Ireland day 0344. Wednesday 07 September 2022- Jobs

Today’s summary	Slept for 11 hours last night so finally over jet lag. Gym in the morning then some cooking and car repairs in the afternoon. Off to the airport later to pick up Val on return from London
Today’s weather	Very wet all night and until mid morning. Bright and breezy in the afternoon but more rain threatening in the evening. Blustery southeasterly wind. Appx 17C

Today’s overview location (The blue mark shows the location of my route)		Close-up location (The green line shows where we walked) (No GPX today but click button below to download TCX of gym session): Wednesday lunchtime in the gym

Commentary

If you were the type of person who likes to give everything a score, I think last night would rate as a five out of ten. That’s because the score would be the combination of two incompatible things, one excellent and the other very un-excellent.

The un-excellent thing was the weather. In itself, that wasn’t a problem. In fact I quite like lying in bed listening to the wind and rain lashing against the bedroom window. It’s very soothing. The problem was that the storm which was lulling me to sleep was also blowing over the clothes rack which I had forgotten I had left on the balcony, and then soaking all the newly washed clothes which were supposed to be drying on it, as they lay on the ground. So, come this morning, I was presented with a heap of soggy wet washing, covered in the grit from the balcony floor, which had to go straight back in the washing machine and the whole process had to be re-started from scratch. So zero out of ten for clothes-drying success.

But on the other hand, oblivious to all the laundry difficulties outside, I slept solidly from 10 pm until 9 am. I think it’s the first time since I was a teenager that I have slept for 11 full hours and I must really have needed it. I think jet-lag is probably fully dispelled now but I still required several cups of tea fully to come round and finally leverage myself out of bed. So ten out of ten for sleep quality.

Once I had surfaced, I started evaluating the options for the day. First up, I realised that my gym membership expires on Saturday, so, ever keen to get my money’s worth, I thought I better try and slot in a session this morning. And if I manage to go again later in the week, then I will have managed ten sessions in a month, which will bring the levelised cost down to €5 a pop (excluding of course the one-off joining fee of €55 and the €5 cost of a padlock for the locker). The next big decision I will have to take will be whether or not to sign up again. It’s a lot cheaper if I go for a who year at once, but it’s a big commitment. Anyway if I am serious about having a body like Arnold Schwarzenegger, it’s surely a small price to pay.

Once all the endorphins had been dealt with and the gym session completed, I returned to the flat, had lunch, and did a bit of cooking. Yes really. A friend in the walking club had given me six rather delicious Bramleys just before we went to Canada and they were sitting in the fridge when we got back, just begging to be turned into a pie. So I thought I could undertake the pie preparation process in two stages – firstly by cooking the fruit and then by putting the cooked fruit into pastry and baking it.

So I peeled and cooked the apples once I’d had lunch, but they cooked much more spectacularly well than I had anticipated and while I wasn’t looking converted themselves into what looked to all intents and purposes just like apple sauce. I’m not certain how well they will take to being contained in pastry and cooked in the oven, but on the other hand, the puree looks (and tastes) so delicious that I might have it just as it is. Luckily we have some ice-cream in the freezer and I think it will probably go very well with that. So – thanks to my kind apple donor – we are now well set with desserts for the next week!

After that, I turned my boundless domestic skills to repairing the car exhaust. Although the Yaris has indeed been trusty (touching wood), ever since we bought it there has been an annoying rattle with the exhaust. It’s been back to the garage three times but they haven’t been able to fix it, so I thought I would have a go myself. You can inspect my hi-tech solution in the photos below. It basically consists of a bit of wire wrapped round the exhaust and secured to a bulkhead in the underframe. The idea being that it should stop the exhaust slipping out of position and hitting whatever it is that is causing the rattle. Only time will tell whether my solution has worked.

Anyway, as it happens I’m going to get an early opportunity to test out the fix tonight as Val is returning from her meeting in London and I’m off to the airport to meet her. She lands in 30 minutes, actually, so I better abandon blogging for a bit and get driving. Toot-toot!

Today’s photos (click to enlarge)


Tide was remarkably low this lunchtime. Checking my tide charts later revealed that I had indeed spotted it exactly at its lowest point. But it’s not a spring tide – that’s not due till 6:32am on 11 September, when the water will be a full metre / yard lower than it was today. Presumably, that’s also the date of the full moon.	Six green apples on their way to becoming a pie

Slightly further progressed on the apple to pie time-line	The apples cooked so well (obviously due to the talented chef) that they virtually turned out like apple sauce. Will go nicely with ice cream for dinner tonight, I think



Hi-tech car repair effected today. Basically the exhaust seems to have been slipping slightly to the left, and rattling annoyingly against something on the bottom of the chassis when it does so. So I have wired it in position to stop it moving. I have no idea if this is NCT [MOT equivalent] compliant but I’ll worry about that next April, when the test is due. The first test will be to see what has happened to the rattle when I drive to the airport later tonight