Ireland day 0120. Wednesday 26 January 2022- Delays
Today’s summary | Wanted to make marmalade but knew that the car registration documents were potentially being sorted so held off in case we could go and collect it. But no joy so took a long walk round Malahide instead | ||||
Today’s weather | Sunny, bright and dry. No wind. About 8C | ||||
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 GPX of today’s walk as recorded, or see interactive map at bottom with elevations corrected): Malahide new bits |
Commentary
I am getting very practiced in the art of managing delay and frustration. So much so that I now know to expect that anything – and I mean anything – that you want to do will a) cost ten times as much as you think it should and b) take ten times as long. This isn’t just an Ireland thing – it happens everywhere. But it seems, probably because of the number of new tasks that we are trying to accomplish, that we have been more exposed to it in the last few months than we had ever been before we came.
Today was a case in point. Now that we have the Sevilles and the equipment, I was itching to get peeling, squeezing and boiling (and no this isn’t an acne treatment I am describing) and was looking forward to proudly displaying neatly aligned rows of jam jars full of marmalade in tonight’s blog. But the real world intervened. First off, I had a video with a friend back in the UK which took a bit longer than I expected as we had to have a detailed but ultimately inconclusive discussion about the relative merits of small modular reactors versus the molten salt alternatives.
Then I realised that about the time we finished, my garage man friend was going to the vehicle licensing office to see if he could get the new registration documents for the Yaris. He promised to text back if he was successful. I thought I better hold off making marmalade until I heard one way or another in case there was an opportunity at short notice to go and collect the car. But ultimately (to paraphrase Kirsty McColl) when I didn’t get a text I knew it wasn’t him.
So I wasted most of the day until mid afternoon wondering what was going on – and am still none the wiser. Though I did use the waiting time semi-productively to get out into the sunshine and have a wander round some of the parts of Malahide that I haven’t explored before. Val was altogether more virtuous and went on a run, though. Possibly I might have to follow suit tomorrow, in pursuit of my new sylph-like figure. But for the moment, I think I will just have to put the Yaris out of my mind until about 18 Feb which the the modified date when Plan B gets activated if there has been no progress in the meantime.
By that stage, it was almost time for another video call – this time to another friend who is a fluent Spanish speaker. My goodness though – that call was hard work. It’s like being pitched into a meeting with a group of people who you don’t know and who are all speaking Martian and trying to explain what a molten salt reactor is to all of them. After 30 minutes of hard work we called it a day and I decided that it was time to start a more practical Spanish lesson – as illustrated in the picture at the top of this blog. And I need to be clear – even though online Spanish conversation is exceptionally hard work, it’s also brilliant. You can only learn so much by going to classes – but by being forced into a sink-or-swim situation your learning curve is infinitely steeper and much more effective. Strange as it might seem, I can’t wait for the next one!
Needless to say, though, by the time these delaying tactics had been deployed successfully, it was too late to start marmalade production. Well, actually, Val put her foot down, as she didn’t seem to relish the prospect of me creating havoc in the kitchen and filling the flat with steam until three o’clock in the morning.
Anyway – let’s see what tomorrow brings. Whatever happens, I think that Seville will take priority over Yaris as the fruit won’t last for ever and I need them to be in tip-top condition to produce conserves of the highest possible standard, just in case I get invited by the local Womens’ Institute to enter their next jam- and scone-making competition. I somehow don’t think that is terribly likely at this stage, through, so my blushes are spared for now.
Today’s photos (click to enlarge)
Interactive map
(Elevations corrected at GPS Visualizer: Assign DEM elevation data to coordinates )
Max elevation: 30 m
Min elevation: 0 m
Total climbing: 85 m
Total descent: -83 m
Total time: 01:12:02