First published in 'Ireland's Own'August 2007

I scour the map of Ireland and find a dot marked 'Gort' close to the west coast, at the end of one of the long green spiders' legs fanning out from Dublin. My brochure says 'From Belfast take southern route to Gort'. Detailed instructions follow from there. But Belfast seems to be linked to Gort only by a complex faint orange spider's web behind the bright Dublin-Everywhere Else legs.

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I am in Belfast, on Leg One of my annual Eurwhizz tour, catching up with friends and family, and have decided to carve out a 'Weekend for Me': Detox and Gentle Yoga in the Burren of County Clare. I last travelled round the west of Ireland twenty-eight years ago, when we lived in Dublin. Our first child was conceived there: we were going to call her Kerry or Clare, but couldn't figure out which would be accurate, so we called her neither.

Back then the roads were rough, winding and quiet. Getting out of Dublin was a breeze. I remember that holiday as cold, windy and very beautiful. Eight of us rented a ramshackle house overlooking the Atlantic. One friend, with proverbial Danish finesse, went into our local pub and boomed 'Do you serve this thing called poteen?' 'Wouldn't touch the stuff,' the publican replied, horrified, as the rest of us cowered in a corner. But the next evening a lemonade bottle containing a clear liquid and wrapped in newspaper was discreetly handed over the bar to Klaus.

I look back at the map. There simply is no 'southern route' from Dublin to Gort. I am reminded of the day, a few months after the poteen episode, when we were driving from Wexford to Donegal, on silent, crunchy snowy roads after a New Year's party. I was six months' pregnant. We didn't meet a car for the first six hours: it felt like this frosty winterworld was ours alone. We decided then that no one had ever before climbed northwards up the pale orange spider's web along this exact route.

I consult Uncle Billy. 'Belfast to the Burren? Sure you could go through Eniskillen, Sligo and Galway'.

In other words, anticlockwise around the thick green edge of the orange spider's web. Looks rather a roundabout way.

I try Auntie Joan. 'Oh I'd go Monaghan, Cavan, Longford and Athlone.' As the crow flies, only I have no wings - just a hired Nissan Micra called Cherry. I look at the map. Auntie Joan's route looks as though I'd be constantly fighting against the onslaught of diagonal green legs coming from Dublin.

I phone the Yoga Centre. 'Belfast, hmm...not sure we've had anyone drive from there before, but I'd say the Dublin route would be your best bet. Straight down the M1, then just hook onto the N4 west. Give yourself plenty of time: I've slotted you in for a massage at four.’
I examine the map. It all seems logical - I drove up from Dublin airport a couple of days ago and it only took two hours. The brochure says it'll take three hours from Dublin to the centre. And I drive fast.

Years ago I read about a guy called Howard Carpenter who identified seven intelligences in the human brain - mathematical, musical, and so on. I am quite convinced that the Creator forgot the spatial one when he made me - I simply cannot follow maps. But I can follow signs. Especially signs to a massage.

I give myself seven hours, setting off at nine in the morning. In under two I've hit the M50, the ring road round Dublin. This is the 'hook' that the centre mentioned. The traffic is heavy, but I'm not disheartened - after all, there's a massage at the end of this. Looking at Dublin like a clock, I have come in on the twelve o'clock axis and need to go out at nine. Oh dear, the clock analogy is not giving me positive vibes.

Suddenly the whole motorway system turns into a jumble of roadworks, with a solid mass of vehicles snailing along, lanes merging, dividing, scary cranes looming above, and huge trucks and steamrollers swamping my Cherry. There are no signs, apart from one which says 'Get in Lane'. I opt for third to the right, and am dragged with the pack of tankers and lorries along a sliproad. Three deep, full yogic breaths. Fingers crossed. A roadsign! Yes! I crawl to within reading distance, and my heart sinks: 'Limerick'. Oh no, I've come off at eight o'clock instead of nine. Never mind, I have my extra two hours to play with. Following a Polish roadworker's instructions, I curl back onto the M50 in the opposite direction. The traffic is almost at a standstill. Sign: 'Get in Lane'. This must be right, far left feels like west. Off the sliproad. Another sign. I don't believe it. 'Limerick.'

No way am I going to face those intimidating juggernauts again: if I have to get to Gort via Limerick, going clockwise practically the whole way round Ireland, so be it. There's a massage at the end of it. Or is there?

After a few miles I see a sign: 'N4 West: Galway 195 km'. Boy, my neck and my back and my brain could do with that massage, but I'll never make it. It's 2 p.m., I've been at the wheel for four hours, and I'm nowhere near half way. I press on, and an hour and a half later I stop in a pretty village called Kilbeggan, juggle pounds and Euros, British Orange and Irish O2 SIM cards, have a sandwich in a pub, and call the centre to cancel my massage.

Two hours later, exhausted, but totally au fait with the upcoming Eurovision song contest, the Irish nurses' dispute, the historic meeting between Paisley and McGuinness, and feeling like I've known Gordon Brown all my life, I reach Gort. The instructions from here are precise. I switch off the radio, and drive down narrow lanes edged with tidy stone walls. The sky is grey but a bright band of light lines the horizon, illuminating the grey lunar landscape of granite slabs, delicately dotted with bright, tiny flowers. There is peace in the air. And energy.

A few minutes later I drive into the Yoga Centre.

'Welcome, Paola, we've rescheduled your massage: it's in half an hour.'
Yes!