Advance warning

I arranged a car rental online last night and collected it today. Not a pleasant experience. An email confirmation offered an option to provide some additional details to speed up the collection process, but there was nothing speedy about it. I'd ordered a 'compact' car but after a long wait while the assistant disappeared I was told no compacts were available but that I could get something standard — but at extra cost. I wasn't having any of that, so more time passed before A replacement was offered at the original quoted price. But then there was an extra 'deposit' to cover fuel and then another extra for insurance excess. I ended up with a monster SUV-type which is not at all pleasant to drive.

On the way home the sky turned ominous and as I opened my front door I noticed the first drops of what was being referred to as Storm Betty. Later on I drove over to Carl's to meet up with his sister and her family who are over from France and had arranged a meal for us all before they headed to west Cork for a few days. I got there around 7:30 and got drenched just walking from the car to Carl's front door. It was even worse when we got to Bresson's restaurant in Monkstown and worse still when we got outside again our meal. Really string wind and swirling rain.