Ireland day 0324. Thursday 18 August 2022- Burrow

Today’s summary	While Val was at work, I went to the gym in the morning then took the 102 to Sutton for a short walk on the Burrow Beach. In the evening, Val and I went on a stroll in the sun around the demesne. Very slight improvement in the watch situation
Today’s weather	Mostly dry but with a localised shower mid afternoon. Overcast in the morning but plenty of sun in late afternoon and evening. Blowy from the south. About 22C

Today’s overview location (The green mark shows the location of my route)		Close-up location (The orange 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): Burrow beach from Sutton station

Commentary

When I had my introduction session at the gym with “Ben” (I put his name in quotation marks because it could equally well have been “Matt” or “Brad” or – come to think of it perhaps even “Luke”) he advised me to walk there and back, rather than cycle. He said that if I was doing it properly, the session should leave me feeling too wobbly to ride a bike safely, so walking would be a more prudent means of getting from and to home.

Well today I discovered that he was right. Once I’d made the lunches and Val had rushed off to work, I packed my things and made my way down to the gym for my first “proper” workout. And by the way it does take quite a long time to pack all your things together for a gym session because if you are doing it properly you have to take absolutely masses of stuff with you. You are expected to carry huge bags of gear into the changing rooms and I am certainly doing my best to look the part.

I spent an hour doing perverse sounding things like “inverted ring row”, kettlebell squats” and “glute bridge” followed by 15 minutes riding round Indonesia on a hi-tech exercise bike with a screen on the front and a wheel that kept going up and down. Then I finished off with 24 lengths of the pool and a quick bake in the sauna (minus watch).

Speaking of saunas and watches, there was someone else in the cabin today who was wearing an Apple watch like mine. I asked if they were worried about heat damage, after my experience, and they said no, everything was fine and slightly huffily that they had no intention of stopping wearing it. Though they did add that the top half of the touchscreen didn’t work any more so they clearly had a slightly different definition of “fine” than I did.

And I suppose at this point I better report back on the desiccating watch in the rice. Well, some very minor progress seems to have been made. The touch screen worked slightly when I tried it this afternoon. By “slightly” I mean that I could type the number “7” into the lock screen – but none of the other numbers would work. So if my PIN code was “777777” I could unlock it. But it isn’t so I can’t. Anyway, the battery hasn’t run out yet so I’m going to leave it in the rice for another day until it has switched itself off. Then I’ll re-charge it and see if I can kick the touchscreen into life.

But as if all this excitement wasn’t enough, once I had had lunch and stopped wobbling, I decided to catch the 102 down to Sutton and explore the western end of the Burrow beach. It was actually very nice and quite quiet up at that end – though a bit of a magnet for dead jellyfish, it appeared. I even sat on the beach for a bit and read a book – normally I don’t have time for such indulgences – and you can admire my knees soaking up the rays in the banner image at the top of the blog.

I didn’t linger too long as Val was due home from work, so I hot-footed it back to the bus stop outside Sutton Station and was quickly transported back to Malahide by the 102. After a refreshing cup of tea, we headed back out again and enjoyed a very relaxing walk together around the castle demesne. It’s looking particularly nice at the moment – the recent rain has really perked everything up, and it was good to see lots of young people out and about in the fresh air, practicing sports ready for the next school term. So much more wholesome, it seems to me, than just fiddling around with an iPad. But maybe that’s just because I am a bit of an old fashioned child of the previous millennium.

Well it’s time for dinner now. Tonight we’re having some beef casserole left over from earlier in the week, followed by sticky toffee pudding. Proper eighteenth century summer fare!

Today’s photos (click to enlarge)


The 102 at Sutton station. Sadly there was no upstairs because I do like sitting at the front and pretending to be the driver. Or maybe that was 60 years ago. Anyway the view from the top deck of a double decker takes some beating	On the Burrow Beach. Nice and quiet today. Heavy rain clouds to the North were apparently soaking Malahide but I escaped more or less unscathed.

This could be the rugged coast of North West Scotland. But it’s not. It’s the view from the stony embankment protecting the, presumably valuable, Sutton Golf Course. With the Hills of Howth in the background.	Life’s a beach and then you die, as they say. Well that certainly seemed to be the case for these unfortunate jellyfish today

The ever impassive castle in the Malahide demesne.	Young sportspeople were out in droves on the playing fields up by the castle this evening. The new school year starts in just over a week and I guess they were getting some early season practice. We passed by some aspiring hurlers and close up the sport looks even more terrifying than it does on the TV.

I love this tree. The stately sequoia up in the castle demesne. What more can I say?