Ireland day 0632. Thursday 22 June 2023- Foggy *

Ireland day 0632. Thursday 22 June 2023- Foggy

Today’s summary	Paperwork in the morning then walked up over Paddy’s Hill and down to the coast at Portmarnock. Walked back on the coast in thick fog
Today’s weather	Bright and sunny and quite warm in the morning, cold with clammy fog on the coast in the afternoon. No rain. Moderate easterly wind. Appx 17C

Today’s overview location (The grey mark shows the location of our route)		Close-up location (The orange line shows where we walked) (Click button below to download GPX of today’s walk as recorded, or see interactive map at bottom with elevations corrected): Foggy hill and coast with Val

Commentary

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

It was quite nice to be on “terra firma” today, actually, after having spent most of the last week rushing around Lambay Island and County Donegal.

So in the morning, we had a relaxing start and listened to some podcasts over tea in bed then got up and started tackling some paperwork. Once that was out of the way, we decided to take advantage of what looked like a nice sunny day to walk through the edge of the demesne, then up Paddy’s Hill and down to the beach at Portmarnock – one of our favourite walks from Malahide.

It was still just about sunny when we we went into the sandwich shop in Portmarnock but by the time we came out we were enveloped in thick clammy mist and in the easterly wind, it felt quite cold. So woollen fleeces were donned once more, and we found a sheltered spot on the shoreline to have our lunch and watched as – to our amazement – people kept on splashing about in the uninviting sea and seemingly enjoying it.

We finished up with a brisk walk back up the coast path to Malahide, and are now getting ready to enjoy roast chicken for dinner

Today’s photos (click to enlarge)


It started out as a beautiful day today, perfect for the cricket (and for painting – although the artist appeared to have fallen asleep beneath his easel – carefully cropped out of this photo)	Looking through the wrought iron gate into the Talbot Botanic Garden at the castle

Sign of things to come – fog just beginning to envelop Lambay Island	Pyramidal Orchids up by Paddy’s Hill. There are loads of them this year – many more than last year – in all the meadows and I actually wondered if they had been planted – though they are notoriously tricky to propagate

Val shivering in anticipation of a chilly lunch	Hills of Howth just visible above the mist

Good to see this “desire line” (i.e. a popularly-walked route across the grass, to cut off the corner) has been recognised by the local council, who are turning it into a proper path