Like Frodo and the fellowship at Amon Hen, leaving Galway meant a parting of ways. For the next few days we were going off piste and leaving the Wild Atlantic Way.

Ann was heading home.
Ed was returning to London with Ann for a few days to work.
Me and the kids were spending a few days with my auntie in Carrick-on-Shannon.

The further we head north, the more nostalgic this blog is likely to get. Having moved to England aged 5, me and my sisters spent most of our summer holidays until the age of 18 over in Ireland. We stayed with relatives and mum and dad stayed in England working, and would join us for a few weeks in the middle. We would always spend a week or so with CG and Jim in Carrick. For me, a big motivator for this trip was to revisit the summers of my youth, and even through Elizabeth and Patrick are too young to remember this trip, I'm glad that Ed and I have started our family holiday blueprint in this vein.

It was really good of Claire and Jim to have me and the kids to stay as they had just launched their own campsite business and the Friday saw their biggest booking yet. It was all hands on deck and the last thing they needed was house guests! They even found time to take me to the infamous Thatch pub for a session. It was a come and play trad session, and (thankfully!) no photographic evidence exists, but I might just have been up doing a jig in the pub!

Ed was only away for 3 days but all three of us missed him terribly. We couldn't wait for him to return on Friday evening. Unfortunately Betsy also had a really bad fall while Ed was away. She was fine but she chipped her front tooth and badly bruised her lip and cheek. There aren't much worse things than seeing your 2 year old frightened and in pain. She recovered a lot quicker than I did!

Whilst we were there, Diarmuid (their eldest boy) got his leaving cert results - he did brilliantly and will be off to Galway in September to start uni. It can definitely make you feel (a bit) old when a person you can remember cradling and babysitting as a tiny baby is off to uni!! Ed meanwhile was getting results of his own! His school got the best A level results in their history which was pretty good news as Ed is head of sixth form! It was a mad few days!