2011 - One Day At A Time!: Day 64 - Saturday, March 5th, 2011

What finer way to wash the cobwebs of dehydrated socialisation than with a maiden trip to Pure Skill on the outskirts of Galway City. This excellent and innovative leisure idea puts participants to the test in 10 different events. First up, it's 5 golf putts, with 2 points for a hole in one and 1 point for holing each in two. Then, it's 10 golf chip attempts at getting the ball into a round target, about 15 yards away. Third, it's 10 attempts at a rugby conversion, through a narrow upright. Then, 10 attempts at kicking a Gaelic point, again through narrow posts. Then, 10 tennis balls emerge at speed from a machine, and you have to hit a target with each, after the ball bounces. Then, 5 attempts at hitting the stumps in cricket. Seventh, you have to hit a hurling ball with a sliotar through far-away square targets. Eighth, its 12 attempts at a higher than normal basket. Ninth, 10 penalty kicks at a goalpost divided into quadrants, naming your quadrant each time. Finally, the piece de resistance, a machine fires baseballs at you at 55 miles per hour and you get a point for each ball you hit forward. It's all excellent fun and something which surely should be franchised elsewhere. For the record, I scored a miserable 19 points out of 100, although in the 20s is considered a good score for 1st-timers. Charmaine scored 13 whilst Mark scored a very impressive 31. The course record is 65 for men, 43 for women, so it ain't easy by any means!

After a painfully-slow drive back through Galway, and a much more pleasant romp up the dual carraigeway to Limerick, we headed for breakfast (for it was 2.30 by now) to the very charming Old Ground Hotel in Ennis. Apparently the chicken and ham vol-au-vents are an institution there, but I opted for the fillets of plaice with mash, turnips and broccoli, washed down with a pint of Guinness, and delicious it was too. Charmaine went off with her Mum to do some shopping, leaving Mark and I to venture to the Halfway House pub, a deliciously gloomy tavern which apparently allows women, although no-one was testing this rule at the time. Another Guinness was enjoyed, whilst seeing Arsenal being held to a 0-0 draw by Sunderland.

We then meandered into the town centre and another pub, with more very fine Guinness, watching Man City beat Wigan 1-0, and Munster easily overcome the Dragons. We were rejoined by Charmaine, her mum Tina and sister Lauren, and were whisked away to their local, before heading into the Chinese restaurant next door, where we shared a bevy of Oriental delights such as chicken satay, crispy wontons, spare ribs, black pepper king prawns, noodles, rice and a beef dish that I asked be as spicy as was humanly possible but which, traditionally, wasn't.

Nightcaps and laptop choons in Casa del Tina then followed, before retiring back to Mark and Charmaine's gaff via a taxi-ride from a strange old Northern Irishman, whose erratic driving concluded with a smack into a pavement kerb at the end of the journey, surely doing little good to his suspension.