Ireland day 0043. Wednesday 10 November 2021- Mysterons

Ireland day 0043. Wednesday 10 November 2021- Mysterons
Today’s summary Spent the day hanging around in the flat waiting for things to happen.  Eventually got my elusive PPS number then went on an evening walk along the coast and spotted lights in the sky
Today’s weather Dry and mostly bright with occasional sun.   No wind.   Still mild.   About 15C
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Today’s overview location
(the red cross in a circle shows where Val and I are at the moment)
Close-up location
(Click button below to download a GPX of my walk this evening):
Mysterons
Commentary

Do you ever have days when nothing you had in mind for the day actually seems to go to plan?   Well I had one of those today.

Emboldened by my cycling adventures yesterday, today I thought I would try heading a bit further afield, and go up the coast to Donabate then attempt a walk around the peninsula south of Balcarrick.   I was just getting ready to go, when I remembered I had a Zoom call with a friend back in the UK at 9:30.   We had an excellent and most enjoyable catch up and when we finished at 11, I reckoned I still had about 5 hours of daylight left, which should have been plenty for my cycling project.   I was just about to go again, when I got a knock at the door from the buildings maintenance people who needed to install a new fire blanket in the kitchen.   That took till 11:30 – which still gave me enough time, I thought – when I got a text message from our old landlord in Ardcath saying an official-looking letter had been delivered there addressed to me.

I suspected this might be my much-delayed and elusive PPS number (my attempts to change my address in the system had failed – whereas Val had somehow managed to do it).   So I decided I’d get the the train to Gormanston then cycle across to Ardcath to pick up the letter.   I was just about to set off on this Plan B for the day, when I got a phone call from our landlord in Ardcath saying that a colleague of his would be heading to Malahide later that afternoon and would deliver the letter to me.   This spared me a lot of sweat, time and money in going up the coast, but the timing of the planned delivery itself was somewhat vague.   This meant I had to scrap all my plans and wait patiently for the delivery to arrive.

Eventually – at around 3pm – it did get here and the letter was indeed my PPS number.  Hooray!   So my plans were well and truly messed up but I’m not complaining because I urgently needed the number, and because our old landlord really did go out of his way to help.   So I abandoned the rest of the afternoon and, armed with the new number, set about arranging eye tests for Val and me (which we need in order to get Irish Driving Licences), and registering us with a local GP.

By the time all that was done, it was nearly dark so I picked up my sandwiches and had a very late lunch watching the sun set down by the harbour.   Then as night fell, I walked down the coast to the velvet strand beach at Portmarnock then headed up the back road to Malahide.

This brings us on to the Mysterons.   Walking up the back road it’s very dark, so I couldn’t help noticing strange white lights floating on the clouds above me (as featured in the image at the top of this blog).   At first I thought maybe it was a lighthouse beam, but the spots seemed to dance around, merge and split, and perform elaborate circular movements in the sky.   Then it became clear.   As a child brought up on supermarionation in the 1960s, it became clear that they could be nothing other than visible proof of the existence of the Mysterons – all that was missing was Captain Black declaring that this indeed was the Voice of the Mysterons.

(By the way I think Malahide castle are doing an evening lights spectacular for Christmas, so I suppose there is an outside chance they might be something to do with that).

Anyway, it’s time to go and heat up some brown slime for dinner (it’s very nice, by the way – especially with jacket potatoes) and toast my success with the PPS.   And hope that the Mysterons hold off invading until at least after tomorrow when I have done my bike ride.

 

Today’s photos (click to enlarge)

Adam PPS letter redacted cropped IMG_6444
Here at last!   My elusive PPS number.   The key which unlocks the car, among many other things.   Took 5 weeks Tennis fans are well catered for here in Malahide – seemingly almost 24×7
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Looking back to the town centre from the shore I have no idea what the object on the left of this picture is, but I did wonder if the person who created it had a slightly odd sense of humour
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Across Portmarnock bay to Howth, with inbound flight to Dublin airport illuminating the sky Coastal walk – makes for a fine evening promenade
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Errant dog in the process of becoming fossilised in concrete.   I wonder what future palaeontologists will make of it?   The first thing I noticed was that the back paws on each side of the body stepped into exactly the same place as the front paws on the same side
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