Ireland day 0702. Thursday 31 August 2023- Val Return *

Ireland day 0702. Thursday 31 August 2023- Val Return

Today’s summary	Spent the morning on more administrative tasks (including renewing phone and gas contracts). Then picked up Val from the airport mid-afternoon and went on our usual evening walk round the demesne.
Today’s weather	Overcast and drizzly most of the day. Moderate south easterly wind. Appx 16C

Today’s overview location (The green 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): Demesne evening anticlockwise with Val

Commentary

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

Today was a day cast from much the same die as the last couple. A plague of admin seems to have caught me in its tide lately – so this morning was spent renegotiating gas and mobile phone contracts. I do wonder why you have to keep doing this – it’s frustrating, annoying and would be so much better if these companies automatically just offered you the best deal they had at the moment. Anyway I persisted and eventually managed to negotiate tiny almost meaningless amounts off the bills which at least made me feel better about myself.

But the main development of the day was Val’s return to Ireland. She’s been over in the UK for eight days and has had a really busy time catching up with friends and dealing with yet more administrative issues from the other side of the Irish Sea. But I dashed round to the airport as soon as I could see her flight had landed (we are only 20 minutes away at most) and it was good to have her back.

The day was rounded off – after we had caught up on all the news over a cup of tea, of course – with our usual leg-stretch round the demesne and then spaghetti bolognaise for dinner. OK I admit it – the spaghetti took the form of pre-packed, ultra-processed, ready meals that I picked up half price at Tesco, and probably not the gourmet repast that Val might have preferred. But my culinary skills are a bit limited (if I am honest, I just don’t have the patience to cook properly) and so at least tonight’s meal was timely, tasty and nutritious, and stood a good chance of not actually being harmful.

Today’s photos (click to enlarge)


Exotic looking yellow clematis trailing through the hedge	Trees and paths – a constant feature of our castle demesne walk

Tonight’s dinner. Pop pop and ultra processed. But hey – it was half price!



Back up to full strength again this evening