I woke up on Saturday with the mother of all hangovers, it’s been a long time since a room spun on me but spin it did. I had planned to get up, clean my apartment and go to the gym before heading off to Laois for the weekend. What actually happened was I lay in bed trying to drink water eventually getting up at 2.30pm to have some food. After that I lay down again eventually getting myself up and into the shower. As I was showering I heard the rain begin, I love rain. I really love the sound of it and boy was this raining! It lashed from around 4pm on. At 5.30pm I was ready to leave but was stopped in my trackes by my flooded hallway! I cleaned it up, laid down a few towels and headed for my car.

Usually I’d drive to the M50, which is literally 2 mins away, and be at the Red Cow in 20 mins, it’s about an hour to Laois from there. Not on Saturday though - oh no! I was driving out of my estate and the water was so high I couldn’t even see the speed bumps!!! At one point my car actually floated, I had to go into second gear and rev like crazy. When I got to the entrance to the M50 I could see cars doing U-Turns trying to double back so I went around the round about and headed for town instead.

Now Heuston Station is a 25 min drive for me on a Saturday afternoon but this time it took no less than 2.5 hours!!! The roads were so bad that the police had to cordon off various parts of it so at some points both lines of traffic were on one side and at other points we were all on the other side. Remember people - I’m hungover - and the tablets are wearing off!

From Heuston I flew to my destination but I have a question - why oh why are we not prepared for rain in this country? I mean - it’s rain - we should be well used to it. It rains all the time. When I got to Laois my friend told me that the M50 was so flooded it had to be closed, so at least I know I made the right decision, but why a 25 min journey was turned into a 150 min one I can’t understand. It’s Ireland and it’s raining - we should be able to cope by now! The Met is saying that more is forecast too - link - let’s hope that the powers that be learn to fix the roads etc in a way that gridlock won’t ensue.