It sounds a good couple of days Lady A.
A couple of days away suits me now. I`ve just had a couple of days away in London and felt I`d been away for a week.
I've totally lost my confidence about driving anywhere I don't know, Sylvia. In fact, about
going anywhere I don't know! I have a hopeless sense of direction and am not the best at following directions. I ask for directions, but they seem to not stick! I've forgotten as soon as I set off, what the person said!! The nice thing about Bunratty is that it's very compact. If you were mobile, you could walk to the Folk park & castle, the pubs (which all do excellent food), and the gift shops. Breakfast was not included in the hotel (I had to pay an extra 9euro for a good buffet breakfast, but it was excellent, and we didn't need lunch!), but if you didn't get breakfast in your hotel, there's a small petrol station/mini market that has a little seating area and does a full breakfast for 5 or 6 euro. And they also do a great selection of food for taking away, including sandwiches etc. if you wanted to take a picnic lunch into the Folk park rather than buy lunch in the cafe. I saw a lot of families with kids who were staying in our hotel, in the playground in the park (which is brilliant, with zip wire, pirate ship and other fantastic stuff for kids from young ones to tweens) with picnic lunches from the mini market.
But I was most delighted at mum's ability to keep going! At home, she's been using one crutch for years but because of her osteoporosis, a hip replacement a few years ago left her with one leg longer than the other, and a lot of pain. Now, she's been getting lots of pain in the join where her opposite knee was replaced about six years ago. I told her that I felt it at least partly because the one crutch was putting her off balance, and putting too much pressure on that leg. So, as I knew there would be a lot of walking on our trip, and ordinarily, mum can't walk far at all, I insisted she brought two crutches. She's delighted at how much farther she could walk, without pain, with the two. She had no problems at all, apart from how awkward she found it, and she couldn't carry any bags! And her hands got a bit sore by the end of the day. Still though, she had a really good time, which is the main thing.
And finding my way there and back boosted my own confidence too, which is also a good thing.