Ireland day 0705. Sunday 03 September 2023- Barbie *

Ireland day 0705. Sunday 03 September 2023- Barbie

Today’s summary	Walked along the coast to the cinema at Swords Pavilions to see the “Barbie” film. Caught the bus back
Today’s weather	Dry and bright with plenty of sun. Light westerly wind. Appx 21C

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): Coast walk to cinema to see Barbie

Commentary

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

It’s been the summer of “Barbenheimer” and we had already experienced the “-enheimer” bit so now was the time see what “Barb-” had to offer. As we didn’t have anything more specific planned for the day, we allowed ourselves a slightly longer than average cup of tea in bed this morning, then Val did a bit of washing and I made up the packed lunches. Suitably armed with sustenance in sandwich form, we set off on our travels.

Our nearest cinema is at Swords, in the Pavilions shopping centre. On a nice day, as it was today, it’s a pleasant 90 minute walk to get there, via the Broadmeadow coast path and Swords castle park. We decided to go and pay our respects to Barbie in the 3:20 showing, so we had plenty of time to amble along, luxuriate in the sun, and have our lunch on a bench in the Yellow Walls Road park near Centra.

We eventually made it to the cinema, and slightly to our surprise, had almost the whole place to ourselves. I guess the early adopters had already seen the film, and the laggards would be waiting for it to stream on Netflix. More to the point, I found that my surprise at being in an almost-deserted cinema was compounded by my enjoyment of the whole thing. The plot of Barbie is about gender equality and female empowerment, and it was done imaginatively, powerfully, and entertainingly. I’d say the “Barb-” half of the summer’s must-see entertainment wasn’t, for me, quite as good as the “-enheimer” half, but it was very good and definitely worth a couple of hours of anyone’s time.

Suitably empowered, we bounced along to the bus stop and were soon jollily rolling back to Malahide on the 102. Steak and chops again for dinner completed the feel-good mood, and were a suitable finale to a varied and altogether thoroughly enjoyable weekend.

Today’s photos (click to enlarge)


Val enjoying the fantastic weather just along from the bullrushes on the Broadmeadow lagoon path	They won’t be ugly ducklings much longer! There seem to be more birds and insects, and healthier and more abundant cygnets, than last year, perhaps as a result of the rain and abundant herbage

The Ward river near Swords. It looks like a charming rural stream but actually it’s in the middle of some playing fields, just down from an industrial estate and next to the dual carriageway. The camera never lies, but appearances can be deceptive	We resisted the multiple attractions of popcorn, slush puppies and ice cream



Swords Castle