Ireland day 0874. Monday 19 February 2024- Preparation *

Ireland day 0874. Monday 19 February 2024- Preparation

Today’s summary	Spent most of the day on work-related phone calls and preparing my presentation to the Board for tomorrow. Went for a relaxing walk round the demesne in the late afternoon. Val made some lovely vegetarian salads for lunch and dinner – very tasty
Today’s weather	Mild, dry and bright with sunny intervals. Light westerly wind. Appx 11c

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): Nocturne walk in the demesne

Commentary

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

Tomorrow is my Big Day, work-wise. I have to present the findings from my work over the last four months to the Board of the company I’ve been working for. I’ve got to speak for an hour, and expect to be grilled closely on my recommendations. So I need to rehearse what I am going to say. I keep remembering that “prior preparation and proper preparation prevent p*ss poor performance“. So today I spent the day preparing.

First of all I had to take a call from a work colleague, also about the Board meeting. Then I spent the rest of the day re-reading my report, and then going through my PowerPoints. Eventually though, by mid afternoon I felt I had taken things as far as I could so I decided to call it a day. Beside, I needed to get up from the desk before I froze into position!

As I worked, Val had been spending the day heroically tidying and cleaning our apartment ready for the arrival of visitors on Thursday. So we both felt the need to escape from the confines of the flat for a bit. It was beginning to get dark by this stage, but there was plenty of daylight left, and the demesne was still open, so we decided to hop out and do our favourite quick circumnavigation walk round the castle grounds.

It was enjoyable walk – the birds were in full throat (according to Val’s “Merlin” app they were jackdaws, robins and blue-tits) and the air was mild and blissfully non-windy. We also met into three of Val’s colleagues, which was nice, and even got a VIP tour of the newly-renovated and shortly-to-be-opened Pavilion café. All in all, a very successful outing!

In the evening, we had another of Val’s famous vegetarian salads, which left me feeling exceptionally virtuous and positively brimming with vitality. Just what I need in advance of tomorrow. Fingers crossed that it goes well!

Today’s photos (click to enlarge)


The “sequential bulb bed” by the demesne entrance is now moving into phase 2, as miniature daffodils take over from the early crocuses	Group of trees on the golf course, huddling together for a chat

What I think is plum blossom, on the perimeter path round the demesne	Red sky at light hopefully a bit more delightful to the shepherd than Saturday’s red dawn was

Val lighting up the path with her pink shoes	Festoon lighting particularly effective in the mid-evening gloaming

Miniature daffodils – one of my favourites