We got back from Dublin on Tuesday afternoon, the 17th of June. Wednesday and Thursday were my days to tell stories in the Three Rivers Storytelling Festival. I was expected in Ballinasloe for a 1:30 session at the library on Wednesday. I wanted to be there at 1:00 so I could visit with Mary Dillon, the librarian in Ballinasloe and one of the Festival planners. I’ve been to the library in Ballinasloe many times and I was sure I could drive right to it. I did drive right to Ballinasloe, but then I spent the next 25 minutes driving around in the rain trying to find the library. I pawed around in my purse for my phone as I drove so that I could call Mary. I could not put my hand on my phone and convinced myself that I’d left it home. I hadn’t. Once I got there and calmed down, I found it lurking in a dark corner of my bag where phones should not go alone.
I really was very close the whole time, but I just couldn’t quite get there. Check out this link for a map of Ballinasloe. You’ll see it is not a complicated town. How clever it would have been for me to have a nice map like this before I left Athlone! Perhaps also knowing which street the library was on would have helped. Or how about having my phone sitting in the console of the Nissan Micra where I could reach it? This is a regrettably apt illustration of what my husband Mark often says about me: "What she lacks in facts, she makes up for in confidence." I was so sure I knew just how to get there!
I finally stopped at the county council offices and got directions. I was only two blocks away from the library and probably hadn’t ever been much more than that. I just kept finding new ways to circle it without getting there. I walked in the front door of the library just as the children were walking around the corner from their school. We had a good session, and when the children left, Mary brought out a beautiful tray of sandwiches and hot cups of tea. That’s them at the beginning of the post.
Mary told me not to worry about getting lost in Ballinasloe. She said that signage in Ireland is terrible, and sometimes even nonexistent. She told me about a time that she and a group of people were being driven to an event on the other side of the island in a small bus. The professional driver got lost!
It made me feel better, but I did get very explicit directions from her to my session in Portumna the next day. Portumna is on the north end of Lough Derg, and another 30 minutes past Ballinasloe.
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