Daddy’s Little Girl almost always knows the right thing to say to cheer her Old Man up and she did not disappoint when I went slithering down the board in Travel’s game of Snakes and Ladders.
Returning to my North Berwick home early yesterday morning having only managed to get halfway to Edinburgh Airport,
Before the car died on me I felt like I was in Hotel California.
Only without the California, although I’d often thought that it might not be the worst thing to be trapped in the Golden State. I digress.
St Paddy’s Day
DLG shot me one of her unique smiles,
And she said that I should join her when she goes over to our old Ireland stomping ground for St Patrick’s Day.
Of course, I wouldn’t dream of cramping her style.
But her generosity and the two doggies she borrowed to walk the beach lifted me from my doldrums, albeit temporarily.
St Paddy is often accompanied on the parades throughout Ireland and the world by carnival snakes.
As he famously rid Hibernia of the serpents.
Those scary Indians
Travel these past two Covid years has seemed a bit like the ancient game of Snakes and Ladders.
And like the Indian original Moksha Patam rather than the British derivative the game it is deffo stacked against us humans.
With more snakes than ladders.
That news to you?
Thankfully the game was diluted from its base when Victorians took it back from the Indian Raj in 1892.
It had been based on the idea that a person can attain salvation Moksha.
Through doing good, whereas by doing evil one will be reborn as lower forms of life.
How we changed the game
Not that the Victorians ditched the morality, they were all about that.
But there was no suggestion that little Herbert or Hannah would be turned into snakes.
Our cousins across the Atlantic sanitised it even further turning the snakes into chutes and the board into a playground.
All of which childish nonsense is indulged in other forms on Paddy’s Day.
And despite the Americans’ showpiece events.
In the likes of New York, Boston and Chicago, the latter where they turn their river green, the best Paddy’s Days are in the homeland.
Give me a g in Galway
Among the offers that have landed in my inbox (always more reliable than a gearbox) was from Galway in the West of Ireland.
And not just because I feel a kindred connection from summer holidays there as a child.
And because Galwegians are much like Glaswegians and not just in the naming conventions.
Also because down, down, down the brief g Hotel & Spa says it will provide a courtesy car and comp parkin.
If you like your entertainment ghoulish and dramatic then you’ll lap up the Macnas parade.
While of course you’ll be tapping your feet too to the trad music.
Deal us in
The Celebrate St. Patrick’s Day 2022 Package at the g Hotel & Spa is available from the 13th to the 20th of March for two nights from €229 per person sharing.
Evening dinner on one night of your choice and freshly cooked breakfast included both days.
Booking is advised for the discounted use of the Thermal Suite.
Perhaps I’ll still win the game of Travel’s Snakes and Ladders.
