Ireland day 0211. Wednesday 27 April 2022- Sunshine

Ireland day 0211. Wednesday 27 April 2022- Sunshine
Today’s summary Visited the Citizens Information Service again this morning to talk to their tax expert.   Then phone call with UK accountant over lunch and a walk round the demesne in brilliant sunshine in the afternoon.   Going to the Mountains on Stage film show in Dublin this evening
Today’s weather Another dry bright day with full sunshine in the afternoon.   Still quite cool.   Moderate easterly wind.   About 11C
Today’s overview location
(The blue mark shows the location of our route)
Close-up location
(The green line shows where we walked)
(Click button below to download GPX of today’s walk as recorded, or see interactive map at bottom with elevations corrected):
Malahide castle walk
Commentary

I have to admit that the main focus of today was to try and make some more headway on our tax.   But I have already gone on at great length about tax in previous blogs and I really don’t think that anyone reading this wants yet another episode in the saga.   Suffice it to say that after a return to the Citizens Information Service to see their tax specialist, and a chat with our other accountant in the UK – we both felt a great deal more confident that the whole thing is more manageable.   We just need to keep an eye on time – the deadline for submitting our 2021 Irish return is 31 October 2022.   It would certainly be a lot easier, too, if the UK and Irish tax years were the same.   Still, we are beginning to get a grip on what we have to do now.

After making headway of sorts on tax, I took a step backwards on my credit card application.   The application hasn’t been rejected, which is good, but the bank want additional proof of my PPS number, which you can only get by providing a copy of your tax return (see above) or of your medical card (which neither of us has).   To get a medical card you have to go through a labyrinthine application process and quite frankly I am sick of paperwork so I am getting close to the point of thinking that the reward might not be worth the effort.   I’ll see how I feel in a few days time.

Anyway, once all that was out of the way and we’d had lunch, we decided it would be a crime to spend any more time indoors while the sun was shining so brilliantly outside.   So we took the easy option and decided to go on a short walk round the castle demesne.  With the changing seasons, it never gets boring even though we’ve done it several times before – and then we thought we’d drop into the castle gardens.   It was a joy to be out in the sun and amongst the emerald green trees and lawns, and what made it even more fun was bumping into one of the other students on my Spanish class, and also one of Val’s colleagues from work as we were out and about.  We had to stop for the inevitable chats which was enjoyable and which really helped us to feel that we are staring to fit in here.

The castle gardens themselves were a riot of colour and perfume.   The butterfly house – where the banner image at the top of the blog was taken – has just been re-stocked and was full of magnificent fluttering Lepidoptera.    We’re back in the flat and Val has just made delicious pancakes for tea.   And now we are about to head out again – round to the cinema at Clondalkin – for a “Mountains on Stage” filmshow.   There’s nothing like a bit of armchair travelling to brighten the day, and I’m really looking forward to it!

 

Today’s photos (click to enlarge)

The view into the library from the Citizens Information Service on the upper floor.   It’s a really nice building with a welcoming atmosphere.   It must be a very good place to work The moorhens in the castle gardens have apparently just hatched five chicks.   You can see two of them are here and the other three were lurking in the reeds.   Probably a sounder strategy, as in most years, the resident heron manages to dine on a sizeable proportion of the brood so keeping out of sight is a wise survival strategy
Winter’s Bark tree, Drymis winteri.   It is named after the person who discovered it in 1579 – Captain Winter – rather than the season.   You can make an infusion out of the bark which is apparently rich in Vitamin C so sailors in days gone by used to drink it to prevent scurvy Hardy palms – one of the few varieties that will grow outside in Ireland.   They seem to like it in the sheltered quarters of the castle gardens
Mountains on Stage – this is where we are going later this evening.   Really looking forward to it! Now you see me… Val encountering the butterfly house.   Wonderfully warm and humid
Ironically this was the headline in today’s paper – we had only just been discussing the controversy surrounding peat harvesting – and the plans to stop it – in yesterday’s blog.
Interactive map

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

Total distance: 6207 m
Max elevation: 26 m
Min elevation: 9 m
Total climbing: 93 m
Total descent: -94 m
Total time: 01:50:51
Download file: Malahide Demesne Again corrected.gpx

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