I see that my blog has been mentioned in despatches, and not wanting to disappoint I will continue where I left off.

Contrary to Gerard’s reports, my training regime has not been put back three weeks; in fact the trip to Dublin has accelerated my programme forwards by a month!

Because of the almost magical qualities of Guinness I am now bordering on having super-human abilities! 

I began my visit to Dublin by attending one of the many exercise-houses in the heart of the city, a warm and welcoming venue, with a live band and a menu to match, I decided to join the local spots-men and women, with a drink and a meal. 

Now you are all probably wondering where I learned about the magical properties of Guinness?......A leprechaun told me!  After the sixth or seventh pint of the black stuff, followed by a similar number of whisky chasers (Powers, of course) a little fellow dressed in green from head to toe; skipped over and sat beside me at the bar, it was he who told me the secret of Guinness, before I had a chance to quiz him further, he jumped on his Unicorn and trotted off into the distance.

Anyway I awoke on day two with the mother of all hangovers; however this did not deter me, as I knew the vast amount of food and drink consumed the night before was only of benefit to my sportsman-like physique.  I decided to go down to the hotel restaurant and sample the delights of a full Irish, followed by cereal - three bowls, half a carton of orange juice, several rounds of toast and a pile of bacon, smuggled out in a napkin, and eaten in the lift on my way back to the room! (The food had been paid for; I was getting my monies worth!)

The reason for my visit to Ireland was that my lovely wife was scheduled to attend a meeting with the Irish D.O.T (work stuff), this left me with a day on my own to wonder round the capital, because of the extremely cold weather I found myself being drawn back into the bars dotted around the city, fortunately the thumping headache and churning stomach assisted me in overcoming that temptation. 

Eventually Mrs Rasco called me to tell me that the meeting was over and that she was ready to be collected and chauffeured to the ferry port!  Unfortunately because of alterations to the sailing times we had a mere 8 hours to kill before we left for Sunny Wales! As the weather was lovely we decided to spend the time by taking  a drive.  Initially we called in at Howth Yacht Club, as always there was a warm welcome and we stayed for an hour watching the world go by accompanied by a soft drink. (As requested by Gerard I offered them his best regards, twenty minutes later they sort of knew who I was talking about and with a look of bemusement thanked me).  Being Monday there restaurant at the club was closed, so we travelled the short distance to the Quayside Chippy (at the bottom of the hill on the left) Fresh and chips for myself and Smoked and chips for Mrs Rasco AWSOME!

Finally we found ourselves back at the ferry port awaiting the arrival of our ship.  Three and a half ours later I was leaving the port at Holyhead and heading for bed!