Events
Sheen Unit: Irish Hometown Weekend Finale - Brought to you by Vegas -
For those of you unbaptised to the Me Up realm, a short but educational history lesson is required. You may (if you’ve been cruising the website like Charley Boorman booking a holiday) be wondering what this Sheen Unit thing is all about. The verb, to Sheen was created some time ago. It means to move on, to go somewhere. Therefore, when the illustrious renovation of Leeds Me Up came about in 2005, we had glorious plans. In an effort to get us out of the city a bit more, always venturing to give our fans ‘something different’ we created the Sheen Unit. This involved whichever people joined us at the time, when we held an event outside the city walls. By the time the website crumbled, we had a fair few of them: Whitby, Rome, Paintballing (Somewhere in the country) and Wetherby Races, the first ever Sheen Unit Missions however, needed to be special; we needed to present the idea to the rest of the world. Because it was also Sherlock’s and mine joint birthdays, we decided to hold a 3-day event. That event was called The Hometown Weekend.
The event consisted of travelling to eachothers’ hometowns, over the one weekend. We visited where I grew up (Stalybridge) on the Friday night, sheened (do you see) over to Selston for tea and cakes with Sherlock’s mum on Saturday. And trained it over to Mr. Sheen himself’s ghetto in Mirfield for a relaxing Sunday.
It was a bonding experience for our household, all at a time when Sherlock, Mr. Sheen, and myself were living together. We lived with another girl, but we all hated her. As far as we were concerned the ‘house’ was covered.
The only other person ever to live with the three of us, whom we either didn’t hate, or was there for more than a month, was Manhattan. During that year in which we were all blessed and shocked with our good fortune, we planned to complete The Hometown Weekend. Let’s go to Ireland! We mutually screamed. To my constant disappointment, this never made it into the realms of reality, instead preferring its cosy chair of hope in the house of fantasy.
So when Manhattan suggested a few months ago, that we get a group of people together and sheen to Ireland for the weekend, I jumped at the chance like an Olympic athlete (after being invited for a drug test).
Because Londonderry’s International Airport only receives one London flight a day, everyone arrived at separate times, each in their own way trying to find the cheapest deal. As the first person to arrive, I managed to get a half-day in at work before flying on Friday afternoon. Clare Louise arrived later than night, so Manhattan and myself had a few hours to enjoy visiting her dad John at his new abode, and cooking a huge Lasagne for the Saturday’s dinner. I say ‘we cooked’ – what I mean is she cooked, I sat and watched whilst lightening her wine stocks.
Later on, we picked up (again read: She picked up, I sat in the car) Clare Louise where she embarrassingly revealed that she was refused alcohol in Tesco. Being asked for I.D. is bad enough, but having that I.D. being rejected as a viable form is horrendous. Here’s a tip for tourists travelling to Ireland. If you’re going to buy alcohol from Tesco, your driving licence may not be accepted. It’s possible your passport may not even get through their rigourous tests (if it’s not Irish). The only definite way to get yourself drunk from Tesco-bought products is to own an Irish I.D. card. (a mite difficult for overseas tourists). My advice is: Best case don’t go to Tesco. If there’s absolutely nowhere else to go, and you must must must have a drink, make sure you pick up some food at the same time.
Luckily Clare Louise did have her Irish Passport on her (for some reason), and managed to convince the store to let her leave with the contraband. So thankful we were, that’s all we did for the rest of the night. Sat around with Manhattan, Manhattan’s sister Kiera, Clare Louise, myself, and Manhattan’s dog Bonnie, emptying bottle after bottle. Only after the kitchen started to resemble a Blue Peter recycling project, did we retire.
The wine sadly didn’t agree with my head as much as I did with it, an unmutual love it seems, causes headaches. Only after a few hours I managed to get off to sleep, struggling through nightmarish thoughts of proofreading. Misspelled and typographically sickening lines flying through my head, needing to be sorted and organised into their grid and correct order. Only after a few hours work, could I manage to sleep. Happily I was woken at 03:30, Rachel & Ronan had just left to catch their early morning flight, but didn’t have Manhattan’s number. After another hour’s work, I managed to get off again, then woken again at 04:30 with a text message reading ‘thanks.’ Happily though as the effort meant everything ran smoothly in the morning. Manhattan picked up Rachel & Ronan at the airport, and the 5 of us went off to give John Snr a quick kiss and stuff our thankful faces with his – if it’s not award winning, it should be – cooked breakfast.
You may not have visited Co. Donegal in North West Ireland before. But if you ever get the chance, I’d highly recommend it. The whole place… wherever you might choose to go, is angelically beautiful. You could literally close your eyes, stamp a map of the area with your finger, and fall in love, stunned by the beauty. This was very much the mood of the weekend. The view from John’s house was stunning. Running miles and miles over the plush countryside, her own house even better, looking over and across the river. All the houses are like this. On the side of hills, each with a similar once in a lifetime view of a purgatory inspired area.
After the wonderfully insightful and educational tour of his house, and a lesson for Ronan on driving his huge Mercedes/Beast automatic, we drove on towards the cliffs at Kilcar. Meeting friends, Megan and Stephen there as part of a celebration for Megan’s Birthday. Hearing they were a touch late, we had chance to stop off at a lovely little coffee house enjoying a fluffy scone at the same time.
Having arrived at the cliffs, the day becoming more and more blessed with sunshine as we rolled on, the decision to park at the bottom, and walk to the top proved to be well considered. When you get up to the top, there’s the view. And that’s pretty much it. In fact I imagine it would be somewhat of a disappointment. Don’t misunderstand me, the view and the place itself is a great place to be. To stand on the edge and deeply breath in the fresh sea air is one of the musts of a holiday like this. But how long can you really just stand about up there? It’s too windy and chilly (even in bright sunshine) to be able to stay for any longer than 10 minutes or so. Plus the wind makes it very hard to do anything like eat, or even talk. No. The true value of the place is the walk up. You’re shielded enough from the wind by the cliffs themselves, and you still get an hour’s round trip to imbibe the scenery.
Sadly Megan and Stephen had to get off right after, presumably for some pre-planned birthday shenanigans. Meanwhile the chance to stop off at Tesco again was ours. None of us daring to chance the alcohol run, assuming our puny Driving Licences and Passports wouldn’t make it, we stuck to a bunchful of flowers to thank Manhattan’s mum Mary, for her wondrous hospitality. After the arrival of family friend Brid, we were unsure of the plan of the pub. Apparently the pubs and clubs of Letterkenny were extremely uneventful, some were very busy entertaining tumbleweeds. An additional cause of the decision must have been the meal we’d just forgotten our diets for. Manhattan’s lasagne with salad (I can’t even tell you what flavour salad it disappeared so quickly), and roasted potatoes was literally the best I’ve ever known (sorry mum).
So another evening of wine and conversation was in store. Featuring all the usual topics of Cycling, Weddings, Swine Flu, and Career Law.
Sunday I woke up full of adventure. But with the weather somewhat sitting on the fence, uncertainty was rife amongst the masses of in which style the adventure would come. Being British and Irish of course, this didn’t matter in the slightest. “There’s a 40mph storm? C’mon let’s get down on the beach, there’ll be no one there!” As I was flying off that afternoon, we didn’t have time for the beach, but we did have the time to visit what has been described as ‘the great royal fort of Aileach’ on the hill of Grianán.
Just as we walked back down to the car, the heavens started to open. Interrupting our goodbye hugs, as Rachel & Ronan were driving on to spend the next few days camping and no doubt gleefully enjoying the rest of the county. Not such good fortune for Clare Louise and myself, both leaving that day.
The only down point of the weekend was right at the last moment. There’d been a total of 15 seconds rain the whole time out there. But the next 10 minutes of it decided to fall when I was outside in the queue to walk onto the return plane. Outside, with absolutely nowhere to hide, and looking like I’d fallen into a wet hair gel stand in Boots, I sat down on the plane. Despite enduring an hour of stale air conditioning showering itself over my wet skin, the ear-wide smile stayed rooted to my face. As I knew, I’d just been to heaven and lived to tell the tale.
To you.