For only the second time in nearly two decades (excluding the COVID-19 years), we aren't able to engage in an extended summer break this year as Emma has two separate friend-wedding responsibilities she has to attend to. These are also (I suspect conspiratorially) spaced in such a way to make any kind of road trip as compromised as possible.
And so - as has frequently been our saviour in such times of compromise - we're Ireland bound.
Specifically, we're Inis Meáin bound. Some years ago we gazed longingly at the Aran Islands off the west coast of Ireland and vowed to try to set foot upon them (or at least one of them) at some point future.
Inis Meáin in particular increased the draw quite recently when it started to host one of the most logistically-challenging-to-accomplish parkruns in Europe. Factor in that Emma is also looking to complete the parkrun alphabeteer challenge and needs an 'I' and - well ... this stuff writes itself.
And so, Ireland bound we are. Today was basically just a case of heading towards the ferry terminal at Holyhead for a sailing tomorrow afternoon, and knocking off a Welsh parkrun en route. We had actually intended to make it to at least the Bangor area today, but such was the state of the crumbling infrastructure, idiotic driving (not mine) and consequential consistently massive queues on the M62/M6/M56 that it took four hours to get to the point we would have expected to reach in only two, so Plan B was swung into action. Good job Andy Burnham will all this sort of stuff fixed by next Monday afternoon.
Plan B turned out rather well. We basically headed for the parkrun venue of Park in the Past just over the Welsh border. This site, we have discovered, is not only a parkrun host but the site of many-a-leisure pursuit, as well as a labour-of-love project engaged upon by the site owner to create a full-blown replica of a Roman Fort. Well, why wouldn't you?
Upon arriving at the venue at around 5.00pm we pulled into the car park intending simply to recce the layout for tomorrow morning. Long story short, we met the site owner, crossed his palm with a paltry amount of silver and immediately settled into our (lock-in) overnighting spot at the coordinates shown
The parks quite an oddity. As well as the very ambitious fort project there are watersports activities here, good and productive nature habitats and many-a-site where the Live Action Role Play (LARP) brigade do that slightly unnerving thing they are wont to do. We expect to see some in full disturbing action tomorrow during our post-parkrun visit to the fort. I may take some pepper spray.
Post composed at 21:30 on Friday 17th July from our intended overnighting spot N 53.11955°, W 03.04734° / http://maps.google.com/maps?q=loc:53.11955%2C-03.04734