Julie Jay: Dublin's traffic comes as a shock to this West Coast hipster

Despite getting a lot of flak, the capital city is a great spot for an afternoon filled with Lego mosh-pits, fake martinis and untouched lunches

Julie Jay: "In Dingle, the only traffic I encounter is the number of people ahead of me in the queue for my daily chai latte, so the car congestion coming out of Dublin at 5pm was something no west coast hipster could have possibly foreseen."

A couple of weeks ago, we spent the day in Dublin, and it was only as Number One hesitated at the top of the escalator stairs I realised it was, in fact, the very first time we had all been in the capital city, all four of us.

I love a bit of Dublin, particularly this time of year. The colours! The scarf fashion! The free chocolates that come with your extortionately priced flat white! It’s enough to make me want to dip into my secret hedge fund and splash out €1.25m on a one-bedroom artisan cottage somewhere within the Pale.