Ireland day 0190. Wednesday 06 April 2022- Showers
Today’s summary | Val was temporarily seconded to the main reception desk for Malahide Castle. Back at the ranch, I got my hair cut, did the shopping, made the meals and attempted a circular walk to Portmarnock. Took train back when yet more downpours threatened a soaking | ||||
Today’s weather | Sunshine and showers. A classic April day. Moderate westerly wind. About 11C | ||||
Today’s overview location (The blue mark shows the location of my route) |
Close-up location (The green 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): Showery Portmarnock walk |
Commentary
April is renowned for its showers and today the month lived up to its reputation. It was one of those days when it felt like the rain gods and sun gods were battling it out in the airspace above Malahide, with no distinct winner. Because no sooner had I donned waterproofs to deal with an ongoing deluge of rain, than the clouds miraculously dispersed and everywhere was bathed in brilliant sunshine under an electric blue sky. And from time to time the rain gods and sun gods appeared to try out a power-sharing agreement, as the rain poured down, seemingly out of nowhere, under a clear blue sky.
Needless to say this made planning for my “day off” a bit challenging, as I couldn’t be sure if I would be letting myself in for a soaking or a baking. But all this is really a bit of a self indulgent distraction. The main noteworthy event of today was Val’s secondment to the main reception desk at Malahide Castle. To have achieved this elevated status after only a week in the job is a major achievement and needless to say I’m a pretty proud husband today. You can see her in her new domain in the banner image at the top of the blog.
So while Val was out earning a crust, I got up early to make the breakfasts and packed lunches, then got everything ready for dinner tonight (sausages and roast potatoes, actually. As an aside, the main variety of potato here in Ireland seems to be the pink-skinned “Rooster”. It’s pretty decent either roasted or mashed). Once these vital tasks were out of the way, I headed into town and got my haircut. I tried out a new barber today and I think he did a pretty decent job. You can judge for yourselves in the big photo at the bottom of the blog. Not bad value for €13 I reckon – almost on a par, in fact, with the excellent €25 massive lunch for two in Kilkenny on Monday.
Freshly streamlined, I decided to use my free afternoon to hike down to the beach at Portmarnock with the ambition of walking back up the road to complete the loop. The road walk isn’t particularly pleasant because it’s busy, but there’s a good pavement so it it’s perfectly safe. But to be honest, the weather rather put paid to my plans.
I had all my wet weather gear with me, but having dodged three downpours just between Malahide and Portmarnock (at one stage I had to duck into Supervalu to stay dry – a bit humiliating) and with a fourth looming ominously overhead, I decided to call it a day. So rather than going through the palaver of pulling overtrousers and my goretex sweat-skin jacket, I decided to head over to Portmarnock station where, as luck would have it, a DART had just pulled in. I dashed down the platform just in time to catch it, and made my way dry-ly back to Malahide as the rain most satisfactorily lashed down on the train windows.
So that was pretty much it. A relatively quiet day, apart from Val’s excitements, but I have to admit I’m still feeling a bit tired, post-Covid, so a bit of down time to build up the reserves again is probably exactly what the doctor ordered.
Today’s photos (click to enlarge)
Interactive map
(Elevations corrected at GPS Visualizer: Assign DEM elevation data to coordinates )
Max elevation: 31 m
Min elevation: -1 m
Total climbing: 159 m
Total descent: -159 m
Total time: 02:07:16