Sunday 18th April
(from Kockelsheuer)
We were due to have an early morning today in order to make it to the airport so that we could catch our flight from Luxembourg to Dublin. Unfortunately, it was confirmed to us late last night that the volcanic ash would be putting a halt to those plans. This meant that the guys could all have a sleep in after the celebrations while the management and coaching staff made the necessary contacts to arrange an alternative way home.
The players all got up for breakfast at their own leisure and at around midday we organised a meeting to inform the guys of how things stood for getting home. Unfortunately, flying was not an option and the earliest possible flight would be Friday and at that stage it looked very unlikely to even go ahead.
Therefore, we would be organising a bus to bring the team to one of the many ports where we would be either getting a ferry from France to Ireland or from France to England and go from there. We wouldn’t know for definite until Monday morning at 9:00 am! Luxembourg seems to be like France and everything except the bar is closed on a Sunday!!!
Lunch had been organised for the guys and afterwards they all had a few hours to themselves. The majority decided to head into the city centre and try some shopping. That didn’t happen as everything was closed but they did enjoy some of the “local cuisine” in the form of “Le Mega Mac!” They city itself is quite nice and well worth taking the camera with.
Later that evening, we had dinner before we had some final details to give to the guys on the travel arrangements. Our guide (who doubled as the Team’s photographer) for the week, Carlo, along with Jim Tibbetts was able to contact a bus company who would bring us from Luxembourg to Calais in France. From here we would get a ferry to Dover, and then continue on the bus to Holyhead in Wales where we would get a ferry to Dublin Port and reach Irish soil with Gold…
We would only be able to confirm everything with the guys at 9:30 am in the morning so everyone had another night to relax before we started a long journey home!
I myself will be leaving separately first thing in the morning as I have to go to Sweden but William Fay, Mark Bowes and Jim Tibbetts will be working together to make sure everyone gets home safe and sound. Mark has even offered to continue the blog and keep everyone up to date on tomorrow’s events.