On Wednesday evening I had the late flight from Heathrow into Cork, and after picking up the rental car at the airport, I made my way over to Claire and Michael's place. Uns and Claire were down west, so the plan was for me to let myself in, crash there the night and wait for them to drive up from Cork the next morning while Michael headed off to work.

Then yesterday morning, once Claire and Una were back up in Cork and had dropped Jack at daycare, Uns and I drove over to the Hayfield Manor - a luxury 5 star hotel in Cork city centre. They had certainly gone all out with their decorations for Christmas - including a Christmas Tree in every room, which I thought was a nice touch, as did Uns, even if she did consider bringing our own fairy lights next year for the tree :) After checking into the hotel and dropping our bags, we grabbed some lunch in the front restaurant bar and then headed off to the spa for a swim, a massage and a bit of a relax for the afternoon. Once nicely chilled out from the spa, we got ready and made our way to Orchids, the hotel restaurant, for our dinner. Unfortunately they were all out of the lamb dish, so we both had the steak which was incredibly tasty - and will certainly be back again, if not for the accommodation, then definitely the dinner! :)

This morning after breakfast, which again was a decent feast, we stopped in at the pool for a quick swim before checking out. We then decided to relax away in the front room of the hotel for a couple of hours (making the most of it) before heading away and driving down west.