Archive for the 'Holidays' Category

Priority

October 4th, 2011

I found a neat little yoke when booking my trip on Irish Ferries.

For an extra tenner you can book a priority thing for the car.

When we arrived in Rosslare, we were given a wee card to hang off the mirror, and then were stuck into a special queue before boarding.  When they started loading the cars, our lane was first on so I was well into my first pint while they were still loading cars.

When we arrived in Roscoff, once again, we were amongst the first cars off.  Brilliant.

The fun happened on the return journey though.

We drove up to the reception kiosk in Cherbourg and Yer Wan gave us the card to hand from the mirror and told me to switch on the hazard lights [I had to search for the switch.  I don’t think I have ever used them before].  We then drove onto the quay and were put into a short lane beside the normal huge lines of cars.  The bugger in front of us had spotted the hazard lights trick, and he too was put into our lane.  I noticed though that he had no card on his mirror.  A chancer?  Heh!

When they started the loading, once again we were first on, but not Chancer in front!  The bastard was pulled to one side and then sent back to the tail end of the longest queue.  Prat!

The one place where there is always a huge holdup is in Rosslare where the customs are a pain in the hole.  The last time we came through there, it took over an hour.  This time was different.  We were the third car off the ferry and so had the pick of the customs slots.  I drove and wound down the window.  “Where are ye from?” asks the customs bloke.  “Wickla” says I.  He laughed.  Only a Wicklow man will call it Wickla.  “Go on outa that” says he.

Thirty seconds through customs.

Sweet.

And they never even checked the luggage.

Just as well…….

On the road to nowhere

September 26th, 2011

That’s it.

Holiday over.

No thanks to that fucker Roger though.

If you look at a map of France and try to plot a route from Anger to Caen, there are two obvious routes.  The East route is via the motorway which is very fast and very bloody boring.  To the West there is an alternate route using the Route Nationales, which are really motorways in all but name.  Now which route do you think Roger chose?

Wrong.

He chose neither.

For some reason which I cannot fathom he decided to compromise and bring us on a route between the two.

I presume this was his warped sense of humour but in fact it backfired on him as we had a very pleasant trip meandering along back roads and passing through very beautiful villages.  We stopped off in one of the towns for a very nice cuppa coffee [or three], and eventually arrived in Caen.

I thought that would be the end of it.

I was wrong.

Without thinking I let Roger do the navigation after we arrived in Ireland.  Fucking hell, but he did it again.   I have no idea what got into him, but before long we were driving down roads that had grass growing down the middle.  Other roads obviously hadn’t been repaired in the last fifty years. I constantly had visions of us arriving at a farm gate with no further progress.  He did eventually bring us back to the N11 somewhere around Gorey, after showing us some parts of Ireland I never knew existed.

We arrived in the end, but I’m still not quite sure how. 

I’m going to have to have severe words with Roger before the next trip.

If there is a next trip.

I was wrong

September 24th, 2011

Hah!

Apparently the hotel here does have Interweb.

Can’t use my mail though as the whole fucking hotel chain has been blacklisted.

Too bollixed to write anything…

Talk amongst yourselves.

A moving story

September 23rd, 2011

Today is always the second worst day of the holiday.

Packing day.

Today we pack and try to clean the house. The latter is always a problem, and I always have trouble getting Herself to do it properly.

Tomorrow [the worst day] we load the car and hit the road. We have an overnight stop in Caen, and while I know they have the Interweb there, I have a problem with adapters – I don’t have any. So you probably won’t hear from me then.

Sunday we mooch around Cherbourg and then board the ferry. The ferry has Interweb but you have to pay through the nose for it. You definitely won’t hear from me then. We should be home sometime around Monday afternoon, God and bribable custom’s officers willing. I’ll probably be too knackered to use the Interweb so you may not hear from me then.

There are a few things I am looking forward to about going home.

The main thing is greeting Sandy.

Then there is my armchair with its personalised arse shaped indent which makes afternoon naps so cozy.

Playing tennis with Sandy.

I’m also looking forward to just being in my own place where I don’t have to worry about nagging Herself to keep it tidy.

I suppose I have to include the family?

Playing chess with Sandy.

An Interweb connection that doesn’t suffer from PMT.

Having a bit of craic down the pub.

Decent tea bags.

Did I mention Sandy?

What will I miss?

The warmth. It’s building up to midday here and the sun is cracking the rocks. Beautiful. It’s going to be a real scorcher. Again.

Driving. I’ll miss the excellent road system and the almost complete lack of traffic. We were in a fairly big town yesterday and didn’t get stuck in traffic at all, simply because there wasn’t any.

The water pressure. I swear I could fill an Olympic swimming pool in five minutes flat from the pressure here.

The boulangeries. Fuck but this lot know how to bake bread and delicious wee savories.

To be honest, the only reason we are starting back tomorrow is because I have the ferry booked and paid for.

I suppose there is always next year?

Conspiracies

September 22nd, 2011

Frankly, I’m not a great one for conspiracy theories.

JFK? World Trade Centre? Man on the Moon? I can live with them.

But there are times when I really wonder if there is a grain of truth.

Take for example my Interweb connection. For a long time it was abysmally slow. Then the fucking wireless thingy disappeared [I'm still not sure how]. Having gotten that back yesterday, I discovered today that there is no power. OK, it’s back now, but that’s probably a mistake. Add those factors together and you realise that someone is going to one hell of a lot of trouble to keep me quiet.

I would blame the CIA, but frankly they couldn’t wipe their arses without a roadmap. Could it be MI5? Nah! They have no reason.

There is only one organisation that I can think of that hates negative press, that has the power to bully any country and that is stupid enough to come up with the idea.

The EU is trying to silence me again.

*sigh*

Next »