Ireland day 0431. Saturday 03 December 2022- Busy Val *

Ireland day 0431. Saturday 03 December 2022- Busy Val

Today’s summary	Val busy working at a special Christmas event at the museum during the day, then up at Wonderlights at the castle in the evening. I did some more Christmas cards, some Spanish homework, and went on a walk up Paddy’s Hill
Today’s weather	Dry and bright, some sun early on. Very light easterly wind, stronger on the coast. About 9C.

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): Paddys Hill evening loop

Commentary

(Summary blog only. Last full blog was Day 0368).

Val had a particularly busy today.

All through the daylight hours at the museum she was working on a Christmas special event, so she trotted off first thing, complete with reindeer attire.

After a brief flying visit back to the flat at the end of the afternoon, she changed into her hi-vis gear and headed back out into the night to deal with 3000 excited punters at the Wonderlights display up at the castle.

So while she was out and about I spent the morning doing some Spanish revision and then started on the Christmas cards. It’s always quite hard work but worth it to keep in touch with family and friends, especially as we are living abroad at the moment. Otherwise it would be all too easy to become “out of sight, out of mind”.

By the time I’d had enough of writing for the day, I went out for what felt like an “evening” walk up Paddy’s Hill. “Evening” in inverted commas as it was only 2:30 when I went out, but already beginning to get a bit dark. But less than three weeks to the shortest day now. Wahoo!

Today’s photos (click to enlarge)


Up at the castle, complete with “Wonderlights” banner – Val’s additional workplace until the end of the year.	Beginning to feel like evening, at 2:30pm

Curious hollow tree stump up in the woods. Ideal home for a leprechaun, I should have thought.	Up on the sun-trap that is the Bawn, borage and calendula were still in full flower. Very cheery as we approach midwinter

*And a bit further on, some Escallonia rubra* in flower decorating the hedgerow**	Down on Malahide beach at low tide this evening. Lambay, as ever, floating seemingly unreachably on the horizon

The crowds lining up for the Christmas event at the museum this morning.