Ireland day 0854. Tuesday 30 January 2024- Quiet Day *

Ireland day 0854. Tuesday 30 January 2024- Quiet Day

Today’s summary	Both of us were at home, for once, today. I had a video call with work around lunchtime, and she went out on a run. Later, after lunch of poached eggs on potato farls, I did some Spanish homework then we walked out to Centra on the western lagoon for a cup of tea. Spanish for me, and Pilates for Val, in the evening.
Today’s weather	Dry sunny and bright. A complete contrast to yesterday. Light westerly wind. Appx 8c

Today’s overview location (The blue mark shows the location of our route)		Close-up location (The blue 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): Westerly lagoon shore walk with Val

Commentary

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

Val and I were both at home today and I for one am definitely beginning to wind down a bit from work now. I just had a Teams call with a colleague at around lunchtime, but apart from that (and the inevitable Spanish deberes), the day was pretty much free until the evening.

So while I was on my call, Val went for a run round the demesne (impressive) then after she got back, and we’d had a light lunch of leftovers, we decided to head out and make the most of the sunny day. Days like today have been a bit of a rarity lately, so it was good to get out and see some blue sky and sunshine at last. We walked out through the north side of the demesne, then along the Swords road and into the Seabury estate.

Our objective was the Centra convenience store – where they happen to sell rather nice cups of Barry’s tea to take away. So we got some teas, and I also treated myself to a croissant, which we duly enjoyed on the bench overlooking the Broadmeadow estuary.

Once back, we had a light snack then packed our things and drove down to Portmarnock for our respective night classes – Pilates for Val and Spanish for me. Now we are back, we’re going to heat up some of the pasta left from the weekend, then settle down for an episode of the Sopranos. I must say I am really enjoying having Val around a bit more, and having a bit less pressure from work. Long may it last.

Today’s photos (click to enlarge)


Snowdrops outside the Casino – each year this cluster gets a little bigger	Near the entrance to the Castle demesne, the roped-off area of grass just to the right by the cricket pitch has reappeared. Hopefully this means that the bulbs which put on such a spectacular performance last spring are set to reappear

Enjoying the sunshine	I’d never hear of Michelin “bibs” until recently – but now ireland has five more of them. Will definitely need investigating (the bibs that is, not the slurry)!

Val striding out to the bench overlooking the south shore of the Broadmeadow lagoon (and directly opposite the splendid Seafield House) where we have our tea bought at Centra	Sun setting over a very calm lagoon. Quite a contrast to yesterday

January rose – I can’t decide whether it is a leftover from last summer, or a harbinger of next spring. Either way, it was nice to see