Slightly late update

As has been pointed out to me many times one of my greatest skills is apologising. So I'll say sorry for the slightly tardy update of what has been happening thus far...

Tuesday night: Great meal in Sligo after a frankly horrific bike ride in windy rainy weather, banter with some total wanker called Eric in a hotel lounge and a fairly good sleep. My legs hurt a great deal.

Wednesday: I wake up with complete panic that I won't be able to cycle anywhere. Ray motivates me by saying "Sort yourself out you cock - and eat your bloody breakfast". We set off down the N17, then after a fairly windy affair up to Tobercurry the weather perks up and we have a fairly nice run down to Knock (aside from a hill near an airport that goes on for about a month). After enquiries we get some food in the "best place in town" which doesn't really say very much for the state of cuisine in the area. Knock is also home to a famous shrine, Ray goes in to get some affliction or other looked at. We head further south into an entertainingly strong headwind and meet Ray in Tuam. Thats enough for today. Go for an absolutely amazing seafood pizza and nice pints in the lovely Galway. Our hotel isn't lovely though, the room smells of petrol and there's a dodgy nightclub downstairs. Fortunately Ray drowns out the music of the night by snoring in my face. I consider killing him but then decide that we still need someone to drive the car.

Thursday: The others wake up to find me still awake from the night before - at one point I tried to sleep in the bathrooom, but that really was a terrible, terrible idea. I am a zombie at this point. We get in the car in the pissing rain and drive depressingly back up to Tuam in a ridiculous display of honesty. Blast back down to Galway in an hour of speed cycling and very poor attempts at playing the Alphabet game - I am so tired that I can't even think of any swearwords beginning with "E". Rest of the ride down to Limerick leave us wetter than a pair of Otter's pockets. Particularly the shockingly depressing shortcut recommended by a nice lady in a bar in Knock, which takes us up to what may be the windiest, wettest hill in the world. Gary states that prawn related food-poisoning would be more fun. His knee is making overtures of agony so fortunately the glorious descent goes on for quite some time. After stopping in Six Mile Bridge (which had no bridge that I could see) we pitch up for the night at the Bunratty Castle Hotel - which is basically the Overlook from The Shining - they lie to Gary about having a steam room. We go to the oldest pub in Ireland for a Guinness and then have a nice meal before going back to the Overlook for a late whisky in the comfy lounge and hope that we don't get murdered by disturbed writers with axes in the night.

Friday: I wake up in almost certainly the most jovial mood of my 34 years - there is a feature on the TV about a man who gives haircuts to horses - I will laugh about this all day, even now while I'm writing this. Gary is dosing up on painkillers to sooth his shonky knee. The biking starts well with us whipping along at 20mph down to Limerick, across the broad majestic Shannon and on to the N20 down to Croom for an absolutely lovely early lunch of smoked mackerel. Gary's knee requires a bit more attention he goes in to a chemist for some advice. After listening to what we are doing the advice given is "Stop" - this doesn't deter Mr Harvey and after the application of some deep heat and a knee support that Ray picked up earlier (he got me some new pants, which are comfy and, ooh, just supportive enough) he is ready to soldier on. The rest of the ride down to our planned destination takes place on a really shitty stretch of road that does nothing for gary's knee or my, well for any of me really I am getting very tired indeed. Fortunately after some nasty twisty, hilly nastiness it is a quick swoop down to Mallow. Now we are tucked up in the swish Clarion Hotel in Cork on the one day of the year when you can't buy a bloody drink in Ireland.

Super.


I'm still in a brilliant mood though.

Honest.