Ireland day 1521. Thursday 27 November 2025- Rainbow

Today’s summary	Had a video call with a friend in Ludlow, UK, first thing, and then with Val in Canada. Afterwards, spent a couple of hours dealing with paperwork and on admin work. Finally, managed to get away and walked down the coast to Sutton. Got caught in a torrential downpour halfway but was rewarded with a fine rainbow. Took the 102 bus back from Sutton station and was in the flat again by 4:30pm. Had a relaxing evening with beef salad for dinner and a couple of travel videos.
Today’s weather	Bright and sunny in the morning and clear again in the evening. Gloomy cloud in the afternoon with heavy downpours. Moderate south westerly wind. Appx 13c

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): Rainbow walk to Sutton

Commentary

It’s been quite a busy day today, with some hesitant progress on the various admin tasks that have been preoccupying me recently.

My first activity – once I’d had breakfast and put the laundry on – was to join a video call with a friend in Ludlow, UK. He’s in the process of creating a new home out of a semi-derelict cottage and some adjoining land. We had a fascinating chat about ground-screws and water based oil paint. I, at least, learned a lot.

We spoke for about an hour, after which I segued straight into a video call with Val. It was the middle of the night in Vancouver but jet lag was ensuring she was wide awake and wanted to chat. All’s good over there, I’m pleased to report.

Afterwards, I got on with some of the paperwork I’ve been dealing with lately – I made some progress, but had to make a couple of phone calls which as ever took ages as I had to wait in a long queue to get answered. I also made a start on copying the data I took off my old pc, onto my laptop. I set that running at around 11 am but it won’t be finished until around midnight, as there are hundreds of gigabytes to copy.

All morning while I had been doing this, it was gloriously sunny outside. So I was keen to get out and enjoy some of the rays. Unfortunately by the time I was ready to leave, it had started raining. My weather app said it would only be a passing shower so I set out reasonably confident that I wouldn’t get soaked.

Well that turned out to be only partly true. The rain did indeed stop but the forecast had failed to notice the second torrential downpour heading to Malahide with my name on it, and which arrived about 45 minutes later. I had a pair of waterproof overtrousers with me but they were old and leaky, so my legs got pretty much as wet as they would have if I hadn’t bothered putting them on. Maybe Father Christmas will bring me a new pair? Anyway the downpour only lasted about 20 minutes, and when it finished the sun came out and I was rewarded with a fine rainbow. Quite beautiful and it almost made the rain feel worthwhile.

Eventually I got to Sutton and fortunately didn’t have too long to wait for the 102 to take me back to Malahide. Just long enough in fact to get a coffee and packet of crisps from Sam’s newly modernised café at the station.

By the time I got back to Malahide, it was more or less completely dark, despite only being about 4:30 pm. The rest of the evening was pretty chilled, actually. I made myself a roast beef salad for dinner, which I enjoyed while watching a couple travel videos about Germany. Now I need to start formulating plans for the next few days. Most alarmingly, it will be time to start writing Christmas cards soon!

Today’s photos (click to enlarge)


Looking back north towards the Corballis peninsula – on the opposite side of the Malahide estuary – from the coast road near the Malahide / Portmarnock boundary	Looking south from roughly the same spot. You can just see Ireland’s Eye on the horizon, slightly to the left of centre

On the Velvet Strand -aka Portmarnock beach. Looking back over my shoulder – north towards Portmarnock	Crossing from the Golf Links Road through the marshland to Strand Road

The new housing development at Baldoyle is getting closer and closer to the coast all the time	As usual, it seemed, the level crossing at Sutton was closed. Rather than waiting for ages for the train (or trains) to pass, I cut through the station, over the footbridge

Ireland, we love you really