Ireland day 0580. Monday 01 May 2023- Low Key
| Today’s summary | A leisurely morning as Val didn’t start work today until after lunch. In the afternoon, I walked up Paddy’s Hill and back along the coast. Then spent the evening partially successfully trying to fix a bug with this website | ||||
| Today’s weather | Dry and bright with cloud but occasional sun. Moderate north easterly wind. Appx 14C | ||||
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| Today’s overview location (The blue mark shows the location of my route) |
Close-up location (The blue 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): Paddy's Hill with cowslips |
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Commentary
(Summary blog only. Last full blog was Day 0368).
Once more Val was at work but not till lunchtime. But annoyingly I hadn’t remembered that she doesn’t start until 12:30 on Mondays so I set the alarm at 7:30 to start making sandwiches which weren’t actually needed.
Anyway we had a leisurely morning listening to podcasts, then we had a late breakfast / early lunch before she pottered off to the museum. In the afternoon, I spent a while rehearsing some Spanish for my lesson tomorrow then decided to make the best of the fair weather to head up Paddy’s Hill which at this time of year always seems to put on a fabulous display of cowslips. Today didn’t disappoint and there were acres of these butter-yellow gems of botanical sunshine.
I walked back along the beach to check on the Lithostrotion which, reassuringly, hadn’t moved since I last saw them (perhaps not too surprising seeing as they had already been there for 300 million years) and also came across a very interesting and quite rare impression of a brachiopod shell, pictured below, which I’d never seen before.
In the evening, Val made a delicious meal of cheese and onion mini-scones, fish goujons and pancakes with blueberry and maple syrup sauce. I really wish I could cook like that. I spent much of the time frustratingly trying to sort out an issue which is making editing this blog very hard. But annoyingly without much success. Grrr.
Today’s photos (click to enlarge)
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| Cricket in full swing. Feels like I should be in Kent! | The castle was bustling with bank Holiday visitors today |
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| Toots off on his rounds! | Up in the Jameson Orchard – always lovely when the sun shines and you can see the Sugarloaf on the southern horizon |
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| Looking north over the Portrane peninsula the Cooleys (left) and Mournes (right) just visible on the distant horizon | Beautiful specimen of Lithostrotion. Not photographed one for a while so welcome back! |
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| Beautiful impression of a brachiopod down on Lithostrotion beach. not spotted one before – usually you just see them in cross-section | |
Interactive map
(Elevations corrected at GPS Visualizer: Assign DEM elevation data to coordinates )
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