The iconic Shannon Harbour Hotel 
I have already made much of Irish hospitality in earlier posts but, having enjoyed our first rally, I can now say that we were broken in gently as this weekend was the real thing.
We had been given a number of times for rally registration: 10, 10.30 and 11. We registered at 11.30! Not for this lot the regimented timekeeping of a English village fete, so the first thing to do when arriving at an Irish Rally is to set your timepieces back by about an hour and a half: that way you will be running on Irish time! Once officially 'there' and with a glass of Bucks-fizz and a croissant as the welcoming breakfast, we stood and chatted to other rallyers, breaking away when summoned to compete in the horseshoe pitching competition or when asked to look over somebody's boat and drink their coffee. With the weather set fine it was a gently sociable morning that eased away our concerns about being 'foreign' and new and we soon relaxed in such amiable company. Any thoughts we had of just quietly going about our own business in Ireland were dispelled when a boater shook our hands and declared: " the whole of Ireland is talking about you!" Ireland is not the place to come to if you're running away on a boat - particularly if it is as dramatic a boat as Hawthorn, and you work from it. This is a novel idea over here and the cause of much interest.
A crowded mooring! 
Having returned to our boat for lunch we spent the afternoon wandering around the site and chatting to people, particularly one Irish couple who had a barge built in England: Porrick and Sue. While we had been unable to get our own boat-builder to come 40 miles to the launch of Hawthorn theirs, R and D of Nottinghamshire, had flown out to see the new boat lowered into the Shannon and had come out twice since to sort minor problems. Oh for the luck of the Irish... Sue and Porrick added yet more information to the growing list of places we could, and should, visit on the Shannon/Erne System. A list that had been slowly building for the last few hours (by the end of the weekend we had begun to wonder if we would live long enough to get round to all of them) and it was soon time to return to Hawthorn to get ready for the B-B-Q. The theme of the evening was piracy but, not having anticipated fancy dress, we made do with going as English bankers in plain clothes (surely the most despicable of modern pirates, although I was tempted to 'black up' and go as a Somalian with an AK47 ((perhaps later in my rallying career?)). We need not have worried about fancy dress as we sat down at the trestle tables that had been set up in the huge Waterways Ireland shed. Would British Waterways allow a boating club to do the same in England? Or work late into the evening locking boats up and down from the river? I doubt it. Jill, had offered to help with the food but it turned out that the prep and cooking was done by Civil Defense chef's and its quality was a long way from the burnt offerings of many such meals, but she happily helped serve. There was no bar so everyone had taken their own drink and, looking along the tables, dehydration was unlikely to be the cause of any illness. We talked long and hard about subjects as obvious as boating and politics, and as obscure as why there are so few Irish oaks - I was laughingly informed that 'your lot saw to that': it seems that the English had built ships with the bulk of them and stripped the remainder for props to be used in the First World War trenches. Not my proudest moment although nobody else seemed in the least bit bothered. Having eaten and talked for several hours, it was time to go to the pub. We did not last long, returning home at the pathetically early time of half one for coffee - accompanied by Eric, the owner of a beautiful sailing Tjalk and the spitting image of Captain Jack Sparrow so good was his costume and pretty his face.
That we had bottled early was made clear by the silence on the moorings the following morning: few people were up and they were moving and speaking very gently. We were to later learn that most rallyers had seen in the dawn! Our morning was spent making coffee and talking to the many visitors that wanted to see Hawthorn - an unusual and interesting boat to many in England, here it is very much admired and an object of much desire. We also started to get offers of work: nothing solid but enquiries all the same and subject to 'Irish time' no doubt! Not that we really want to work - we are having far too much fun for that. The event that led to our leaving the boat in the afternoon was the dog's fancy dress, for which Jill had somehow managed to find twenty minutes to make Hobbes a fine suit of fish scales. Again we would not have made the ring if not for the hour and a half time adjustment! None of this is taken in anyway seriously, it is more of an opportunity to laugh at the misdemeanors of each others pets and everybody fully anticipated that the only possible winner would be the ten week old Jack Russel puppy, simply on the strength of its 'Aaah' factor. With the show over the last gathering of the weekend was prize giving in the marquee: the only event that happened on time as people were now thinking of home.
Where's that Puppy? - Eat my dust! 
We attended more in a spirit of support than in anticipation of prizes - we had entered very few competitions and knew full well that our horseshoe pitching was dire. To our surprise and amusement Hobbes's 'lesser spotted dogfish' costume was declared the winner of the dog's fancy dress, and he was rewarded with two very fine soft dog blankets (the prize table groaned under its burden so laden was it and so generous the prizes) and we relaxed in the thought that we were unlikely to be called again. While talking to Eric - who had walked the Fancy Dress competition - we realised that the whole marquee was looking at us. We had won the Best Newcomer Award! Wow! We even got a silver cup as well as baseball caps and a T shirt (medium, so it looks like Jill will be wearing that). We did not bask in our glory for long as my obvious question of: "How many newcomers were there"? was met with grins, pats on the back and the reply "Just you!" And looking at the plaque for engravings we noticed that there had not been one newcomer last year! So as champions of a field of one we retired to Hawthorn for a celebratory cup of tea and ginger cake.
We had had doubts about the whole rally thing (and would have avoided it like the plague in England) but are really glad that we attended as we were made most welcome and had a truly pleasurable weekend. Of course, we also got to meet a lot of interesting and friendly people who we hope to meet again as we boat the Irish waterways. So, thank you to all at Shannon Harbour IWAI branch for a fine weekend - we might even return your trophy!
Proud Winners! 
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