Thursday October 20th 2016 - Return from Roscrea

I woke very early that morning with the onset of the traffic noise past the house; there was no point trying to go back to sleep again so I lay reading until it was time to get up at 7.30. And that's when I got confused again - nothing had been said the previous night about where Michael would be sleeping and I didn't know how many bedrooms were in Paul's house so I'd assumed that he would be on the settee in the living room but when I went to wake him up there was no sign of him or that he'd even been there. Hearing noises in the kitchen I went to find Paul and asked him where Michael was - he assumed that I'd known where Michael was sleeping and thought I meant he'd gone out and I was asking where he'd gone, so we were talking at cross-purposes until he realised what I actually meant and told me that Michael was in a small bedroom off the back corridor.

I was just getting my things together when Paul brought me a mug of tea; after the four I'd had the previous evening I felt like I was swimming in the stuff and really didn't want another one but I drank it anyway, though I did tactfully ask Paul if no-one ever drank coffee. He must have had a quiet word with Nellie when we went back across the street for breakfast as she did actually bring me a mug of coffee this time, and very good it was too. With breakfast over, and a final couple of photos of Trixie, we said a very emotional goodbye to Michael's dad and set out to get the coach back to the airport.

We were just going out of the house when Paul shouted to a neighbour who was just leaving hers and asked if she was going 'up the town' - she said she was, so he asked her to give us a lift up the road to the bus stop and he waited with us until the coach came. Across the road was Roscrea castle but I hadn't time to go and look through the gates so I just got a shot of part of it from where I was - and regrettably that was the only photo I got of any part of Roscrea.

The coach arrived on time (the express this time), we said goodbye to Paul then got ourselves settled for the two-hour journey back to Dublin. The route was the reverse of the day before but without all the deviations, and in the morning sunshine it was a very pleasant journey. Going through the city centre on the opposite side of the river from the previous day was just as interesting - modern buildings mixed in with the old ones, the flowery frontage of Abbey Court, which I later learned is a hostel with a very wacky interior, the O'Connell Monument, the Convention Centre with its huge tilted glass front, and three creepy-looking bear statues outside the O2 theatre. It certainly looked like there were many photo opportunities and I would have loved to spend a few days exploring properly.

Going through security at the airport was slightly disconcerting; Michael went through okay but I set the bleeper off as I walked through the body scanner - I couldn't understand that as I'd gone through the one at Manchester with no problem. I had absolutely nothing in my pockets so my hands were scanned then I was allowed through, so I can only think that it must have been my rings which set it off. This time there were no delays to our flight so it took off on time, and with our friend already waiting at Manchester when we landed we were soon back home.

Thinking back over those two days they were very much a roller coaster, both emotionally and physically, and I certainly didn't have time to appreciate my surroundings, but you never know - with some forward planning I could possibly be giving Anglesey a miss next summer and camping in Ireland instead.