Day 28 - March 28th

Liz and I are going to visit Sarah in London this evening for a long overdue catch up and some wedding related shopping. For a number of very obvious reasons, I will clearly not be partaking in the shopping but will be along for some appropriately timed oohing and ahing when dresses are donned. Sarah’s great - in a supreme effort to help me ‘not shop’ she has been valiantly baking and cooking and stocking up on wine so we can have a home cooked feast of the gods, thus negating the need to go out for expensive dinners. I’m actually getting hungry just thinking about it.
As a result of my impending trip, I was back on the bus this morning. Happily, the trip on the 17 is not quite as hateful as I remember from my school days. It arrived promptly at 8.30, I had my pick of a number of seats and was at my desk by 9am. A doddle some might say. For one brief moment I began to picture my new life as a loyal Dublin bus customer. Then I realised that it was probably cheaper to take the car and cheapest to cycle so it looks like the bus is reserved purely for airport visits. It was a noble vision while it lasted.

€1.80 on the bus (and I had the right change today so no wastage).

Piping hot tea this morning courtesy of Sinéad and Insomnia. Just the job!

€3.95 on soup and a delightful conversation about world domination, hermaphrodites, homosexuality and of course my impending trip to London. I’m so giddy and excited today I’m surprising even myself. Consequently I’m being highly disruptive. Were I in school I suspect I’d have been thrown out of class by now. Only an hour left before I leave for the airport – Wohoo!

I'm such an idiot. I've been overexcited distracted all afternoon and pretty much all I've been able to think about is going to the airport, to the point where I've been joking about leaving since lunchtime. It's 3.45pm now and I'm on the Aircoach. Why, I hear you ask, am I not on the more economical and budget friendly Dublin Bus? Because, dear reader, I've missed it. So for some strange reason, known only to the gods, I managed to miss a bus I've been itching to take all afternoon and as a result I'm down €8 to the Aircoach people. Boo Hiss and a slap on the wrists for me.

€2.70 for a peppermint tea at the airport. Expensive I know and under normal circumstances I would now be commencing a rant about the price of stuff at Dublin Airport. However, as the cup was so large and the volume of water so great, the lovely Starbucks man gave me an extra teabag to ensure the sufficient strength of said tea. As a result, I ended up being quite pleased with my purchase and not at all bitter.

Street cars are great. I don't fully understand the inner workings of the system, but from where I was sitting (the back of a fancy new Golf) they seem pretty cool to me. Put simply, “Street Cars” are a pay as you go car club where you can have the use of a car for as little as 30 minutes or as long as 6 months, depending on how long you reserve it for. There are cars parked at handy locations all around London (and other UK cities) that you can rent at a pretty reasonable cost. This system seems very useful for those who choose not to own a car but sometimes have long journeys to make, such as picking two friends up from Gatwick Airport! Sarah reserved one for three hours for £14 so that she could collect us. This particular one lives less than a 5 minute walk from her house so was very convenient when we dropped it back and subsequently had to drag our cases home. The majority of the time Sarah takes public transport or scoots around on her Vespa. The street cars have negated the need for her and Kev to own a car and also in all likelihood have gone some way to decreasing the traffic congestion in central London.

Total spent today - €16.45. Would have been €10.25 had I not missed the bus.