Ireland day 0041. Monday 08 November 2021- Flu

Today’s summary	Jobs for most of the day, then got a flu vaccination, did some cooking and went on short evening walk to the beach and back
Today’s weather	Damp in the morning, brighter in the afternoon. Very mild. Appx 16C

Today’s overview location (the red cross in a circle shows where Val and I are at the moment)		Close-up location (Click on the button below to download a copy of a GPX from this evening’s stroll): Malahide evening

Commentary

While Val is back in the UK, I am living an essentially solitary existence here in Malahide.

One of the features of solo living is that nothing happens unless you do it yourself. This has some advantages – for example things don’t get tidied up, put away or “accidentally” sent to the fabric recycling (which seems to happen quite a lot to things like my favourite 15 year old T-shirt for example). But on the other hand, clothes don’t magically wash themselves, dust just goes on accumulating and most importantly, meals don’t get made. This means you have to make an extra special effort if you want to eat properly. I soon realised that for the few days that I will be on my own, my go-to option in such circumstances of bran flakes with custard was unlikely to be biologically sustainable. This meant that I had to do some Real Cooking today.

I’m not a talented chef, and I don’t particularly enjoy cooking as most of my creations turn out looking like brown slime. So I decided to go with the flow and make a casserole – which after all is supposed to look essentially like brown slime, so even if things went badly wrong, it should still turn out looking OK.

I downloaded a suitable brown slime recipe from the BBC website and set to chopping up carrots, boiling stock and dicing onions while my eyes watered profusely. As we didn’t have measuring jug, I had to estimate how much water to add to the stock cube and resorted to using an empty wine bottle to help me guess. Fortunately we had quite a few of those lying around and I decided that the requisite amount would be just about two thirds of the way up the label. The next problem was that we didn’t have a big casserole, only a small Pyrex dish so I am having to cook it in two batches. As the recipe requires cooking for a frankly absurd 5 hours, the last batch won’t be out till after midnight and the electricity bill will probably be so huge I might just as well have gone and got a takeaway. Anyway, midway through the cooking process I can confirm that it does indeed look like brown slime, so I guess things must be on track. It does smell OK though.

Not content with just being a masterchef today, I also got a spare set of keys cut and cleaned the windows. The latter had become especially important ever since the people upstairs got their cleaned and transferred all the dirt removed from their panes directly onto ours when their dirty water cascaded down the wall. But most important for longer term wellbeing, I decided to get a flu vaccine from the local chemist. They were able to administer it more or less there and then (after I spent some time persuading them that not having a PPS number really wasn’t important), which made the €30 fee seem a bit more palatable. With the world seemingly teetering on the brink of a fourth (or is it fifth?) wave of covid, the last thing I want to do right now is to get flu as well. And in case you were wondering – Val is getting hers while she is back in the UK.

Oh and by the way I made a little bit of progress on the elusive PPS too. Frustrated by the endless wait, I phoned the PPS office in Dundalk and spoke to a nice lady there who told me that I had indeed been issued a PPS number on 2 November. She wasn’t actually allowed to tell me what it was, but it’s reassuring to know that at least I exist somewhere in the system. Mrs (or Ms) Nice Lady also agreed to reissue the letter containing the vital information, as she surmised that the original had probably got lost in the post.

Now I’m going to have some dinner (I am eating up left overs from when Val was here, so haven’t had to tackle the brown slime yet). Then I’m going to go for a quick evening stroll to the beach before my immune system gets to work on the inactivated virus particles coursing through my veins, and I lapse into febrile convulsions and delirium. Well I hope not, but you have to be mentally prepared for the worst.

Today’s photos (click to enlarge)


When I’m cleanin’ windaz..	Down by the harbour – tunnel under the railway embankment leading into Malahide waterside

The Ammonite Statue on Malahide village green	Malahide harbour and yachting marina looking a bit cote d’azur this evening

Evening tree	As I crossed the railway bridge, the last down train from Belfast to Dublin came by. Note it is passing the stationary DART train on the up line. I.e. it is on the wrong track. Fascinating.

This is the Official Brown Slime cut out and keep souvenir portrait