Ireland day 0342. Monday 05 September 2022- CanadaReturn

Today’s summary	Our flight from Vancouver arrived half an hour early – about 7:30am – in Dublin. Spent the day unpacking, doing the washing, and catching up with paperwork. Just time for a short walk to get some fresh air later in the afternoon
Today’s weather	Bright and breezy. It looks like it has rained recently, but today stayed more or less dry. About 19C

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): Malahide and Robswall jetlag walk

Commentary

The trouble with West-East transatlantic flights is that they inevitably deposit you at your destination early in the morning – just when everyone is looking bright and breezy but you definitely aren’t – and the flights themselves are cramped and uncomfortable, so you don’t get any sleep. When you factor in the confiscation of eight hours of your day because of the time difference, it’s a perfect jetlag storm.

Well that’s how it felt to me this morning, at any rate. Our Air Canada flight from Vancouver, for all my moaning, was excellent. It left bang on time, and we had a stronger than normal tailwind, so we were actually up in the air for well under eight hours. We were on a 787 aircraft (which slightly pretentiously calls itself a Dreamliner) and we felt to have a bit more space than normal. Also, it was a lot quieter than older planes, and the ride felt smoother too.

All that meant that we landed in Dublin about half an hour early this morning feeling tired but probably not quite as wrecked as we would have been if we’d been on an older plane. There were no hold ups in immigration and as we were travelling light, there were no bags to pick up either. So we sped through the terminal and as luck would have it, the trusty 102 was waiting in the bus station and departed just a minute after we got on it. So we seemed to be back at the flat in next to no time.

The way schedules have worked out, Val, actually, had to return to the airport later in the morning to head over to London for a meeting tomorrow. So there was just enough time to get changed, have a shower and put the washing on before I had to drive her back to the all-too-familiar Terminal 1. Once she was safely on her way – displaying considerably more stamina than I was feeling by that stage, I must say – I drove one junction up the M1 to the Swords Tesco to pick up some groceries, and then on back to the flat in Malahide.

There are two ways of dealing with West-East jet-lag. One is to have a snooze as soon as you get the chance, usually some time in the morning after you’ve arrived. But the other approach is just to power through and try to go to bed at something like normal bed-time for the time zone you’re now in, on the basis that you will probably be so exhausted by that stage that you will sleep better than if you’ve been napping.

I chose the power-through approach, so spent the rest of the morning catching up with some paperwork and enthusiastically trying not to go to sleep. After several cups of tea I felt marginally more alert, so dragged myself back out into the bright and breezy afternoon sunshine and went for a short leg-stretch up Robswall Hill and back along the beach. It was actually quite refreshing and I was relieved to discover that although it was quite a lot cooler than Vancouver, the temperature was still high enough to permit short-wearing. So no more leg prisons (aka long trousers) for me just yet, then.

I think that’s plenty for now. It’s nice to be back in the Emerald Isle, though I do miss Vancouver. It was lovely over there, and I felt that we’d only just scratched the surface of everything we wanted to do. I hope we will be able to go again in the not-too-distant future. The journey from Dublin really couldn’t be easier. It’s just very expensive, so I think I will have to speak to our bank manager first!

Back tomorrow, with a 100% Irish blog, for a change.

PS I did try to have a look out of the left-hand portholes of the aircraft at around midnight, when we were somewhere over Greenland, to see if I could spot the Aurora Borealis, which were supposed to be putting on a fine show last night. But the windows were heavily tinted, so I couldn’t see anything at all. A pity.

Today’s photos (click to enlarge)


Arriving back at the flat. The air was cool and fresh – very refreshing and pleasant actually – but definitely had a bit of an autumnal feel to it.	Up in the Jameson Orchard, just before the top of Robswall Hill

Looking out to sea from the hilltop. Despite the appearance in this and the next photo, most of the grass around here seems to have remained pretty green	Nice to see my old friend Lambay again, hanging around on the horizon

The Beasts of Malahide are still here! As large as life today.	On the return along the promenade. A very pleasant afternoon and Malahide was looking good, now that the schools have gone back and many of the tourists and gangs of language-school students seem to have disappeared

It’s hard to appreciate the sheer scale of the engines on a Dreamliner. I could easily have stood upright in the housing – with plenty of room to spare. Impressive bits of kit – and a very comfortable flight too.