and I’am once again heading to the Cliffs with a fairly decent load, the same cannot be said of tomorrow or next week but I seem to remember I always get a healthy dose of paranoia at this time of year, hopefully things will look up soon.

I left you last time anticipating what promised to be an ‘interesting” trip to England because of the total close down of Irish Air space meaning we had to go by ferry, the plan was to take the car to Dublin then catch the evening fast ferry to Holyhead, spend the night there then take the train up to Sunderland. However we were just finishing packing on Sunday morning when we got a text from Stena Line kindly informing us that the ferry was cancelled due to technical failure – what to do now? We called Stena and were on hold for 50 min before being cut off – great! I then tried again and amazingly got talking to a human at last but they informed me the next foot passenger space was on Wednesday so that was not an option, there were however spaces on the night ferry for cars so we decided to take the car and drive to Sunderland then head back on the Friday by our favourite P & O crossing from Liverpool – sorted then!

All went reasonably to plan, it was along drive but helped by good roads and an even better car (still love the Mercedes!) and we did 260 miles in just over 4 hours (try and do that in Ireland!) We shared the driving and the trip passed in no time, the time with the family flew and I had a little business to attend to, we headed to Liverpool on Thursday night to catch the day sailing to Dublin, we had a great night in Liverpool which drew to a close what could only be described as an interesting winter!

We were inDublin this week delivering our brochures to Dublin Tourism and we were struck by the massive competition now on day tours to the Cliffs of Moher, there are now 4 operators offering totally coach based tours and 2 offering rail and coach tours (including ourselves!) As I think I have previously mentioned the coach tours are being heavily promoted and are carrying quite a lot of passengers indeed I often see them in Doolin all fighting for a bit of lunch at a certain establishment, thankfully we glide gracefully by to the haven of Gus O’Connors pub where a much more civilized atmosphere prevails! It amazes me how people are taken in by the idea that spending 12 hours on a coach is going to be fun and “mighty craic” when the journey could be made by rail in comfort with catering, toilets etc and the really interesting bit done by coach but it seems impossible for us to compete on price, commission rates paid to agents and general dirty tactics which we would never employ because, as I hope regular readers will know well - I’am proud to say our success has always been on our terms with clean hands, not all can claim that!

At this point this might be starting to sound like a rant against everyone in competition with ourselves but nothing could be further from the truth I have the greatest respect for some of our competitors and I like to think we have developed an understanding of each others operation and whilst we remain competitive we are always fair, what does surprise me is that our government is supporting and promoting these enterprises which only mean greater carbon emissions from coaches following each other across the country over routes that are more than adequately served by coach or train many of which have spare capacity, just my thoughts – what do you think?

Richards Blog 17.04.10 – Ash Thursday!

2010-05-19T15:20:00.000-07:00

We are rapidly approaching the start of our full season and things are somewhat hectic with bus repairs and having workers in the house at odd times! The weather has been absolutely gorgeous and on Tuesday we took the decision to have a couple of days away on bike and had a wonderfull time, we toured West Cork and took in such great places as Mizen Head, Clonakilty, The Beara Peninsular and Killarney, I will tell the full story and route soon but I have something pressing on my mind this week!

Next week we are escaping the renovations and heading over to England on business and to see the families before the season starts however events have rather changed our plans! We were going to fly Dublin to Newcastle by Ryanair on Monday but unfortunately due to the cloud of volcanic ash that is drifting around Europe our flight is cancelled, when we heard the news I got straight onto Stena Line ferries and booked possibly the last 2 seats out of Dublin to Holyhead for tomorrow night, we are then staying a night in Holyhead before taking a train to Newcastle (with 3 changes) so it might be an epic journey – as usual, I will let you know! Hopefully normal service will return for our return journey before next weekend.

Our change of plans has forced us into canceling our tour for tomorrow but fortunately we only had one booking anyway, sorry if any of you were disappointed but unfortunately we were forced into this by unusual circumstances to say the least we have had a few cancellations from people who couldn’t fly in and needless to say we have refunded them in full, we feel their pain!

I will continue with my motorcycle diaries next week, hope you are enjoying these, if you are let me know and if not also let me know and I will shorten them a little, as usual it is lovely to hear from you even if you tell me that I’am boring you to tears, don’t forget to check out our facebook and twitter for the latest news and gossip!

At Mizen head on my lovely Kawasaki W650

Richards Blog 10.04.10 – Testing times and Northern Thailand!

2010-05-06T04:40:00.000-07:00

Back on tour today and once again it has been a mad week! This is the time of year that I try to catch up on all our coach maintenance and also my coach is due for its annual test so I went through it and found a couple of jobs that needed doing, one was a steering component that was not expired but well on its way so that had to be replaced, unfortunately these parts only seem to last us a couple of years and cost a cool Eu600.00! The roads of the Burren are certainly to blame for this and they seem to last ages everywhere else, to give an idea how unusual this part was the only one in the world was in Turin in Italy so had to be shipped to us. I have to admit fitting it was a fairly heavy job on my own and my back was well and truly screaming on Tuesday night, that holiday has made me soft!

As well as coach repairs we have still got people in repairing our house and it looks like it will be a long job, we are getting much of the materials and our ever faithful Celtic Princess has been great, it is carrying passengers today but yesterday it was carrying a load of tiles and laminate flooring!

I can now feel a trip to Thailandcoming on – more memories! We spent most of our time in Pattaya but took a trip up to Chiang Mai in the North. We took the train from Pattaya to Bangkokwhich was quite an experience, it was the local train and there is only one train a day! The local trains have only one class and that is third which means basic but comfortable seats and no air con but huge roof fans and completely opening windows – I thought it was great, I sat back and watched the countryside roll by and the trip was made better by a lovely happy Thai lady doing her best to sell me cans of beer for the whole trip – marvelous! Now the day we traveled on was our wedding anniversary so I surprised Chris with a stay at Bangkoks’ oldest 5 star hotel – The Dusit Thani, it was fabulous and whilst not having the flash of the newer skyscrapers it had a class all of its own, we took dinner in the restaurant called Bengarong which specialises in Royal Thai cuisine and it was quite simply the finest Thai food I have tasted, not overly complicated but beautifully cooked with fresh spices. We then had a night in Bangkok which was relatively tame for us and got back about 2’o clock for a great nights sleep.

The following day we did some shopping and sightseeing before heading Bangkoks’ magnificent Hua Lamphuang station for the overnight sleeper to Chiang Mai (a mere 13 hours away!). I have to admit I love the romance of long distance rail travel and watching the comings and goings and bustle of a big station, we settled into our first class sleeper (not very expensive!) and had a few drinks while we watched the suburbs of Bangkok which is quite literally an assault on the senses with the amazing sight of people trying to scratch out a living as best they can in shanty towns next to the railway, it truly is a humbling experience! With Bangkok behind us we headed to the dining car for a great unbelievably cheap Thai meal although you do need to like chillis, my duck red curry was seriously hot! We then settled down to a few Thai whiskeys, made plenty of friends and had a great night!

Arriving at Chiang Mai station has a real frontier feel to it, its quite a way north so the stifling heat of Bangkok gives way to pleasant mid twenties temperatures and life is a bit less frantic, we headed to our hotel to leave our bags and then headed to the bike hire shop where I collect my motorbike for the next couple of days, the weather was lovely so we decided to do a bit of touring and headed on the most spectacular circular ride north into the mountains – the scenery and roads were spectacular in fact I longed to have my bike from Ireland! The day went all too quick and we headed back to our hotel then into the city for a look round the famous night bazaar, surprisingly this was followed by a few drinks before heading back to the hotel – to be continued next week!

On tour in Thailand - what a view!

Richards Blog 04.04.10 – April fool!

2010-05-06T04:39:00.000-07:00

I cannot believe that we are into April already particularly as I was de icing coaches at 7.30 this morning, the weather is just mad at the moment, in contrast last Sunday I went for a blast on my bike and it was a fairly warm spring day! Things are chaotic at home still, we have builders in sorting the flood damage so we are living out of cases and sleeping in the spare room, if there were anything positive to come out of our bad luck it is that we are having a massive clear out and de clutter which was long overdue!

We had an April fool on Thursday and offered a tour for Eu5.00 to The Cliffs fromDublin including lunch and rail travel! I’am not sure anyone was fooled but the way competition has gone in the day tour business probably people thought we were serious! There is a huge battle going on between some companies at the moment and some day tours are now cheaper than they were 15 years ago! Now some of you might think this is great good news for travelers but I’am not too sure, all that these price levels will result in is safety compromises and inevitably a worse tour for everyone the old adage “quality is remembered long after the price is forgotten” certainly applies here! We will not get involved in this kind of stupid price cutting and will continue to do what we have always done and that is to offer the best tours at a reasonable cost, we haven’t even had a price increase for 8 years now, we will watch developments with interest but you are never going to get a Barratt Tour for a stupid price however you will always get one for a reasonable price that is workable for us and affordable for you, we are in this for the long haul after all and one way we will always compete is in quality - you wouldn’t go to a Michelin starred restaurant and expect a cheap meal!

Thank you for all your kind wishes to Chris, I have to say she has really made a full recovery now and is fighting fit, indeed I cannot remember her relishing the fight we have to get customers more than at the moment, so a warning to our competitors from her – she is spoiling for a fight and believe me, you don’t want to cross her at the moment!

No books or music to report on without me boring you all to death with me rattling on about how brilliant Doves are! But next week I will tell you about a great book that I read on holiday that will appeal to you if you have a liking for a great cop story with some far eastern intrigue, as ever, watch this space!

Richards Blog 27.03.10 – Reflections on old Siam and Manchester!

2010-04-18T03:05:00.000-07:00

Well I made it through last weekend and our first tours with no problems and we were quite busy, thankfully we are busy again today and I write this at Caherconnoll Fort enjoying a good cup of Irish tea.Thailand seems every inch of 6000miles away now but we have some great memories.

Our customers often ask us why we visit Thailand and there is no simple answer, there are so many reasons, the first has to be the weather, we always visit in January and February which are the coldest and bleakest months inIreland and also of course when our business slows to a near standstill. This year the weather was glorious in Thailand, we had highs of 37 and it never dropped below 25 – beats minus 12 any day! Also we never had much rain – about 2 days in 60 aint bad!!

But personally my biggest reason for visiting is because it is different, I know that might sound an obvious observation but I struggle to think of anything that isn’t totally different to what we are used to here except possibly, though sad to report, fast food! One thing that absolutely fascinates me is how everyone seems to get along with no state aid, there can be no doubt poverty is rampant but no matter how humble these peoples dwellings are (and believe me many are unbelievable!) the Thai people have a capacity to use one facet of their human nature that so many of us Westerners have long since abandoned – the smile! I don’t know if religion is responsible or just a different attitude to life but in 2 months of driving in Pattaya City (which must be second only to Bangkok for traffic!) I saw no road rage and none of the hatred and abuse that we suffer every day in our jobs here! I saw a great example of a coach doing a crazy, illegal and dangerous u turn on a main highway, a Thai Traffic Police officer came up to the driver and guess what happened? Both the driver and the officer had a laugh at the situation and instead of giving the driver a dressing down in the manner that we expect here (probably peppered by threats of prosecution, court and eternal damnation!) he stopped the traffic and let the coach continue his turn!

I would never suggest that works everywhere but it sure leads to less aggravation and in all that chaos the traffic flowed well! I soon got used to the Thai way of driving and initially when someone pulled out in front of me I would honk and tut but as time went on I just waved and smiled – doesn’t that make a happier world!

Now talk of driving brings me to point out that I was actually riding a motorbike all the time, I hired one from the company we always use which is run by a lovely Thai lady, about 95% of hire bikes are scooters and I really hate most of them so I went a step up and got a Honda Phantom, a uniquely Thai bike, they are like a small cruiser not fast but fun! I managed to get the oldest one I think and it was the 2 stroke version which was great fun and always fastest off the lights! Needless to say I fell for it and found myself cleaning “my” bike and even giving it a tune up one day, I even asked the lady to let me know if she is selling it and I might be a buyer – sad I know, I’am just a sucker for old vehicles with character! I shall give you more motorcycle diaries (wasen’t that a film?) next week.

Now regulars might be missing my music ramblings, a couple of things to report back in December we had a last minute trip over to Manchester to see one of my all time favourite bands Doves in a triumphant homecoming to Manchester Central (great venue!) and I have to report it was absolutely fantastic, particularly when they went back to their roots and played Space Face by their former band Sub Sub, took me right back to the days before X factor and everything when music was part of a scene rather than being the instantly forgettable and manufactured dribble that we have to endure today, as the lads said “my god its full of stars!” if you like trippy, baggy Manchester music check it out, it is on itunes! More about Manchester next week!

Me on my bike in full Thai wet weather gear!

Richards Blog 20.03.10 – Back to work and what a winter!!!

2010-04-18T02:59:00.000-07:00

I honestly don’t know where to start! Well first of all the mundane stuff I’am back at work for our first Cliffs tour and have a good load and the weather is nice.

I think my last blog was written in Blarney and we were anticipating my lovely parents Golden Wedding anniversary, well I’am delighted to report the night went off marvelously and I even made a short speech which even though I say it myself went well! We then headed back to Ireland to prepare for this season and I caught up with a few jobs on our coaches before we headed off on 23rd December with our new car on the night ferry to Liverpool from Dublin, on reaching Liverpool the weather looked a bit grey and continued to deteriorate as we headed up the motorway and we were in a blizzard within an hour, at that point the radio travel news announced that our normal road over the Pennines – the A66 was closed so we had a considerable diversion via Carlisle in tricky conditions. Once we aarived we had a very nice family Christmas and headed away for New Year to Bimingham and more snow but had a great time at our favourite New Year party at the Jam House (a superb live music venue).

We were due to leave for Thailand on 6th January and true to form it was still snowing hard, we checked in at Teesside Airport for a KLM flight to Amsterdam but were later told the airport was closed and we had to go on a coach transfer to Newcastle (oh, a coach- what a pleasant change!) By the time the runway was cleared at Newcastle we had missed our connecting flight to Bangkok at Amsterdam and so had to spend a night there (kindly paid for by KLM) and caught the flight the following afternoon so we arrived in Bangkok one day late, we then settled into the serious business of enjoying our holiday and had a wonderful time in fact I will post more stories of the trip and some pics soon.

Fast forward now to our last week and we had had a great night out with friends for drinks but during the night Chris felt unwell and was rushed to hospital, it turned out she needed an operation and had to be kept in for a while, we had to change our return travel plans but at least we had a few days to recover. The healthcare Chris received was absolutely superb at The Bangkok Pattaya Hospital so thanks again to all there. Chris is now well on the mend and seems to be in good health now probably better than she has been for a long while now.

We had to change our return flights and returned to Newcastle by Emirates via Dubai – a long haul but as comfortable as cattle class can be! We then had to collect Celtic Princess from Durham as it has been having an overdue makeover so we headed back via Liverpool to Dublin ferry and arrived home on Thursday at 9 at night.

On arriving home we had more misery which we expected really, our neighbour had contacted us way back in January to tell us that we had a water leak at home and there was water gushing from the eves. On inspection he found that a pipe had burst in our loft and the resulting flood had brought two ceilings down, the burst pipe was due to the extreme weather, we had temperatures as low as minus 12 in January!

Whilst we knew about the damage nothing can really prepare you for the mess and even though the flood was 2 months ago the smell and damp remains, we are now faced with finding a builder and having extensive work done to both our bathroom and bedroom, this is in addition to the thousands of other jobs we have to do in preparation for this season. More to come about my first tours and the holidays next week!

The Scene at Newcastle Airport

Happy days on holiday!

Richards Blog – 29.11.09 – Another season !

2010-04-05T05:37:00.000-07:00

Well once again I’am writing this in a slightly damp Blarney on our final tour of 2009, as usual I have mixed feelings – its hard to switch off after 6 months of continuous work but I think it will truly dawn on me in the morning when I might just have a lie in! I think I have said this before but this has truly been one hell of a season for all the wrong reasons, so I think I will mention the low points followed by the highlights (if I can think of any!)

Lowlights:

Well first of all has to be Chris’ mother unfortunate illness (she is much better now) which meant we had to cancel our holiday to Thailand and spend about 3 months apart – that really was tough.

Coach problems – yesterday was the anniversary of when Celtic Pride broke down on our last tour of 2008 and it has honestly taken until last month to get all its’ problems finally cured – its going great now though! After that we have had various niggles and even the trusty Celtic Princess has had one major problem this year but well again now! One night particularly sticks in our mind I think, it was in July when we were having our garden landscaped, we both got in from tour, me with Celtic Star, Chris with princess and we discovered that the gardeners had managed not only to cut through our water supply but also the mains electricity for good measure! While chris was sorting that lot out I had a look under my coach as it had developed a distinct clunk on its rear suspension only to find a major component broken – off the road then! We then had to pick Chris’ coach up from our mechanic only to find that it developed another fault – off the road then! So there we were sitting on the bench outside the house at ten o’clock still with no power to do e.mails and no water and two broken down coaches with a big group booked for our Cliffs tour the following day – for once we were both lost for words! Needless to say we got all sorted and hired a coach for the following day – the show must go on but I cannot remember feeling as low in a long time!

Next bit of misery happened early in August when we were burgled at home , not only was a fair bit of damage done our visitors got off with some cash and personal items – to be honest we are not really over that now!

Now the weather, we have had three miserable seasons now but this year the summer never really happened and we had to endure endless days of rain, indeed at the moment we are facing the worst flooding Ireland has ever seen, thankfully we are ok as we are on high ground.

Business has been poor both because of the weather, the decline in tourism ad the decline of Shannon Airport which is looking to become critical if Ryanair follow their threat of taking away a further 18 flights, it is beyond me how our government can allow this to happen – flights mean business and personally we have never been busier in Limerick than when Ryanair were at the peak of their operations – this is a fact and whatever it takes to keep this business should be done, we can repent at our leisure over this one! Also we are facing ever more competition, some of it fair but much of it very unfair, but we well used to fighting now.

Highlights:

First must be the recovery of Chris’ mother and seeing her return to full strength.

Also a happy memory is the outrageous night out that we enjoyed in London in memory of Michael – Chris’ late brother, in particular a very drunken Malaysian meal which I feel he would of thoroughly approved of!

Taking delivery of my new Coach – Celtic Star and bringing it from England – despite a very difficult journey!

The visits of family over the year – my sister and Russ and my lovely parents later – these provide a welcome tonic and break from the routine!

Collecting our new car Mercedes (new to us!) from Sheffield and driving it across, just love looking at that 3 pointed star on the bonnet as you glide along!

Last one is the anticipation of my parents Golden Wedding celebration next weekend, it will be great to have all the family together on such a happy and momentous occasion.

So, I suppose it hasen’t been as bad as all that but it sure has felt bad at times! The only way now is up and we have some great plans for 2010 but in the meantime you can now book all our tours for next year at 2009 prices, so go on support Irelands’ smallest and most resilient tour company!

Richards Blog 22.11.09 – Additions to the fleet!

2010-04-05T05:26:00.000-07:00

Our 2 newest arrivals, watched over by Celtic Spirit (Bertie!)

As ever it has been a bit hectic at home, for all we are only running weekend tours we have had a heap of jobs to get our coaches ready for next season also Celtic Princess is heading over to Englandat the beginning of December to have some overdue bodywork damage fixed. At the same time as that visit we have a lovely occasion to attend – my parents’ golden wedding anniversary so really looking forward to that.

We finally have our new car on the road and it is going to be operated as a limo – watch this space for more info, we are absolutely delighted with it though and in case you forgot it is a lovely Mercedes E Class. Our garage is rather full at the moment as we have had another arrival, regular readers might remember that I like classic cars and in fact I’am a bit of a sucker for lost causes! I heard about an old Fiat 600 lying in a shed from a friend and needless to say I was tempted to go and have a look and there lying forlorn and covered in dust was the cutest little 1967 Fiat! For all it is cute it has suffered from some amount of corrosion and would once have only been fit for scrap however I came to the conclusion that if it had survived 40 odd years it really deserved to be saved and so – you guessed it! A deal was done and we went to collect my new prize on a trailer behind Celtic princess last week, it is now safely in our garage and unbelievably I managed to start it the other day so it has been added to my list of “to do” jobs!

I’am actually writing this in Blarney on Sunday and having an interesting day as we have had the foulest of weather this week and much of the UK and Ireland is flooded at the moment indeed Cork (where I’am heading this afternoon) has been very badly affected so I will let you know what it is like!

We are currently making plans for next year and we are heading to Dublin next week for a meeting with our friends from Irish Rail with a view to launching a new product from Dublin that will offer great value – so as ever, watch this space!

Also next weekend marks our last 2009 tour so if you thinking of a trip to Blarney book for next Sunday and you will get a special deal if your quick!

A quick update, visited Cork and floods in the area were bad but thankfully the City Centre was OK on Sunday!

Richards Blog 02.11.09 – Still alive – sorry!

2009-12-10T02:40:00.000-08:00

Things have been rather hectic over the last few weeks as you might have gathered, so quite a bit of news to tell you about.

Business first unfortunately the season wound down a lot earlier than usual this year and so we were forced to stop our full programme a couple of weeks ago in mid October but immediately before that we decided to take a Thursday off and head over to Birmingham for coach and bus live at the NEC – our trade show, we had a great time with one night in Birmingham with a superb meal at one of our favourite Indian restaurants followed by a great night of live music at The Jam House where we saw a great band who I think I have mentioned before – The Subterraneans who were brilliant it was a great night and such a change from the Limerick music scene!

We also have made our end of season visit to Englandto visit our parents, I also made one of my famous rash purchases, we have been thinking of changing our car for no great reason other than we felt after 5 years of running our faithful and incredibly reliable Vauxhall we fancied a change. We have been thinking of putting a car on the road for custom tours and so I decided to take the plunge and buy a magnificent Mercedes E class in England. We returned home to run our weekend tours but then had to go over to UK again to collect our prize from Sheffield.
Last week we flew into Liverpool and caught the bus and train over to Sheffield where we collected the car and headed the short distance to my lovely sister Linda’s place in Chesterfield where we stayed the night before heading over to Liverpool for the night (more Indian food mmmm!) before taking the ferry to Dublin and heading home last Wednesday.

We are now home and whilst we are delighted with our purchase we are facing up to the sad job of selling our faithful car which by the way is a beautiful Vauxhall omega 2.5DT (BMW engine), it is the full spec Elite model and is absolutely gorgeous so if you fancy travelling in style give us a shout – you might be amazed how cheap a car like that is but be quick or we might decide to keep it!

We are still offering weekend tours and hope to be until the end of this month so our last 2009 tour will be on 29th November so don’t miss out – book now!

Richards Blog 22.09.09 – More guests!

2009-12-10T02:38:00.000-08:00

I have missed a week of blogging as we have had more guests, my lovely parents arrived the week before last on Thursday and stayed until last Wednesday, I was great to see them but as usual the time absolutely flew by, they took a few tours with me and it was lovely to have some company out on the road, we were actually busy on the Saturday and needed 2 coaches so it was a bit like a family outing! Their visit always puts us in mind of the winter and some time off – it won’t be too long now!

I had a trip to Dublin with my folks last Wednesday and managed to choose one of the most chaotic days in the capital for a long time as there was unfortunately a collision between a LUAS tram and a Dublin Bus right in O’Connoll Street but at least I was on foot and never had to cope with the traffic. I headed back to Limerick on the last train and because the LUAS wasn’t running me and my dad had a great walk right up the Liffy to Heuston Station – great exercise!

The train journey was all we have now come to expect from Irish Rail, it was one of the new mark 4 trains, it was immaculately clean, smooth, punctual and the on board team were as charming as they were efficient, this got me thinking about our relative lack of success in promoting our Cliffs of Moher Tour from Dublin which included return rail travel with a reserved seat for a very reasonable package price. Competition is fierce in Dublin and 2 other companies appear to be capturing a lot of business by doing the tour by coach throughout which would seem a good idea until you realise that Dublin to Limerick is well over 3 hours by coach each way and put that on top of the 2 hours each way to The Cliffs and it starts to look like a bit of a marathon without thinking about having a look at the Burren! Still people are taking these tours but we intend to promote our products advantages more next year particularly focusing on the comfort and speed of the rail connection so watch this space as ever – we are on a mission!

Music wise I have been listening to Ian Browns’ new single – Stellify and I absolutely love it, it really does have a Stone Roses feel to it and indeed it inspired me to buy F.E.A.R one of his older solo albums and it is steadily growing on me, might have to check out some more and I cant wait for the forthcoming album!

This week is also the last of our Galway tours for 2009 and as regular readers will know this is a particular favourite of mine but the upside is one of us will be getting an extra day off work for a while. We will keep operating our remaining tours until mid October then we are going to have to see how numbers are holding up as to whether we continue our full programme or go over to weekend tours so, as ever – watch this space!

Richards Blog 05.09.09 – Mixed feelings

2009-12-10T02:37:00.000-08:00

Another week has flown by and although numbers have been a bit patchy, we have made it through to Saturday and we are busy today, the weather is still miserable but at least we are having some dry spells today between the mist and showers!
I actually got 3 days off his week and have been busy with repairs etc as well as trying to sort the garage out as it is in total disarray after the trials of the last few weeks. We also received some very sad news about the death of the son of one of our local coach operators Joe Lawlor and I hope it goes without saying that our thoughts are with with Joe and his family at this difficult time.

I received an interesting e.mail a few weeks ago and thought I would share it with you, a potential customer questioned our guest book on the website saying basically that we should have negative feedback published as well as the good. The response I gave was that we have only had one negative report and that was about one of Chris’ tours and I honestly never published it as I felt it was a little too personal and needlessly negative, it goes without saying that we cannot please all of the people all of the time but that is honestly the only negative that we have received since our new site went live 3 years ago. If this sounds like my head is swelling in the belief that our tours are perfect, nothing could be further from the truth but I do believe that our hands on approach to business means that any potential complaints are dealt with promptly by the company owners and whilst I’am sure some of our customers are not thrilled with our service they at least do not hate us enough to publish some of the vitriolic comments I read about our competitors!

Things are a bit hectic at home at the moment and we are still trying to sort everything out, we are under more pressure currently as we have guests coming on Thursday, my parents are coming over for a few days and will be great to see them particularly as their arrival tends to start the wind down of the season so happy days! We are continuing to operate our full programme until the end of this month and a more limited programme for October, one tour that will certainly be finishing soon is our Galway City and Lough Corrib tour as the Corrib Princess will finish its public tour programme at the end of the month so if you want to sample one of my favourite tours book now – there are only 3 tours left!

Richards Blog 29.08.09 – Another good week and some edgy rock!

2009-10-06T02:59:00.000-07:00

This week seems to have flown by and its hard to believe we are at the end of August and at the time of year when the season starts to wind down, we have had a fairly good week and ran all our tours, I have even had 2 days off, as I think I mentioned Monday was spent servicing Celtic Princess and then most of Wednesday was taken up cleaning out the guttering around the house – not an exciting job but strangely enough one I quite enjoyed, it made a pleasant change from driving! We are working hard to tidy the place up particularly after the break in and also because we are having more guests soon – my parents are heading over the week after next and that will give us just the lift we need also it starts to make us think of the end of the season and a well earned break!

We have a few nice things to look forward to this winter and one of the nicest will be my parents’ Golden Wedding anniversary which we will celebrate in grand style – I hope! We have not finalized our holiday plans yet but suffice to say we are hoping to be heading toThailand again – now that really does cheer me up! The Weather here is continuing to depress with rain at sometime nearly every day but we are well used to that after the last 2 seasons. One thing that does irritate with all this wet weather is that the coaches are having to be cleaned every day, I have to be honest and say that I’am now heartily sick of bus washing, indeed it has now gone to the point where I often wait until the morning before the tour and if it is raining again I only clean windows and mirrors as by the time any customers see the bus it will likely be as bad as ever after the drive from home to Limerick!

We had a good night out on Thursday and saw a great band in Smyths that we last saw about a year ago – Whitewater, I think that they have really come on and whilst I was impressed with them last time, this time they blew me away – they seem to have developed their style to focus on more edgy music from the normal pub fayre , one track that grabbed my attention (and probably bored Chris!) was The Doors track L.A Women in its’ entirety and they really did it justice, I don’t know what the rest of the pub thought to it but fair play to the lads for playing it as the great Morrison intended! Check out Whitewater if you ever get chance also the drummer played a solo which had to be heard to be believed – all in all a cut above what we often hear and backed up with a superb PA system which isn’t always the case with pub bands!

Richards Blog 25.08.09 – “I’am tired I said, you always look tired she said”

2009-10-06T02:58:00.000-07:00

This week a good excuse for using a lyric from one of my favourite Elbow songs – Fugitive Motel. Things are always tough at this time of year but I suppose I just feel particularly burned out at the moment, business is good and that’s why I’am tired, whenever loadings go up I end up using my coach for tours, Chris will drive it if she is forced but I think it is a bit big and shiny for her still! We work things so we each get at least one day off per week in addition to Fridays but that goes out the window if we have to put 2 coaches on a tour or I means if we are fairly busy Chris gets extra days off but that’s just how it goes at this time of year! Things will get easier for us at the end of next month as our Galway tour will finish as the Corrib Princess ends its’ season then so at least Thursdays will be a little easier. We hope to continue our other tours until the end of October subject to demand and then we will be offering our weekend tours until November so still plenty to do!

After our disturbed break last year we have not made any firm plans for holidays but just thinking about them is keeping us going! We are both desperate for time off as we have still not got the house put straight after the break in, I actually got a day off yesterday but spent it servicing Celtic Princess and trying to get a part for the heating system on Chris’ coach – still it made a change from driving! Also her coach still has a bit of a makeshift mirror, we are awaiting the arrival of a mirror glass from Spain - someday soon!

I have just finished a great re- read “Welcome to Hell’ by Collin Martin – an absolutely fantastic story of ones mans’ struggle against false imprisonment in a Thai prison, it is absolutely terrifying but equally un-putdownable! One thing that amazed me is how much torture and abuse the human body and mind can endure. If I ever go back to Thailand I don’t even intend to get a parking ticket!

Richards Blog 15.08.09 – After the storm!

2009-10-06T02:57:00.000-07:00

I suppose we are gradually getting used to the events of last week and slowly clearing up and repairing the damage that was done, it is still really hard leaving home every morning but I suppose it has forced us to tighten up on security, I think the healing process could be a long one though.

Business wise it has been a good week and loadings are finally what we would expect for this time of year and (fingers crossed) our coaches are behaving themselves. I have been to The Cliffs quite a lot lately and I’am heading back that way today. Wednesday was a bit of a stressful day as we had the Ireland v Australia football friendly in Limerick, however as usual I had a plan and for once it worked – I tried to delay our return to Limerick as much as possible to avoid the worst of the traffic, I actually arrived back a Limerick Station at 7.30 – not too bad but then just had time for a quick coffee before collecting some passengers returning from The Ring of Kerry at 8.00 and transferring them back to their hotel – a long day! I arrived home about 8.45 then had to wash and fuel my coach – its tough at the top!

After all that has gone on lately we felt that we deserved a good night out and had a great night on Thursday with a lovely meal and a few well earned drinks in town. Yesterday was spent with more clearing and getting a new tyre fitted to my coach, we have a fairly busy weekend and we are actually full for tomorrow’s tour – typical we have loads of space today but have to turn away business for tomorrow!

Richards Blog 08.08.09 – If I only had words!

2009-10-06T02:56:00.000-07:00

Today I have to be honest and say I feel more down than I can remember feeling in years, I’am on our Cliffs tour and we are very busy indeed we have both had to work, so why the misery? Well here goes …….

Last week was fairly busy and although we were busy we were a little down after our guests leaving, however as usual we snapped back into the work routine and the week flew by then before we knew it it was Thursday and we were looking forward to our weekly night out, I was on my favourite Galway tour with my coach and Chris on the Cliffs with hers, all was good with the world as I headed home to sort the e.mails and get changed before Chris arrived. I pulled into our yard and headed to the back door only to notice it had been broken into, it took a couple of seconds to register but quickly a black feeling fell around me, we had been burgled! I tried to remain calm and walked around the house to find virtually every room had been totally ransacked. I needed to talk so I rang Chris and told her to pull over before breaking the news. She arrived about 15 min later while I was on the phone to The Garda and for one of the only times in my life I was struck dum, we just hugged then went inside to inspect the damage, we had some well hidden cash taken although fortunately we never keep business takings at home – they go straight into the night safe at our bank, also quite a lot of personal items and jewellery were taken and much of our furniture was damaged by the ruthless searching that had gone on.
All this is bad enough but it is the feeling of violation which I never understood – it really does cut you to the bone and stays no matter how much you try to cut it out it occupies most of your waking hours, we couldn’t face sleeping in the chaos on Thursday night and decided to stay in town once the place was secured. We phoned our friends at The Absolute Hotel and they kindly gave us a complimentary suite so we had a takeaway pizza in grand style in our room before doing the only thing we could think of in this situation – go for a drink! We settled into one of our favourite haunts – Nancy Blakes and had a few drinks which did make us feel a bit better – but not much!

After a good breakfast we returned home to start clearing up the mess and take stock of what was missing, we actually probably got off quite lightly but it doesn’t feel like it at the moment! Friday was also spent trying to catch up with paperwork and cleaning coaches but to be honest our heart wasn’t really in it and if ever we needed time to ourselves it was yesterday but as usual business came first!

Today we awoke shaken but not stirred and had to face a busy day with both of us out on tour, it was really hard leaving the house for the first time but the show must go on! however fate had not quite finished with us yet, Chris had to meet the train from Dublin which managed to be 50 minutes late after that she met an unmarked white van on a narrow section of road in the Burren and pulled over as far as she could but the van still kept driving and smashed her mirror. Normally she would take all this in her stride but when I met her at Caherconnoll she just broke down and I cannot blame her – my heart is really bleeding for her at the moment – I think women are probably more affected by the feelings of invasion of privacy and I think the break in will be in the back of our mind for years to come.

You might be wondering why I have not mentioned the perpetrators of this hideous crime but to quote the words of one of my favourite Christians song “If I only had words”

Now as some of you might know I’am not a very religious but I do firmly believe in Karma and also that in the last few moments before you leave this mortal coil everyone will take stock of their life and their achievements so I think that whoever did this will recall ruining peoples lives and taking their hard earned cash and hopefully this will ensure a life of eternal torment, hopefully happier thoughts next week folks – the only way is up!

Richards Blog 01.08.09 – We have had guests!

2009-10-06T02:55:00.000-07:00

I think I mentioned last week that my sister Linda and her partner Russ were coming to visit, they arrived late on Tuesday night and me and Chris went to Shannon to collect them from their Ryanair flight from Birmingham, they were only staying until early Saturday morning so it was a flying visit. I tried to get Wednesday off to spend the day with them and very nearly succeeded, we had a few people coming on the train from Dublin for our Cliffs tour but in total we had 20 so ample room on Chris’ coach, however since it was a fairly busy day I thought I had better come in to Limerick to cover in case we got any late bookings or the train was delayed, so I brought our guests with me and guess what? For the first time this season the train was heavily delayed in fact it was 50 minutes late! So with quick thinking we decided that I would head off on tour and do the pick ups then take our passengers to Caherconnoll where they could have a coffee or do the tour while Chris would follow on when the train arrived with her passengers to Caherconnoll where we would put all the passengers on her coach and I would then be free to head home with our guests (we actually stopped in Ennis for a pub lunch on the way back).
This just shows how whenever we arrange anything during our season you can be sure something will go wrong and spoil the best laid plans! It was great to have some company though and Linda and Russ joined me for our Galway tour on Thursday and it being race week in Galway we had a great time even just admiring the Ladies’ fashions made it worthwhile but also there is always a great buzz about Galway during race week, we felt it was only right that we should have a bit on the feature race and we chose 4 fairly good prospects – none of which was even placed but never mind! We all had a good night out on Thursday with a superb meal at The Texas Steakout followed by a few drinks and a bit of live music.

Friday was spent relaxing and doing a bit of shopping as well as the inevitable bus cleaning before another meal out to our favourite Indian Restaurant Spice of India for another superb meal.

I took Linda and Russ back to Shannon this morning and whilst it was tough saying goodbye it had been a nice break from our routine!

Richards Blog 25.07.09 – What a week!

2009-10-06T02:52:00.000-07:00

As you might have guessed things haven’t ran entirely smoothly at Barratt Tours this week! We have been having problems with a blow in the exhaust system on Chris’ bus – Celtic Pride and it really has tried the patience of all involved, we now have it back and I may well give it an outing tomorrow to see how it goes. We coped well without it last weekend with the ever trusty Celtic Princess and my coach Celtic Star but on Tuesday things took a sharp turn for the worse, I was driving home after our Cliffs tour when I hit a large pothole – nothing unusual in that here but what was unusual was the banging coming from the rear suspension, I took it very easy home and on inspection found 2 broken spring pins and a missing shackle on the rear spring so Star wasn’t going to shine on Wednesdays’ Cliffs tour and with Pride already under repair we only had Princess which seats 15 and guess what? – we had 22 bookings! The parts for the spring had to be specially ordered and would only be in on Friday so we were a little stuck.

Thankfully we called in the help of our friends Martins Coaches who kindly hired us a lovely 49 seat Van Hool so I drove, Chris guided and it was just like the old days, at least we were to have 2 coaches for Thursdays’ two tours as Pride was ready to collect from repairs except on the way home a further fault developed – stuck again! Martins came to rescue and provided the same coach with a driver for the Cliffs as I had to go to Galway so Chris guided on the hired coach – and so the week ended – thank goodness!

Friday (our day off!!!) was spent organizing repairs and parts and again Martins helped us out and did a great job so I have my coach back today so I feel a little happier and relieved! We are now back to our full compliment of coaches and ready to face another (hopefully easier week). We had more upheaval at home to cap all this hassle off but I’am saving news of what has been going on at Silvermine View for a while! We are really looking forward to next Tuesday as my sister Linda and her partner Russ are coming to visit so Thursday night should be a good one – we need to let our hair down a little after last week!

Richards Blog 16.07.09 – Tea and sympathy (please!)

2009-08-11T15:00:00.000-07:00

I write this as usual at Caherconnoll enjoying a cup of good Irish tea – if only we could beer that was as good as our tea in Ireland but I digress! I seem to have been here a bit this week but it has given me chance to work on my preliminary notes for my book. Thinking back to the early days of our company has been unexpectedly therapeutic and is really helping me focus on our future plans – it is easy to forget the hardship we endured to get to this point in our lives! I suppose hardship is and emotive word but it really was tough for a couple of years and many was the month we never saw a wage from Barratt Tours!

Also it made me ponder the long nights me and Chris spent together in the garage repairing a bus for the following days’ tour, one occasion particularly sticks in my mind when I got what is known as “arc eye” in other words getting blinded by a weld flash and ended up in hospital until 3 in the morning, I made my normal miraculous recovery and was heading to Killarney on tour with the bus the following day! Oh, and the exhaust was welded, not sure I could do that now mind!

If this is beginning to sound a bit like that classic Monty Python sketch when they are discussing how hard they had it growing up “that’s nothing we lived in a hole in the ground etc etc” then my apologies, all this is leading to is the thought that we have worked too hard to get this far so we are going to ride this current storm out and as you may have gathered we are gaining strength from the injustice and corruption that is blighting our industry at the moment, even though the field of play is nowhere near level there is always the second half - so look out!

Not much time for reading at the moment what with my literary endeavours but I’am still finding time for music with the band Doves being my music of choice at this time, suitably dark and melodic to just suit my mood at this time of year and to remind me of some trips to England this winter, it just occurred to me that the season is over half way through!

Richards Blog 09.07.09 – It’s a cheap price that we pay for existence!

2009-08-11T14:58:00.000-07:00

I have been in deeply reflective mood this week hence the Bob Geldof quote from “Thinking Voyager 2 type things” – check it out it has to be one of the ultimate meaning of life songs! My mood has been due to the loss of a good friend of Barratt Tours Mr Noel O’Connor from Doolin Co.Clare, Noel ran a taxi business in Doolin and was a great friend and help to all of us involved in running day tours – he died in his sleep on Sunday evening and he will be much missed, our thoughts are with all his family and friends at this difficult time.

I have been reflective as I had my lunch with Noel on Saturday in O’Connors while on tour and we had a great chat about holidays etc and whilst we both agreed times were hard in the business at present it surely will come right for next year, it really has made me think about our short time on this planet.

My thoughts are not bitter about the business but I do feel it is time for us to turn over a new leaf and stop being so nice in our battles with our competitors, we are never going to deviate from our strongly held belief that the honest will survive long term in business. By honest I mean that we try to sell our tours on merit and value, we don’t offer huge agents commission and incentives, this is how our tours are such good value after all, I heard of one operator in our sector that is actually paying more in commission than they get paid for a tour! I don’t believe this is sustainable and with information being so freely available online, I cannot believe people will be conned forever, I have said it before but we are lean and green also you can be sure we are here for the long haul maybe the saying “The bigger they are – the harder they fall” could be true here. I would love to hear your thoughts on this and sometimes I feel like spilling the beans and explaining exactly where the money that is paid to some larger operators goes – its not all Shamrocks, Sheep and Leprechauns as they might have you believe! So please get in touch and tell me that you think we are on the right track with our strategy. Or better still book one of our tours and to quote from The Commitments – Support Irelands’ hardest working tour company!
We had a great night to beat the blues on Thursday, we went to an old haunt of ours – The Trinity Rooms in Limerickwhich to be honest we felt we had outgrown as they do cater for the younger crowd, I quite like some dance music but much of it I couldn’t stick all night! When we first started going they had a separate room and dj who used to play a lot of indie stuff and it was just my kind of thing but sadly it seemed to become a victim of the “r’ word! However they have just started offering some alternative entertainment with a ska band called Skazz and they were superb, as well as playing some predictable 2 tone classics they played some real old Jamaican ska – including some infectious toe tappers, combine this with a drinks promotion and a good night was had – if you are in Limerick any Thursday in July check it out – highly recommended!

Richards Blog 04.07.09 – Crowds and Hookers!

2009-08-11T14:57:00.000-07:00

It has been a very mixed week with fairly poor loadings on our tours, indeed on Thursday we had nobody for either of our tours so we took the decision to have a break and headed up to Galway for the night, the break really brought back some happy memories and helped to remind us a little about what made us get us into all this! We often used to visit Galway when we still lived in England on our holidays and it is a place I still really like there really is a real buzz about the place, we had a great meal then a few drinks around town, the visit was made even happier for me as I got a chance to sample a new beer called Galway Hooker (www.galwayhooker.ie) it is a traditional pale ale with a superb smack of hops to its taste – I thought it was absolutely great, it was lovely to taste proper beer again! My usual tipple here is Guinness or if it is well kept I much prefer Beamish, I don’t know if my taste buds are bored but Guinness seems to be getting blander with little of the roasted malt bite it used to have – let me know if any you beer tasters agree! Indeed blandness is a feature of Irish beer now with the increasing promotion of bland worldwide lager brands and ‘light’ beers, it seems to me that it is seen as an advantage if beer no longer tastes of beer – it is then said to be smooth and easy drinking but then again so is water!
Anyhow beer rant over I’am back at the wheel today driving a thankfully well loaded Cliffs tour with my new coach so I’am in a happy frame of mind after our impromptu break, Chris is having a day off as sadly we have not needed 2 coaches on a Saturday for sometime now but hopefully that will change, it is little consolation but tourism numbers in general do seem to be in decline indeed I’am finishing this blog at The Cliffs and I’am the only coach here at 4.45 on a July Saturday afternoon! I remember about 6 years ago I was at the Cliffs one Sunday in August and there were 53 coaches all vying for parking spaces!

If you think this paints a depressing prospect to potential visitors – think again prices are tumbling, the welcome is warmer than ever and the crowds are not here so if you are thinking of booking one of our tours do it today and support a genuine small company – the big guys can look after themselves! come and enjoy! I might even show you where you can find a Galway Hooker! (you have a dirty mind, hooker was a name given to the typical Galway fishing boat!)

Richards Blog 20.06.09 – Chapter 1 – erm…..!

2009-08-11T14:56:00.000-07:00

I have finally taken the decision to write the full story of Barratt Tours, people have often said to me that I should write a book and do you know, I think I will! Our story is a fairly unique and I think a very entertaining one but I have to be honest in that I don’t have a clue where to start, I think I will start writing prompts that I can weave into the story as it takes shape, we fortunately documented quite a lot of our early days and Chris has been secretly writing notes for a few years so maybe something might come to fruition, I have written a very concise history in my blogs last year but I think it is time for a warts and all account, you honestly wouldn’t believe what we have had to contend with behind the scenes over the last 12 years – it will be a good read!

Let me know what you think about the idea, I think it might be quite fun but please get back to me, I don’t get much feedback and especially get in touch if you know a “tame” publisher that likes a challenge and could give me a few tips!

It has been another mixed week for numbers and whilst our Cliffs tours have been OK loadings have been disappointing for Galway and Killarney, I think it’s a pity as they are both really nice tours and I do look forward to driving either of those, highlights for me are the magnificent walks at Muckross House and Galway City but I must admit my greatest pleasure is the cruise on the Corrib Princess. On a fine day I love to hide away outside at the bow and listen to some suitably chilled music on my I pod while the scenery goes by – this job is often not too bad at all! So why not join us for a really relaxing day and try one of our other tours!

We had a good night out on Thursday and saw a great band called Aftershock at Smyths, I had been getting a bit bored of some of the bands there lately – no fault of there own but a lot of the covers are the same week after week. Aftershock were a bit different and did some quite clever and more contemporary stuff probably my favorite track was “Where’s me jumper?” by The Sultans of Ping F.C – obscure stuff but regulars will know my strange tastes!

Richards Blog 16.06.09 – A little piece of Liberty!

2009-08-11T14:54:00.000-07:00

It has been quite a mixed week business wise this week, we seem to be really busy one day then really quiet the next but overall we are keeping our heads above water, I have been busy in the garage as well replacing a seemingly unbreakable suspension component which smashed on Saturday, thanks to our wonderful (or woeful!) road network, I had to drive to Portlaoise in the car yesterday for parts then spent the afternoon fitting them to my coach, also I had to prepare the small coach for test tomorrow so I’am quite happy to be working today, it really is a break to be touring today!

Our life is pretty hectic at the moment with behind the scenes plans coming to fruition for our new product and a new micro website that is coming together nicely now, it is all taking far longer than we anticipated but then that is a familiar story! I don’t know if we are doing more now or (perish the thought!) we are getting older but this season is really taking it out of us, at the moment I’am as tired as I normally am in August but I think our disrupted winter and getting the new coach ready is to blame, normally we find a routine by this time but it is taking a little bit of doing this year! I heard a great saying the other day which I think applies to us at the moment:

“I try to take life one day at a time but lately several have ganged up on me at once”

Now talk of one of my only recreations at the moment – music, I downloaded the new Madness album the other week “The Liberty of Norton Folgate” and whilst I have always loved the unique blend of ska and reggae that Madness create I honestly believe this to be one of their finest works, it really is a concept album which seems a mad idea for the “nutty boys’ but it really does work on all levels, it tells the story of an area of London which I never knew existed called Norton Folgate and up until the early 1900 s was outside the laws of the land and was a magnet for artists, poets and mad people – sounds great! I really must have a look round that area next time we hit “the big smoke” I have always had a bit of a love/hate relationship with London, I used to work there regularly after I left school and never really liked the place but since the death of Chris’ brother who lived in there just over a year ago we have become friends with some of his friends and I have mellowed a little in my attitude – our last visit was great so I’am now looking forward to our next visit and I will find my own little piece of liberty!

Richards Blog 01.06.09 – Summer madness!

2009-07-09T00:19:00.001-07:00

We are having a crazy weekend, fairly busy with it being a public holiday in terms of passengers but for once the summer has arrived at the same time as the holidays and the result is chaos, I have never seen The Burren as busy as this weekend and we are having to change our return route as Lahinch is totally gridlocked, all comments last week about driving have been bourne out today, my skin is now thicker than ever! Chris is helping me today as we have a few overloads so she has Celtic Princess, she is doing a good job of clearing the way for me though – we make a great team!

The weather is absolutely amazing with temperatures in the mid twenties and my new air con working overtime, so at least my head is cool! I really hope this is the start of a decent settled spell – a bit of sun is doing my soul good.

Our new micro website is coming together nicely and I hope it is going to emphasize the personal nature of our business, sometimes it seems as though we are swimming against the tide of domination by the larger companies, we don’t want to fall into the trap of insulting our customers intelligence with images of Lepreachans and sheep – there are plenty doing that already, what we want to do is project our true personalities more, we are both very different in many ways but we hope that is part of the fun and adds to the richness of your experience with us! Many companies try to tell you that they live and breathe their business but believe me when it comes to Barratt Tours this truly is the case, we very rarely switch off and I think if just one of us was involved in the business we honestly would be divorced by now!

I haven’t mentioned music for a while so I have just bought the new Madness album which has received rave reviews so I shall report next week.

Richards Blog 27.05.09 – Is it me, or does everyone hate me?

2009-07-09T00:18:00.000-07:00

Don’t worry, I haven’t gone totally mad (just yet!!) but I really do notice how things are changing here at the moment, as you know I spend an awful lot of time on the road and I never cease to be amazed at other drivers attitudes, I have become immune to the total lack of regard motorists show to a larger vehicle and have learnt to accept that if I meet a small car on a narrow road it will always be me that has to give way and do all the braking and steering whilst the car driver sits and watches! But I have recently noticed a new phenomenon and this is mainly from local drivers, I can be doing nothing wrong other than trying to get my way through as best I can but I often find myself on the receiving end of all kinds of threats and abuse or at least and interesting array of gestures! Chris had a situation the other day where somebody pulled out in front of her far too close and then didn’t accelerate so she overtook in a perfectly safe place, she stopped at traffic lights further up the road only for the motorist to shout that he was going to report her for being a dangerous driver! Another good one was just the other day when I was in Doolin, I met a young girl in a car in the very tight spot just ouside O’Connors, I again managed to squeeze through only to glance down at her to see her cursing and waving at me with a rage that had to be seen to believed! I honestly still don’t know what I had done – I would really like to know though! You really do need a thick skin in this job!

Now I certainly don’t want to put you off visiting our beautiful country it seems most of this behavior is in cars, I had a group of flight crew from a well known US airline on my tour the other day and they told me that they had noticed everyone was much more short tempered lately so it seems this is not unique to Ireland, I think an explanation could be that people have been well off (or at least they thought they were!) for a few years and now things are slowing down it seems to be driving the masses into the foulest of humour!

I don’t think my mood has changed too much, to be honest I’am just pleased to be making a living of sorts doing a job I enjoy, we have never been ones for new cars and flash houses etc, our pleasures are simple and cheap – maybe that is why we can laugh at the others!
We are still planning a major new product and it is getting ever closer so watch this space for the most unbelievable offer in our history!

Richards Blog 21.05.09 – This is the winter of our discount tents!

2009-07-09T00:17:00.000-07:00

I couldn’t resist that title it come from an add for a camping shop that I saw years ago! The weather has been absolutely crazy even by Irish standards this week, it has overall been very cold and wet but suddenly we will get an unexpected good day like yesterday when it was beautiful around the coast and a t the Cliffs, I had a private tour and took the group up to Galway so a long day but quite a nice one with the weather co operating for once!
We have again had a tough week with unpredictable numbers, I have quite a large group today but yesterdays good weather seems to have helped! I believe the weather has a huge effect on our business and coupled with all the recession doom and gloom here it would depress even the most optimistic person!

The recession isn’t all bad in that we are now getting deals on travel and accommodation that would have been unheard of 2 years ago, as usual we are trying to diversify further and will be announcing some products soon that will offer truly remarkable value – watch this space! For us the Celtic Tiger is dead – long live the Celtic Tiger!

If you haven’t heard of The Celtic Tiger it was a phrase used to describe the outrageously overheated economy in Ireland during the early part of the millennium, all concerned were certain that it would go on for ever (including the banks it seems!) but you wouldn’t have to be too gifted an analyst to realise that an economy based on 80% property and construction might be ever so slightly delicate! I can honestly say that I don’t believe that the Celtic Tiger had much effect in our sector and some would argue it had negative effects in that it took the countries ‘eye off the ball” with regard to tourism and in many ways I would subscribe to that view - we needed to come back to earth but maybe not with such a severe bump!

We had a great night out to beat the doom and gloom on Thursday and saw a band from Mayo and Roscommon called Gorilla Radio they could really rock and did a great diverse set with everything from Lady Gaga to Metallica – personally I preferred the Metallica though!
I finally got out on my bike on Wednesday and went into town to run some errands in bright sunshine only to get caught in a monsoon on the return journey! I was quite literally soaked to the skin! I have a new waterproof overall but guess where it was? In the cupboard at home of course!

Richards Blog 17.05.09 – Ups and downs!

2009-06-08T01:57:00.001-07:00

After quite a busy week last week it has been down to earth with a bump and I had my first Saturday off in about 5 years as we only had a small group for the Cliffs and Chris decided to give me a break. A break consisted of catching up on a few jobs with Celtic Star and I’am delighted to have finally solved the problem I had with the PA system, we were getting feedback from the alternator which was driving us and our passengers mad!, it took the form of a low whine which really irritated! I have tried a whole load of suggestions but finally tried a fairly cheap component wired into the radio and for a change I had a bit of luck and cured it!

My other major job was tidying up the garage as it has been a bit of a hive of activity over the last few weeks with getting new buses ready, ahem accident repairs and other repairs it really was annoying me as I couldn’t find anything and I had a breathing space before my next job which will (hopefully!) be getting Celtic Princess ready for test in June.

It was looking like one of us was going to get a day off today but at the last minute we got a large group to go to The Cliffs of Moher and so I was delighted to oplige, I have a really nice group of Italian rugby players and fans so I’am having a nice day even though the weather isn’t too great! I’am also having a spin in my new coach which I’am enjoying although I still miss my old one sometimes!

Richards Blog 12.05.09 – Porno and tyres!

2009-06-08T01:55:00.000-07:00

It has been a great weekend and for a while we have been fairly busy, we have quite a few people on our short breaks and it has been really nice to have the same people for a couple of days in a row and I think a good time has been had by all (myself included!) Our new accommodation in Limerick has been very well received by everyone and some have commented that they don’t know how we do it for the price (maybe we are too cheap!!) I really love my job when we have a fun group and I can get to know them over a few days – it is still a dream of ours to run our own coach holidays for small groups – maybe one day!

Thursday was a really exciting day for the wrong reasons! I had my new coach on the Cliffs tour and heading round Black Head I heard a bang and a whoosh of air, I initially thought we had blown an air pipe but found that one of the rear tyres had blown out, I made it to Doolin for lunch and had the tyre changed there, fortunately the one tyre fitter there was at home! Changing of the tyre involved more than a little input from me and would make a story in its own right! Anyway I was only 15 minutes late picking my group up – O’Connors pub wouldn’t be too bad a place to be stranded though!

Getting back to coach holidays as I often say if a group of you fancy getting together to join us for a grand tour outside of our day tour season – get in touch we might be able to help you, we would love to show you some sights.

This weeks music consists of my exploration of the Manchester band Doves and I’am really starting to get into their stuff, I love the melancholy lyrics mixed with some great dance influences – really different stuff! I haven’t really got my reading into gear yet but I’am starting again on the last Irvine Welsh I bought “Porno” which is a continuation of the characters from “Trainspotting” it is recommended if you are not easily offended – it is a little blue!

Richards Blog 05.05.09 – The Stops

2009-06-08T01:49:00.000-07:00

“I can’t undue the day, it wont go, wont go under the rug
I pull out the stops and you, you pull the plug”

Copyright Elbow

Dedicated to Chris about last Tuesday x

Back to wallowing in Elbows’ wonderful music this week – Guy Garveys’ lyrics somehow speak straight to me and that one is a good example. As you might remember Chris had a little spill with Celtic Princess last week and I’am delighted to say that I have managed to repair it with a little help from my friends and it doesn’t really look too bad. The small bus has been a real miss this week as unfortunately numbers are still very low but at least it has meant I have been using my new stead Celtic Star and it is going great – we need a bit of luck at the moment!

It really has been hard lately though and I must admit painting and bodywork is not my favourite – in fact in general I hate repetitive jobs but they have to be done I suppose. Unfortunately we also have got some damp and cold weather at the moment so paint is taking ages to dry, I was hoping to use the small bus today but it was still just tacky about 15 hours after painting it, however I will build it up tonight and it will be ready for whoever is working tomorrow (only one tour).

Last weekend was the May Bank Holiday and I must admit I don’t like holiday weekends (as you may remember). All holiday weekends generally mean to us is more traffic also it is hard to be working when all around you are relaxing or having fun, it is one regret I have about our chosen career that we have not had a summer weekend together in 11 years, I know we get a good break in the winter but I do miss some of the things we used to do together like traveling to Scotland etc for weekend breaks. One other thing that I regret is not being able to go to the Oxygen Festival again, I have never heard a better festival line up with (wait for it!) Elbow, Doves, James, Keane and a whole host of others – still never mind.

We hope to have a meeting this week in Dublin to discuss the new products I have been hinting at – so watch this space!

Richards Blog 02.05.09 – A trying week!

2009-05-18T00:04:00.000-07:00

Made it through our first week but not quite unscathed! I think we will have the good news first Celtic Star is now and the road and had a baptism of fire of Tuesday with a private tour for a very nice group of 30 from Austria, the tour took in our normal Burren Tour but with a twist – I had to take the group down to Killarney, so a really long day and I must admit to being fairly shattered when I pulled into the yard at 11 on Tuesday night, the coach however performed great and I have it with me today, I must say I’am particularly enjoying the good air conditioning, we still have a couple of niggles but I’am steadily working through them and my seat is beginning to feel like home already!

Unfortunately Chris had a minor shunt in Celtic Princess on Tuesday evening which has meant a bit (well, a lot really!) of work for me panel beating and painting, the results probably wont be perfect but major repairs will have to wait for the winter, thankfully Chris is fine – only her pride is a little dented! (It’s her first knock in 11 years so not bad really!) Just to add to the misery Celtic Pride needed a wheel bearing replaced which coupled with the previous hassles of getting the new coach ready has made for a tough week for both us and our long suffering mechanic Tom, at the moment it feels like the only way is up!

Away from vehicle problems we are still beavering away on developing new tours and one thing I’am engaged in at the moment apart from increasing our web presence is to offer a custom tour option for smaller groups on Monday or Wednesday at a great price so, as ever, watch this space!
Not much time for music this week but I have been kept (relatively!) sane by listening to the new Elbow CD and DVD, The Seldom Scene Kid live at Abbey Road with the BBC concert orchestra – highly recommended, the arrangement of the tracks surpasses even the studio album which takes some beating in particular “The Fix” which is a duet with Richard Hawley – I might tell you about him next week!

Richards Blog 25.04.09 – Another season, hopefully another dollar!

2009-05-11T00:14:00.000-07:00

Well today is the day it all starts again! As usual I’am typing this at Caherconnoll on the Cliffs tour and I must admit that much as I try to fight it I do have a feeling of trepidation, we had flying start to our spring tours and business has definitely been up but it has been back to earth with a bump for last 2 weeks as passenger numbers have been very low. We have made a huge investment (for us!) in vehicles over the last couple of years and we are really proud of our fleet but fact is we do need customers to survive! We try to run all of our tours but it is really tough when we make a loss, however as Chris reminded me this morning I do feel a bit this way every year!

On a much more positive note I think our new coach will be making its debut on a private tour on Tuesday and I’am looking forward to that although I cannot say a first trip with a new vehicle is my favourite – it takes a while to get used to heating, air con etc but I’am sure it will be fine, my few trips locally getting it tested etc. have been very pleasant and we are delighted with the way our ‘Celtic Star” (aka Rambo!) has turned out, “he’ really is a handsome devil – much like his regular driver!

Now starts 26 weeks of constant work but I do love the predictability of our jobs particularly if we are lucky enough to get good numbers over the season, we are also working on a couple of projects that will bring us a boost, one being a new offering from Dublin that will include return rail travel, accommodation and a tour for less than the cost of one of our competitors day tours! Also we have commissioned a new website that will be a fun micro site that will link with this site but make our web presence a bit more fun and light hearted as well as revieling even more facts about your favourite tour operator - There is no hiding place it seems!

My music this week is still consisting of a joyous exploration of Elbows’ back catalogue which has led me (some would say inevitably!) to another Manchester band Doves who are currently impressing me with their incredibly diverse sound, too many influences to mention I think! They are possibly not as wordy as Elbow but just as creative and best of all they are from the North!

Richards Blog 18.04.09 – Back to normal!

2009-05-11T00:12:00.000-07:00

After my deviations over the last few weeks it was firmly back to earth with a bang at 6.50 this morning when the alarm went off to wake us up for what will be an interesting day. There are 2 events that will spoil my well ordered and rehearsed plans for today’s tour.
Firstly we have the Ballyvaughan hill climb motor sport event which will result in closure of part of our route causing me to divert and miss out part of Black Head, I have come up with a plan that will involve a bit of doubling back but will at least mean the group will see Galway Bay so hopefully it will work out.

The other hassle is tonight as there is a big rugby match in Limerick (Munster v Leinster) which kicks of at 7.30 so the traffic will neatly coincide with our return toLimerick and to add to the fun I have people to make the Dublin train – Lanzarote seems a long way back now! When I eventually make it home we have to jump straight into the car and go to pick up the new coach which has been having its air con serviced locally so no early night!

Next week promises to be hectic with tests on buses, meeting and picking up and handing out our new brochures in Limerick and Dublin as well as one of us having a private tour on Friday, so no rest for a while, also of course we will be starting our full programme next weekend so starts 26 weeks of work without a break – good job we enjoy our work, it sounds strange but after all the traveling and being apart in the winter a bit of normality might be no bad thing!

Richards Blog 13.04.09 – Station Approach

2009-05-04T01:11:00.000-07:00

“I haven't been myself of late
I haven't slept for several days
But coming home I feel like I Designed these buildings I walk by”

Copyright Elbow

Back to my currently favourite band, Elbow this week they seem to have a song that reflects my every mood and no wonder they have such dedicated fans. We are travelling yet again this week and taking a last chance to visit our folks again in Sunderland over in NE England this week. Chris is spending some time looking after her mum leaving me to be looked after by my lovely mother – a real hard job but hey such is life! I’am being fed to excess and generally spoilt – bliss! Chris and me had a great day yesterday and headed out for a long walk round some of my old patch from when I was a kid, I took Chris up to Tunstall Hills which brought back great memories ranging from going up playing to going up rather later with bottles of cider – all good stuff and great memories from a great child hood, as I hope my regular readers realise I love our life in Ireland but there is always something magical about going back to where you grew up. That’s what I think my Guy Garvey is talking about as he returns to Manchester in the above quote, this feeling might be peculiar to us Northerners but I have a feeling it wouldn’t matter where you grew up the feelings remain the same, its just it’s a bit more ‘grim up north!” – only kidding!

I have spent a great day today in Sunderland just aimlessly walking around and taking in the sights and sounds of a city that has changed beyond recognition since my childhood. Sunderland was one of the biggest ship building ports in England as well as a major coal mining town and I always felt it was an amazing place to grow up, I could write a book about sights and sounds but I will just share a couple of vivid memories:

The launch of a ship was always a big event and I well remember seeing one, the ship would tower above the buildings and if you think a ship looks massive in the water it is nothing compared to how it looks on the slipway. There would be the platform at the bow which would contain the inevitable dignitaries like yard directors, ship owners and the chosen one for the naming ceremony! After the long and inevitably boring speeches would come the breaking of the bottle of champagne over the bow! While all this was going on the underside of the ship would be a hive of activity as workers started removing chocks and shoring before the leading ganger would knock out the last chock and several thousands of tons of steel would start gracefully moving towards the river punctuated by chains snapping and clouds of dust. The ship would then float into the river where it would be caught by tugs, turned around and moored before the start of months of fitting and finally sea trials. There are still Sunderland built ships around the world so they certainly built them well!

As well as the ship yards there were dozens of other industries involved in supplies components and equipment so here goes one more, when I was a kid and inevitably being sent to bed early I became aware of a strange but somehow comforting sound that could be heard in the still night air over the town, it was a kind of low drone or rumble which would vary in pitch every few minutes. I never really thought about what this could be until curiosity got the better of me and I found out that the noise was a Doxford engine. Doxfords built some of the finest marine diesel engines in the world and when an engine was completed it was tested and set up on a test bed for several hours right through the night. I never reallt thought about this until recently but I think this might account for the “diesel in my veins” but I do still have a love for the sound of a good internal combustion engine in particular the mechanical symphony offered by a Napier Deltic – all another story!

I hope that you have enjoyed this bit of indulgence, I promise I will be back to business next week!

Richards Blog 05.04.09 – A week of bliss!

2009-04-27T00:21:00.000-07:00

Well, you will be pleased to hear I’am keeping it brief this week! This has to be the nicest spot that I have ever written my blog in I’am sitting next to the pool in Lanzarote, the sun is beating down and the wind that has cooled a little over the last couple of days has dropped and the temperature must be 25 or so – absolutely gorgeous! We are spending lazy days doing not much really and nights eating great food and drinking too much! We had a great night last night in Tropical bar, the nightlife is very quiet by our standards mainly because the vast majority of tourists here are families but last night being Saturday late on a whole load of local youngsters invaded the place and the dj cranked up a load of Spanish and latino house music which I much preferred to the mass market euro dance that seems to be everywhere here, in particularly Lady Gaga who is driving me gaga! The vibe from the great music and the lovely warm locals really made a great night and I’am afraid we were the only tourists left by 3.30 when we left. As you may gather I do really like Canarion people in general, I find a warmth an friendliness that is often so lacking from holidays – in some ways a bit like our other favourite spot – Thailand.

We left on Thursday and I must admit that today is the first time that I have not thought about business and started relaxing, I guess I may have switched off in time to switch on again for work on Friday and a tour on Saturday, we are actually making a last trip to England the week after then it really is back to the grind before starting our full tour programme on 25th April, then follows 26 weeks on relentless work, much a I enjoy my job I don’t even want to think about it so I shall sign off now and head to the bar for a livener – Cheers for now !!!

Richards Blog – 28.03.09 – Holidays at last !

2009-04-27T00:19:00.000-07:00

Those of you who regularly follow my blog will know that we had to cancel our annual holiday in Thailand this year due to Chris having to stay in England to look after her mum (who is due out of hospital on Monday). As our full tour programme starts on 25th April it was not looking much like we would get a break but I took the decision that we have to get some time off together and booked a week in Lanzarote leaving on Thursday – not Thailand but at least it should be warm! We will therefore not have our weekend tours next weekend and if you were thinking of booking - my apologies – we hope you understand!

It has been a crazy week at home trying to get the 1001 things that needed doing done including new brochures, getting our new coach finished and and …….! We have also been talking to some our accommodation providers and we have secured some great accommodation for this years package tours, there has never been a better time to book rooms inIreland, we have therefore managed to keep our prices at last years’ level – some feat in today’s business climate! We often think we are too cheap and we do get e.mails confirming what is included, I often feel people cannot believe our prices compared to other comparable tours. As you might realise we are so competitive because we operate our own vehicles and we never offer commission to third parties, look at our competitors and see how many travel sites and supposedly impartial review sites include their products, why do you think that is?

Anyhow despite the lack of holidays we are spoiling for a fight and now have the vehicles, itineraries and pricing to meet the big boys head on and believe me after 11 years we are still spoiling for a fight!

I don’t know if I mentioned this but I’am currently re reading a book called “Buses under fire” which tells stories of the people involved in operating the bus service in Ulster during the troubles and it makes fascinating if a little disturbing reading. One of the great characters was the Managing Director of Ulsterbus and later Belfast Citybus a gentleman called Werner Huebeck who as you may gather was German born, Mr Huebeck was an utterly formidable person and took many hard decisions during that difficult time and is probably best known in transport folklore for removing bombs and suspect packages from buses himself and largely refusing the assistance of the British Army, this sounds rather dramatic but reading between the lines I believe he was not a great maverick but a meticulously calculated risk taker and he knew precisely what he was doing! Also Werner had a unique way of doing business when dealing with both sides of the troubles he would never do deals or favours and because of this he has always said that he had the upper hand in any negotiations as he had what he terms the “moral superiority”.

I truly believe that our growth has been truly organic and built solely on the strength of our commitment and the quality of our product, we were never in this business or indeed this country before and so have never been able to call in favours and connections, indeed it could be said that we have a moral superiority that many of our competitors could never have – just a thought!

I’am even having a holiday from Blogging until I get back but be warned I may come back from my break with even more crazy thoughts in fact there is one burning in my head right now – if you think that I’am tour mad you could be right – watch this space!!! By the way, no Elbow quote this week – I think I have rambled on enough!

Richards Blog – 21.03.09 – Asleep in the back !

2009-04-21T14:59:00.000-07:00

I’am enjoying this Elbow lyrics idea, I have managed to use an album title as my blog subject this week, I had a tour the other day with a very nice group other than the fact that they spent most of the time we were traveling sleeping! I’am a poor traveller on a coach as I fall asleep very quickly (if I trust the driver!) and I’am never sure whether to take sleeping passengers as a compliment or an insult! I suppose it’s a compliment in that they are relaxed and comfortable with my driving but they are clearly not gripped by my commentary!

I got thinking about this on Thursday night when me and Chris went out for a meal and a few drinks in Limerick, the meal was at The Texas Steakout and was as good as ever by the way. We then retired to Smyths bar for refreshment where there was a local band playing called the Lollygaggers, when we arrived there was about 10 people in the bar who were largely indifferent to the band despite us applauding particularly when they did a great Bell x1 cover and I really felt for them trying to whip up a reluctant crowd – they had the same problem as me the other day!

When the bar filled up a bit the atmosphere changed and a lively night ensued and the you could tell the band relaxed and enjoyed themselves and I will guarantee everyone else in the audience felt the same. This is often how I find my job goes one day you seem to be talking to yourself then another you have a laugh and interact with the passengers and I feel my best comes through on those occasions but if I get no feedback no matter how hard I try not to I find myself simply “going through the motions” I’am sure you have guessed which days I prefer, on the days when we have a bit of fun time seems to fly!

Now I know a lot of people are shy and just because they aren’t cracking jokes doesn’t mean they aren’t enjoying themselves if fact I have been amazed on occasions when someone I have hardly interacted with all day leaves the tour at night and tells me they had a great day and gives me a generous tip - that’s a great feeling, they have taken what they wanted from the experience and enjoyed themselves in their own way.

So if you are taking a tour, try to have a chat with your driver if you like what he or she is doing and you might find you get even more from the tour but then again if you are the loner type sit back and enjoy but if you do enjoy your day make a point of telling your driver – you might be surprised how much a small bit of encouragement means to them.

We are going to pick the winner of our “Name a coach” competition next week I think we both like the same one but we are still open to suggestions so drop me a line if you have one. We also have some news next week about a new micro website which will be much more interactive and lively with a forum and maybe an alternative blog which might appeal to those of you who follow my blog. By the way if you do have any thoughts or comments about this blog or anything else why not e.mail me or are you “Asleep in the Back?”

Richards Blog – 18.03.09 – Throw those curtains wide !

2009-04-21T14:54:00.000-07:00

Well we are back to it, I write this at Caherconnoll on our Paddys week special Cliffs tour, we actually started last Saturday so breaking in gently! It is an absolutely beautiful day today and it truly is a pleasure to be back behind the wheel after a slightly disjointed winter!

The great news is that Chris is finally back home and her mum is well on the mend, we actually arrived back on the old faithful P&O ferry last week after some great fun over the last 2 weeks. First of all it was the sad anniversary of Chris’ brother micheal passing away but we chose to remember it in a way that I’am sure he would have been proud of on a pub crawl around the West end of London to some of his favourite haunts with his friends then a superb drunken Malaysian meal – a great night! Also a good day inLondon was had (for me anyway!) as our visit coincided with the London transport Museum annex open day at Acton. There was some great stuff to see for a bus and train bore like me and the highlight was a ride round the local area on RM1 – the first Routemaster bus built in 1958 – they don’t make them like that anymore!
The other big event was Chris being 40 (again !!) on 11th March, we celebrated on our way back to Ireland in Liverpool and had a great night in some great pubs and a superb meal in a great Indian restaurant called The Masterchef – so nice to get a real un pretentious Indian meal and you can bring your own wine – great for the recession that we all talking ourselves into at the moment! On the subject of Liverpool if you like a magnificent traditional pub go to The Philharmonic – it is truly stunning and a great pint as well!

Well, back to work, we are now operating our Cliffs most Saturdays and Cork and Blarney on Sundays until 25th April when our full programme starts, our new coach is nearly finished and I will be announcing our winning name soon but if you have a suggestion send it to me and I might just like it better – you never know!

Music – As I think I mentioned we went to see Elbow in Newcastle a couple of weeks ago and I can honestly say it was the most impressive and enjoyable gig I have ever been to, those guys have serious talent and I love the wordy lyrical songs that really make you think, if you like a truly deep and insightful song check out “Switching Off” from their first album, I’am so impressed with Elbow that I’am going to start giving you an appropriate Elbow quote to sum up my week so this week is predictable – “Throw those curtains wide, one day like this a year would see me right”

Us let loose in Soho!

Me and a proper bus!

Richards Blog – 28.02.09 – Still home alone!

2009-04-21T14:50:00.000-07:00

Well Chris is still in England but it has been a really busy week with vehicles coming in and out of the garage for various repairs and jobs. A long term job has been on our new coach which is really looking lovely now, as it has had a full re-trim the interior is literally as new but that showed up some lovely wood work which was looking a bit faded and tired so it has been taken out, sanded and varnished and stained – not a big job on the face of it but very time consuming and extremely boring! In fact the kitchen has become a bit of a production line with timber lying everywhere – good job I’am on my own! As well as that I have been steadily working my way through servicing, a few repairs and a couple of oil leaks – so a busy week.

I should also re count the exciting journey bringing the new coach home back last month. We collected the vehicle from our normal coachbuilders – Gardiners at Spennymoor in County Durham and started on the journey across to Liverpool where we were booked on the night P& O sailing to Dublin, we left about 2.00 to give plenty of time as the weather was not great – freezing cold with snow flurries. We headed across the famous A66 over Bowes Moor and Staindrop the weather was glorious with sun and a blanket of snow, the road was fine though Chris had a turn at driving over that stretch and I took over for the next section towards Tebay then onto the M6 motorway as I was heading towards Kirby Stephen I realised all was not well, the engine wasn’t pulling well and we had an awful lot of black smoke, I immediately recognised the problem from my Renault Truck sales days – the exhaust brake had stuck on. We stopped and I managed to get underneath (in deep snow – lovely!) and I was right, we needed some wire to tie the exhaust brake, we found a friendly car garage who helped us out – all for £7.00 – not bad. We then headed to Liverpool a little behind time but with time in hand. I then reversed into the lower vehicle deck on the P & O Ferry Norbank – this was fairly awkward and done entirely on mirrors with inches to spare – Chris didn’t volunteer to drive at that point!

We then retired to the bar for a couple of well earned drinks and a very good dinner before turning for the night in a very nice cabin. Sweet dreams were shattered when we were woken at 4.30 just off Dublin, we arrived in Dublin Port at 5.30 and headed down to start the coach, I turned the key and nothing! Flat batteries now, I must now point out that the batteries were entirely my fault, I had the heated mirrors on when reversing and forgot to turn them off! Anyway P & O were really helpful and provided jump leads and we got a jump start from one of their vehicles, we then headed home and arrived about 9.30 – what a journey!
Just one aside to that I remember bring my last coach Perry over on the same ferry in 2001 and that wouldn’t start so maybe it’s a good omen!

I will post some pics of the journey next week as Chris has them in UK, I’am hopefully heading over by ferry and car next week and even better hopefully bringing Chris back – news next week!

Now for a bit of Music – I have recently re discovered the band Elbow, I heard some of their early stuff and liked it although somehow I never caught up with them until on my last trip to England when I bought their latest album “The Seldom Seen Kid” and I have to say I’am bowled over by it, so much so that I’am going to see them in Newcastle on Thursday night, I will let you know what I think!

Richards Blog – 22.02.09 – Its been a while!

2009-03-20T15:53:00.000-07:00

Fitting a new water pump!

First of all appologies for not updating my blog for nearly 2 months but life has been more than a bit strange of late! Chris is still in England looking after her mother who is thankfully now well on the mend. Meanwhile I have been working flat out getting everything ready for the season including (amongst 1000 other things):
Fitting a new water pump to Curt (aka Celtic Princess) Curt has had a great season but has been tactfully telling us all is not well with his fan belt and tensioner system by giving the occasional squeal, so I decided it was time to investigate this included removing the radiator and must of the front of the bus! Once there the radiator was suspect and water pump so as usual everything was replaced with Mercedes parts and I’am delighted to report he now sounds sweeter than ever and ready for 2009!

Robbie (aka Celtic Pride!) has also had a whole load of attention both by me and our long suffering mechanic Tom to overcome some problems that developed last year. After all that work it was looking a bit tatty with a few scratches and stone chips so in the Barratt spirit of never ding jobs by half the whole front end was repainted and even though I say it myself it now looks great!

Our new coach Celtic ??? (remember our competition?) is coming along well and I should have some pics soon,at the moment I’am fitting a new PA and DVD system, again we never scrimp on PA equipment as it is vital that it is reliable for your enjoyment and we now have the same system in each coach as we consider it to be the best.

So plenty to keep me busy here but just one quick story, I have been back to England to see Chris a couple of times but the last one was priceless! I had spoken to her on the phone and she seemed really down as her mum was still in hospital and she was on her own so I planned a surprise visit, I asked a friend of mine to invite Chris out for Dinner to cheer her up one Sunday night so they arranged to meet in a pub in Sunderland. Meanwhile I had booked a flight from Shannon to Newcastle and was going to turn up instead of him. I really had to cover my tracks so said I was having a day out on my motorbike, I texted Chris through the day telling her where I was (all lies!!) and when I got to Sunderland gave her a quick call to check she was in the pub pretending I had stopped in Limerick for dinner on my way home! It all took planning but her face when I walked in to that pub was a picture, I will remember that moment for ever – I think it was the boost that we both needed.

A bit of music for you now – if one song reminds me of that happy meeting it is by Irish band Bellx1 called The Great Defector – check it out – it just fitted in with that occasion so well!

Richards Blog – 03.01.09 – Happy New Year!

2009-03-02T00:09:00.000-08:00

Well we had a lovely relaxing Christmas with the families but decided to head off and do our own thing for the New Year Celebrations, we decided to have 3 nights in Birmingham – one of our favourite cities, calling Birmingham a favourite might sound odd but it is really lively and a great place to eat for us with our love of Indian food.

Talking of food we went to our favourite restaurant on our first night, Dawat in Sparkbrook which is a typical Balti house with a modern twist and to make it even better you can bring your own drink! I can particularly recommend the Chilli Chicken – not for the faint hearted!
On New Years Eve (and my Birthday – 21 again!) we celebrated in style at The Jam House – a superb music venue part owned by Jools Holland no less. It was a great night and the music excellent, in particular the headline act The Subterraneans put on a great show with some excellent covers including a great favourite of mine “She sells Sactuary” by the Cult. The band have been playing alongside Hazel O’Connor (remember her?) and there is a great video on their website http://www.thesubs.co.uk/ That vid inspired me to check out some of Hazel’s tracks including “Give me an Inch” - good stuff!

After all that fun we had a great chilled day most of which was spent in bed recovering at our hotel, then watching Dr Who in the afternoon – not my usual thing but I enjoyed it nonetheless – simple things! On 2nd Jan we headed back to Sunderland to plan the delivery of our new coach next week – watch this space!

Richards Blog – 29.12.08 - Merry Christmas!

2009-02-22T04:54:00.000-08:00

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

2009-01-13T15:28:00.000-08:00

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!

2009-01-13T15:25:00.000-08:00

Richards Blog – 22.11.08 - Absent friends !!

2009-01-13T15:20:00.000-08:00

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!

2009-01-13T15:14:00.000-08:00

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

Richards Blog – 11.10.08 – Once a dealer, always a dealer !

2008-12-02T15:32:00.000-08:00

As you may have gathered from our news section things have gone very quiet on the tour front although weekends are still holding up weekdays are very up and down, last week we had nobody at all on Tuesday and ended up turning people away on Wednesday so we are going to offer weekday tours next week and see how it goes.

As you can imagine this is not good for our income and so I have looked to diversify a little, long term readers might remember that I used to be in Truck sales before I came into this line of work and I have remained close to the trade and even been known to have a dabble into the odd vehicle for resale, all of which I have managed somehow to make a modest profit on. I got the chance of buying a couple of minibuses last week and so flew over to UK and bought them, they will need a little work to bring them to our standard but I will be posting some pictures on the site soon, one coach is already under offer to a friend but the other will be for sale so watch this space!

I really do miss my days in sales sometimes and I can honestly say I have been privileged to know some of the finest and most genuine people as friends, colleagues and customers during my time in the truck business and I have fond memories of most of time in the trade. The only unhappy memories are from a time when we became increasingly ran by accountants and people from outside the tight knit community of professionals in the business that were looking for quick fixes and had no comprehension of how business was conducted between professional people in many cases as a result of relationships of many years, believe me, trust is not something easy won in the truck trade!

If my little side line is successful I may develop it over the winter as it is something that can run alongside our frantic seasonal business as I guess I still am a trader at heart!

Richards Blog – 16.09.08 – Problems problems!

2008-11-12T13:15:00.001-08:00

It has been another stressful few days with our vehicle problems persisting, we finally had Celtic Prides’ electronic problems sorted and were happy to present it for its annual test with no warning lights on and great brakes (mostly replaced) on Wednesday true to form for this season it failed with a fault on a component that we cannot test manually and can only be tested on “shaker plates” at a test station. There has been no sign or wear in the component visually or driving the vehicle but to save a long technical description we are without a bus again as parts will have to be shipped from UK and the job will take a few days so any potential buyers of Celtic Explorer will have to wait for a few weeks as I don’t see us having Pride back this season!
These new test standards are being imposed by the Road Safety Authority and it would be fair to say that we now have the most demanding test inEurope after having probably the most relaxed 5 years ago! The thing is we still have the same or worse road surfaces and components that would have 3 year life in UK or much of Europelast less than 12 months here! I fully endorse the RSA and their aims but feel that the standards they expect are ONLY ACHIEVABLE WITH A DECENT ROAD SURFACE! This situation on top of fuel costs is really making us question how long it is economical to operate in Ireland for a small business like ours.
As if this were not bad enough the RSA seem to operate by instilling a sense of fear into every test station by holding them entirely to book if there is an accident caused by a vehicle failure so I fully understand where the testers are coming from and don’t blame them for being overly zealous in highlighting faults on vehicles but surely there has to be some compromise somewhere!

As usual I’am writing this at Caherconnell and have just done our first day of a diversion due to roadworks in Corofin and I got to thinking of the life of suspension components as I traveled over a section of road that was so bad that I could barely hold the steering at 15 mph – is zero tolerance of wear acceptable in operating conditions like this? If any of you in the trade think not – don’t just sit there - complain to someone as you can be sure this situation can only get worse!
Books – I have gone away from Welsh for the moment and may save the latest for holidays, I bought a great read the other “In Full Flight” by Alan Ruddock which tells the story of Michael O’Leary of Ryanair fame – it really is a riveting read – highly recommended if, like me you are interested in the Ryanair phenomenon.

Music – Went to a gig on Thursday at Smyths in Limerickby J90 – a Cork based 5 piece and whilst it was not my usual fare I have to admit to thoroughly enjoying it. They produce what I could only describe as a massive sound which incorporates many influences from Rap, Hip hop, dub and you name it! They seem to have a good following and I can well see why – they are a huge talent and I think we will hear more of them, they have a website www.j-90.ie so check it out, I’am going to download a couple of tracks and will let you know next week!

Richards Blog – 16.09.08 – We have had visitors !

2008-11-12T13:13:00.000-08:00

My blog is a little late this week as we have had guests and so I have not had much time to spare. My mother and father have been over from UK for a few days and it has been great to have a bit of company as well as a little help with the day to day running of the company. My father in particular is a great bus washer and he has had plenty of practice as true to form this year the weather was not too great during their stay but they did see the Cliffs in decent weather on Saturday.

It was really tough saying goodbye this morning but not so bad as we will see them soon one our tours start to slow down and we have our first break planned to Birmingham in November to visit a trade show and relax a little. We have added some tours for October but we will be cutting back a little with the last Galwayand Waterford tours running next week, we will still have a fairly full programme though for October.

We will hopefully be back to 3 coaches next week as Celtic Pride is nearly finished and should be back on the road soon after prolonged electronic problems. This means that Celtic Explorer is for sale , we have already had a few enquiries and I’am sure we will find a new owner soon. It really will seem strange as that coach has been my “office” for 6 seasons now and parting will be tough as it is still such a good reliable workhorse.

No books or music this week – too busy entertaining but might go out to a gig on Thursday – Watch this space!

Richards Blog – 06.09.08 – The Secret revealed !

2008-11-12T13:12:00.000-08:00

I wonder if any of you have guessed the reason for our secret visits to UKlately, anyone that knows us probably will – we have bought another coach! Our latest purchase is a 35 seater with a very nice specification that includes full air conditioning meaning we will now have air con on our 3 front line vehicles. The vehicle is currently lying at our favourite coach repairers being given the “Barratt touch” which will include a repaint, panelwork and a full re trim which really will make it as good as new. These really are exciting times and we look forward to taking delivery probably in November.

One part of this story which is causing me sleepless nights is that we are selling Celtic Explorer aka “Perry” which has been a fantastic servant for 6 seasons now and has really become “my bus” I know it seems mad but I have become so attached to it and it really will break my heart to part with such a reliable vehicle. Lately Perry has been clocking up a lot of miles as “Celtic Pride” is still awaiting parts from the UK. So if you want a superb 2 owner low mileage vehicle and think you can offer a good kind home – get in touch. We have been given some thought about a name for our new coach and have decided to have an online competition – so watch this space!

Music – got out to a gig on Thursday at Smyths and enjoyed a great change of scene with a Limerick band called “Free beer (www.freebeer.ie) and had the sort of mad night that thankfully still happens every so often inIreland! They played a mix of trad and modern Irish Music which really entertained us especially some great “Saw Doctors” covers which made us both reminiscent of when we used to go to Saw Doctors gigs in England – oh happy days!

Book – “This is not a drill” by Paul Carter is nearly finished and I’am just starting my latest Irvine Welsh – “Porno” the follow up to trainspotting – not a read for the faint hearted but the start is filthy and captivating – great stuff!!

Richards Blog – 28.08.08 – Its time to steal away !

2008-09-22T14:30:00.000-07:00

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!

Richards Blog – 21.08.08 – Its my turn to get sick !

2008-09-07T23:58:00.000-07:00

After writing a while ago about not being able to get sick when Chris was under the weather this week it was my turn! I have had a bit of a Kidney infection which attacked with a vengeance yesterday and I can honestly say I had a hell of a day but made it through and with an early night and a good hot curry I seem to have largely sweated it out and feel much better today. Fortunately my group were very understanding and I guess I really didn’t look well as Chris had some of my passengers today and they were asking about me!

As you know I really enjoy my job but I must say vehicle breakdowns and illness are the two things that make me wish I worked for someone else! We really are very lucky on both counts as we have never canceled a tour for either reason and I can only think of 3 breakdowns in 10 years not bad going really and in every case we were delayed by no more than 30 min but they largely happened at an opportune place and time!

Music – Still searching for an intro into the world of ambient jazz and the more I look the more confused I get – would love to hear your suggestions! Might get to another local gig tonight as I think it might be time to test my Kidneys recovery powers with a few pints (day off tomorrow!)

Book – Really enjoyed the oil rig book and have just started “This is not a drill” by Paul Carter. If it is as good as the last one it will be a great read.

Richards Blog – 11.08.08 – Baton Twirling and Gigging!

2008-09-01T00:19:00.001-07:00

There has been a big event taking place in Limerick over the last couple of weeks – The International Baton Twirling Championships – I kid you not! I had no idea that twirling was so popular but I’am delighted that it is as we have enjoyed a bit of extra business as a result, I even sacrificed my Friday off to take a group to the Cliffs and hopefully fun was had by all!

It has been a better if a little exhausting couple of weeks and business has finally been about the level that we expect at this time of year but we do still suddenly get unexpected quiet times. We have been under a little pressure last week as we lost Celtic Pride for a couple of days but Celtic Princess AKA Curt stepped into the breach and performed brilliantly as ever – if only Mercedes could still build coaches as good as that – I may even buy a new one!

Talking of vehicles there may be a change afoot and we may be having another upgrade – so watch this space for details! We always hate parting with our vehicles and I well remember somebody in tears when we delivered Celtic Warrior (Wally) to his new owner! I must admit we do get far too attached to the vehicles but we really do like them and they tend to develop a personality – stupid I know but it is particularly hard when we have to part with a vehicle that has served us well as you never know if its replacement will be as good! That was certainly the case with last years purchase Celtic Pride – it has cost us an awful lot of money to put right but we feel that our investment will be rewarded by a trouble free season next year – here’s hoping!

Music – Went to a great gig on Thursday night at Smyths bar – a local band called The Wilful, I have mentioned them before but again they impressed with a totally mad set that included everything from Christy Moore to Gangster rap via Abba and the theme to Fraggle Rock (don’t worry you need to be a certain age!). A brilliant nights entertainment anyway !

Book – Just started a great read “Don’t tell my mother I work on the rigs” by Paul Carter – a great insight into the mad world of the oil industry and is great reading.

Richards Blog – 14.08.08 – Singing in the rain – The joys of fluid dynamics!

2008-09-01T00:15:00.000-07:00

As I write this I have to confess to being totally burned out! I,am in Doolin enjoying lunch but it has been a stressful week, we have had a water leak which defies logic on Celtic Explorer and every night this week has been spent on the roof trying to concoct another remedy. The leak started in a mild way last Sunday but developed into a gusher yesterday on our Galway tour, fortunately none of passengers got wet as we were able to move them to dry seats again, apologies to all concerned we hope it didn’t detract from a lively tour! I think I found the cure last night but guess what? It is totally dry at the moment so I cannot prove it! I have never found a way to replicate Irish rain of the type we have had this week but fingers crossed. Most operators would not tell you things like this but believe me every coach leaks and I know of one very flash model from a major manufacturer that is famous for it! As it happens this coach is also Spanish or Portuguese like ours so maybe the rain in Spain never falls on the coach! I have to say that as usual Chris has been a tower of strength and a source of some good ideas (and some not so good!x) on these late nights in the garage so thanks to her!

Music – Went to another great gig on Thursday night at Smyths bar – a local band called Revenge, they played some really clever mixes and one in particular that stood out was Seven nation army by The White Stripes which had clever use of the rhythm to incorporate a bit of Sweet dreams by The Eurythmics amongst others! The lead singer could really work (and wind up!) the crowd – a great night!

Book – Enjoying don’t tell my mother ….. and just bought another Welsh – guess which one? – tell you next week!

Richards Blog – 04.08.08 – Good morning – let the madness begin !

2008-08-23T00:28:00.000-07:00

I must confess that today is my most hated day to work in the year – August Bank Holiday Monday! I write this during my break at Caherconnoll and things have already started in a small way I have met a coach in a rather awkward spot but managed to get through unscathed and I got stuck at a hotel picking up some passengers by some rather stupid car parking but I managed to maneuver out. I’am now eagerly looking forward to the trip around Black Head and running the gamut of cyclists, hikers, motor homes and hire cars that makes this job so interesting! In the best spirit of blogging I shall write another update at our lunch break to tell you how the busiest day of the year is shaping up.

Well so far so good at Doolin having my diet lunch and the nerves are still intact! Anyone that has been on our tour might remember the section from Ballynalacken Castle to Doolin is very narrow with poor visability so today I was debating whether to go that way and finally took a 5 min diversion via a wider road. I was so pleased I did as I saw a scene below of one of my colleagues from a large tour company firmly stuck against some cars at a very narrow point so a good result missing that! The trip around Back head was very busy with the usual inconsiderate and reckless car driving to contend with but no real delays so off to The Cliffs next !

Now at The Cliffs and other than a slight delay at the car park entrance we are nearly on time so giving people our normal hour and a half break, met a Bus Eireann driver in Doolin who told me it had taken hime over 30 min to get through Lahinch so returning via a different route to miss the traffic – hopefully!

Well I have arrived home about 7.35 with no damage and a few tips so hopefully our clients have appreciated my efforts to show them as much as possible without getting stuck in traffic for hours, I’am delighted the bank holiday is over and after coach cleaning settle in the chair with a large malt and look forward to doing it all again tomorrow!

Music – I was looking for a bit of walking music the other day for my daily walk up the Cliffs and I have decided Blue Monday by New order is near to the ultimate! – even Chris is into it now !

Book – Filth by Irvine Welsh is going great and my final verdict is coming soon!

Richards Blog – 11.08.08 – Baton Twirling and Gigging!

2008-08-23T00:27:00.000-07:00

There has been a big event taking place in Limerick over the last couple of weeks – The International Baton Twirling Championships – I kid you not! I had no idea that twirling was so popular but I’am delighted that it is as we have enjoyed a bit of extra business as a result, I even sacrificed my Friday off to take a group to the Cliffs and hopefully fun was had by all!
It has been a better if a little exhausting couple of weeks and business has finally been about the level that we expect at this time of year but we do still suddenly get unexpected quiet times. We have been under a little pressure last week as we lost Celtic Pride for a couple of days but Celtic Princess AKA Curt stepped into the breach and performed brilliantly as ever – if only Mercedes could still build coaches as good as that – I may even buy a new one!

Talking of vehicles there may be a change afoot and we may be having another upgrade – so watch this space for details! We always hate parting with our vehicles and I well remember somebody in tears when we delivered Celtic Warrior (Wally) to his new owner! I must admit we do get far too attached to the vehicles but we really do like them and they tend to develop a personality – stupid I know but it is particularly hard when we have to part with a vehicle that has served us well as you never know if its replacement will be as good! That was certainly the case with last years purchase Celtic Pride – it has cost us an awful lot of money to put right but we feel that our investment will be rewarded by a trouble free season next year – here’s hoping!

Music – Went to a great gig on Thursday night at Smyths bar – a local band called The Wilful, I have mentioned them before but again they impressed with a totally mad set that included everything from Christy Moore to Gangster rap via Abba and the theme to Fraggle Rock (don’t worry you need to be a certain age!). A brilliant nights entertainment anyway !

Book – Just started a great read “Don’t tell my mother I work on the rigs” by Paul Carter – a great insight into the mad world of the oil industry and is great reading.

Richards Blog – 31.07.08 – It had to happen !!

2008-08-19T00:39:00.000-07:00

As you can imagine we drive a large number of miles every year and are constantly at the mercy of our Garda Traffic Corps and no matter how careful we are there will always be a day when you will get caught for some traffic offence. I have been extremely lucky as I have been driving professionally for over 20 years and never had a ticket (other than for parking!!) and my license was totally clean.

I was heading back from Dublin in our car last night after a long day over in England on business and at about 11.00 traveling through Littleton Co. Tipperary – a typical sleepy country village and one of the countless ones we still have to pass through thanks to our still woeful infrastructure and whilst I had slowed for the village I didn’t slow enough and got caught by a radar gun. The officer was standing about 200 yards from the de restriction sign which lies at the bottom of a hill at the end of a fast stretch of road and, needless to say I was one of many who got caught so I will soon be Eu80.00 poorer and have 2 penalty points. I do not dispute the facts of the case but for years it has been accepted that traffic does not strictly observe the 50 km speed limit in these places late at night and indeed the Garda NEVER enforced this. I have traveled over that road countless times at all hours and never seen a speed check in a village at night. It would be fair to say that the officer would have caught 90% of vehicles last night – sitting ducks? - I think so!

The Garda are currently suffering from a major image problem in Ireland and antics like this will not help, I think once the respect of the public is lost their already difficult jobs will become impossible. If this all sounds like a rant to be honest it is, if I had got done for doing 130 kph in a 100 limit I would have no argument but I wonder what mine and other tickets issued last night really will achieve in cutting road deaths, I see dangerous inconsiderate and often downright reckless driving every day and people are getting away with it en mass! I’am not sure of the wisdom of writing this but my goodness I do feel better!!!

Music – Still a bit chilled but really enjoying listening to some old school chilled Ibiza stuff like To the River by Groove Armada and la Passonara by the Blow Monkeys. I’am thinking of checking out a bit of ambient jazz too, we were in Lanzarote about 4 years ago and there was a great dj playing that kind of stuff – any suggestions of where to start?

Book – Filth by Irvine Welsh is drawing to a close and I honestly am reading it in small bursts as I don’t want to finish it, it really is that good, If you like this kind of stuff and as I said earlier you are not easily offended you really have to check it out – a masterpiece to my mind!

Richards Blog – 24.07.08 – Fully booked !!

2008-08-15T15:10:00.000-07:00

We had a first on Sunday, we think it was the first time in ten years that we had every seat taken – Chris with 24 for the Cliffs and me 37 to Blarney. I originally had 33 bookings but we got 4 people extra at Limerick Tourist Office and we still had a few to pick up at the Bus Station and must admit to breathing a huge sigh of relief when everyone had a seat – no matter how much we check and double check you can still forget a booking somewhere! Everything went to plan with my tour although Chris was slightly delayed at The Cliffs waiting for some of her guests, however in general our stress levels were OK and we made it through the day fairly easily.
Its fair to say at the moment that our stress levels go up with tiredness, as I hope you realise we do love our jobs but at this time we do tend to get a little burned out although we hope our customers never notice. Our biggest problem is a lack of any “me time”, I have a couple of hobbies that I would love to pursue but by the time the bus cleaning is finished at 9.00 every evening all I can think of is sleep! We have always said if we could take even 3 days off mid season it would just re charge the batteries and get us through but unfortunately that is a dream!

So at the moment we are kept going by dreams of Thailand – our favourite holiday destination and we are just about booked up to go for Christmas this year which should be great fun! I cannot wait to eat my xmas dinner in the sun.
I suppose at this point I should mention my hobbies well first of all is my car a 1966 MGBGT which I have owned for 15 years and is well overdue some restoration, my other hobby is model railways- I’am currently building an n gauge model of a subject I grew up with – coal mining and the model will be loosely based on Westoe Colliery in South Shields in England set in the late 70s – I may post a pic or 2 of progress soon!

Music – I seem to be drifting towards chill out music as tiredness gets hold and my current favourite is a little known track called “Easter Song” by A man called Adam – it takes me right back to Koh Larn in Thailand! – check it out and join me!

Book – Filth by Irvine Welsh is going great and is now featuring some dialogue from a tape worm – great lunch time reading !!!

Richards Blog – 19.07.08 – Up the Banner ! (Me Ar*# !)

2008-08-02T14:27:00.000-07:00

Sunday was what could only be said to be a fraught day at Barratt Tours! As usual we were both out on tour me to The Cliffs and Chris to Blarney. Also on Sunday was theMunster hurling final between Clare and Tipperary in Limerick which Tipperary won by the way.

The match turned out about 5.45 so I held back as long as I could and hit Limerick about 6.30, to cut a long story short the next hour was spent in gridlocked traffic and I arrived in Limerick station at 7.40, I never even attempted any further stops as I really just wanted to get out of town by that stage! Chris fared even worse as she was delayed at Buttavent Horse fair for 45 min before she even hitLimerick! She then had to drop passengers off at The Raddisson Hotel right in the thick of the traffic! She finally arrived about 7.30 at which point her nerves were jangled enough for her to give in and sit back and enjoy a coffee before even thinking of heading back!

She left the Raddisson at 8.00 and arrived back in our yard believe it or not at 9.30 – Limerick was still at a standstill 3 hours after the match finished! We both agreed if the next Munster final was in 100 years it would be too soon!

Whilst I would never want to spoil everyone’s enjoyment of the match I do feel that something urgently needs to be done re a traffic plan or park and ride or something as I do not think it is acceptable that Irelands third city should be gridlocked for over 3 hours even on a Sunday making it impossible for the precious few tourists we have to get around let alone people trying to run a business like us!

Music – Retro again this week, still on Tom Robinson and downloaded some tracks from ‘Power in the Darkness” surely a masterwork with “Up against the wall” being my favourite. I had to pay for these as I guess EMI still hold the rights to them but still well worth checking out.

Book – The Masterchefs –Finished now and the ending did not in any way disappoint! Just started “Filth” and it is even more disgusting and slightly depraved – a great read for me in other words, I’am afraid I find myself drawn to stuff like this – I really like gritty reality in a book, as you may have surmised I’am not a big Mills and Boon reader!

Richards Blog – 13.07.08 – If I cannot call in sick, I will call in dead!

2008-07-20T14:55:00.000-07:00

This weeks blog has been prompted by Chris who is suffering from cold at the moment, I don’t seem to have caught it yet, however if I do it will certainly be worse and develop into “man flu!” She had to work yesterday as we needed a second coach for overloads – business is still ok at weekends! She bravely battled through and nearly lost her voice but she is a bit better this morning – just as well as she is going to Cork (I let her have an easier day).

Fortunately over the last few years we have both had good health with all of our ailments coming in the winter when we can usually suffer in peace but it can really be an effort trying to put a brave face on the day when you feel terrible, however I have noticed that Chris seems to get the sympathy vote from people whereas I just have to get on with it! This really isn’t fair because as everyone knows we suffer far more than women!

If we really could not work we do have friends who could probably help us out but thankfully we haven’t had to try yet! So all in all being sick is not really option however death might be an excuse in exceptional circumstances!

I’am hoping to have our new package tours online this week and we have some cracking tours planned with Murder Mystery in Antrim, The Magic of Wales, Dublin Christmas shopping and Birmingham bike show to tempt you, pleas have a look and we would love to see you on one!

Music – Coldplay – Viva la Diva – Totally predictable I know but as much as something tells me I shouldn’t like them I cannot get away from the shear brilliance and remarkable Musicality of Coldplay – is it me or does “Violet Hill” sound like Gilmour Pink Floyd? I must say Viva la Vida is another work of brilliance. The new Fratellis is a definite grower and the pick for me now is “A heady tale” – another real tub – thumper!

Book – The Masterchefs – drawing to a close now and I sill don’t know how it will end – absolutely superb! It has given me a real thirst for more Welsh and just bought “Filth” – a tale of sleaze and corruption in the police – just my kind of read!

Richard's Blog – 05.07.08 – Where is your guestbook?

2008-07-14T12:52:00.000-07:00

You might have noticed our guestbook on the site (www.4tours.biz), we really are delighted with the kind comments that have been put on there and whilst we edit the guestbook to take out the huge amount of spam that we get in particular a kind gent called Fabiola who send us about 5 posts a day to delete! I can honestly say that in the 2 years that we have had the site we have never deleted any valid post – we honestly never only pick the best ones and you can test if they are genuine by e.mailing the people who post.

You might notice none of our competitors has the confidence in their product to have such a facility – instead they rely on testimonials which really anyone can write! We hope that people do read our guestbook and hopefully it generates some business for us.
Talking of our competition, one of our competitors had their 10th Anniversary and since they use the same lunch stop as us we kind of gate crashed the party. I would just like to offer our congratulations to them but did get to thinking about the contrast between our 10th Anniversary tour (pics here) and theirs in that they had invited the great and good of Dublin and tourism agencies etc on a specially chartered coach whilst on our anniversary day all we did was offer our customers a great tour at the best price – what we try to do everyday! I’am not saying either approach is right or wrong just a reflection of different philosophies! Maybe we miss some publicity opportunities but to use on of these new buzz phrases I suppose our success is “organic” and I think we are quite happy with it that way as we don’t owe it to anyone other than you – our friends and customers (often they are both!)

Talking of publicity we had a meeting with a true gentleman yesterday (on our day off!) who will be helping us raise our profile locally particularly with the launch of our Autumn 2008 Nicetours programme so look out for us on our new reality tv show (I wish!)

I’am hoping for a day off on Monday and after I have delivered some day tour brochures (hopefully by motorbike if the weather is decent) I intend to put our new tours for October, November and December on the website so you can book us out as quickly as possible and we can then arrange some more (dreaming again!)

Music – The Fratellis – Here it Stands – growing on me but too early to pass judgment, very different though I also got that track by Whitewater and it is steadily growing on me whilst I also heard a long forgotten favourite on the radio the other day and had to download it – Tom Robinson and War Baby – what a fantastic set of lyrics and free from Toms’ website but do leave a donation as I think he is a true gent and talent!

Book – The Masterchefs – nearly finished now and I can really highly recommend it (if you are not easily offended!) Just bought my next read – tell you next week!

Richard's Blog – 28.06.08 – Do you really think I look slim?

2008-07-08T14:50:00.000-07:00

I hinted last week that I’am on a diet so I might as well make it official, back in February after our hols I looked in the mirror and decided I was turning into a real coach tour driver (developing a large belly!) and also with the trauma of turning 21 again I decided it was time to do something, Chris also wanted to join me (although her problem isn’t quite as severe as mine!) So we now becoming leaner as well as greener !

This job really is the worst for dieting as we are either driving or eating all the time! We also get no exercise so it really is not good, so here is a breakdown of how a typical Cliffs tour used to go followed by the improved version!

Breakfast – Tea and Cereal (ok really)

Mid morning at Caherconnoll – Tea and a beautiful scone with 2 butters and jam

Lunch in Doolin – Irish Stew or Fish and Chips.

Afternoon at Cliffs – Tea and snack followed by a snooze on the back seat!

Dinner – whatever is going but often a takeaway or a ready meal with a beer or glass of wine (large)
So here is the improved version :

Breakfast – Tea and oatabix with some fresh fruit

Mid morning at Caherconnoll – Tea and a neutrigrain bar (not too bad really!)

Lunch in Doolin – Open ham or chicken brown bread sandwich (or if I’am weak kids portion of Bacon and Cabbage!)

Afternoon at Cliffs – Piece of fruit with water follwed by a good half hours walk around the Cliffs (weather permitting!)

Dinner – We are trying to eat less processed food and so it might be a curry or stir fry type of thing with a very small glass of wine (we get 6 glasses out of a bottle!).
The change really has made a difference and I’am delighted to have lost a sone and a half already and I honestly do feel drastically better, I really enjoy the walking and it gives me a great chance to listen to more music on my ipod.

Talking on ipods I’am the proud owner of a first generation nano which I absolutely love, I have looked at the new ones with video etc and I can honestly say I have no desire to change I love the great design and simplicity of the old one and hell, even I can work it!

Music – The Fratellis – Here it Stands – My downloading activity has been curtailed by our pc choosing to have a heart attack this week but I’am still absolutely mad on that Muse album, I cannot get Invincible out of my head – didn’t get to a gig Thursday night but could well do this week.

Book – No change but really enjoying The Masterchefs – highly recommended (if you are not easily offended!)

Richard’s Blog – 21.06.08 - Can you combine business and pleasure ? (I hope so!)

2008-07-02T00:15:00.000-07:00

Things are frantic at the world headquarters of Barratt Tours at the moment, as well as dealing with the day to day chores of running our tours and vehicles, Chris is particularly busy putting together some exciting Nicetour packages which include the murder mystery break that I already hinted at, a house party in Tramore and The Dublin Christmas Market. I have not been idle in this respect (contrary to popular belief!) and I got to thinking about whether I could combine my newly revisited passion for motorcycling and coach tours.

Of course I can! We are going to try to offer a tour to Birmingham in England in November – but why? So we can all visit the Motorcycle and Scooter show at the National Exhibition Centre. It is very early days but I posted a thread on biker.ie and believe it or not we are getting a few enquiries already. There will be plenty of driving in that weekend but it would be a great change to have a load of biker buddies to look after instead of tourists – should be interesting!
So what other hobby can I combine with business? Another thought is my love of all things vintage (hi, Chris!) no really, I intend to get our finest coach – Bertie aka Celtic Spirit finished this winter and might just offer a weeks tour in classic comfort for enthusiasts and incurable romantics like me!

As ever I would love to hear your thoughts on this and it helps to reassure me that someone actually reads this! Please get in touch if only to say “hi” or better still, “have you lost weight” (we are both on diet at the moment!). A good friend of mine who was once in the coach trading business used to always say to people “have you lost weight?” before offering the deal of a lifetime on a one owner, low mileage bargain, and do you know, it worked!

Music – The Fratellis – Here it Stands – Only just downloaded the new album and will reserve judgment for the moment but I don’t think it is going to beat their debut album – Costelloe Music, but who could expect that? as I don’t ever recall hearing a better first album other than possibly The Arctic Monkeys. Whilst on music we enjoyed a terrific gig by Whitewater at Smyths bar in Limeick on Thursday night they have a single out for download so I may check it out by next week.

Book – No change but really enjoying The Masterchefs – highly recommended (if you are not easily offended!)

Richards Blog – 08.06.08 – Is there light at the end of the tunnel? (or is it the express train coming?

2008-06-21T15:05:00.000-07:00

Events this week have taken over my blog again and you will be delighted to hear that I’am not talking about The Lisbon Treaty! What I’am talking about is the incredible rise in Fuel costs over the last week indeed is has got so serious that the Irish Road Haulage Association had a crises meeting last night and their President has warned that many hauliers will go out of business within a month if some relief is not given and having been involved closely with haulage in a past life and don’t doubt him for a minute.

So, if are reading this in Ireland you might be wondering what of the bus and coach operators? Do they not use diesel? Or are their profit margins so huge that they can absorb such outrageous increases? These would all be reasonable questions as the outcry from our industry has been, well, non existent!

Well the answer is we all use diesel and as far as I can see margins are tiny if indeed many are making a profit so why are we so quiet?

The only answer I can give to this is that we do not have a representative trade body, we have the Coach Tourism Council that speak very eloquently for their members on many matters but, unfortunately do not speak for companies like us who do not match criteria to become a member (age of vehicles, number of staff etc). There are some other bodies such as FOTA and PAMBO but to be honest they seem to have many other agendas (which they do follow very well).
So whats the answer if we want our voice to be heard? The only answer I can think of is to try to form a trade association that leaves behind issues of hierarchy and mistrust of members motives and gets stuck into the big and burning issues that threaten the very existence of our industry and fight some of the other obstacles to profitable operation that exist for everyone in our industry – what do you think?

Both the hauliers and fisherman have made the news this week and compliments to both for putting their point across, we really do need to act.

You might be wondering how this all affects us personally, well I have to say that fortunately because of prudent fleet replacement and refurbishment we are able to weather the storm better than if we had huge finance payments to meet every month but nonetheless our margins are squeezed particularly when combined with the global downturn in business.

So how can you help this poor coach operator? Here is a good way, book one of our tours instead of going with one of the multi national large groups and let our lean green touring machine sock it to them and prove you don’t need 20 new buses to become a major player in the business!

Music – The Stone Roses – Best of – another revisit really but great to here some fantastic ravey, rocky music that become their trademark, still cant decide if Fools Gold or I’am the Resurrection is my favourite roses track!

Books – No change from last week (been very busy!)

Richard’s Blog – 08.06.08 – What do you think? ……….

2008-06-15T14:42:00.000-07:00

I don’t know if I have mentioned this but we are a member of our local Tourism Learning Network which is being facilitated by our friends at Mayday management. The aim of the network is to improve access to learning for small companies like ours and also to help us improve our business in many ways. I personally feel it has been a real benefit and that Mayday has made a great job of a very hard and often unrewarding task.

One of the crucial areas that being a member has helped us is that it has encouraged us to take an outside view of our business which is often hard when you seem to spend your life driving and washing busses! I hate to use a buzz phrase but here goes – “looking outside the box” has in some ways changed the company and is an exercise that I would recommend to all small business owners. I intend to re read a book I read last year called The Art of Possibility by Ben and Rosalind Zander and the gist of this is often that the answer to your problem may lie under your nose if you can look beyond the obvious.

We are currently operating a customer survey in conjunction with The Network and whilst we have done one in the past this one is proving to be very illuminating and whilst I ‘am pleased to say feedback has been generally positive, people do say things on paper that they would never say to your face! One response that particularly hurt was the lady with Christine on Sunday who answered the question “would you recommend Barratt Tours to a friend or family” to which she answered with an emphatic no with “no” other explanation! If by any chance the lady is reading this please drop Chris a line to let her know where we went wrong!

So, as ever, if I’am missing something obvious that will prove popular or a group of you think it might be fun to spend a week doing goodness knows what in Ireland, get in touch and you will find that we are far more broad minded and imaginative than your average tour company!

This week’s music – Forever Delayed – The Manic Street Preachers- A glorious re visit to many forgotten tracks and contains “A design for life” which is surely in my top ten favourite tracks of all time! And it was only Eu4.99 in Galway – what more could you want!

This weeks book – Still on with Ruinair but just starting something juicy – Bedroom Secrets of the Master Chefs by Irvine Welsh – its early days but shaping up to be great read (if you aren’t easily offended!!) This has inspired me to read Trainspotting as I love the film and never got round to reading it.

Richard's Blog 02.06.08 – Roll up for the mystery tour.

2008-06-10T15:11:00.000-07:00

On Wednesday last week our normal attraction on the Galway tour – The Corrib Cruise was not available and so since we had some existing bookings we offered those passengers the option of taken a tour to Galway which followed one of our old itineraries which incorporated a tour across peat bogs on the edge of Connemara and a visit to Standuns shop in Spiddal.

To our surprise we got a few extra bookings and they all seemed to like the idea of a one off kind of tour. I ran the tour and whilst the weather was not the best I think a great time was had by all (myself included – change of scene!) and I got to thinking would people trust us to show them something great on one of our tours which would not be in a strict itinerary? I know of some fantastic places on the Burren which never see a coach tour but they are not “big names” –so will they sell tours? I would love to hear what you think – I love the idea of a mystery tour like coach tour companies used to offer in days gone by. Some attractions close at the end of September so our normal tour programe will change – it might be a thought to throw in a few more adventurous tours for October – please as ever let me have your thoughts.

To be honest I do not get too much feedback yet from my blogs and so I would love to hear your thoughts – I might even publish some, or how about a Barratt Tours forum or chat room? I really like the idea of turning our website into something that is more of a community – so drop me an e.mail if you agree.

Also to explain my state of mind for the week I’am going to start telling you my favourite music for the week which will normally be my most listened to album on my ipod and also what book I’am slowly reading! So here goes –

Music – Muse – Black holes and Revelations – I never really get up to date with the music scene and I know this has been out ages but I love the massive sound and production, it is one of the few truly epic new (ish!!) albums that I have heard, got to say after careful consideration Knights of Cydonia is my favourite track.

Book – Ruinair – Paul Kilduff – A brilliant tale of one mans revenge on our favourite budget airline! Absolutely hilarious read that any of you that have enjoyed Ryanair “hospitality" will identify with!

24.05.08 - The Knights of The Road (are they all dead?)

2008-06-02T11:57:00.000-07:00

This week my blog is on a subject suggested by Christine and I quite like it so here goes.
One of the many things I enjoy about this business is the fun and camaraderie between other coach drivers but lately we have noticed that even that is being slowly eroded, the custom has always been for fellow drivers to exchange a wave when we meet on the road but I have noticed these greetings fall into x distinct categories:

1) The flash of lights and cheery wave – This is normally exchanged between those that know each other or work on the same job (like day tour drivers).

2) The simple wave – Normally used between drivers who act in the spirit of common courtesy – always nice to be acknowledged!

3) The nonchalantly raised hand or fingers from the steering wheel – The lowest form of acknowledgement normally reserved for rival companies and larger bus operators who may or may not be owned by the state! But is it still recognition!

4) The didn’t see you – no reaction at all – maybe they didn’t see us! We might give these the benefit of the doubt!

5) The total ignore – This is the one that is becoming the most popular and this is mainly the preserve of drivers on big name tours or our semi state tour company who as we all know are are far too important to acknowledge mere mortals like ourselves!

The total ignore is also often spectacularly demonstrated when we stop at major attractions like The Cliffs and Blarney as you can meet these characters in the coach park and even speak to them but still receive a blank! I often wonder why, if they are so great are they driving for someone else rather than driving their own bus like us. The funny thing is (and Chris made this observation!) they all tend to look the same, they are short bald grey men with a massive stomach gained from endless years of three free meals a day and they are easy to spot when dealing with passengers as they have a healthy disdain for them too as that is their guides job to talk and “anyhow what would I want to have anything do with that shower anyway! “

Those of you that have traveled with me lately might have notice that I’am currently on a diet as I looked in the mirror and thought I might be developing a tour driver stomach to go with my fashionably reseeding hair line! And perish the thought I might be turning into one of them.
So if your thing is traveling with grumpy old men and neurotic tour guides book with one of the big groups but if you want a blogger as your guide – book with us or better still take one of new nicetours and you will get both of us!

Richard's Blog 17.05.08 – Its never 10 years!

2008-05-24T15:46:00.000-07:00

As you might have seen in our NEWS section we are 10 years in business this week, time has honestly flown! So you are probably wondering what has changed in the business in the last 10 years so here is a few thoughts (random as usual!)
1) Our customers we had a fairly predictable clientel when we started being mostly visitors from the US,England and Ireland but we really do now get a whole range of nationalities now which makes for an interesting and increasingly challenging life! Due to us not having as many English speakers on board we do sometimes miss the hilarious banter and fun of our early days but having said that some of our new visitors do have a good sense of humour! – a good laugh can break many international barriers!

2) Our vehicles have changed of course although I am determined to get our first coach BERTIE out of retirement since our trade bodies are telling us that vehicles over 5 years old should be retired from tourism work I will launch a 33 year old one and believe me he will still do a good days work in comfort (other than a bit of a bouncy ride!) but our current fleet really is a revelation in terms of comfort and reliability – I never like to boast about such things but 2 breakdowns in 10 years is not too bad and I honestly don’t believe such standards of reliability are achievable with brand new vehicles!

3) Seasons have changed – no, not climate change, but we are finding our peak is becoming shorter and the traditional “shoulder” season is becoming more challenging – our loadings are currently well down for a number of reasons, so we are going to react swiftly as we always do and go on Holidays! (only kidding!!) but we are going to expand our NICETOURS.BIZ side of the business to give more custom tours and imaginative itineraries – look out for a Murder mystery weekend soon!

4) We have changed personally in that we have grown in confidence and I hope, ability – its hard to believe that the quiet shy florist that I met 15 years ago has turned into the confident and talented tour driver/guide that Christine has become (she never reads this!) I think we both underwent a personal change this winter when Christine’s brother – Michael passed away suddenly and now we are much calmer and speaking personally, delays on tours, the odd rude and unreasonable passenger, our beloved Road Safety Authority and all our other cares really do not bother me as we have realized more than ever that life is for living! Our inner selves I suppose have changed with our holidays to Thailand– it has been a revelation to see such dignified and serene people who really have little in life still managing to smile – a lesson for us all there I think!

We never tire of our business but I think after 10 years the amount of corruption and “back scratching” in our industry still irritates us as we feel we never get the help and promotion we deserve – if we were judged on the quality of our tours we think we would be millionaires!
So I hope you enjoyed my ramblings this week and maybe next week might be a good time for another installment in our history unless of course, something more topical comes up!

10.05.08 – why do you not have a tour on Fridays?

2008-05-23T04:00:00.000-07:00

We are often asked that very question, so since I have spilled the beans on a typical working day I shall now reveal what happens on a Friday (which is our one day off work together!)
Well the story normally starts on Thursday night on which we always try to have a night out together and a dinner and a few medicinal drinks! This week we both finished fairly early on Thursday night – Chris had been to Kerry and me to the Cliffs so we were both in about 7.00, so then it was a quick shower and change into the glad rags and head off in our car to town (we leave the car and collect it Friday!).

We had a drink in a bar in town then went for a lovely Indian meal at one of our favourite restaurants – Poppadom. After a superb feed we headed to one of our newer haunts Smyths bar where as usual we were the oldest in the place – but never mind! We saw an excellent band there called The Wilful from Galway – great stuff – highly recommended if you have never heard a heavy rock cover of Abba! – we really enjoyed their set and it was just the thing to take away the cares of last week.

So rather late we took a taxi home and retired to bed for a lie in until woken by our first booking at 08.00! We then had a leisurely breakfast before I started washing and fueling busses and did a couple of repair jobs as well as ordering some parts for next weeks jobs. Chris did some e.mails and booked train tickets as well as another vital job – the washing.

We then headed for town in style on my new motorbike – Thanks again Chris! As we had to do some banking before taking off to do a bit of bike touring to Cashel for lunch then back to Limerick to pick up the car and a take away for Friday night and a peaceful night watching telly and of course answering e.mails and online bookings then an early night ready to start another week of tours!

I hope this answers why we do not have a tour on Fridays as we actually cant legally work 7 days and I don’t think either of us could stand not having the few hours to ourselves on Thursday night and Friday morning, so if you are trying to contact us on a Friday by phone and we don not answer straight away we might just be motorbiking!

03.05.08 – A week at Barratt Tours

2008-05-23T03:59:00.000-07:00

Well, that’s our hardest week over! The first of 26 and business is ok but a bit quiet still during the week. Of course with us not increasing our prices for 3 years the massive increase in fuel costs is proving a huge strain when we are carrying small numbers of passengers, but as usual we will keep at it and hopefully as the season wears on our investment of time and money into an online presence will start to pay off with more online bookings.

Talking of online bookings regular visitors to my blog will know that we have decided to make our tours from Dublin exclusively available online and because of that we reduced the price of our best selling D1 Moher Magic tour by six euros this season. We heard this week of one day tour operator that is offering hotels and agents a 25% commission on bookings – do you think this is right? I would love to know your opinions – why not CONTACT ME and tell me! One thing you can be sure of is that we will continue to offer you the best value we possibly can whilst still keeping a sustainable profit margin.

If any of you in the industry are shocked by me revealing details like this I will make no apologies as we have been dealt some severe blows over the last couple of years because we have kept Barratt Tours honest, and I can safely say that I have no regrets over the way we have grown over the years as it is on our terms and with clean hands!

26.04.08 – Another season, hopefully another dollar – a day in our life !

2008-05-23T03:57:00.000-07:00

I’am finally getting organized with my blogs so from now I promise Saturday will be blog day! If you are on our Cliffs of Moher tour on a Saturday look for me typing on my laptop at Caherconnell fort !

Today is the first day of our full season and while as I hope you realise I really do enjoy my job I must admit to not being too overjoyed at the 06.50 alarm this morning! As from here starts 26 weeks of hard work with no break!

I thought that my blog today would be a good time to reflect on what a typical day for us might consist of, today is quite easy as we only have one coach out on tour so Chris came in to help me with my pick ups but this is how a typical day might go:

06.50 – Alarm (10 min to come round then 15 min to get ready)

07.15 – Out into the yard to prepare the coaches- visual checks and check oil levels etc, any final cleaning and loading water etc while Chris checks e.mails and compiles today passenger list or lists.

08.15 – Breakfast (if there is time!)

08.30 – 09.00 Leave the yard for first pick ups and meet at the Tourist Office

09.50 – Cliffs tour departs for Railway station to collect passengers from Dublin

10.15 – Tour leaves (train on time today) I will not run through all the tour so jump forward to approx 19.00 arrive back to Limerick Station for Dublin passengers before dropping passengers on our short breaks at their hotels in Limerick – finish around 19.20.

19.50 – Arrive back in yard, check e.mails, Chris will now sort bookings and answer e.mails from today, I start fuelling and cleaning, 2 coaches were used today with the pick ups so both are dirty and need fuel, also Celtic Pride needs a bulb replaced, Chris at least had chance to cook today so dinner is nearly ready.

21.00 – Dinner then a chance to relax at last but still some online tickets to book.

22.00 – online booking close for tomorrows' tours.

23.00 – Booking line closes

23.30 – so to bed! Ready for 06.50 alarm tomorrow and Blarney and Cork for me and The Cliffs of Moher for Chris.

Hopefully this will give you a guide as to what our life is like and why 26 weeks of this can be tiring! But having said that we wouldn’t change it, after all, who would then offer you great tours at the best price!

19.04.08 – An online revolution?

2008-05-23T03:56:00.000-07:00

Those of you that have been following our progress over the last few years will know that our business is slowly changing as the web plays an increasingly important role in our bookings. Last year we introduced online booking and it has slowly been growing to the point where this year we have taken the decision to make ourDublin tours exclusively available online as that way in these days of spiraling costs we can keep our prices as keen as possible. The reason our tours are so competitively priced is that we do not employ huge numbers of staff or directors and we do not offer commissions to third parties – what you pay comes to us! You might be surprised at how much of what you pay larger companies goes on commissions, lavish brochures etc etc. So we hope that our little business can compete with the big boys and win on the fairest sales market of all – the World Wide Web.

We would love to hear your thoughts on this but when we were discussing this decision we thought of the budget airlines – who would imagine we could travel to England for less than fifty euro 10 years ago? When we first moved to Ireland we were paying at least eighty nine pounds! We are not getting into the green issues here but the reality is people are traveling more and demanding better value so hopefully small enterprises like us can prosper. So look out we are becoming a lean green touring machine!

11.04.08 – History as promised (a little late!)

2008-05-23T03:54:00.000-07:00

Finally with the Cliffs situation resolved I can return to our history and I promise to all my fans (both of you!) to blog more often as I got a new laptop on hols so it makes things easier as I can write while our passengers are enjoying our various stops.

We left the story with our house in England sold and a house in Ireland bought, this was about September 97 and at this point I left my job only to be offered about 6 months more work as a consultant! At this point we both lived with my mother for a few weeks before Chris took the brave decision to move to Ireland on her own to start generating some business and sorting the vast amount of paperwork while I worked at delivering new trucks inEngland! It was a hard life living with my folks and being spoilt rotten but I made the best of it!

I really must mention the move before I go any further; we had quite a lot of furniture to move and half a bus – honestly! I bought another very rotten Bristol like Bertie which I broke for spares, so with my contacts in haulage I managed to buy a 40 foot trailer very cheap which I packed with the parts and the furniture. I then managed to borrow a 38 tonne tractor unit for a weekend (only a local job – honest!) to take the trailer to Ireland with my dad helping with the driving where it lived in our yard until the previous house owners had moved out – I then sold the trailer for a profit – ever the salesman! We then went across in our trusty Ford Escort van to do the move and get Chris settled in – I could only stay a week and so flew back with a heavy heart but it was the right thing to do as I could still make good money in England.

Chris came back for Christmas 97 and I was thrilled to see her at Teeside Airport although it made parting again in the new year even harder, in the meantime between working and trying to keep my old banger car going (company car long gone) I had time to put the finishing touches to Bertie often helped by my faithful pal and best man – Neil (thanks again!). Finally in February 98 Chris flew across and we made the best journey of all. With Bertie who typically never missed a beat and settled into his new home in our garage where he lives to this day! I then had to head back and finish some final business before I made the break together with Neil and headed across with our Sherpa Minibus (the only Barratt bus never to carry a paying passenger!). Neil stayed and worked at all the many jobs for six weeks and its fair to say we would never have got the work done without him. Finally we got to May and had all the red tape behind us and were set to operate our first tour but one small problem remained – we had no brochure, our printer at the time let us down badly and they were finally delivered a week late. I often think about the man at a certain Limerick print company who laughed at us when I complained – it gives me quite a laugh now 10 years and probably 250.000 brochures later – none of which they printed! I’am quite enjoying this revenge thing now so heres to the Area Manager at a well known Irish Bank (not Bank of Ireland who we are now with so there is a clue!) who told me that I was mad to start a tour company and would be better getting another job selling trucks! Well Mr Harry G – I think we have proved you wrong in fine style!

So our first job was a Private Hire for a well known Irish Professional Organisation and this was really a practice for our first tour on 12th May 98 – how did it go? WATCH THIS SPACE ……..

05.04.08 – A victory for common sense

2008-05-23T03:51:00.000-07:00

I know some of you have been following my blogs about the situation at The Cliffs of Moher and our protest last year regarding parking charges. I ‘am delighted to report that an acceptable compromise has been reached which now means there will be a one euro per head facilities charge payable to Cliffs of Moher staff on arrival. This allows us to use the new coach parking facilities which offer our customers a safe and convenient parking facility. I’am personally delighted that this has happened but I do wonder if this could not have been done this time last year if Clare County Council had negotiated with us rather than threatening and intimidating us by issuing Parking tickets and photographing us, all of which when combined with lost revenue must have cost an enormous amount of tax payers money.

I will not dwell on the negative aspects of this story but I must thank all the operators that supported the action and brought about the change – thanks and congratulations to you all. For those that did not support our action and continued to pay the exorbitant charges all I can say is I hope you enjoy the rewards that our action has given you!
So we look forward to working with the County Council to promote this superb facility and whilst we do not bear grudges the wounds that last year inflicted will be slow to heel however we are determined to make this work.

In conclusion I now promise you all part 2 of my history but events have rather overtaken my literary endeavors.

We have also had a lot to contend with on a personal level as sadly Christine’s brother Michael was taken from us far too soon in March and so my thoughts are still with her and her Mother at this difficult time.

06.08.07 – The Price of Free Speech

2007-12-05T03:02:00.000-08:00

Further to my last blog here is an update on the situation at The Cliffs of Moher. We were very busy this Saturday and were both working which we were delighted about and just to cheer us up further we received another 2 parking tickets ! (one each). Today I have been on tour and even though my passengers boarded at the Cliffs in 1.5 minutes (thank you all !!) I still received another ticket making my collection total 5 now.

We are obviously in regular contact with our fellow day tour operators on the situation and on both days during the weekend NONE OF THEM received a ticket - only us but then they don't write blogs, coincidence??? - of course it is !

01.08.07 – Tales from the frontline!

2007-12-05T03:00:00.000-08:00

It has been a while since my last blog and I was intending to write chapter 2 of my “History of Barratt Tours but the events of this weekend have changed my mind a little – so the next one will be chapter 2 – I promise.

Some of you may be aware of the ongoing problems that we have been having at The Cliffs of Moher but for those of you aren’t here is a re-cap. The new visitor centre at The Cliffs opened on the 8th February this year in a blaze of publicity by Bertie Ahearne. What did not receive quite so much publicity was the protest by 50 coaches and operators at the new parking charges – sorry, “ facilities charges” being levied on visiting coaches these are as follows:
For up to 15 passengers – Eu25.00
For up to 39 passengers – Eu50.00
And over 39 – Eu60.00

These prices do not include any admission fees.
We were and are very much opposed to this outrageous price structure and together with the majority of our fellow day tour operators took the decision not to support the visitor centre in every way possible – so we have had to resort to picking up and setting down customers at the roadside and parking elsewhere.

It has been reported by certain parties that we are doing this as a result of a lack of care for our customers but nothing could be further from the truth. The sole motivation for this action has been to protect our customers from the inevitable price increase that would result from paying the charges. Also we have had no price increase in our day tour prices for 6 years now and we have managed to absorb fuel and insurance increases but this level of pricing is just unsustainable.

This weekend Clare County Council has taken the action of employing a traffic warden to hand out tickets to all operators picking up and setting down outside the visitor centre and we have now collected 3 of these. We seriously doubt the legality of these as we have yet to park and are only picking up and setting down for a maximum of 2 minutes at a time but this point will be tested very soon.

We will continue to fight our cause and can assure those concerned that the “bully boy” tactics currently being employed has only served to strengthen our resolve as we believe totally in what we are doing and will never be forced to pay for something that we were never consulted about in the first place.

On a personal level the stress that this situation has caused me and Christine lately has been huge and when combined with the daily worries of running our tours and in particular the number of roadworks in Clare lately has made for a rather uneasy season but hopefully this has not had any effect on our customers enjoyment of our tours.

We will keep you posted of developments as they happen but thanks to those of you that have travelled with us for your kind words of support – they really do make our struggle seem worthwhile.

25.04.07 – 10 years and counting!

2007-12-05T02:54:00.000-08:00

To inspire me for my first blog I have decided to have a brief look back over the last 10 years and for those of you that don’t know us tell you a little bit about me and Christine.

Strangely the best place to start talking about Barratt Tours is to go back 12 years to a young couple from North East England holidaying in Ireland called Richard & Christine Barratt–Atkin. Richard was quite a successful area sales manager for a large European truck company with expense account and company car but no time and Christine was a very gifted but woefully underpaid and appreciated florist. They had a wonderful week in Ireland and were enjoying a few (too many!) drinks and a fantastic Irish meal in Kilkenny City on their last night. The conversation over dinner strayed to how they would love to move to Ireland one day but couldn’t think of how. They thought it would be great to use some of their skills to show people the Ireland that they fell in love with and all of a sudden it came to Richard – why not offer coach tours ( he loved old buses and romantic visions of Ireland in a magnificent old AEC swam round his already swimming head). Chris, being the sensible one said “yeah great but how” and it was generally decided that it was a daft idea.

Almost a year later Richard was visiting one of his clients who is now a good friend (hi Collin!) who dealt in old buses when he fell in love – with a bus. There stood a magnificent 1975 Bristol which would be ideal for touring Ireland – small yet classy and comfortable. Over dinner Richard announced that he had found a bus that would be ideal for Ireland and they could have a look at the weekend. It would be fair to say Chris was not all that struck by the bus but to cut what is already a long story short a deal was done. Over the next few months every weekend was spent restoring and improving Bertie (as he was then known) to tip top condition.

In 1997 our couple went to Ireland again dreaming but looking for opportunities for Business and during that visit they went to Limerick City for a couple of nights, they looked at coach tours in the City and found only one company – was there room for competition? They also strayed into an Estate Agent (or Auctioneer or Realtor to some of you) browsing at houses and then they saw it – a house with enough land to park Bertie at an affordable price so they took a look and fell in love (again!).

Within 6 months a deal was struck and the house in England sold so the scene was now set for the adventure to begin.

If you would like to know what happened next keep an eye on this space and as you have gathered our heroes are myself and Christine the owners and operators of Barratt Tours.

I will add some more topical blogs as they come along but I quite like the history of Barratt Tours idea – what do you think? – let me know!