An Accidental Research Trip - Cheltenham to Dublin

How do things happen, we often ask ourselves, well i do anyway? Coincidences are they, you know, coincidences or actually a grand plan we have no hand in.

Well, this coincidence began back in November 2024, my wife’s mother, Bridie, requested a trip to Ireland for her 90th Birthday, Dublin to be precise, so she could visit her 90-year-old cousins before she died or they died or which ever order it might happen, her words not mine.

Being a wild couple we decided why not drop her in Dublin for a week and go on a road trip around the west coast of Ireland, while her mother entertained herself with tea, biscuits, afternoon dances, and mass every other day!

So a year later, and six months after I decided to write a five-book fantasy saga - easy, I thought, like an eejit - we found ourselves at Bristol Airport security with Bridie pulled aside by the guard with her makeup bag in hand. He looked in it, raised his eyes to a 91-year-old woman with a walking stick, zipped it up and put it back in her suitcase. ‘Have a pleasant trip, madam,’ he smiled whilst shaking his head, chuckled and turned toward the next person’s bag of illicit contraband.

Later at the coffee shop in departures, my wife, intrigued, asked for a look in her makeup bag, 3 sets of scissors and nail clippers, the man obviously thought, I'm not taking anything off a 91-year-old and handed them back.

‘I told you to check what was in your hand luggage,’ she told her.

‘Well, I wasn’t going to put my best scissors in the hold, was I?’ she replied matter-of-fact!

As a couple, with an Irish mother each, this was a common occurrence in our lives.

I can assure you this will carry on.

So all went to plan. We got the minibus to the car hire (Enterprise, because you need to know) at Dublin airport, chit-chat exchanged and all, the driver fully loaded with 90th birthday and cousins not quite dying.

The driver insisted she wasn’t allowed out of the minibus as there was a queue for the cars. He told her, ‘Stay where you are, feck this.’ He got out, walked to one of the representatives, ‘You are dealing with my customers now.’ dragged him away and got him to deal with me. I jumped a 15 person queue. The driver wouldn’t let Bridie out of the minibus, once I was at the car, he drove her around, got her out and put her straight in the car.

Meanwhile, the representative was proudly showing me around a very nice Chelsea tractor he had upgraded me to. I had booked a nice small Vauxhall Vectra for the thinnest, windiest roads in Europe, but you can’t complain, can you!

So, forgetting how to drive an automatic, I used both feet and promptly braked and accelerated all at once and frightened the bejesus out of my wife, we found ourselves at the cousins’ house.

We were informed that Bridie had told them she was flying in at 4.30am. So they were expecting us at 6am, had breakfast ready, tea brewing. The problem was, 4.30am was when we were picking her up from her house in Cheltenham! We flew at 8am, didn’t get to their house until midday!! By then breakfast was put away and they had popped back to bed!

After one of the most surreal hours of my life, where I was force fed tea and biscuits, told how one of her cousins had once been a millionaire for 30 minutes and a conversation about someone called Dickie Rock, yes exactly, you look him up, we were on our way across Ireland toward Galway.

So, back to that coincidence I mentioned earlier. The route we were about to take from Galway around the Wild Atlantic Way mirrored the same taken by the hero in the first book of the saga, planned well before it was a twinkle in my eye.

So, armed with a camera, a notebook, and an insatiable thirst for Guinness and other beverages, I started the journey.

To be continued......

Cheers NJ