4 July: Free-wheeling
Regretfully we packed ourselves out of Trinity and faced the challenge of getting to Avis to pick up our car. Because of the roadworks networking the centre city there is nowhere for taxis or buses to stop. However, there is no traffic flow either so it's a hazardous process of spotting the vehicle you want, waving frantically and then loading or off-loading while it's stationary - which is most of the time. And thus we fell into a taxi and sat  while the driver inched his way through the chaos.
When we eventually reached the Avis office we stood for an hour in the queue to complete the paperwork.  You'll see from the FB photo we were duly rewarded for all this with a brand new Nissan with 17 km on the clock.
Now it was Peter's turn to negotiate the traffic, but with the aid of mapsme, which, thanks to Josephine,  he had loaded prior to leaving Trinity, we eventually reached the highway and felt the wind in our sails (metaphorically speaking). We rewarded ourselves with morning tea/lunch at Wicklow before seriously driving to Waterford. One of my sorrows in life was my visit to Waterford in 1993 to find it closed for winter. So we were about to remedy that. I thought Peter should see the pretty little town of Wexford en route but that was hosting a family day so traffic was reduced to a crawl. Very very slowly we inched our way through that traffic jam and reached Waterford at 4 pm.  We had planned stopping at the crystal centre for lunch but 4 hours later we did get here, did fluke a parking space and did stagger into their very impressive factory. Peter was coughing throughout all this, but then he's been coughing since mid June so it's become a lifestyle.
Fortunately we arrived 2 minutes before the last tour of the day so joined that. The factory was opened in 1783 and has had an intermittent life ever since. It went into receivership in 2009 but was bought by a global mega company and started fresh operations. The reason for its popularity is that it uses 33% lead in its mix as compared with the standard 22% of other manufacturers. We walked our way through each of the sections of its production and spent an enralling hour there.
By this stage it was obvious that we needed to stay in Waterford for the night,  but the city was hosting a U2 (or 3 or 4) concert so there was no accommodation. Suddenly we happened upon a B & B place out of town and managed to get a room on the 3rd floor. No, of course there was no lift. There was no food anywhere around either so we had to drive back to town along with hundreds of concert fans.
Backgrounding this story is Peter's incessant coughing. By the time he managed to park the car and find a restaurant where he could sit down, it was obvious he needed pretty urgent medical assistance  - again. So I had to start finding same at 6.30 on a Saturday night in a strange city packed to the gills with rock concert fans.
I won't bore you with my anguish. I'll skip to the bit where he's on a respirator in A & E with a huge Indian doctor waggling his head at me saying "No problem Madam" repeatedly. There he was wrong. It was a mountainous problem!!! During all this I had found 1 hotel room which had just had 1 cancellation. The doctor gave Peter 7 little steroid pills which he had to sluice down under strict supervision. Then followed pages of totally indecipherable script and a hospital admission slip. If Sir stops breathing, take him to the hospital immediately. @#¥*&?!#÷€
So here we are in a little room on the first floor of a waterfront hotel in Waterford post rock concert.
To be continued - perhaps!