Ever wondered what it’s like to be a keynote speaker? Well! Wonder no more! Come with me behind the scenes as I go on tour to Galway. I was delivering a speech to the Irish Psychological Society. Have you ever visited Ireland? Tell me in the comments about your favourite experiences. This podcast episode is best enjoyed on YouTube to really soak up the sights and sounds!

We are almost midway through application season – I hope these are going okay for you. This episode of the Aspiring Psychologist Podcast is a little bit unconventional, interesting and exciting! Join me as we journey together from Birmingham to Galway as a Keynote Speaker! This is best watched on YouTube where you can properly explore Ireland with me and enjoy an unconventional Day in the Life of a Qualified Psychologist. I hope you find this episode inspiring and exciting! If you have not been to Ireland, I do encourage you to visit and I hope you feel that way too after watching the Vlog!

Join us as we discover Ploughing Championships, Galway girl, the Irish Goodbye and learn about the History of Galway.

I hope you find it so useful. I’d love any feedback you might have, and I’d love to be connected with you on socials so I can help you to celebrate your wins!

The Highlights:

• (00:00): Summary
• (01:59): Introduction & timeline
• (04:17): On my way to Galway!
• (05:23): Pushing boundaries at the airport
• (07:11): Reflecting on the freedom of flying solo
• (12:11): Hiring a car in Ireland – expect the unexpected
• (14:17): What are the Ploughing Championships?
• (16:08): Staying at the Airbnb – a beautiful experience
• (18:45): Get ready with me on the big day
• (21:14): At the event – a journey
• (23:40): Reflections in the rain
• (26:33): Exploring Galway
• (29:37): Ed Sheeran’s Galway girl
• (31:04): Galway's Legendary Walking Tour
• (33:10): Discovering Irish Culture and exploring more of Galway
• (35:01): Brown bread ice cream – absolutely scrumptious
• (38:03): A feature with Tommy the cat
• (38:48): Small secret bedtime stories
• (40:28): Safe home – A goodbye from Ireland
• (42:50): At Shannon Airport
• (43:14): Travelling back home
• (45:23): Some brief Thank You’s
• (48:08):Summary & close

Links:

📚 To check out The AirBnB walking tour with Neil click here: https://www.airbnb.co.uk/experiences/525291

🫶 To support me by donating to help cover my costs for the free resources I provide click here: https://the-aspiring-psychologist.captivate.fm/support

📚 To check out The Clinical Psychologist Collective Book: https://amzn.to/3jOplx0

📖 To check out The Aspiring Psychologist Collective Book: https://amzn.to/3CP2N97

💡 To check out or join the aspiring psychologist membership for just £30 per month head to: https://www.goodthinkingpsychology.co.uk/membership-interested

✍️ Get your Supervision Shaping Tool now: https://www.goodthinkingpsychology.co.uk/supervision

📱Connect socially with Marianne and check out ways to work with her, including the Aspiring Psychologist Book, Clinical Psychologist book and The Aspiring Psychologist Membership on her Link tree: https://linktr.ee/drmariannetrent

💬 To join my free Facebook group and discuss your thoughts on this episode and more: https://www.facebook.com/groups/aspiringpsychologistcommunity

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Being a Keynote Speaker in Psychology

Hi, welcome along to today's podcast episode, which is a little bit different than usual. It is my first on tour. There might be a little bit of jiggly camera work here and there, and I'm sorry. Please do persevere with it. I will find somewhere to prop it up when I can. But you are coming on tour with me to Galway and we are going to go and do a keynote speech and there's lots and lots of steps involved with getting me from my front door to the stage and then back again. So hope you enjoy today's episode and yeah, I hope it all works, but you'll be there with me every step of the way and we can do this together. Alright, take care. See you soon.

I am just waiting for my Uber. Okay, so I know the plan originally was to film all of this on my iPhone, but I realised that seeing as most of the listeners to this podcast episode do listen on MP three, that if I didn't do some sort of main feed with me talking you through the processes, that it might not make a whole heap of sense. But that said, this is going to be best viewed on YouTube. So even if you've downloaded this as an MP three on Spotify or Apple, Amazon, maybe come and take a little look over at YouTube, Dr. Marianne Trent, whilst you're there, why not subscribe, like fling a few comments around. So yeah, I wanted to make this as useful a process and interesting a process as possible for those watching on YouTube and for those listening on your phones or however you do indeed listen to your MP three content, right?

So let me give you a little bit of background into why I was going to Galway and how it came about. So in I think it was probably June or July, I was first contacted to ask if I might be available and up for coming to an in-person conference in Galway. I was contacted by a lovely, lovely person called Hannah Flynn, and she was so kind. She was organising the conference for the Irish Psychological Society, and she'd been just so accommodating and welcoming and friendly. And when I met her in person, she was equally as lovely. I wish we'd got a selfie, Hannah, that would've been nice. That would've been fun. So we finally got the venue sealed as being Galway University, which had been some of the holdup that was finalised just towards the end of July. And then I went on holiday sort of immediately, and then it was kind of promotion central from the Irish Psychological Society, and then it happened in September.

So that's a little bit of timeline and context into how this came about. And I was asked in my capacity as a qualified psychologist to do an hour's talk, not necessarily specifically from a clinical psychology discipline because the conference happens every year. Also, I learned on the day, and it's for people in the first 10 years of their graduation from a psychology degree. And what we know about psychology degrees is that often they will take people in very different directions, sometimes in the direction of becoming a qualified psychologist and sometimes in very different directions that can be equally as fulfilling for people. So yeah, there's many, many steps involved in getting me from my home to Galway and to the university and back, but I thought it was quite a fun little road trip idea for a podcast. So I do hope you find this useful and I'll do my best to guide you through it. So with no further ado, yeah, let's get started. Let's get on the road, shall we?

So I decided I was going to get an Uber to the airport because the parking didn't seem to be worthwhile, and I thought it would be a lot less

Faf

To just be able to order and go. That's what I did. But the thing I hadn't quite expected, although I should have done, because the same thing happened when I went to Birmingham with a friend for dinner one night, is that it was a hot day and the driver clearly didn't want to switch the air con on. And so instead had the windows open and my hair was just going wild, which wasn't so bad when I was about to take a flight. But when I was about to go out for dinner with a friend and I had preened and curled my hair, it was less than ideal. So yeah, oh, look at that for yourselves. I can hear me okay. It's really noisy here. So the journey in Yuba went really smoothly and randomly the taxi driver who was originally in Ghana had lived in Galway for 17 years.

He couldn't make that up, so he was giving me all of his top tips. We're doing some work here at Birmingham Airport, so it is quite annoying. So yeah, hope you hear me okay. Annoyingly Ryanair won't let me check in until 1:20pm so that's a bit annoying, but now means I am in a cafe with some cake and herbal tea. And you know me, I do love my hair realised, I think I said let me check in until 1;20pm, but I didn't say what time it's now. So the time now is five to 12. So

Yeah, I'm going to walk around there again in just over an hour. I'm going to sit here with my ine and pass the time.

So I absolutely did sit there for a little while and then I thought, you know what? Ryanair, it is a self bag drop and so I'm going to chance my arm again. I'm going to meander on over there, but the same lady saw me again. And so, oh dear, she's already told me not to come through. And so then a few minutes later as I stood there waiting, I saw her go off what looked like a lunch break. So I joined the queue and the new person on Ryainair didn't ask where I was going just to check my passport. And so then I went to the self bag drop, dropped my bag and went through to security. So yeah, always pushing the boundaries a little bit, but I had places I wanted to be. I had my laptop with me, and so I wanted to be a little bit further ahead, not in that very noisy pre-security airport departure section.

So there I was, found myself getting through security pretty effortlessly, although I did forget to take my laptop out the bag and then I was free to explore the duty free. I managed not to buy anything. But yeah, it's always something about that environment of walking through, smelling all the perfume, seeing all the Toblerone bars that you definitely don't need. I do like travelling and yeah, I found travelling independently to be pretty good too. I will admit that I wasn't really looking forward to the time in the airport lounge waiting for my flight. That is because I'd taken a flight from Birmingham airport over the summer and our flight had then been delayed for three hours. And what I observed was that if you hadn't got there early enough, there was nowhere to sit and it wasn't particularly enjoyable. Now, of course, I did have young children with me for that trip, which always adds an element of pressure.

And for this one, I was travelling solo, but I decided if I was going to be delayed, I would rather be delayed where I could work from my laptop and where I had power in case I needed to charge my phone and also where I had food. So I did treat myself to an airport land. It cost me 38 pounds. And had I been able to spend three hours in there, that would've been marvellous. But I was able to get myself some food, which was a little bit uninspiring. I had a little glass of wine and I had a little clotted cream scone. Then I was able to sit and do some work. I planned some social media content and I did some email scheduling ahead for my membership. And so it felt like a good use of time. And I was also able to keep eye on the departures board.

Would I recommend using a lounge and would I use one in future? So it was my first time in a lounge. And I would say if I was travelling again by myself, I would definitely do that again because it was so quiet and so peaceful and it meant I had a guaranteed place to sit where there wasn't any chaos going on. And whilst it would've been cheaper to go to Wetherspoons, I feel like it would've been more stressful. And in terms of doing myself a kindness ahead of my trip and my presentation the next day, I really felt that would be the most compassionate thing I could do for myself because I was worried about all of these steps. There were a lot of steps from taking me to my front door and then back the other side. And so it just felt like a little bit of a reward to kind of give me a little pat on the back and say, it's all right, Marianne. It's okay. This is kind of one step further in your journey. So yeah, I would do it on a case by case basis. I probably wouldn't pay for my children to join me, but I would definitely go if I was going by myself

Again. Right. I've booked the airport and it said it was closest to where Ryanair Fly by Gate one, and now my flight's been announced as Gate 57, so I have a bit of a dash to get there.

Okay. I'm

In the queue to board. I'll admit I'm a little

Bit hot and bothered. I have to say that it all went pretty smoothly for Ryanair from the point that I'd dropped my bag, everything happened as it needed to happen. I was able to board the plane, find my seat, settle down. It was very hot on board initially. It was a super warm weekend. If you're listening to this in the uk, it was the weekend in September where the temperatures were above 30 degrees and it was so warm, everyone was completely sweltering. The flight itself was good. It was nice to be able to spend a little bit of time doing, a little bit of puzzling. I'm a big fan of that's life and take a break puzzles. And so I did a little bit of that. I read a bit of my book. I looked out the window. It was really nice to watch the scenery go by, watch the clouds go by, and then to see as Ireland appeared and got gradually greener and greener. So it was a very different experience and travelling with children. So I did rather enjoy that. And then we got off the plane and it was a really tiny airport. So I'd flown into Knock Airport and it was just really small and really cute. And yeah, it all went seamlessly. Once I got in the airport, there was this lovely sunny photo wall that said, welcome to Knock. And so I thought it's the perfect place for a selfie. It would be rude not to

Right here I am at Knock Airport, I've just picked up the keys from my car hire, hire car, hire car, let's go and see if I can find it.

Then was trying to find which one the car rental desk was. So I've not hired a car since I was in New Zealand in 2003, so it was a little bit rusty about how to do that. But yeah, it went well. It went smoothly. It was a little bit of a cue by the time I found the right desk. Everybody else had already beaten me to it. But yeah, it was good. And I then got to learn which car I was having.

Well, I've managed to find my car. It is a Dacia Duster. I've never driven one of those before, have been in one, almost bought one when I was pregnant with my oldest child, but my husband test drove it said it was awful. So let's see how it goes. That's it. Luggage stowed, managed to somehow work out how to open the boot. Now I've got to drive and find myself on the way to the Airbnb. In Galway,

There was this error that seemed to be on the dashboard for the car for the whole trip. I just don't think I noticed it to begin with. And it said inflate tyres and in it, and I think that meant there was some sort of sensor on the car, which had sort of inflated the tyres, but letting you know that they needed some attention. So I don't know, it seemed to be fine. The only thing I struggled with was that I've got an automatic handbrake, and I did keep forgetting to take it off, but all went well. And then as I was driving, oh, I was so delighted when I turned on the radio.

Are you even in Ireland if when you get there on the radio and not playing Westlife?

So it was a little over an hour and a half driving through pretty main roads, I would say, via mainly motorways. But yeah, they were fairly well behaved considering it was rush hour, it was around 5:00 PM by the time I landed. So yeah, it was pretty good. And as I was driving along, I was listening to the Irad and I said, what is this? They kept referring to the ploughing championships, and I'd never heard of that before. And they were giving away tickets to the ploughing championships, and I couldn't quite work out why the people that won them sounded so excited. That's something I asked the guide who you'll hear a little bit more about later in the video about what it was, why were people so excited about this ploughing championship? And I was informed that it's a really big deal and people, it's like a festival people, there'll be bands there, there'll be activities, there'll be things to buy and things to do.

It sounded a bit like Glastonbury, and apparently people don't always watch the ploughing. So it started as the ploughing and yeah, it's apparently really, really fun. So I was almost sad that I wasn't going to be there for a ploughing weekend, which I think was the weekend after I was there. But I learned a little bit there about Irish culture. I feel a little bit less naive in terms of at least where ploughing championships come in. So I managed to find myself there and was delighted to see a lovely, lovely cat who lived at the b and b welcoming me in,

You are so cute.

Now, I had booked on Airbnb and it looked alright. The downstairs areas looked wonderful. I knew I was going to be having my own bathroom, but it wasn't en suite and it looked okay. But what I wasn't prepared for was that it just blew me away. The lady who was hosting me was wonderfully warm, welcoming, so friendly, so chatty, such an interesting, interesting life that she'd had. And her home was immaculate. She could have been an interior designer, and it was just all completely lovely. So once I was settled in, I took a stroll into the local area of where I was staying and went and got myself some dinner. And on the way I saw a beautifully decorated apothecary clinic, and I just thought it was a really lovely looking building. It would've made a really nice therapeutic space if you were going to be setting up a private practise as well.

I found myself in the most beautiful street. I wish I'd taken a photo of it. I walked down at the next day in the daylight hours and it looked completely different because the street was open. It had beautiful lights all above it because it was a beautiful warm summer's evening. Everybody was outside. There was tables in the road and it just looked like the busiest most fun street. But everywhere was kind of pricey for me just eating dinner by myself when I just wanted to eat. And then a little bit further along, still under the beautiful string lights, I found a cafe called The Secret Garden. I went in there and I had a lovely curry and they treated me really nicely. And then I treated myself to a little pudding as well. I think it was a homemade rhubarb crumble. It was good. And the next morning, my lovely Airbnb hostess, did me proud with a really beautiful breakfast. So I'd taken my running gear with me and I was planning on going for a run, but when I was chatting to her the day before, she said that she just really loves the company of people and chatting and learning about their stories. So I decided that it would be really better for me and better for her if I was to sit down and have breakfast and continue to chat with her rather than the benefit I would get from going for a run by myself. So that is what I do.

Okay, I am ready. I have, I have got myself into my outfit. I've eaten my breakfast in a tea towel so that it doesn't mess up my outfit had a slight difficulty with the necklace I want to wear. It's quite special to me because it was given to me by my first supervisor when I was a trainee, and she's no longer with us, so I wanted to wear it to bring something of her to the event. But unfortunately, when I got it out the pouch, I'd kept it in. It somehow broken itself. I've several different pieces, so I've sort of had to hodgepodge it together. I have to put that bit behind here, but it is supposed to come down to sort of stomach level, so I'll have to do some sort of more permanent fix when I go home. But for today, that's it. I've just got a jacket I'm going to wear. I've got to change my shoes because they're quite high, not going to manage to wear those all day. So I'll change those just before I go to the venue. Right. I'll see you there. Take care.

Okay, so I'm hoping that I am here at the university. Oh, my windscreen wipers seem to be on, I dunno how to turn them off. The key is not in the ignition. I almost hit myself in the face with the boot as it came up. Managed to avert that. It's quite a vicious little boot. This Dacia Duster wasn't expecting that. I hope I'm quite near the university building where I'm going to be going in. Yeah, dunno if I'm parked in the right place. Sort of hope that I am. Parking, I won't lie, makes me a bit anxious. No one likes the idea of being clamped, but it did say white line spaces are not enforceable at weekends, but none of the signs seem to say that. So hopefully be okay. I'm only here for about two hours by the time it's all done and dusted. So here we go. Dunno how much I'll be able to talk to you in the event, if at all, but I might see you. Well, I will see you on the other side. So me and my broken necklace, my laptop, I've got to change my shoes. I'm not going to manage to walk around in the very high heels that I'm wearing. Even me for two whole hours. My lovely Airbnb host has given me a little bag to put my trainers in when I'm not wearing them. She's so lovely. So I'll see you soon.

So I was in the event, I was in the queue with the delegates waiting to go in and I was oh, a little bit nervous. And then, yeah, I went to the front of the queue and I said, oh, I'm Marianne, I'm to do the keynote speech. And everyone sort of turned around and looked at me. And then I was chatting to Hannah, lovely to meet Hannah in person. And then I was chatting to some delegates. I was having a look at the poster conference. Then I went and changed my shoes, and then I decided I was going to go into the auditorium early and talk to some of the people that were there. I was chatting to three people at various different stages of their journey. And it was really refreshing actually, because I'd sort of written the speech with aspiring psychologists in mind, being at different stages of their career.

And yet someone was an assistant psychologist. Someone's about to start a master's on the Monday after the event. And so yeah, it felt like pitched it appropriately and it was just really nice to speak with them. And as I was chatting to one of them, another one turned around and went, oh, I believe you might be our keynote. And I was like, yeah, it felt a bit strange. But yeah, nice. And the speech went well and people sort of ran out after me to go and speak to me. So it felt like a really nice thing to have done. And yeah, I talked through my outfit on stage and why it was significant. So the skirt I was wearing, I bought, when I learned that I was going to be an assistant psychologist at St. Andrew's Healthcare, I believed I needed assistant psychologist outfits. The jewellery I was wearing was something I'd had made when I was travelling in Morocco. And the necklace, as I've explained to you, was very significant because of who gave it to me. And it just felt really important that I'd be able to bring the different stages of myself and have them be represented on stage with me. So that felt really lovely, and it meant that I didn't need to go out shopping and buy something new, which was also better for the purse strings too.

Well, that's it. I'm all done. Goway treating us to a little bit of rain, but it went well. So I'll speak to you from the car

Here. I'm again back in my little car office. So I think it went well. People sort of stopped me on the way out saying how much they'd enjoyed it. A few people laughed at some of the stuff I said, which is good. Not all the way through. That would be weird. But yeah, the reception was warm. I managed to weave in I seven different practitioners, psychologist disciplines into my speech in a way that hopefully was engaging and made sense because the conference is for people in the first 10 years, which sounds like a really, really nice organisation and a really supportive way of helping advance people to the next stages of their career and supporting and inspiring them wherever they are. So yeah, it was absolute pleasure to be there, to see the lovely uni, to be back in lecture theatre as well. So if you watched me on stage, hope it was useful.

And in terms of how I felt, so I think I was a bit nervous about parking, which I mentioned earlier, and just making sure I was going to be there in the right time, in the right building. I'd never even been to Galway before, let alone sort of Galway Uni, let alone the specific building that I was going to be in. So it is always okay to let yourself be a bit hesitant about the things you've not done before, but obviously give yourself plenty of time to make sure you can jump through the hoops in the right order and still give yourself time to decompress and hopefully be a bit less sweaty. It has been very warm. Yeah, it is raining a bit now, so I didn't bring an umbrella. So I've got a walking tour of Galway booked in later today and hopefully drizzled out by then.

And before then, I've got to get a spot of lunch as well. So I'll catch up with you very soon. I am back in my parking space. I'm going to go and get changed, and then I'm going to head out into Galway and get some lunch. Oh, I thought I'd tell you about my hire car as well. It's got a manual handbrake that I'm clearly not used to because I keep forgetting to take my handbrake off. My handbrake on my car at home is automatic, and so far nobody has honked me, despite me not being that speedy at getting away from the lights I have my handbrake on. So yes, it's very nice. Clearly the drivers in Ireland are a little bit more laid back than I'm used to, which is really, really nice.

So following that, I went in and I got myself changed and sorted, and then I had a cup of tea and a slice of cake and lots and lots of lovely chats with my lovely Airbnb host, which was just marvellous. And then following that, I took a stroll into beautiful Galway and I took some video of the lovely street I'd been in the evening before, but it looked so different because of course the road was open, there was traffic driving up and down it and it was raining. And so it almost made me a bit sad that I wasn't able to have the opportunity from the night before when there was lovely music playing and people were just outliving their best lives, having drinks in the venues in the street and chatting. And there was just so much of a warm, inviting atmosphere and it just looked so different in the daytime.

And then as I was walking into Galway, I saw a blackboard sign that said there was a traditional session happening later that afternoon. And I thought to myself, oh, well, if it so happens I'm still in town by that time, then I'm going to go in and I'm going to have a glass of wine and I'm going to enjoy listening to a traditional authentic Irish session. I love being by water. And as I was walking into Galway city Centre, it was really nice to see the river. I think it's the river kib and walking along the bridge where people have done love locks. It just felt like a wonderfully calm, safe city to be in. And the city was breathing a sigh of relief because it had been warm for the days preceding that. And so it was definitely comfortable to wear a light Danni jacket, and everybody was kind of pleased it wasn't quite so hot as it had been in the days before.

So for me, the city felt a little bit like Brighton, but safer and with more sort of music playing, which there is often music playing and Brighton, but it just felt well, it felt very Irish and it was really, really lovely, and I just really enjoyed soaking it all up. I probably looked a little bit weird going around filming, but it was just really nice. So I'm going to shush for a minute and let you listen to some of that music and see some of the sights. And this is where it really does pay to come over to YouTube and watch it here so that you can just soak it all up.

That building. You can see with the red door features in one of the videos for Ed Sheeran's songs for Goway Girl. And that is the restaurant that I ended up eating in. It's called Ard Bia. And it's just really, really funky. And what I hadn't realised was how popular it is. So I ended up standing in a queue because I couldn't really find anywhere that I wanted to eat. And the lunch menu on the outside looked fabulous. And as it turned out, when I got in there, they gave me the brunch menu. I said if I was perhaps too early for the lunch menu, but I think it was about 12 o'clock by the time I got there, it was 1230 by the time I got there, which is lunchtime. But the staff were really friendly to me and I ordered myself a really tasty poached egg and hammock brunch with a kombucha, and it was really, really nice. And then I had some free time to explore Galway before meeting up with my walking tour. So yeah, checking out the Galway girl statue, finding myself taking a little selfie in front of the Irish lottery and some Irish souvenirs.

So I'm just about to go on my walking tour. I am the Spanish arch meeting by the museum in Galway. It's sort of raining a little bit still. I'm wearing a coat and I can see everyone in England currently is melting, so I'm quite enjoying wearing my coat. I'll see you soon.

I had booked myself onto an Airbnb experience. It was called Galway's Legendary Walking Tour, and it was by a chap called Neil, really affordable. It was only £13 and it was an hour and a half. What I was really hoping was that I could also book onto a food tour, which was starting just after that. But by the time I had emailed her to ask about start and finished dates, she'd sold her last place. So maybe next time I visit Galway I'll be able to do that. But the tour was really lovely. It was quite intimate. It was quite unique because there was only three of us on there because Ireland were playing in the rugby. So I think most people were probably inside avoiding the drizzle in the pub watching that. But it was really nice to learn some more about the city, to understand why the green post boxes are green and why they look so familiar to those of us that have grown up in the UK to learn about the history of the city and those who'd lived there before.

I also really liked all of the street art in Galway as well, and just being able to see the people of Galway. And there's a very famous corner where apparently Ed Sheeran used to bust because I think his grandparents used to live in Galway, so he spent a lot of time there. And so it was just lovely to watch the city to experience it and just to enjoy free time. It was great to be able to see the way that they had intertwined the old city, so the old city walls that now sit within one of the shopping centres there as well. And then before too long, it was time to say goodbye to Neil and to the lovely married couple who were visiting from America. Oh, let me say goodbye to you from that walking talk, but I'll be back along in a moment.

Safe home.

So in Ireland apparently don't say goodbye, you say 'safe home,' which was really nice to be able to capture on camera as well. I didn't get any photos of them when we were on the tour, so it's nice to be able to say that. And I did check with them that they were happy for me to include them within this vlog, and they were, in fact, there will be details of Neil's legendary walking tour in the show notes if you do want to book that for your next trip to Galway. And then had a little bit of free time to be able to primarily buy my children gifts, which was the agreement they had struck for me to be able to go off because they were like, we'll miss you. I was like, I'll buy you presents. They're like, okay, yay. And so yeah, I stumbled across a lovely ven machine selling sweets with the plan being that I would give a packet to each of my children, but I also sort of gave them to the family as well.

And me and my husband devoured them. I'm not sure the kids got much out of them at all. They were so delicious. So if you see any hay candy vending machines or any shops selling hay candy, dig in now in Ireland, they have a large supermarket chain called duns. And I'd already been to a DUNS in Northampton because randomly there was one in there. I dunno why, but that was the only DUNS I'd ever been to in the uk. And I strolled through there and I brought myself a little tipexx mouse and some pens because there were things I needed for the business, but also I was a little bit peckish, so I did pick up some chocolate and all my days it was completely delicious. So yeah, apparently Dunn's chocolate is really worth indulging in. So yeah, if you are in island, get yourself into DUNS and buy some mini Dunn's chocolate bars.

They were utterly delicious. And just at the end of the tour, Neil and I were chatting about just about lockdown, what it'd been like, and that my family and I had really got into ice cream during the lockdown as a way of just having family time and a little bit of a family tradition. And he said, oh, if you like ice cream, you've got to go to this one place where they sell brown bread, ice cream. And I was like, that does not sound good. Brown bread, ice cream. And he said, trust me, trust me. Get yourself over there and try it out. So it's called Murphy's. So I did exactly that. I used my phone to guide myself there, and the lady there said I could film as well. And then I sat and ate my delicious ice cream, and I think I had two scoops.

I had brown bread, and I think I had a peanutty one as well, and they were both completely delicious. In fact, I might go as far as to say it was the most delicious ice cream I've eaten. It was scrumptious, as they say. And I just sat there on a little seat in there and chatted to some of the staff and they said it had been so hot in the few days before that because they have so much air con, but they have the door open to encourage trade, and they're always out with little trays of tasters for people that the condensation had just been dripping off the ceiling. It was so warm. So they were delighted that it was cooler and it was, yeah, if you are in Ireland, I would say absolutely check out not only Neil's walking tour, which I don't get paid to say you, that it was just lovely also check out.

And then it was time to start my journey in reverse, walking back through Galway towards my Airbnb and just enjoying the late afternoon sunshine. And I went past the pub and I was right on time. And then I noticed on the pub sign that the sign had been changed. There was no session that day, so that was a little bit disappointing. But I did then go and have a drink out in the sunshine, watching the world go by from a bar that I'd seen the day before. So not quite the same as a traditional Irish session, but still enjoyable nonetheless. Then I went back to my Airbnb, I got changed into something snuggly and had a cup of tea with my Airbnb host, and then she'd said she would love to make me dinner, which was just so kind. And so that is what she did, and we ate together and it was just the loveliest evening. So tasty, so friendly and so welcoming. And then of course, her lovely cat, Tommy was equally as welcoming. Let me just spend a little bit of time with Tommy now too.

You a lovely cat? Yes. Lovely. He is very happy with you! Well, we are very happy with you, Tommy. Oh, he loves it Oh, he's so cute. You're the loveliest thing, aren't you? Yes you are. Yes, you're beautiful. You are beautiful. I'm just having a cup of tea with the lovely

Frances before bed. I've got an early start tomorrow and she's insistent that I must have some cake, so I'm going to have some cake and then go to bed.

So I've had my

Cake and I've eaten it. And Frances has been telling me all about people who've stayed here before. And apparently in this very bed, Colin Farrell stayed. He was making a film in the Isle of Aaron. I've not watched the film, but he stayed here for a few weeks and took care of Tommy the cat. Good fact. And on that note, with the time at 9:00 PM I am going to go to bed, it's been what feels like quite a long day. It's been lots and lots of activity. See how many steps there've been, 15,500 steps. There's been great day Goway, and I've got to get up really early. So I think I'm getting up at half past four. So yeah, I will love you and leave you, see you soon.

So you can see as the video progresses that I get gradually tireder and tired and tireder, and then getting up super early the morning, I flew home, didn't help. I'd also had a bit of a restless night the night before because it was still quite warm and I was worried about missing my flight. And so I woke up one in the morning and then was awake for a few hours. And the night before that, my first night in Galway, I just sort of kept thinking about the next day and about processing everything I'd experienced that day. And so I just didn't sleep terrifically well then either. And so I just felt like more and more depleted the time that went on. So let's touch base with me now as I am up very early

Morning. It is kind of early. It's just gone 4 45 in the morning. I am all packed up. I'm ready to go. I'm in the car. I've had to wake up my lovely host, Francis. She told me it should be very cross if I didn't, which did feel very nice. But yeah, I'm hoping I can find my way back to Shannon Airport, which is a different airport than I flew out of because it wasn't possible to fly into knock and out of knock or into Shannon and out of Shannon at times that were human. And even though this doesn't feel like human, it is much better than the other options that I looked at. So I will see you hopefully when I've got some fuel, a bit worried about finding fuel that might be open at this time and how I open the fuel filler cap. But I've had a little bit of a YouTube research I think I know. And yeah, hopefully I can get to the airport, get a higher car back, get myself sorted, pass all the Ryanair checks and be away.

So as I was driving, it was so foggy in patches, so I had to go nice and slowly and steady. And I did pass a few petrol stations, but they weren't that close to the airport. So I sort of ignored those because I thought I don't want to fill up the tank and then have it not be on full when I get back there. And I assumed there'd be one pretty close to the junction for the airport, but there was not. And so I found myself on the site of the airport still not having filled up. So I then had to turn around and go back into Shannon Town and then use my trusty satnav to look for the closest petrol station that was open. So yeah, I did manage to do that, but it made it a little bit more fraught than it probably needed to be.

So the people near Shannon Airport, you may want to open a petrol station on the motorway near Shannon Airport because many people will be hiring cars that need to be returned on full, so you're missing a trick. So in the end, I think I ended up shopping at the Circle K in Shannon. So thank you very much to you, good people for being open at five 30 in the morning on a Sunday morning or whatever time it was. It was very early by the time I got there, but get there, I did looking a little dishevelled as I was in the airport

Though, I am all checked in at Shannon Airport, which is a lovely airport I have to say. And you can carry your own water and drinks through with no problems, which is good. Now I'm just going to wait for my flight. The lovely Frances packed me off with breakfast this morning. She made it for me last night, popped it in the fridge. So I had strawberries and raspberries and a bottle of water, which is just so lovely.

So I was there, I got checked in, had my breakfast, and then it was just time to wait. So the flight coming back was similarly as effortless as the one going out, but it was quieter, which meant that I had three whole seats to myself, which is always a bit of a treat, but it was so shorthaul that there wasn't any time for laying flat and napping, which was something I had enjoyed when I was travelling around the world. In 2003, my friend and I had both managed on a long haul flight to get, I think it was like a row of four or five seats to ourselves. So essentially had a flatbed experience for backpacker prices, which was just wonderful. Yeah, it wasn't quite a flatbed experience on Ryanair, but it was very speedy. And actually, I have to say that even when I was flying back into Birmingham, the baggage carousel situation was amazing for both flights. My baggage was pretty much there as soon as I'd been and had a trip to the eighties, and then I was at the carousel and it was there. Whereas in contrast, when I was flying back from Birmingham in the summer, we'd had to wait about an hour for all of our bags to appear. So I was kind of anticipating that was going to be the case. It was a very pleasant surprise. So very well done to the luggage crew at both Knock and Birmingham airports.

I am

Now

Back

In the

Zone at Birmingham Airport, and I'm waiting for my Uber. Shouldn't be too long. I'm really quite tired now. I feel quite dishevelled, and I'm looking forward to getting home. Thank you so much for following

My

Journey from door to door. I'll do a quick one when I get home, and then that will be all. Hope you found it useful. I hope you found it inspiring and helpful for thinking about when you have new things to do that might feel challenging, that might feel a bit overwhelming. You've got this. Thank you very much, and I'll look forward to catching up with you again soon.

So tired, just back from Marianne Galway is going to be closing this episode, but I did think that I would just say a few thank yous. So thank you very much to the Irish Psychological Society for inviting me to be their keynote speaker. It was lovely. I loved it, and I had so many interesting inspiring chats with people both at the event and since you've contacted me on socials. So yeah, thank you for curating a really wonderful, supportive, friendly group of people and wishing you very well. I'm wishing you all the best in what you do next and how you support the future generations of psychologists too. Also want to thank my Airbnb host and her son for being so welcoming, sorting everything out for me. And of course, Tommy the Cat. And I want to thank you guys for listening. And yeah, if anyone listening is interested in booking me for keynote speeches in future or would like me to come and do some sort of behind the scenes vlog of a conference or an event, let me know and we'll see what we can do.

I've had fun with this. I'd also like to thank my podcast editor who kind of inspired this little vlog thing because he asked me whether I ever take any B roll footage of actually what I'm up to in the day. And I was like, no, I don't. It's not very exciting. So this time I thought, well, this is more exciting. It's been a labour of love. This podcast video has taken me ages. So I thought, well, this is much more exciting than what I usually get up to. And it's nice to have company when you're on tour. So I thought I'd bring you with me. So yeah, hope that you've put up with my camera work that you can cope with me getting tireder and tireder as things progress. I am now filming this a good few weeks after the event. I've recovered my tiredness, but it is now at the end of a working week. I've had a busy day and I'm back from swimming with the kids. I've just finished dinner. So even getting the A roll snippets ready for this video have just taken me a little while. So you may notice I've changed outfits a few times, but I really wanted to bring this to you. So let's let Marianne, who's now back in her house fresh from Goway, just utterly shattered. Let's let her sign off. Thank you very much for watching.

Well, that is it. I am home, and I had such an interesting chat with my Uber driver on the way home about all things football, and then the fact that he'd actually been a law graduate originally and then got a tutu and we kind of worked out together. Actually, he's a bit traumatised by that. And we kind of encouraged him to move through that and to think about the steps involved with perhaps studying for a master's and then beginning to get back into the law career. So by the time I got out the Uber, come up with a bit of a plan, how many steps he was going to spend a few minutes before his next job, looking at maybe some masters and maybe thinking about sending some emails off to get that started. So yeah, love my job, love the chats that I end up having with people.

And he was like, thank you so much, Marianne. This has been really, really good. And it's kind of empowering stuff that potentially begins to change his life and the life of his family as well. Although he sounds like he's doing a great job anyway, but sometimes when we feel like we need to want to live up to our full potential and the things that you are originally heading in that direction for, so it matters. It really matters. And we're never too too old to do what we want to do. So I think he said he's 30, 34, I think he said. And I was like, time is young. Just do what you want to do. Yeah, so thank you very much for following my journey. My children and my husband are out. I think one of them might be out the grandparents and the other one's at football. So I'm going to enjoy a little bit of peace and quiet. I wish I could have a nap. I'm quite tired. But yeah, I will see you for the next episode of the podcast, which will be coming to you from 6:00 AM on Monday. Thank you so much for being part of my world. If you're watching on YouTube, please do subscribe. Let me know what you found useful about this episode, and I'll look forward to seeing you very soon. Take care.

If you're looking to become a psychologist, then let this be this podcast. You'll.