Ireland day 0710. Friday 08 September 2023- Catching Up *

Ireland day 0710. Friday 08 September 2023- Catching Up

Today’s summary	Spent all morning and much of the afternoon catching up on paperwork and chatting by video with my Texan friend. Eventually got it all finished and we went on a walk in the park with a ball to help improve our motor skills
Today’s weather	Dry sunny and warm but quite hazy. Almost no wind. Appx 23C

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): Proprioception walk over the hill

Commentary

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

We’ve had an enjoyable last few days with our guest, but the trouble is that while you are busy enjoying yourself, the paperwork continues to build up. So this morning there was a bit of a pile to be dealt with, and lots of phone calls to be made. But in-between, I did manage to slip in a chat with a friend in Houston (where the temperature has been stuck at 40c+ for several weeks now, putting our current Irish heatwave to shame) and we enjoyed putting the world to rights.

The admin duties involved a few trips into town, which we interleaved with the shopping. Eventually, we had done everything we could so decided to give ourselves a bit of downtime. After a lot of sitting at a desk looking at a computer screen, what was definitely needed was a bit of active movement. So instead of just heading out for a walk, as we normally do, on Val’s suggestion we took a football along with us. A few childhood memory-invoking moments followed, as we threw and kicked the ball around between us, on the verges of the cricket pitch in the demesne. It was surprisingly enjoyable and I think we both got a decent workout – and in my case, was helped with balance and mobility as the proprioceptors in my hips, which control these things, were of course removed when I had my metal joints put in.

Once we had satisfied ourselves that our senses of balance were basically sound, we resumed a more normal walk and headed up over the hill, down to the sea, and back along the shore.

So that concluded a rather more sedentary day than normal, but we did feel we made significant headway on the paperwork, and being able to leap around on the grass like spring chickens provided reassurance that we hadn’t lost it completely.

Val is sadly back to work tomorrow after her three month career break, which we have both enjoyed very much indeed. So now I need to set-to and make the packed lunches – the alternative being a painfully start tomorrow morning.

Today’s photos (click to enlarge)


The air was thick with haze – I do hope my favourite sequoia isn’t suffering. There has been a cloud of Saharan dust heading our way over the last few days. Not sure if this was it, but in any case we both seem to have been sneezing quite a lot this evening.	Evening sun filtering through the trees in the Jameson estate

So hazy that Lambay was completely invisible	Have ball, will travel

Crowds out after work to enjoy a rare warm September evening on the beach

Carefree fun! (And good for the proprioceptors, too, I am led to believe)