Ireland day 0328. Monday 22 August 2022- Bargains

Today’s summary	Had a leisurely breakfast as Val had the morning off then went to the gym at lunchtime. Spent the rest of the afternoon searching for reduced price bargains in Tesco and SuperValu
Today’s weather	Some rain overnight, then mostly dry and overcast during the day. Light southerly breeze. About 21C

Today’s overview location (The blue mark shows the location of our route)		Close-up location (The green line shows where we walked) (No GPX download today as the walk was too short. But click button below to download a TCX of the afternoon session in the gym:) Mixed session in gym

Commentary

The pace of life has been a bit slower today than lately. Partly because I hadn’t any walking expeditions planned, and partly because Val had a morning off work. So first thing, we relaxed over breakfast and a leisurely cup of tea, then we headed down to the coast for a short walk.

We have a favourite walk from the flat, which heads down Hanlon’s Lane to the Broadmeadow Lagoon, then under the railway arch (the one which leaks) and round the marina before returning up New Road. You can see Hanlon’s Lane in the banner image at the top. There’s nothing particularly unique about it, but we both like it because it’s nice and quiet, yet close to both the town and the coast. There are some houses that an estate agent would call “highly desirable” down there – and I guess they probably are.

It was a very enjoyable short leg-stretch today, but one of the things we both immediately remarked on as soon as we stepped out was that something indefinable seems to have changed in the weather. The light is just a little less bright, it get dark just a little earlier in the evenings, and the weather has a quality that feels just a little less summery. In fact, I learned on Saturday’s walk that here in Ireland, Autumn is sometimes said to begin in August – fully a month earlier than in the UK. It certainly felt a bit like that this morning, even though it was still quite warm. The upside of this potentially dispiriting viewpoint is that there’s a balancing earlier Spring – starting here in February rather than March. So I think I’ll take the British Autumn and the Irish Spring and make the winter a whole month shorter.

Once our circular walk was completed, I made our packed lunches and despatched Val off to work. I was tempted at this point to put my feet up and watch the world go by for a bit, but I’m not very good at relaxing so I got all my gear together and went down to the gym instead. I pottered around for almost an hour, squatting with my rings, bridging my glutes, and following a lady cyclist round on a bicycle tour of Tonga, which was most distracting. I needed to cool off in the pool afterwards although this time I gave the sauna a miss and spared my watch.

With biceps bulging like tree-trunks, I left the gym but rather than heading for the flat, I decided to pay a call on our local Tesco and SuperValu supermarkets. I have found that they often reduce things in price by 50% or more if it’s nearing its sell-by date. At a time when inflation is in double digits, I’ve concluded that it’s not a bad idea to stock up on anything that’s reduced and keep it in the freezer for a rainy day. It does mean that you can end up with some fairly random stuff. But today I managed to find four steaks and an apple pie all at half price – which saved €8.25 and which could provide us with “tasty and nutritious” meals, as the cat food adverts like to tell us, for quite a few days. I know it sounds a bit tight-fisted, but it does mean that we can justifiably go out for a coffee and scone every now and then.

Well that’s it for now. A nice short blog today. Now I’m off to check out the rubbish skips to see if there’s anything I can usefully recover before the bin men come.

PS on a slightly more serious note. It’s 100 years today since pro-Treaty leader Michael Collins was assassinated at Béal na Bláth by anti-Treaty forces in the Civil War. There is a commemorative event every anniversary but historically it has only been attended by the leader of Fine Gael – the modern day descendent party of the pro-Treaty faction. This year, I understand, the leader of Fianna Fáil – the modern descendent of the anti-Treaty faction – will also attend. So it’s quite a significant day for Ireland. Ironically, Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil currently share power in the Irish coalition government

Today’s photos (click to enlarge)


The overnight rain appears to have led to a mini-gastropod explosion	The tide was well out in the main estuary..

..and the level was very low in the lagoon too..	..but the tide wasn’t at any particularly remarkable stage. In fact according to my theory, the level in the lagoon should be lowest at about 2 hours before high tide but when we were down at the lagoon, it was actually two hours after high tide. So it looks like my theory might have to go out of the window. I suspect there are sluices that control the flow of the river into the lagoon, and the flow out under the railway embankment, largely independent of the “real” tide level in the outer lagoon

Sunset down by the lagoon tonight	Val out shopping for her next superyacht

Now call me cheapskate but €8.25 of savings isn’t to be sniffed at. Now I just have to hope the freezer doesn’t break down before we get round to eating them