Day 31 - Sunday 26th August

Before breakfast, I went for a walk and explored a nearby suburb, Hampstead Garden Suburb. This is where Nicky and John had been thinking of buying a house a few months ago. It's a very nice neighbourhood. The rain had cleared away leaving a pleasant sunny morning.

When I got back, Amelia, Suzy and John were awake but there was no sign yet of Nicky and Alexis. They came downstairs mid-morning. Apparently Alexis slept much better last night.

For lunch, we all went to the Barracuda Cafe which is in the main street of East Finchley. It's a pleasant cafe on a street corner with some tables inside and others outside next to the footpath. It is a sunny spot on a tree-lined street.

To get to Dublin for our eight-day holiday in Ireland, we'd booked to fly with CityJet which is owned by Air France. I've never heard of CityJet before and I don't think I've every flown with Air France before.

I decided to join the Air France loyalty program, Flying Blue, which is part of an airline grouping called SkyTeam. They say this is a third airline grouping after One World and Star Alliance.

The flights we booked use London City Airport which is located in the Docklands area of London near the Thames and close to Canary Wharf where John's office is. This is the same area where Nicky used to work before Amelia was born.

We'd booked a car and driver to take us to the airport. Suzy decided to use a local company called Greater London Hire (GLH) for 2:30pm.

Usually these cars arrive early and so when it hadn't arrived at 2:35pm, she rang to check on him. It turned out that he was waiting at the other end of the street - confused by the fact that Nicky and John's house has a name but not a street number.

Although Google Maps claims that it's a half-hour trip to London City Airport, the driver seemed to use a long route through the suburbs before getting onto a motorway. Along the way, we saw the new Olympic stadium near the motorway.

London City Airport is smaller than the other airports in London - Heathrow, Gatwick, Luton and Stanstead. It's rather like a regional airport in Australia - but more modern and sophisticated.

It wasn't crowded like other airports. There were only short queues and it took no time to get through security. We were surprised to find there was no passport checking process. We had time to fill in so we had a drink at the bar.

When we reached the gate, some people with carry-on bags were being told they had to put their carry-on bags in the cargo hold. Luckily I seemed to escape this and we sat there wondering why and expecting someone to come and take my bag away. The reason became obvious when we got on board - the height of the overhead lockers at the front of the plane is too shallow whereas for our seats, the height was OK for our bags. Weird.

The plane was a small four-engine jet that probably carried less than 100 passengers. There was no air bridge access - you walked out onto the runway and up a set of stairs. The plane seemed to be full but the time between boarding and take-off was very short.

I was in the window seat on the right side of the aircraft. The pilot announcement had suggested we look out the window shortly after take-off to get a view of the Olympic stadium. Sure enough we flew right over it about 200m below.

The flight time to Dublin was just over an hour. In the terminal, there were two queues for customs: one for EU countries and another for non-EU. Our non-EU queue was very slow - partly because there was only one officer on duty and partly because he seemed to be quizzing some people extensively. When we got to the counter, we got through without the interrogation.

We'd booked a hire car online with the cheapest option we could find - a local company called Dan Dooley Car Rentals. The man at the counter was very helpful. We'd been allocated an automatic Nissan Micra.

When we reached the car in the car park, it had small scratches but it was difficult to distinguish the scratches from the dirt. Also the hub caps looked as though they were about to fall off. When I moved the car so we could get the bags into it, Suzy said the car made a grinding noise.

So we decided to go back to the counter to report the problems. However, there was no longer anybody at the counter. We waited 20 minutes for him to return - he'd gone to McDonald's to get some dinner. While we were waiting I tried ringing several phone numbers for the company and got no answers.

He convinced us the car would be OK and marked the defects on the paperwork. He gave us phone numbers to ring if we had any problems.

When we returned to the car, I did more checking. I found that the headlights didn't work and only one parking light at the front was functional.

I rang the man at the desk and he said he would come to the car park. He arrived ten minutes later and confirmed that the headlights did not work.

He then upgraded us to another car, a Nissan Tiida. This bigger car was much better and our bags even fitted in the boot.

By this time, we were on first name terms with Thomas, the Dan Dooley employee. It had taken over an hour to sort out our car rental (including reading and re-reading the instruction manual about getting the headlights to work) and we eventually left the airport at about 8:30pm.

It was still light and the weather was fine. Initially we travelled on motorways. Near the airport, we went through a toll for which we had no etag. Thomas had told us we needed to contact the tollway operator by 8 o'clock the following night to pay the toll to avoid receiving a fine.

Our TomTom diverted us onto a series of narrow regional roads. Suzy rang the B&B to say we'd be late. It was slow going and we definitely needed headlights. We reached the B&B at 9:30. By that time it had starting to rain.

The B&B is in a remote location near Glendalough. It seemed to have five or six guest rooms. Ours was a modern, spacious room. However the WiFi reception was poor. We managed to get a connection on our  iPhones and  iPad but not for the laptop.

As we went to bed after a long day, the rain was getting heavier and the wind was getting stronger.