Ireland day 0190. Wednesday 06 April 2022- Showers

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)

I love these days.   Black clouds and torrential rain, followed by limpid blue skies and bright sunshine only moments later The castle demesne in one of the bright sunny intervals
The swimming pavilion at Portmarnock beach.   A convenient shelter as a shower passed by Whoever “they” are, “they” say that when gorse is in flower, kissing is in fashion.   So I guess it must be in fashion today, although in Ireland it is more commonly known as furze
Reed bed in Baldoyle Bay.   The light-bellied Brent Geese that were pottering about in Malahide estuary yesterday like to secrete themselves around here in the depths of winter.   They move up into the Sluice River marshes later in the winter, before embarking on their epic migrations back up to Arctic Canada where they spend the summer OK I chickened out.   I had successfully dodged most of the showers but I didn’t trust my luck to last much longer.   So I abandoned the idea of a circular walk and caught the train back from Portmarnock.   Yes, I know I am a wimp.
Down on the Velvet Strand sporting the latest No 4 + No 2 haircut.   Hopefully it should last a decent length of time.   It is important to extract the maximum value from these investments
Interactive map

(Elevations corrected at  GPS Visualizer: Assign DEM elevation data to coordinates )

Total distance: 10844 m
Max elevation: 31 m
Min elevation: -1 m
Total climbing: 159 m
Total descent: -159 m
Total time: 02:07:16
Download file: Showers corrected.gpx

You can read earlier and later days’ blogs below

Previous day’s blog
Next day’s blog
Ireland home page

 Save as PDF