Ireland day 0751. Thursday 19 October 2023- Guests depart *

Ireland day 0751. Thursday 19 October 2023- Guests depart

Today’s summary	Our holiday companions left to return to the UK around lunchtime so we spent the rest of the day unpacking, doing the washing and sorting out admin matters. Video call to friend in the UK in the evening
Today’s weather	Wet all night and first thing in the morning. Then a brief dry spell with a glimmer of sun before more heavy rain in the evening. Light 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): Rainy demesne and meeting Eddy and Padraig

Commentary

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

Our holiday companions had a ferry back to the UK around lunchtime, so once we had enjoyed a relaxing last morning together and they had set off home, we turned our thoughts to the next few days.

First up, once the first of several loads of washing was on, we had to drive over to the An Post sorting office in Swords to pick up a couple of letters that needed to be signed for. It turned out that, rather disappointingly, they were rent arrears demands – our rent increased last month and because we pay be standing order not direct debit, we had paid the old amount, not the new. That took a bit of sorting out, and some hasty manual money transfers to our landlord, but hopefully it is all fixed now.

Next, we had some tax matters related to our recent house sale to sort out. It’s rare that we get a long period without tax looming its ugly head, but hopefully this one shouldn’t be too complicated. Famous last words.

By this stage we felt the need to get out and enjoy a bit of fresh air, so we headed off to complete our “go to” walk round the demesne just as the brief dry interlude ended and the heavens opened up once again. Still, we were clad in impervious plastic from head to toe by this stage, so weren’t too bothered by the rain. It was an enjoyable walk, made even more so by bumping into two of Val’s erstwhile colleagues from the “Wonderlights” autumn events. She has secured work with them again this year and was able to confirm some of the details in the course of our happenstance meeting this afternoon.

Once back in the flat, we set about eating up the mountain of leftover food we brought back from Beara, and then enjoyed a video catch up with another of our friends back in the UK. So it turned out to be quite a busy and productive day, even though we didn’t actually have that much in our diaries when we started it.

Today’s photos (click to enlarge)


An Post had tried to deliver two tracked letters to us while we were away – so we needed to go over to Swords sorting office to pick then up	Cricket pitch under water yet again

Even the path round the demesne – which usually stays dry – was becoming submerged by this evening	Festoon lighting in the demesne added a bit of cheer to the gathering gloom



Assertive looking rook giving us the once-over as we skirted round his territory by the cricket pitch