Day 0 – Leaving Home

It was the day after Anna’s 21st Birthday party, for her birthday that was a month previously…but regardless we celebrated in style, 90’s style to be exact. After recovering from an open bar and a late night, we were set to leave at 2am. I had barely any sleep with partying like a legend the night before and then staying up to watch the final day of the masters. Nevertheless, it was much cheaper to drive down to Dublin than to get the bus, so I had to get some coffee in me and we would be on our way.

We were on the road in perfect timing. I had my driving gloves on and Anna her 5 coats that were temporary substitutes for a duvet. James Blunt’s new album was playing and the roads were empty – a perfect start to this short holiday away. We had decided to take the Belfast route, sticking to the motorway as best as we could, but a few James Blunt songs later, we had moved on to sing-a-long songs such as those from Grease and High School Musical. As a consequence, we found ourselves in the middle of nowhere, following the back roads and exploring towns and villages that had peculiar names and probably a maximum of 20 inhabitants. Most of them had run out of ideas for settlement and road names with signs saying Old Mill Road, New Mill Road, Mill Road, Old Road and yes, even New Road, all leading into and out of places like Loughbrickland, which we thought was quite a funny name.

We did manage to pass a town that contained a lovely little church, right beside a castle. It then turned out that it was the Tayto Castle – here in the middle of some random town I have never heard of – and we were instantly hit with the smell of crisps, the ready salted smell really. A few metres down the road we passed another huge building, this time it was an oats factory and again we could smell the porridge. It was a tour of all sensory stimulants (it was called Tandragee if you are interested in testing your smelling senses).

After following a completely irrelevant and inconvenient route through Portadown, we finally made it on to the motorway, passing numerous emergency vehicles attending a small lorry, where it appeared that the driver had fallen asleep and crashed into the barriers on the left of the motorway. Following these visual and smelling excitements, the hearing sense got a ‘taste’ of the action as we heard a hissing from the back of the car. Puzzled to as it could be, we passed it off as nothing. However, a few seconds later and the car was starting to jump about, dragging the car to the left…puncture. You literally couldn’t write it. About 30mins away from Dublin Airport, we had parked on the hard shoulder, hazard lights on and iPhone torches out, trying to get a grip of the situation. My car was relatively new and I hadn’t even checked if we had the necessary materials to change a tyre, yet a lone a spare tyre. Thankfully there was and I set to work, emulating a pit stop at a formula 1 race.

Managing to get 75% of the bolts out, Hyundai decided that having a different bolt to the others, and, that need new tools and extra materials would be needed to change this one bolt would be a good idea. It wasn’t then and still isn’t now. I panicked and Anna was able to calm me down, finding the spare tools in the glove compartment. I continued working and when complete, the wheel was half the size of the rest of them – it would have to do for now. I was stressed that we would miss our flight and would have already given up on making it to the airport if Anna hadn’t been so persuasive. I tentatively made it to the airport, wincing every time I crossed the cat’s eyes on the road, constantly paranoid and listening out for another puncture. Nevertheless, we made it to the car park only a few minutes later than what I had planned to. The trip was still on…for now.

With a small transit bus ride into the terminal and a relatively fast security check, it was time to board the plane with Anna asleep on me before the cabin crew even did the safety demonstrations. I too was close to sleeping but I thought it would be wise to refresh the emergency procedures again, just with the day we were already having and all that. It wasn’t a bad idea either, as almost 2hrs into the flight, we effectively crash landed in France. The pilot obviously thinking we were still a few metres above, slammed us into the tarmac. Luckily, we avoided any damage to the plane but a few restless babies had been awoken and Anna nearly broke her nose off the chair in front. Anna gets a bit grumpy when she wakes up and to help her out, we had to remain on the plane for a further 15 minutes because “the airport is too busy at the minute”. I could see why, as the airport looked a lot smaller than the Boeing 737 plane we were on.