Ireland day 0776. Monday 13 November 2023- Debi *

Ireland day 0776. Monday 13 November 2023- Debi

Today’s summary	Last night and most of the day we hunkered down as Storm Debi barrelled through. Managed a walk over the hill and back along the coast to the grand Hotel for coffee in late morning. Spent the afternoon preparing for possible first day of work tomorrow
Today’s weather	Wild wet and windy overnight and until late afternoon. Calmed down a bit by evening. Gale or severe gale force wind. Appx 13c

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): Over the hill to the hotel

Commentary

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

Over the last 24 hours, most of Ireland has been ravaged by Storm Debi, which barrelled her way in from the Atlantic last night, and by the time I write this on Tuesday evening, is now fleeing in the general direction of Scotland. In reality, Malahide seemed to have escaped quite lightly – a few signs blown over in the demesne, and dozens of car- and burglar- alarms triggered, but no major damage as far as I could see.

As Val had a day off today, and I haven’t started work yet, we decided to take the weather on the chin and head out on a walk, regardless of the gale force wind and occasional heavy showers which were still decorating the meteorological landscape. We just took a short walk through demesne – though didn’t linger in the woods as some of the trees were creaking ominously – and then on up the hill. Right at the most exposed point with no possibility of shelter, we were of course hit by a heavy downpour. But the wind was so strong that we had pretty much dried out by the time we reached the coast.

We decided to treat ourselves to lunch in the Grand Hotel on the way back – it was very nice I have to say, and it was particularly welcome to have someone else making the meal for once.

In the afternoon, Val did some reading and I got on with preparing for my potential consultancy assignment. I am going into the offices tomorrow to meet some of the key people and hopefully to sort out the contractual details, so wanted to be on top of my brief. Well at least as well as I can be anyway.

That’s all for now. Tomorrow’s blog is likely to be later than usual, and shorter, as I have potentially a day in the office and also Spanish to contend with in the evening. A step into the unknown. Wish me luck!

Today’s photos (click to enlarge)


Debi managed to upturn a few signs and notices in the demesne, but I didn’t see evidence of severe damage anywhere	Still quite a lot of leaves on the trees despite the storm

The combination of wind and tides created a series of spectacular rollers coming in towards the Malahide estuary. The waves seemed to form in pairs or groups of three	Fearless pied wagtail checking us out on the coast path. Or maybe just hanging around behind us to escape from the wind

I really like the leafiness of the eucalyptus tree at the bottom of the Old Golf Course park	In the Grand Hotel lobby. It seems to me to be an exceptionally big lobby for the size of hotel

The Holly and the Ivy seemingly growing harmoniously by the Castle playing fields