I’m Baaaaaack...

Did you miss me?  Did you?  Did you?  *Someone* just hasn’t been going on holiday, so I’ve been stuck at home all this time...

Anywho, I’ve now arrived in sunny Provence, so I had to have a drink and a little aperitif to celebrate.  I had mine, I wonder what the rest of them were having:

Then Jock appeared with some Pastis, he was positively diving into it, how excessive!  I would never do anything like that...

So we had a discussion all about it afterwards and I told him all about how one ought to behave when one has finally got one’s paws on some booze at the end of a long and tiring day:

On Sunday, we wandered down into the village for father’s day lunch, LT had already consumed one of our amuse bouches by this point, you just can’t get the staff these days...

Then we had our starter – courgette rolls with goat’s cheese, pine nuts and more courgette inside, topped with a sliver of tiger skin tomatoes, and with some local air dried ham on the side:

Next was the main course, huge prawns with stir fried vegetables:

Then, horror of horrors, there was no dessert!  Didn’t LT know that I was on my holidays?!  I was really quite put out about that.

After we had taken the longest walk home ever because *someone* can’t follow directions (um, excuse me, I can follow them fine, it’s just that there wasn’t a road sign where it was meant to be! - LT)  Whatever, after we had finally got home, it was time to lounge around by the pool where I made a new friend, Vincent:

Everyone needs a vole named Vincent for a friend don’t you think?

He’d had a bit of a run in with a nasty beast before we met him, but it was a little hard to understand him, wot with him being French and all, but he seemed to recover and run away in the end, even after Ann nearly stepped on him, twice!

We came back round to our patio so that I could finally get my paws upon something sweet.  They were a bit sticky afterwards, but it was definitely worth it...

*Belch*

Connemara Day 1

I'm baaaaaack.  Did ya miss me?  Did ya?  Did ya?  Anyway, here's my first day on the trip to Connemara with LT last weekend.


First up, the ubiquitous 'in the airport' shot.  Do you think I packed enough?

After this we drove.  And drove.  And drove.  And drove (And there was an awful lot of 'Are we nearly there yet's - LT)


Anywho, this was the dining area where we hung out when we were at the cottage.  Didn't it start off looking nice?  Can't imagine why the owners thought we'd be fine dining with napkins though... (don't worry, we put all that stuff safely aside - LT)

Then Stephen got out a bouncy castle just for me!

There were some interesting nick nacks around - at least I knew where I'd be heading if it rained... (thankfully it was nice all weekend! - LT)

There were a few absent friends, but apparently one of them sent on his beer mug...

Anyway, enough of the tour, big decisions had to be made - what to have as a warm up before the pub!

Phew, made it to the pub, the weekend can really begin!

I think I could do with a straw here...

Ahhhh, first Guinness of the meet:

*belch*

How about this one next round?

What do you mean 'No, it's bed time'?  (It was definitely time for some people to be getting their furry little behinds into bed after such a long day travelling.  It was time for Jack to go to bed too... ;o) - LT)

Provence - Saturday 25th June

Well, talk about ‘Planes, Trains and Automobiles’, I think we travelled on everything going!  First we walked to the station, then we took a train into Glasgow city centre, then we walked up to the other main train station, then we took another train to Edinburgh, then we took a bus to the airport, then we flew to Lyon, all the way over in France, then we got ANOTHER train to Avignon, then LT’s mum and dad picked us up and we drove all the way to Bedoin.  Phew, I was absolutely exhausted!  (Err, hang on a minute, I carried you everywhere! – LT)

Anyway, here I am at Lyon airport, waiting for the train.  Hang on, waiting at the airport for a train?! (It’s all combined – LT).  I didn’t get out before this as it was very busy on the trains and plane, and I didn’t want to get lost.  As it was dinner time, we had some quiche, washed down with some coke, because LT doesn’t like wine, and she wouldn’t get me one so that I could go native (well I didn’t want you singing on the train – LT)  I happen to have a very nice singing voice thank you very much!  Anyway, I’m also reading our Kindle, a John J Lamb teddy bear mystery, of course:

Here I am on the TGV train watching the French countryside whizz by, and trying to ignore the two bullet holes in the outer glass above my head! (We didn’t like to ask – LT)

I started to get a bit travel sick after a while though, so I went to hang out in the back of the seat in front – isn’t first class luxury?

When we got to the gite we all went straight to bed as it was 10:30 and people and bears were tired.

Doolin - Day 1

Hi everyone, nice to meet you!  I'm Jack, star of this blog, and intrepid worldwide adventurer.  I stow away with LT, of The Littlest Thistle, when she goes on holiday, but I get up to far more daring and exciting things than her...

As you can see, LT doesn't travel light.  Me?  It's just me and my jack...

Anyway, here I am at (London)Derry airport waiting to go.  Huh, I've never travelled to a town with brackets before, why does it have brackets LT?  (well, that's a very long story with lots of invasions and fighting and centuries of bigotry, shall we just leave it there? - LT) 

Oh, okay, well here I am waiting for our chauffeur Chris, and backseat driver Mark to come and fetch us.  What?  Not a chauffeur?  Well he drove didn't he?  (Err, yes - LT)  And the other one sat in the back, didn't he?  (Well, I suppose he did - LT)  So our chauffeur then!  (Whatever you say - LT).  We got up at 6:30 am for this, I had better be travelling in the lap of luxury from this point on, getting this far in a bag was quite undignified!  (It wasn't the bag he's sitting on, I should point out - LT)

Here I am sitting in my own little seat on the way down, look at the sun shining in.  Ireland's obviously a very sunny place.

Not long after this we got stuck in a traffic jam at Kilcolgan, just south of Galway city.  Who knew you could get traffic jams in the middle of nowhere?

I felt that this really wasn't the sort of welcoming impression that the residents of county Galway really wanted to give, so I tried to phone and tell them I was a celebearty and to get me out of there.

Do you know, there wasn't a single fast response unit sent!  Anyway, we eventually got through and drove down the twisty, windy road to Doolin, going over Corkscrew Hill on the way (and getting a leeeetle bit car sick too - LT).  Car sick?  Pah, it was a fur ball!

Here I am sitting outside our cottage for the weekend, isn't the view nice?  Chris and Mark decided that I needed to try some Guinness too, and had picked up quite a lot when we stopped at Asda in Strabane (I think the shelves were bare! - LT) 

We got in, and unpacked, and decided that after the nice sunny day that the sun was going to go down behind a thick band of haze on the horizon, so we skipped a sunset photoshoot.  After dinner we went to the pub to enjoy lots of drinks and live music from a band that looked half dead (that wasn't very nice! - LT)  What?  They were very old!  (Well, yes, I suppose they were - LT)  This time the boys introduced me to draught Guinness.

And LT let me have a little of her vodka and diet coke.  The American woman behind was really shocked at putting diet coke with vodka, so we decided she'd come from a really sheltered background.  She didn't smile all night either, maybe she should have tried the vodka and diet coke...

Chris decided he was going to play with his phone torch to make the drinks and me look all glowy, wasn't that fun?

I made a new friend too.  We were sharing half a table with 2 young American girls, and one of them had brought her own critter on holiday.  I didn't catch his name, but apparently he has a Facebook page and everything, hint, hint...

After they'd gone, it was time for more Guinness

Whew, such a lot for a little bear *belch*

For the rest of the night I had to make do with Jameson's whiskey, a much better size of a glass for someone of my stature.

We stumbled walked back up the lane to the cottage at about 1 am, wasn't that a long day?  More tomorrow...