For the second time in a month I drove to the Premier Inn at Stansted airport to enjoy an overnight stay before yet another early morning flight.
For the second time in 3 months I sent a message to my brother "See you tomorrow" as I looked forward to spending another holiday with him away from England.
In June we went to the Isle of Man together. My brother is more than aware of my obsession and love for the Dunlop family and in July he messaged me asking if I fancied a trip to Ireland for our birthday. Part of the plan was to visit the memorial garden for two of the Dunlops, Robert and Joey, and to also visit a bar run by Joey's family in their hometown.
Of course I said yes, and although I felt some level of guilt at not spending my birthday with my children I also knew I couldn't turn this down.
Not only have I not seen my brother for our birthday for a long time now, but I also didn't have the best 30th birthday last year and felt like this would make up for it.
We planned to hire a car and tour the east coast, going into Northern Ireland.
We were due to watch some road racing the weekend we arrived, which happened to also be our birthday weekend but it got cancelled, annoyingly, although it gave us an excuse to have a head start and start our tour.
We didn't really have a plan. There were a few places we wanted to visit but other than that we just went where the road took us.
And thank goodness we did.
The views, scenery and landscape were amazing. The coast, the sea and the cliffs took my breath away and at one point I felt like my passion for the Isle of Man was being transferred over to Ireland.
I fell in love. Big time.
And I didn't expect it at all.
And the time with my brother was amazing. Typically people at first assume we are a couple, and when they find out we are twins going on holiday together we got comments about how "I couldn't go on holiday with my brother/sister".
It made me feel proud that we have that kind of relationship where not only are we happy to go on holiday together but we have no problem with sharing a room.
It really was such an amazing week, and exceeded my expectations.
Not only did I take photos to capture the week but I made a video too. I'm going to write separate posts for the places we visited because it would all be too much for one post. Watching the video gives me goosebumps and makes me want to go back.
And one day I definitely will.
