Home Away from Home

In the Before Times (pre-Covid), I started a tradition of taking a weekend sabbatical at a local hotel once a year.  It was always nice to get away from the responsibilities at home and have a reset.

Then Covid reared its ugly head, and my ritual fell by the wayside.

Recently, I felt like I needed to get away again, so I booked a two-night stay from Monday-Wednesday of Christmas week at the Clayton Hotel in Charlemont, which is about 35-40 minutes away from our house by tram.

Eli's office was shut down (he was still working but from home) so it was a perfect time for a sabbatical as he would be home with the cats and they wouldn't be alone all day.

Parts of the hotel had a different function in a previous life.  The following information is from Wikipedia:   Saint Ultan's Children's Hospital was a paediatric hospital in Dublin, Ireland. It was named after Ultan of Ardbraccan, patron saint of paediatricians.  The hospital was founded by Dr Kathleen Lynn and Madeleine ffrench-Mullen with the help of Sinn Féin activists in 1919 and was housed in an old Georgian house constructed around the year 1770.  The committee opened the hospital with a fund of just £70 and 2 sleeping cots. The building was in a state of disrepair and was reputed to have once been a shooting hall used by Lord Charlemont.  It was the first hospital for infants in Ireland and hospital physicians in the early years included Ella Webb and Dorothy Price. Earlier in her career, Lynn had experienced discrimination in applying for hospital positions due to her gender, and Saint Ultan's was the only hospital in Ireland entirely managed by women. It was the first hospital in Ireland to provide the BCG vaccination [used for tuberculosis] and from 1937 became the centre for BCG in Ireland. Dr Barbara Stokes, specialist in children with disabilities, also worked at the hospital.

I grabbed this image from the internet.  See those two windows in the upper left corner of the white building?  That was my room.

This is that part of the building as seen while standing in the lobby. It was almost like looking at a castle keep or something - just had that vibe to it.  The entrance door to this area (in the middle of the photo) had very little height to it.  I'm about 5'6" and the top of the door was only a few inches higher.  There were only four rooms to this section, on the second and third floors.  My room was all the way at the top to the right.

I checked in a little after 3 p.m. on Monday afternoon, and this was my home away from home.

The lights to the room confounded me at first.  None of them responded to flicking on a switch.  I finally figured out that I needed to put my hotel card key into a reader right next to the door (and leave it there).  It would've been nice if there had been some instructions indicating this peculiarity.

After off-loading my stuff, I ventured out again, walking a couple of blocks to a Tesco Express.  I wanted to get some snacks and easy foods for lunch/dinner, as I wasn't planning to go out for these meals.  The room had a mini fridge so it was nice to get some chilled foods along with the usual chips and chocolate.

One of the bathrooms at our house has a bathtub, but it's quite narrow (and I'm not a small person) so I hadn't been able to take a bath.  The stand-alone tub at the hotel was a bit wider, so I indulged in a nice, long soak on Monday evening.

I slept okay Monday night.  It was funny because I woke up around 1:30 a.m. and immediately tensed, expecting to hear Patrick start yelling.  After a few moments, I realized I wasn't at home.

During the week, breakfast service began at 7 a.m.  I was there at 7:02 a.m., wanting to arrive before things could be picked over by other guests.  Usually the breakfast selection at a hotel is pretty weak but Clayton's spread was an exception.

All of those silver domes in the first photo (at the right in the distance) housed the fixin's for an Irish breakfast:  scrambled eggs, bacon, sausage, black and white pudding, potatoes, beans, mushrooms, and tomato.  They also had yogurt, cold cuts, cheeses, fruit, cereals, juices, tea, cinnamon rolls, pain au chocolat, coffee, and assorted breads.

I loaded up a plate with good stuff (scrambled eggs, OJ, sausage, bacon, pain au chocolat, croissant, potatoes, pineapple) and thoroughly enjoyed plowing my way through it.  Had to go back for seconds of eggs, bacon, and potatoes.

Completely stuffed, I headed back to my room and just chilled.  Did a lot of reading, played around on the internet, figured out my focus word for 2026, watched some TV.  It was so nice not to have to worry about feeding the cats, cleaning the litter box, doing laundry, and any of the other mundane things that comes along with living in a house.  Having a different environment or surrounding seems to help bring me clarity because it throws me out of a usual routine.

I didn't sleep as well on Tuesday night.  I couldn't fall asleep until closer to midnight and then I woke up around 3:30 a.m.  The early wake-up time was just as well because people were slamming doors and my downstairs neighbors had their TV on a bit loud at 4 a.m.  I don't know what it is about people slamming doors in hotels.  If the door has a recoil you weren't aware of and it slips out of your hands the first time, I'll give you that one.  But to purposely allow the door to slam shut after that?  You should have your hotel privileges revoked.

I arrived for breakfast around 7 a.m., and we weren't allowed in right away as they were still getting things set up.  A line began to form behind me, and I was like dude, there's gonna be a riot if you don't let us gorge ourselves in the next few minutes.  The spread was just as wonderful, and I enjoyed it just as much.  I smuggled out a pain au chocolat to take home to Eli.

Check-out time wasn't until 11 a.m. but I actually left around 8:15.  As much as I liked being away, I wanted to be home again.  It was still fairly dark (sunrise this time of year doesn't happen until 8:30 or later), and my walk to the tram was pretty quiet.  It was Christmas Eve Day so there was very little traffic on the streets or people out and about.

There was an unhoused man huddled under a blanket at the foot of the stairs leading to the tram platform.  He was holding a sign asking for money.  I know that there are many times when people are only pretending to be homeless and don't have a need to be panhandling.  But I also know there are people who ARE in need.  I don't usually carry much cash with me, but I put a euro into his cup.  Even if he were just grifting, I figured I could part with such a small amount.

You know how you sometimes do the thing where a server brings you your food and says "Enjoy your meal" and like a dummy, you respond "You too!"  Yeah, I did that with this unhoused gentleman.  He said "Thank you" when I dropped the coin into his cup and instead of saying "You're welcome" like a normal person, I responded with "Thank you."

It was nice to be able to escape up the stairs to the tram platform at that point.

While I was waiting for my train, an inbound tram pulled up, and it was interesting to see that the cars were fairly empty.  At that time of day on a usual Wednesday, I'm sure they're packed with folks going to work.  I think my outbound tram actually had more people on it.

After an uneventful ride through the early morning gloom, I greeted Eli and the kitties.  It's nice to get away, but it's always good to come back home again.