O'Flaherty's Garage, Portumna

Well. It's been a long day. Hot too and 6 hours driving thrown in. Z's dad Liam is over for a holiday with Hannah and Jakob too. They were arriving on the ferry at Ringaskiddy from France this morning and Liam had some hair-brained scheme of getting buses and trains to where they were going. The first bit involved the ferry docking on time, so we said we'd meet them and drive them up instead. The ferry was half an hour later than he'd planned so just as well. The cleaning crew kept waiting too. Not much getting lost was done on the way up. Two and a  half hours later we got to Portumna in Galway, where they are starting a week's cruising down the Shannon with 4 other German friends ( we knew nothing about). Liam dragged us to a particular restaurant as that was the only place we could find that had fish on the menu, as he really fancied fish and chips, then he promptly had black pudding in batter and a sandwich with a pint of Guinness.
The four Germans arrived on the bus, the driver dropping them right to the boat as they were the only passengers left. Then the 7 of them set off on their cruiser, taking turns to steer, God help the wildlife..
On the way back we picked up a hitchhiker about half an hour from Clonakilty, from the smell of cologne and the clink of bottles in his bag it seemed a party was his destination. We dropped him and still in the car he knocked on the window again asking about where the taxi rank was. There aren't any taxis in Clonakilty, so after getting some groceries we found him again and brought him to his party a few miles away. Then Martha rang and her little girl Hazel had fallen on Cape Clear island and cut herself  just over the eye and they had to bring her into the doctor on a special ferry and they need to stay tonight with us and now Hazel is drooping but refusing to sleep and we've got wine and the day is winding down. Do I sound a little manic? No, I didn't think so.
Portumna