Long weekend in Dublin

If you're doing an OE in the UK it's almost a given that a visit to Dublin is on the cards at some stage. The budget airline Ryanair was having a sale and the offer was too good to turn down - return flights from Bournemouth for £20 each including fees and taxes.

We fly early on a Friday and enjoyed three days and nights plus Monday morning before coming home. Our hostel was a short five minute walk from the 'Knitting Needle' monument near the River Liffey (or as some locals call it 'The Stiffy by the Liffy'!). From there it's only another five to ten minute walk to the heart and soul of Dublin - The Temble Bar area.

Now there is actually a pub called The Temple Bar, which we visited twice, and it gets quite busy in the evenings but this is Dublin, the home of Guinness, and half the attraction of the city is it's drinking holes.

On the Saturday we did a tour of Croke Park - the home of Irish sport and in particular Hurling and Gaelic Football. These days you'll find international football matches and Six Nations rugby fixtures being played in front of the 82,500 capacity crowd but traditionally it's always been a stadium for Irish sports only.

The evening was spent back in Temple Bar trying out the different places lined along the old cobbled streets. We were fortunate enough that a Traditional Irish Music festival was on and at various times throughout the weekend you could get a taste of some Irish folk in any of the pubs dotted about the place.

On Sunday we did a day trip out of Dublin to Glendaloch and Wicklow with a small bus touring company. We ended up grabbing the last two seats in front of what was effectively a Ford transit van with seats! We didn't mind though and it did mean we were able to tackle some routes the bigger coaches can't handle.

We stopped off for a cup of coffee on the mountain range that overlooks Dublin before heading on to the small village of Laragh for some lunch and a pint. En route was a sample of rural Ireland - lakes, rivers, valleys, marshland and mountains. We were really lucky to have three days of brilliant spring-like weather and it made for a great day out. We finished the day in Glendaloch where you can walk around the remains of a monastery and further along to two lakes.

On Sunday evening we headed to one particular bar right by the river to check out some traditional Irish dancing. It was a pretty popular place and it did mean having to sit around drinking for a couple of hours to get a half decent spot (what a chore!) but it was an impressive show and worth it in the end.

Our flight home was mid afternoon on Monday so that left our final morning for one more thing...the Guinness factory! A trip to Dublin wouldn't be complete without a walk around the six storey building before finally pouring your own 'perfect pint' and enjoying it over some mint views of the city.

The 119th Steel City Derby

Saturday 19th January was a date many football fans in Sheffield have been looking forward to since the fixture list for the season was published last summer. This was the day of the Steel City Derby. Sheffield Wednesday, the greatest team the world has ever seen, taking on the The Pigs aka The Blades aka Sheffield United for the 119th time in history.

The football rivalry within Sheffield is as fierce as you’ll find it anywhere else in the country. In this city you really are either blue and white, or red and white and nothing in between.

This really is the biggest game of the season as far as these clubs are concerned. Truly a one off cup final type atmosphere at Hillsborough, Sheffield Wednesday’s ground, and in front of the live television cameras too.

The biggest crowd of the season, a little over 30,000, was there to see it and despite touch ticket restrictions, in place to prevent away supporters snapping up home seats, I managed to secure three tickets for myself, Sheryl and my Dad.

This was my first derby match in almost 14 years since leaving for New Zealand so I was quite excited, but also a little nervous with our poor form of late and the fact that United, who were relegated from the Premier League last season, clearly possess a stronger squad.

But it doesn’t matter how much your squad is worth or how well (or badly in our case) you’ve been doing. Hillsborough was absolutely electric that afternoon. I’ve been to plenty of football games in my time, including a Cup final at Wembley, that was up there with the best of them.

Even better for me was that we won 2-0! A goal in either half from messrs Sodje and Tudgay sealed a truly beautiful win. But it didn’t come without some heart stopping moments, mainly due to our desperately fragile defence! Oh how sweet it was to see the miserable faces of the 6,000 strong away support, not to mention 25,000 people chanting “You’re getting sacked in the morning!” to the opposition manager.

This is what football is all about. Hi-Ho Sheffield Wednesday – Blue and White ‘til I die!

Glasgow, Stirling and The Highlands

On the Wednesday afternoon, and after our four great nights in Edinburgh, we caught the train over to Glasgow for a four night stay with my cousin Nikki and her husband Craig.

We caught a cab back to their flat which is a 30-40 minute walk from George Square in the heart of the city. We had a nice quiet nice night in on our first evening there with a take-away and DVD. Just what we needed after a busy few nights in the capital!

That night we’d noticed a severe weather warning on the BBC with some parts of Scotland expecting a lot of snow in a short space of time. It has been a burning desire of Sheryl’s to be somewhere whilst it’s snowing without doing what we can do back home and go to the mountains! Stirling, an hour north of Glasgow on the train, was one of the those places covered in white cloud on the forecast. So that was it – it was off to Stirling the next day!

The snow fell lightly on the journey there and at the bus station whilst waiting for a ride to take us to the historic Wallace Monument, which is just outside of the town centre. This is the monument in dedication of one of the Scotland’s great heros – Sir William Wallace (aka Mel Gibson in Braveheart!).



While in the monument itself a blizzard hit! It was quite unreal. The snow was coming in horizontally and at high speed! We got some excellent photos up there even though the view was non-existent through the clouds and just moments after descending the tower they closed it off as it was deemed ‘unsafe’ – try telling Nikki and Sheryl that who had a great time posing for photos whilst trying their best not to be blown off the top of the tower!



The blizzard passed over and, as you can see with some before and after photos, it left a picture postcard winter scene for our walk back down the hill.





After some lunch back in town we visited the Stirling Castle which was pretty interesting but, with a couple more blizzards passing through, the focus was again on the thick snow settling on the ground!

It was late afternoon by the time we’d finished wandering around the castle grounds and we stopped by the Portcullis pub on the way back down for a tummy warmer before catching the train back to Glasgow.





On Friday we bought a ticket for the hop on/hop off tourist bus service around the attractions of Glasgow. That included various spots along the River Clyde, the beautiful old University Buildings and the lively West End part of town, clustered with cool lookings pubs, clubs and places to eat.

After doing a loop of the circuit we had lunch at a real labyrinth of a Gaelic themed pub called Waxy O’Connors, just off George Square. Later in the afternoon we jumped back on the bus and headed back to the West End to a couple of pubs, one of which I think was called Jinty McGuinty’s.

In the evening we dined out at a little Italian place Nikki and Craig knew of, followed by cocktails at a club called Social and a nightcap on the way home at the oldest pub in Scotland – a rowdy little place called The Scotia.


(The People's Palace, close to Nikki & Craig's flat...and George Square)





It was now day three and our final full day in Scotland. I can’t imagine when we’d be likely to be back north of the border so we thought it a good idea to take advantage of the chance to see more of what Scotland has to offer, and in particular the famous Highlands region.

We were lucky enough to be able to grab the last four seats on a guided bus tour (we use the phrase ‘bus’ loosely – it was a wee little thing!) which set us back a little over £30. It turned out to be great value for money.

We left early at about 8.30am from George Square before heading north past the first of many Lochs in Loch Lomond. I have to also point out at this stage that the tour guide, who was also driving, was a bit of a legend. He was Highlands born and bred and very proud of his country. He also loved making a noise that resembled someone about to hock something the size of a small rock every time he pronounced the ‘c-h’ in ‘Loch’! Craig thinks he might’ve been putting it on for the tourists, but I’m not so sure!





We passed through some wonderful scenery, reminiscent of what you might find in the South Island back home, and by lunch time we were in Fort William, the town that sits at the foot of Ben Nevis, Britain’s biggest mountain at 1343 metres high. Unfortunately the low cloud cover meant the big fella was covered in mist and didn’t make much of a photo at all.

The knowledgeable guide warned us to get a bite to eat and get back on the road before the other five or six huge coach loads that pulled up shortly after us! Lucky for us most of them were elderly and, key to the matter, slow.

Our bus hit the road again while the grey contingent sipped their pots of tea and nibbled on their scones. From there we pressed further north through Fort Augustus and to the world famous Loch Ness (or should I say Locccchhhhhh Ness!).

The guide was really pleased that the weather was grey, windy and cold for our short boat trip on the Ness. Anything less, he informed us, would not be natural for a visit to Loch Ness! You see, bad weather is what the Scots have come to expect and love! And low and behold we had a real life sighting of Nessy. After years of exploring, scientific expeditions and still no hard proof it seemed so simple that we should find her none other than in the car park. Who’d have thought.

But it was easy to see how so many people would think they have seen something under those waters. You see, as our guide told us, the Loch is some six or seven miles deep and 25 miles long but there are very powerful undercurrents that bring up the elements from the bottom of the water to the surface. The end result is a body of water so dark you wouldn’t see much of your hand if you dare to dip it in the water.





The mystery of the Loch Ness continues! As did our bus journey which then took us to Inverness, our furthest point north. By this stage it was mid afternoon and the day light was disappearing quick. Our journey back home went via the small town of Pitlochery and past Glenkinchie, Scotland’s highest distillery.

It was a great day out and highly recommended for any of you who pay Glasgow or Edinburgh a visit. The next day we caught a flight direct from Glasgow back to Bournemouth with a slightly rough landing, although nowhere near as dodgy as the one at Heathrow last week, and found ourselves back in time for roast dinner. How convenient!