You know how you always hear of someone's friend winning a big prize, a new car, a new house, lottery money etc, but it never happens to any of us though does it.....

So I entered a contest for St Patrick's Day. It was run by Wotif.com and Guinness, nothing unusual in that. I have entered it in previous years and never thought any more about it.

Well two days after St Patrick's Day I received a phone call from Wotif.com telling me that I had won the main prize. A trip for 4 people to Dublin flying Emirates Airlines, 7 nights accommodation in Dublin and a personalised tour of the Guinness Brewery.

Well I was pretty excited at the good luck that I had been given, and set about thinking when to take the trip etc.

I am going overseas for two months in August / September so it had to be before that. It worked out that the end of May suited the best, it left enough time to organise things but also enough time to come home and organise the next trip.

So I am off today on the trip, I have lined up three of my best beer collecting mates and we are heading off to Dublin tonight. Two of them, Neil Thomas and Dave Rial have never been overseas before on a long holiday and the other Barry Rhall has seen more of the world than I have.

This will be my forth trip to Ireland, after two football trips in 1989 and 1991 and I was in Dublin for 7 days in 2008 which I have written about here.

Anyway time to get to the airport, please keep looking back as I will be adding stories as we travel around. (That is is the Iceland volcano behaves itself).