Ireland day 0792. Wednesday 29 November 2023- Belfast Conference 3 *

Ireland day 0792. Wednesday 29 November 2023- Belfast Conference 3

Today’s summary	Final half day of the Belfast conference. After the formal proceedings finished at lunchtime, there was a site visit then I drove back to Malahide and was in the flat by about 5:30
Today’s weather	Cold with the threat of snow, but otherwise dry. Light northerly wind. Appx 6c

Today’s overview location (The blue mark shows the location of my route)		Close-up location (The blue line shows where I walked) (No GPX today)

Commentary

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

I’ve been attending a two day conference here in Belfast, and today was the last day. After a reasonably comfortable night and a good breakfast in the Titanic hotel, I headed over to the conference centre to start day 2. (By the way I say a “reasonably” comfortable night because my room was quite cold, and because right opposite my room was a large freight depot which started operations at about 5am, to the accompaniment of lots of bangs and crashes and beeping alarms).

The conference proper finished at lunchtime, which I have to admit came as something of a relief as I was worn out by all the networking and discussion. I am out of the habit! But it’s absolutely excellent for keeping your mind focused. After the inevitable buffet lunch (with more networking) there was a site visit to a nearby business park, after which I finally made it back to the Trusty Yaris (which had been waiting patiently in the underground car park) for the drive back to Malahide.

It takes about 2 hours from Dublin to Malahide and it’s a pretty straightforward drive, apart from the A1 section north of the border. It’s a fast and winding dual carriageway, with turn-outs from the overtaking lane for cars turning on side roads to the right. It feels pretty antiquated and I really don’t like it very much. The road south of the border is way better.

Well, once again the day draws to a close. I’m really looking forward to just watching a bit of TV and to only having to talk to Val!

Today’s photos (click to enlarge)


Looking over to the Harland and Wolff shipyard, complete with Samson and Goliath	Former shipyard with the metal poles giving an indication of the size of the vessels

Unprepossessing business park on the surface; lots of leading edge technology being developed here if you look a little deeper	*Sneaking a glimpse into the back of the Titanic studios where “Game of Thrones” was filmed*



Looking out from the conference centre on the 5th floor over the former shipyard