I ask the to-be-married one how to get to the site of the wedding, which is in the delightfully named Letterfrack in Connemara, Co. Galway, Ireland.
A flight to knock or shannon or galway on Friday 7. galway airport you get to from luton airport the other two there are options at gatwick and heathrow...
Misreading this slightly, I pick a flight to Shannon from Gatwick, since Gatwick is the nearest airport to me. However, as it turns out, Shannon is the furthest of the three airports from Letterfrack (or Clifden, where I end up staying). Remember this, it will be important later. Ryanair, by which I will wend my way over the Irish Sea, have a cross-promo with Hertz, so I book a car for the weekend. This too is relavent.
Friday the 7th dawned bright and muggy and I popped around the M25 to Gatwick with plenty of time to spare. The flight was uneventful, although I could have done with a working air vent above me to offset the muggy air we carried from London. At Shannon, I marched up to the Hertz desk and waited while the lad behind finished his personal phone call.
“I think I booked a car”, quoth I. He crossed my name off a list, then told me to wait outside for the courtesy van which, in traditional courtesy van style, took a roundabout route to get somewhere in direct sight. Oh well. At the real Hertz desk then, I went through the usual rigamarole getting the car: handing over my licence, credit card, yadda yadda yadda. I got a cool “flick-key” for the car, but then realised I hadn't specificed an automatic. The replacement car did not have such a cool ignition device, but at least I wouldn't be stalling with embarrasing regularity at traffic lights.
Key in hand, I picked up my hand luggage and strode to bay 60 to take temporary ownership of my new chariot. Once inside I looked at the location of the controls and found them to be the exact opposite of the ones in my own car, a design choice that would have me indicating where I was wishing to go with brief bursts of windscreen wiper action for much of the subsequent days. I pulled out of the car park and set off towards Clifden via Ennis and Galway.
An hour or so into my journey - roughly halfway between Ennis and Galway - it occured to me that I had no recollection of putting my luggage in the car. There have been times in the past when similar thoughts have occured - but they usually involve rote actions that I perform daily, such as cleaning my teeth or locking the door after leaving. I've done them, but in such an automatic state they don't register. Putting the luggage in the back of the car is not such an event. I stopped at the next petrol station and got out to examine the boot. It stared back at me, entirely lacking in luggageness.
My mind wandered at this point to the conversation I'd overheard on the courtesy bus. Apparently there had been a security alert at Dublin airport after some idiot left their luggage behind. Granted, mine didn't contain a Koran and it wasn't in the main concourse, but would that prevent the police performing a “controlled explosion” on it. On the other hand, I'd had the radio on for the trip and had only heard about the Dublin incident so I hoped that the Hertz people, having had me hand over my licence and credit details would not have handed it over to the Garda.
It was 7pm and I had two hours left of my original journey - I figured I had two options: press on to Clifden and call Hertz in the morning to see if they could express up my stuff (including the all-important suit) before the wedding or I could return to Shannon and retrieve my luggage myself - assuming the counter was still open - but at a cost of adding another two hours at least to the journey. I plumped for plan B.
An hour later, back at Shannon airport I was stopped by the policeman on the gate.
“What's your reason for entering”, he asked.
“I'm going to the airport”, I said.
“That's obvious”, he pointed out. “Why?”
“Oh... I think I left my luggage behind.”
“You think?”
“Well... OK. I left my luggage behind definately.”
“Where? In the concourse?”
“No... At the Hertz rental place.”
He waved me through with a look that said idiot. I couldn't disagree. At the rental place, the gates were open but there was no-one around apart from one man.
“Are you returning?” he asked. I explained the situation and he said he'd not heard of anything being left. I said I'd look anyway and first looked at lot 60 in case I had in fact trundled up to the car with the suitcase, but just not en-cared it. Nothing. Desperately, I headed to the waiting room/rental desk. Peering over the L-shaped counter I looked first right, then left without seeing it. Then I looked at the far end of the bottom spur of the L where the edge of a small, black suitcase peeped around the corner at me. I practically hugged it as I carried it to the car where I babbled happily to the man from Hertz. He suggested I not let the stress get to me. Then I called the hotel and told them I'd be a little late. Fortunately they were happy to wait up and even made me a delicious sandwich when I got to The Quay House.
Further adventures to follow (though less luggage related).