A typical Irish break

I have been staying for 2 nights in a hotel with the Irish rugby team. This has caused a great deal of envy from my colleagues. I have had plenty of offers of a lift to the university campus (even though it is just 5 minute walk away.) My escorts arrive early and sit watching the team go to and from the breakfast table. Sadly they don't mean that much to me as I can't recognise any of them. I did go swimming this morning and found myself in a lane next to someone who looked like he could have been a rugby player! He was definitely faster than me! My room was next to the room where they kept all their kit and for the last two days they have had a row of T-shirts out waiting to be signed by all the team members. I was so tempted just to pick up that pen and write my name on each shirt as I'm sure no one would have noticed the name "lovely" scrawled amongst all the others!

I flew to Limerick with Ryan air. The cabin crew consisted of Agata, Betina and Olgar and the pilot was called Sergi. The hotel receptionist was called Karlof and the waiters were Boris, Stephan and Hans. The cleaners and pool attendants were Kristina, Lena and Gretle. Limerick is a multi-cultural city! My taxi driver from the airport was called Mickey MacHoy. Unfortunately I found Mickey's accent quite hard to follow so we were limited to a conversation about the expansion of Tesco's and Homebase all over Ireland. I glanced carefully at Mickey's picture displayed on his dashboard. Mickey had definitely not aged well since that picture was taken!