Strangford.

Took a taxi to Budget Car Rentals. They were short staffed and had a lot of people waiting. We did the paperwork, our car was brought out, we were handed the keys and we put our cases in the back.
We had studied a street map of Dublin the night before to work out a way to head North without actually driving through Dublin. The best laid plans... I must have turned right instead of left at some point and we drove through Dublin.
As if I wasn't nervous enough, every time we stopped at traffic lights, the engine cut out and I would strive to restart it. This was meant to happen as a fuel saving system. I had never heard of cars that did this so didn't know that the engine would restart once you put it into gear to go again.
We were booked in to The Cuan, a hotel in Strangford, a town on the banks of Strangford Lough. We arrived late afternoon, checked in, unpacked, booked in for dinner and went for a walk.
Dinner was excellent - a table near the open fire, good food, friendly people and charming hosts. In our conversation, we were asked what brought us to this part of Ireland. I replied, “my mother was a Fay”. This drew understanding responses such as, “John Fay lives just down the road”. This is obviously my mother's ancestors' territory.
There was a bit of an 'event' as we were getting ready for dinner. Janette called from the bathroom that she couldn't turn on the hot water tap on the hand basin. “Stand aside, leave this to me” I said, but it wouldn't budge. I tried so hard that I thought the basin was in danger of parting company with the wall. This needed someone the size of a rugby full forward with a big wrench.
I went down to reception and passed this suggestion on to Colleen. She said she would call Paddy. Not long later there was a knock at the door. Must be Paddy, I thought. I opened the door and in walked Colleen. She had spoken to Paddy. She walked to the bathroom and, with a flick of her wrist, she turned on the hot water tap.
It turned out that the tap had been recently replaced but with a tap that turned the opposite way to normal. The more we tried to open it, the more we were tightening it. Colleen couldn't seem to understand why we hadn't tried to turn it the other way. In response to our surprise, she headed off muttering something like “you shouldn't be surprised, after all you are Australian and water goes down your plug holes the opposite way...” ??????
Tomorrow we'll head to Belfast.Read more