Ireland day 0213. Friday 29 April 2022- Preparations

Today’s summary	Val was out at work today so I spent the morning cleaning, hoovering and doing the washing, then tackled some more admin. Fitted in a short walk in the afternoon before guests arrive to stay for the weekend later this evening
Today’s weather	Bright, dry and mostly clear. Hazy cloud in the afternoon. Cool easterly 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): Interlude between chores and guests

Commentary

We’ve got guests staying with us over the coming weekend – which we are very much looking forward to. It’s great fun showing off our new habitat. Must people can’t believe that we are actually here!

But the downside is that you’ve got to be looking spic and span when they arrive, to create the right impression, so that means you’ve got to do quite a lot of advance preparation. That’s one of the reasons why we did so much shopping yesterday but today, cleaning was on the agenda. So while Val was back out at work, I did another million loads of washing (or so it seemed), then set about cleaning the bathroom, kitchen and the floors. Not entirely my favourite job but judging from the amount of dust and fluff that appeared in the hoover bag, it was probably long overdue.

Living in a small flat, though, meant that the whole process didn’t take too long so once that was all out of the way, and while I was on a roll, so to speak, I decided to look into getting a Medical Card here in Ireland. Apparently as a UK or EU citizen you are entitled to one though I’m not entirely certain the point is. I couldn’t fathom it from the website, so I eventually rang someone in the relevant Government Department up and they explained it to me. It’s slightly clearer now but still a bit hazy, so he agreed to send me some paperwork through the post to look at. Once it arrives I’ll go through it and see if it offers anything that our private medical insurance doesn’t already provide. Then I’ll decide whether it’s worth the hassle of filling in yet more forms and doubtless going down endless frustrating rabbit-holes along the way.

When I’d finished, I still had a couple of hours before Val came back from work so I decided to make the most of the sunny afternoon to fit in a short walk. It was an enjoyable if somewhat unoriginal canter round the Robswall estate and then back along the coast, checking out the extensive building works that seem to be going on all over Malahide at the moment (and of course the Malahide cows – which seem to have taken up more or less permanent residence in a big field just up from the coast). There’s clearly a lot of money around here, judging by the size of some of the mansions under construction.

Now it’s the early evening and Val’s back again. We’re going to have a quick dinner before driving over to the airport to collect our visitors. I must say, although the bus is nice, it’s an awful lot easier – and quicker to be able to get there by car. And I’m sure it creates a better impression, too.

The next 3 days’ blogs will be a bit shorter than normal, as I want to spend time with our guests rather than typing!

Today’s photos (click to enlarge)


Heading up into the Seamount Abbey estate. One of many smart residential areas in Malahide. And, like most of them, it is being extended furiously at the moment. Everyone wants to live here, it seems	Building works in full swing up at the top of the estate

..and more, just down the road in the Jameson Orchard estate	The big old house near the Jameson Orchard housing estate at the top of Robswall Hill. The Jameson family (of whiskey renown) owned a large estate in the Portmarnock area, but I don’t think this particular house was one of theirs. It must have been magnificent in its heyday but now I think it too is subject to the attention of the builders. I don’t know what’s going to happen to it, though I can imagine a conversion into high-end flats would seem likely. The views are magnificent – to the south over Dublin Bay and to the east, towards Ireland’s Eye

Calendulas so vivid they almost glow were decorating the wild flower border near The Meadow Road	You probably can’t read this but if you did zoom in you would see it has some interesting information about the railway (it was built in 1844) and about the origins of the name “Malahide” (it comes from the Irish “Mullach Íde, meaning “Hill of the Hydes”. The Hydes were a Norman family who lived in the area probably some 900 years ago

I decided to try and take a photo through my pocket binoculars to see what would happen. It was a bit haphazard but I did manage to get this picture, looking up to the railway embankment from near the Coast Road. The iPhone “standard” lens is 24mm equivalent and the binoculars magnify seven times, so I reckon this this the equivalent of a shot through a 168mm lens. You can see the water cascading out of the Broadmeadow lagoon and into the estuary