The recent wedding of one of my oldest friends gave me the opportunity to dig myself out of my routine in Manorhamilton and make a foray outside the confines of this small place. It's been months since I've been anywhere, apart from an odd day-trip to Dublin, and even then it's primarily to see Tony's daughter Hannah. That the wedding was in Cork meant we had to drive practically across the entire country, using a map which was printed in 1985. What used to be primary roads have been totally eclipsed by spanking new motorways, so the map was pretty much useless as a navigational tool.

"Not to worry" I crooned to Tony, delighted at my little trip. "Sure we can always just look at the road signs on the way."

Are you joking me? At least 10 times over the course of the six-hour trip, we had to stop and make a totally uninformed decision about which direction we should go. There would be a clear road sign pointing to Limerick, and then 10 minutes later a junction, without any. We made a decision not to get freaked out by this and simply accept that the trip would take as long as necessary, including time-out for mistakes.

Tony hadn't seen the rest of Ireland for about six years, so the changes were astounding. I kept struggling with the fact that I had been holed up in the Wild West, because every couple of miles I was shouting: "Ooh, look at that building. Ooh, so much has changed".

I really need to get more of a life. Apart from the massive development taking place, some things have just not changed. Over the course of a five-day trip the quality of coffee everywhere was pretty dire, with the exception of the Hunt Museum in Limerick, where it was brilliant. However, the girl who was filling the sugar bowls seemed oblivious to the fact that she was using her bare hands - bag to bowl with abandon.

Other things too, need to move on, like the quality of service around the country, even in the bigger centres of population. In one sandwich bar in a garage in Offaly, we ordered two rolls: one with chicken, and one with ham. The order was mixed up so we got one brown bap, and one roll and when we drew the matter to the waitress's attention, she simply said: "Sorry about that". Tony's experience of living in Manhattan means that he's always astounded by the laissez-faire attitude.

"Why is it that they make you feel you have made the mistake, even though you are the customer," he wondered. In true Irish fashion, I just wanted to move on, and pretend it was fine. Our struggles with the service industry came to an end when, on Sunday morning in our bed and breakfast in Kinsale, there was a knock on our door at 8.30 in the morning calling us to breakfast.

"Are you joking me," Tony muttered from under the duvet, "It's bloody 8.30 in the morning." Undaunted, we moved like sheep to partake of the breakfast until the rest of the wedding party joined us. Everybody else just looked sympathetic, and a bit puzzled at our plight. "Er, don't you remember the clock just went forward," they chorused. So if the nice lady had not called us, we would have missed breakfast completely. We looked duly sheepish and made our way back to the car to complete the odyssey home. "Imagine not remembering about the clock," muttered a mortified Tony. "They must think we come from the sticks altogether, not to remember something as basic as that."

I do think that your sense of time changes living here, just as the solitude gets to you. At the wedding I met people whom I had not seen for almost 10 years, and I found it difficult at times to be as social, and as chatty as I remembered myself being. A lot of the time I felt lost dealing with so many people, even though I knew and liked all of the people there.

I realised too, how rare it is for people to meet anyone from Leitrim, since every time we mentioned where we lived, people did a double-take, as if it was on the moon. Then again, mentioning Ballyfermot seemed to have the same effect. "Where is Tony from," people asked, and then would completely dry up when I cheerily announced "Ballyfermot".

There you go, I thought, two complete conversation stoppers: Leitrim and Ballyfermot. Could it be to do with the bad press each has received in the past? The lack of attention paid to certain places because of their demographics or economics? Being tagged by geography takes some time to adjust to, since I've always been just who I am, not where I'm from, but I'm happy to take that responsibility on board.