Recap: Fanore Trip

Here's Craig summary of our trip down south a couple of weeks ago:

It's way beyond that. Anyway, We're paying £250 rent for a nice room in Stranmillis AND there's no one else in the house. They wont be back until September and thats when we'll be leaving. So basically we have a 5 bedroom house to ourselves.
As for the men being afraid to clean. I spent 6 hours after work last week cleaning the kitchen in this house from top to bottom. Had to get on my knees to clean the kitchen floor 3 times and the oven was fuckin rancid. It's fantastic now.
After all the crap that happened in the first 2 weeks with the accident and then having a total nightmare at the cottage in County Clare, we've really landed on our feet.

Don't think i posted about the Cottage thing...

Because we didn't have a bike to make the trip, we headed down by train. We had a cottage booked 40 miles south of Galway on the coast just north of the Cliffs of Moher on the coast. Got a train to Dublin and had to get from Connelly Station to Heuston station and missed out galway train by 10 minutes. So got another train an hour later. Got to Galway around 9:30 pm and couldn't get a bus that was going even anywhere near where we needed to go. So went into a cab joint and they could only quote us to a place half way there to a town called Ballyvaughen. Actually the guy on here who recently posted his day trip to Lisdoonvarna was extremely close to where we had our cottage booked. probably 15 miles away. Anyway, it ended up costing us 100 Euro in a taxi to the cottage from Galway. We only had around 120 Euro on us. So we left our stuff at the cottage in Fanore and walked 5 minutes to the little pub which had a store across the road which was closed. It was around 11:30pm by this time. The wee pub was like a shoe box but i liked it. There was no food being served but the barman/owner was good enough to make us a couple of cheese toasties for free. We must have looked desperate.lol. We asked was there a cash machine close by. Nope was the answer. So we had a drink or 2 and went to the cottage and had some sleep.

Next morning we went to the wee shop across from the pub to get what we could. Noticed a credit card machine on the counter so all was good. We could by some stuff for dinner and what not. The shop owner was extremely kind. We asked if he did cash back and he said only if our cards were lazer. I have no idea what lazer is. So he said what he'd do is charge 100 Euro to our card and give it to us in cash which he doesn't normally do. Then he gave us a lift around the corner to the cottage with out supplies which i thought was decent of him.

The nearest cash machine was 30 miles away and the only bus that went past Fanore was on Tuesday and Thursday and it ran from Doolin to galway and the last bus to return that way left Galway at 6pm. So on Thursday we waited outside the shop at 9am and got the bus to galway for the day which took 1h30min.

We didn't get to do all the things we wanted to do. Madlyne wanted to go down to Doolin and get the ferry over to the Aran islands and we wanted to travel around on the bike to different parts. We pretty much spent most of our time in the cottage cooking and what not. The weather for the most part was fuckin terrible.

Oh, forgot to mention. When we arrived and went to the bar, we weren't in the place 2minutes and one of the locals offered to pick us up in the morning and take us to the town the cash machine was in. Said he was going that way anyway. Right enough the next morning him and his wife were in their car outside our cottage but by that time we'd already been sorted out by the shop owner. I must say i've never met such nice people. They really go out of their way to help you out if you're stuck. We were supposed to stay from Monday to Monday but it would have been a nightmare trying to get home on the monday so my mom drove down on the Saturday night (took her 9 hours, she got lost) and stayed the night. then we all left on the sunday. 6 hour drive home. My ass was killing me sitting in the back of a car for that long. We stopped a few times but still, it's long enough to be sitting down in a confined space.

I emailed the guy and his wife who own the cottage and who live somewhere in Co. Dublin and thanked them for a lovely cottage and said how we didn't really get to do all the things we'd planned because we had no bike and stuff. They offered us a free weekend in September or October if we wanted to go back.

Oh aye, on the saturday night we went to the bar with my mom for a meal and there was apparently traditional music going to be played that night so Madlyne was well excited. We're sitting there eating looking out over the sea when this wee van pulls up outside and some old women get out, like in their 60's atleast. They start carrying monitors and speakers and mic stands into the restaurant part of the bar. They get it all set up and this really fat girl gets up on stage with an accordion and sits on a chair. Then this old boy with a guitar hangin round his neck gets up. Then comes the traditional Irish Music.

Love is a burning thing
and it makes a firery ring
bound by wild desire
I fell in to a ring of fire...

I fell in to a burning ring of fire
I went down,down,down
and the flames went higher.
And it burns,burns,burns
the ring of fire
the ring of fire

We were laughin our asses of. It was hilarious.