Not our first outing of the year by any means, but I thought it might be good to get myself into writing mode because Euro 17 is only seven weeks away.

We find ourselves at Currans Bar in Ardglass, a quaint pub in the nineties style, and full of interesting people. We had quite a yarn with retired motor homers, that is, retired from motor homing. They had a van for some time but he got fed up doing all the driving.

Now back to the bar where the food was nothing to write home about, the fish was very disappointing, but Margaret had a steak, which was flavoursome and cooked nicely.

We arrived in the town around three, and parked up by the marina and got the kettle on. The rain had started pouring down about five minutes after we arrived and kept at it till about eleven.

Ardglass is a working port, and accounts for much of the northern Irish fish catch. Back in the day, this is where my fish came from. It has had its fair share and more of marine tragedy, the pit fall of the very hard working fishing fleet.

There is plenty of parking at the marina and different spots in the vicinity, lots of eateries, and a couple of large shops.

The locals are a friendly bunch, except for the young moron that thumped Helga while we were watching telly about ten thirty. Still, thats the joy of parking up in a country pub at the weekend. Especially if there’s an eighteenth birthday party going on!

There are three routes to our next destination, and one off them would take us past our daughters house, so we chose that. We called in, it’s always a joy to see Adam our grandson. The reason for this trip was based around the pride we both in him, and now that he’s playing in a rock band all the better. We hijacked Adam and took him on a mini road trip, much to his pleasure. After a walk along Belfast Lough, we had tea in the van, which as usual, Adam loved, and then to the venue which not only was our stop for the night, but where his band were playing.

The club is fine, and they have no problems with parking overnight. The car park is monitored and they have a night watchman. We both slept like lords, not even hearing the revellers at throw out time. Mind you, I can’t remember what time we left, that might account for the sleep!

Having nothing better to do, we headed for Ballygally, it was going to be Glenarm, another favourite spot, but the main car park in Ballygally was quite empty so we parked up. 

One of the greatest or even the only problem, with our hobby is finding somewhere to empty the toilet cassette. We’ve been fortunate never to have had problems, and this was no different. The public toilet almost on our doorstep facilitated our need very well. 

So, as we were 98% charged battery wise, and an empty cassette we went for the first walk of the day, under clear blue skies and a chilly 4 degrees, we walked up and down the beach before walking down to the Half Way House for a nice warming hot port.

These have very special memories for me, apart from working as sous Chef in the castle, and our Saturday night foray down to the Halfway, where they kept the bar open till we were gone. Some nights when we had been very busy, it could have been after midnight before we even got out. Cant imagine what four drunken chefs and a few equally drunk waiters sounds like on the walk back home. 

The other memory is of the time I threw Margaret into the sea here! We were not long going out together and we were out for a run with our Dawn and Des. I was giving Margaret a twirl, and as we gathered pace, she shot from my grasp into the cold Irish Sea. I thought that was the end of that romance but 45 years later it has been proved that even if you throw a wee girl wearing a brand new hot pant suit into the sea, she’ll still torture you.

Enough of that, we returned to the heat of Helga and after a coffee, a short siesta, before dinner and a post prandial stroll along the sea front.