Ireland day 0808. Friday 15 December 2023- Mended Fridge *

Ireland day 0808. Friday 15 December 2023- Mended Fridge

Today’s summary	Val was doing another 13 hour double shift and I was working from home today. That enabled me to get the fridge fixed and then to start cooking the thawed out contents of the freezer in the evening. Short evening stroll when everything was finished and while Val was at Wonderlights
Today’s weather	Dry and bright. Light south westerly wind. Appx 11c

Today’s overview location (The grey mark shows the location of my route)		Close-up location (The orange line shows where I walked) (Click button below to download GPX of today’s walk as recorded, or see interactive map at bottom with elevations corrected): West Malahide by night

Commentary

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

Once again, Val was back in double-shift mode, so was off to the Casino at 9:30 sharp this morning. She reappeared briefly about 5:30 as she jetted through on the way to the castle and Wonderlights for the night shift.

I’d elected to work from home today, and was more successful this time than when I’d attempted it a couple of weeks ago. I managed a solid half day of useful work, which I was pretty pleased about. The reason why I didn’t achieve more was because our landlord had agreed to replace the defective fridge freezer and had asked to come sometime between 11 and 1 to do the swap. We were very anxious to get it sorted out, as everything was thawing out and we were contemplating having to throw away a lot of good quality food if we couldn’t get it chilled again soon.

Anyway, the engineer duly arrived just after 12 and within half an hour the entire job was complete. As far as I can tell, the new fridge freezer is identical to the old, with the important distinction that it actually works.

Once the fridge was in place and I’d finished my last Teams call of the week, I called it a day and set about rescuing as much of the semi-thawed meat from the freezer as possible. We had quite a lot of beef mince and stewing steak (from Lough Avalla again, actually) and I decided that the safest thing to do would be to make a giant casserole with it all. There were already some rapidly-warming carrots and onions I’d retrieved from the fridge, so I chopped them up, added a few herbs and some stock, fried up the meat, then put the whole lot in a low oven to turn into beef casserole. I’ll give it a good long cook so hopefully it will be sterile – though I am less certain what it will actually taste like.

As soon as the cooking was done, and Val was off back to work, I managed at last to break free from work and chores and go out on a short walk round the Yellow Walls Road area, and then down to the shore. I was struck by how mild it was tonight. There were plenty of winter-flowering plants in bloom, the swans glided serenely about on the lagoon, and all the houses were decorated with spectacular arrays of Christmas lights. All in all it was quite an uplifting walk.

So on that note, I’ll go and check on the casserole then I think I’ll quit while I’m ahead!

Today’s photos (click to enlarge)


Now you don’t see it..	..now you do. New fridge successfully installed and up and running

Well you have got to do something with all the frozen meat that was in the defunct freezer – so I made a giant casserole with it this evening	The Casino looking beautiful with its winter adornments

Libertia chilensis (I think) – it supposedly flowers in the spring, but here it is in full bloom alongside the Dublin Road in the middle of December	Fatsia japonica also in full bloom tonight. It’s a native of Japan but curiously can interbreed with common ivy, Hedera helix

Christmassy yacht down in the marina this evening