IF YOU are reading this on some far flung corner of Ireland where the sun is blazing down – then you’re deluding yourself, the sun couldn’t be blazing down.
It’s Ireland, it’s August... the sun has got his hat on because it’s pouring down. But I’m on a countdown to holiday time and, where I’m going, it doesn’t matter about the sunshine... I’ll be walking on it (apologies Katrina and the Waves).
OK, after years of saying “bloody Donegal” and complaining about everything except the hazy Blue Stacks and the chewiness of a decent Emerald Toffee – we’re going to Donegal.
But this is not old-style Donegal – there will not be a caravan on the horizon, a rusty car in a far flung ditch or a lime green bungalow in sight (ah, those were the days). More importantly, the resident chef is not me – the Jamie Oliver ambition died the day you got three for two on the burgers up the road.
No, this is three nights in a heaven where they dangle the morning newspaper on the door in a linen bag and put a little white mat on the floor and give you slippers for your feet and they turn down your pillow and leave a chocolate on the corner.
You get two sinks in the bathroom and the kind of deep wallowing bath that really ought to have its own coral reef. Tis far from that we were reared.
It is so beautiful that you know if you did that old hotel inspector trick of donning the white cotton gloves and running a finger around the wainscots, it would come up squeaky clean.
I’m a socialist, honest. But for just three nights I’ll throw away all my principles to have a Thai woman walk up and down my back in her bare feet. Don’t knock it.
You can have whatever you want for breakfast in this earthly heaven. There is a resident chef who actually smiles like he enjoys it – he’ll make you an omelette as you watch (and it never breaks up into little rubbery bits like mine does at home).
He also does pancakes and if you look at the ceiling, you’ll notice that when he flips them, they don’t end up stuck there. They serve you tea and coffee in silver service and you can have porridge with cream followed by a full Ulster fry followed by kippers and the waitress won’t even raise a Paxman eyebrow at you.
They are so well trained in that place.
Really, you can have a year’s worth of breakfasts in one sitting and nobody will dare to call ye a hungry hoor.
I know this because, in a spirit of love and friendship, I babysat for a night for two close friends and off they went to paradise for a night.
“The best bit was the breakfast and just sitting reading the paper,” he said on return... tis amazing how simple things please you after years of toddlers clutching your trouser legs.
“What did you have for breakfast?” I asked.
“Everything. The whole menu. Sausages, eggs, kippers and all,” he said with a Cheshire cat smile.
And that was reward enough for me – it was worth a night spent in the company of Sponge Bob Square Pants the movie, just to hear that. I remembered it when I made the booking for three nights in paradise.
I have had those breakfasts and waddled from the dining room, yearning for the good old Roman days of the vomitarium, where a kind slave tickled you on the throat with a feather until you threw up and rose, delighted, to return to the feast. See, that Latin O-level was never wasted on me.. ecce Romani and here’s to Ovid on himself.
So after three days of dinner, bed and breakfast, watch out for travel news about a big hole in the M2 on the approach to Belfast... that’ll be us, falling through the tarmac under the weight of buttered kippers and omelettes and Ulster fries.
It’s not that I don’t have a bucket list of far flung holidays on which I might like to venture. Say not 'The blue lagoon' in my presence lest I turn green with envy. Say not, the temples of Kyoto, bullet train, strange albino Japanese monkey or Mount Fujiyama. The documentaries are just not enough – you have to really go there and we shall.
It is just not this year. But I’m going to Irish heaven... I can’t wait.
