Ireland day 0351. Wednesday 14 September 2022- Flying

Today’s summary	Making a brief return visit to the UK to visit the branch of the family on the eastern side of the Atlantic. A very straightforward journey
Today’s weather	Dry and bright. Light westerly breeze. Some sun in London. About 20C

Today’s overview location (The blue mark shows where I was)		Close-up location (No GPX today)

Commentary

Sometimes it seems as if your feet never really touch the ground and it has felt a bit like that for us over the last couple of weeks. As well as traveling to Canada for a few days and getting out and about with the walking club, we’ve been making good use of the motorway network to explore some of the interesting OPW sites within reach of Dublin. Val also returned to the UK for a few days last week, and now it’s my turn to head over the Irish Sea to meet up with the branch of the Dawson family on the eastern side of the Atlantic.

Today’s blog will be brief, as I’ve spent a large chunk on it just traveling here from Malahide, starting off on our old friend the trusty 102 in the middle of this morning. I know it’s seriously tempting fate to say so, but the journey was remarkably easy and actually quite relaxing. I arrived ahead of schedule and even had time to do a bit of shopping once I got here. But while I have your attention, I did want to draw your eyes to the original Dublin Airport building (pictured in the banner image at the top). I was surprised to learn today that it was actually built by the ubiquitous OPW, as long ago as 1940, and is considered to be the finest pre-war example of “International” style architecture in Ireland. It is partly based on the design of Hamburg airport.

Given the events of the last few days, the atmosphere in the UK – well at least the bit I have seen – is respectful but not overly maudlin at the moment. Life seems to be going on pretty much as normal, though there’s clearly lot of anticipation building for the Queen’s funeral on Monday. Politics and industrial disputes all seem to be on hold and nobody seems to be missing either very much. Long may that aspect, at least, last.

That’s about all I have to say today. The blogs for the next couple of days will be equally brief but please feel free to check in to see how things are on this side of the Irish Sea at the moment. Normal service on Saturday!

Today’s photos (click to enlarge)


Val has been perfecting her baking skills this week and a couple of days ago concocted this fantastic focaccia bread. It was perfect when paired with some salami and lettuce.	And made even better by this essential addition (and Keoghs have a potato field on the Malahide Road between Kinsealy and Clare Hall but I can’t guarantee that this is where the contents of this packet came from)

I’ve been watching this excellent series on the geology of Ireland as I was travelling today. The first episode was broadcast last weekend. I’d recommend it to anyone with geological interests. It will be on RTE Player for about a month and as it was also broadcast by BBC NI I presume it will be available on BBC iPlayer too.	Planes trains and automobiles. Well, planes, buses and trains today anyway. Just managed to get a train straight into London Victoria from the airport. Remarkably, given all the travel hassles that people complain about, I was on the train about ten minutes after the plane touched down in Gatwick.

Are e-unicycles even a thing?	Display of metallic bees adorning the flowerbeds in Buckinghamshire

London Marylebone station. Every time I come here I am amazed by just how completely identical to Dublin Connolly it is. The diesel trains could almost be clones of the Iarnród Éireann units. And even the platform numbers are the same! The only thing that is different is that Platform 6 at Marylebone is nowhere near as cold its equivalent at Connolly.