Inside track

Before setting off on holiday, it is essential to prepare your plants so they're not wilting on your return.

Neighbours often over-water the house plants. So before you go, a good tip is to plunge the pot into a bucket of water until the bubbles stop rising. This means the compost has been saturated and the plant will have plenty of water. You then don't need to go near the plant for another week or two.

Jane Powers

Cool for kids

This year's Puck Fair in Killorglin, Co Kerry, takes place from August 10th to 12th. It is one of Ireland's oldest festivals and has developed into a family event with free entertainment daily. The main events include the horse fair, the busking competition, the parade and coronation of a wild goat as King Puck. Also packed in to the schedule are open-air concerts, a fireworks display, children's competitions, street entertainment and Irish dancing displays.

Tel: 066 976 2366 www.puckfair.ie

Louise Holden

Watch out

In holiday cottages all over the west the same bunch of wildflowers adorns the kitchen table: fuchsia, loosestrife, montbretia in a fabulous mix of scarlet, purple, flaming orange. Fuchsia and montbretia are naturalised aliens, originally from South America and South Africa. How many other foreigners will you see along the roadside? Pink-belled hedges of escallonia - another South American - are planted intentionally. Japanese knotweed is the arch-invader, establishing tough thickets of "bamboo".

Michael Viney

Stars and gripes

Martin King, weather presenter

Best holiday: Believe it or not, it was in Ireland. I'd been living abroad in Tenerife and I came back on holidays to Dublin. I just hung out with my friends and did a lot of the tourist things, going out to Portrane and Skerries and going to the parks. You really have to go away to realise what a good time you can have here.

Worst holiday: Two years ago in Lanzarote. One of the kid's sun-cream came off in the water and he got badly burnt. The same lad then had a bit of trouble at a pizzeria when he ate something that wasn't properly cooked.

- In conversation with Fiachra Ó Cionnaith

Off the shelf

Big Deal - One Year as a Professional Poker Player: Anthony Holden,13.30

Translator and biographer Anthony Holden's Big Deal is the classic book on big stakes poker. In his year as a professional, Holden travels the world, winning and losing his gambling roll in the glitziest international poker tournaments. Praised from high and low, all players love this book, and all those wannabes, dreaming of raking in that monster pot, will eat it up. As the late, great Telly Savalas, said, "A must for every poker player's library". - Recommended by Des Farrell of Hodges Figgis, Dublin

Get out

Where to go, what to see: For entertainment listings, see The Ticket, every Friday in The Irish Times, or go to www.ireland.com/theticket/

For other events see the What's On column in the main paper every Thursday and the Saturday magazine