Wednesday, August 16, 2006

One more Donegal post

I WAS so tired when I last posted that I forgot to mention a couple of funny things from my couple of days away. Anyway here goes and because they weren’t included in my last post they will probably read somewhat disjointed.

On the North Coast stretch of my trip approaching the Giants Causeway, we noticed a serious amount of campervans and foreign cars all parked along the road coming up to the Giants Causeway. For an awful moment I thought ‘maybe it is full’. Now in hindsight I realise that was a foolish thought to have, the Causeway is massive and there would have to be a serious amount of people there to fill it.

Giants Causeway

It was when we drove in that we realised, they were tourists parking on the road to avoid paying the €5 car park fee and I thought you mealy-mouthed tight arses. I understand some people will be doing the trip around Ireland on a budget. But seriously one look at these campervans, many which are larger and probably more comfy than my flat. They can certainly fork out €5 to enjoy a 60million-year-old geological wonder.

Certainly the car park was busy but not full and people were coming and going all the time so parking sis not apppear to be the problem. I just thought not paying for the upkeep, the facilities was the height of meanness. A tourist even asked us for our parking ticket when we left. We gave it to them but maybe we should have said ‘splash out €5 Ebenezer’.

The other thing that made me laugh was up in Donegal when my pal Tawdrey’s husband Big S from Manchester came back from the shop in Downings with a copy of Ireland’s Own.

And he didn’t read it all in one go; he savoured it over a couple of days, really he did. He came out with comments like ‘where can you read about the work of Fr Pat Noise (okay I am joking there but there is a profile of some priest in the current edition – check it out if you don’t believe me) to Irish patriots to jokes which were perfect for their two-year-old.

That’s another funny thing, my pal has two daughters a two and a five-year-old and they do this very funny comedy double act where the five-year-old started the joke and the two-year-old told the punch line.

So we spent five minutes teaching her ‘okay darling the joke is what is a hedgehog’s favourite food? The punch line is’. She would whisper ‘prickled onions’. Priceless.

The Downings Festival was also a sight to behold. There are normally pig races with little knitted men on top as one of the attractions but sadly this was cancelled this year much to my annoyance. There was a funfair with three rides, or was that four. Sure everyone loves the bumper cars.

Everyone loves the dodgems

There was the Johnny Cash tribute with an American-accented fella crooning out the hits, then we found out he is actually from Derry.

Johnny Cash tribute, Downings Festival, Downings, Donegal
As those underneath enjoy the music, the woman in the window has a wee cup of tea

Downings Festival Queen
The Festival Queen

Downings Festival
Enjoying the craic agus ceol

Or there was the night after Sand’s disco Tawdrey and I gatecrashed a teenagers’ house party in their parent’s mobile home before staggering back to our caravan at 6am. Big S said he could hear people banging about the walls of the caravan trying to get to the loo, I think it was me.

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1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Well, the £5 parking fee is far too high. There's been a lot of debate on the radio about this recently. I wouldn't pay it. I get the impression this fee might have to be reduced. What if all the tourist sights cost £5? You could end up paying £50 in one day. A rip off.