Saturday, April 30

I packed last night before I went to bed. I also orfdered a taxi. I showered quickly when I woke up, ate the last of my Aldi snacks, and went downstairs. I was at the station in time to have an AMT coffee before the train arrived.

The train between Limerick and Dublin stops at the misleadingly named Limerick Junction, where you disembark and wait for another train. Limerick Junction appears to be in the middle of nowhere and I suspect there is no way in and out of it, except by train. I am waiting and I can see a train arriving very slowly indeed. Once we are on, and it is out of sight of the station, it will speed up and get me to Heston station twenty minutes faster than advertised.

I will walk to a bus stop and get the 747 to the airport. I will discover that getting on at Heuston means sitting on while it trundles over the river, through Temple Bar, over the river, down to Connolly, and then finally past the 3 Stadium and into the tunnel which takes you halfway to the airport. A little Irish womn from the countryside turns round twice to asked me fearfully whether this bus is actually going to the airport. I assure her that it is and after a very long time I am proved right.

I will have hours to spend at the airport so I will sit with my laptop for a bit, using the limitless free wifi. I will then decide to have lunch at The Angels’ Share, where I choose chicken wings and salad. I will learn that that up to 50% of the whisky in a barrel is lost to evaporation during the aging process and that this lost amount is traditionally referred to as the angels’ share. I will also listen to a gang of middle-aged Liverpool women in short skirts and hangovers cackling about whatever they have been doing for the last forty eight hours. One of them passes round a love letter written to her by an airsteward on the side of an used Ryannair sickbag.

The sense of romance is palpable.

The flight out was half empty. The flight home will be completely full. I will arrive at the airport ten minutes early, but Irma will be there to meet me. We will head home to celebrate Vappu.