Corduroy Dreams

The journey from England to NI would be a long and tedious one, as Leah would soon find - the road trip alone would last a staggering 4 and a half hours (and that was only to the ferry port). For the most part, she managed to keep herself entertained by sleeping and watching Kian's TikToks, but after what had seemed like an eternity (in reality, 3 hours) the boredom was simply too overpowering. And, from her teenage lips, escaped the overly-used child stereotype, featuring in every road trip in existence, ever:

"Are we there yet?"

"Almost. We're about 90 minutes away now."

"What?! But that's an hour and a half!" Leah complained.

"Well done, Leah, that's some Year 4 level maths right there. Have a gold sticker."

Leah scowled at her father, "Can we at least make a pit stop, I'm hungry."

"Hi hungry, I'm dad."

"Oh, for goodness' sake..." A beacon of hope in the distance caught Leah's eye, "Look, there's a McDonald's just up ahead!"

"Ooo, I'm really craving a Big Mac meal."

"You sure about that, dad? Last thing you need is MORE calories..."

Leah's cocky smirk was juxtaposed with Mr. Brennan's unamused glower,

"You know, one of these days, social services are gonna save me from your awful jokes and ship you off to some other unfortunate family."

"Uh, you wish."

"Yeah, I do wish. That's kinda the point, luv."

"Whatever, I'm going back to sleep. Wake me up when we're there, please." Leah slumped in her seat and turned away from Mr. Brennan, who (unbeknownst to Leah) smiled and held his gaze on her for a moment, "Sleep tight, luv." he whispered.

Eventually, Leah and her father arrived at the port where they took the ferry to NI. The rest of the journey seemed to have passed in the blink of an eye. Leah felt as though she'd fallen asleep in one country and woken up in another. Within hours, she found herself surrounded by the gracious green of the countryside; fields all over stretched for miles and miles, grazing the horizon where the sun set in all sorts of oranges, reds and purples. Slowly, a smile emerged across Leah's face as she took in the view and sat in the car, captivated by the sheer beauty of it all.