Ireland day 1350. Monday 09 June 2025- UK Visitor Day 1

Today’s summary	Spent a few minutes first thing doing some hoovering then Val went off to the airport to collect a friend from the airport. She will be staying with us for the next few days. While she was out I walked along the coast to Centra and admired the latest additions to the swan family. Had roast chicken again for dinner, and chatted in the evening.
Today’s weather	Overcast with the threat of rain, though it stayed mainly dry. Light south westerly wind. Appx 16c

Today’s overview location (The blue mark shows the location of my route)		Close-up location (The blue line shows where I walked) (Click button below to download GPX of today’s walk as recorded, or see interactive map at bottom with elevations corrected): Centra and Cygnets

Commentary

It’s always nice to have friends to stay. But quite aside from the enjoyment of new company, one of the big side benefits is that you simply have to get your accommodation clean and tidy and suitable for independent scrutiny before they arrive. It’s quite easy to let the dust and grime of everyday living creep up on you when you don’t have any external checks and balances. And I have to admit that when it’s just the two of us, there is always almost something more pressing and more interesting to do than the hoovering.

Anyway, today was one of those incoming guest days, so the first part of the morning was spent finishing off the cleaning and tidying that Val had done yesterday, and giving the flat a last wash and brush up. At the end of it all, it certainly felt a lot more habitable here!

When we were done, we allowed ourselves a few moments to get some breakfast before Val set off in the direction of the airport. Her friend – a former colleague that I was looking forward to meeting for the first time – was due to land at around 11am. That just gave me long enough to scuttle round my “Centra-and-Demesne” walk along the coast, before they got back.

I always enjoy this walk as it has an interesting mix of coast and park – as well as the added bonus of course of midway refreshment courtesy of Centra. Today my interest was particularly spiked when I saw that the two swans who live in the marshland near where the Gaybrook Stream enters the lagoon, were now the proud parents of three new cygnets. Well at least I think there were three, but there may have been more nestling out of sight. They were already quite big, so I guess they must have hatched a couple of weeks ago. It will be interesting to follow their development over the coming months.

Once back at the flat, Val and her friend had already returned, so we had a light lunch (serrano ham sandwiches) and the three of us spent a good couple of hours putting the world to rights.

Later, the others walked up to the demesne to take a look at the castle, while I got on with some admin back at the flat. We rounded off the evening with more of the roast chicken dinner from yesterday, and a pleasant couple of hours of chat before finally retiring to bed at about 11 o’clock

Today’s photos (click to enlarge)


Sneaking a shortcut across the green, from Caves Strand to the Sea Road	This helicopter was buzzing around for much of the morning while I was out on my walk. It did two or three big circuits approximately around Malahide. I’ve no idea what is was or what it was doing

As ever, Milford is looking neat, tidy and floriferous	Bee bumble busy in the brambles

The vivid orange of these calendulas has to be one of my favourite botanical colours (along with California poppies)	The yellow roses in the Casino grounds always put on a good show at this time of year

Mum, dad and the kids. I counted three, but there my have been more hiding out of sight