Ireland day 0896. Tuesday 12 March 2024- Friends and Jobs *

Ireland day 0896. Tuesday 12 March 2024- Friends and Jobs

Today’s summary	A relatively quiet day. I had a couple of video calls with friends in the UK, and then did my VAT return and my Spanish homework. Val did her violin practice and a litter pick on Malahide beach. in the evening I walked over Paddy’s Hill while Val went to Pilates (my Spanish class was cancelled because of a school play). Roadworks outside our flat as a nocturnal accompaniment
Today’s weather	Overnight rain but overcast and dry most of the rest of the day. Moderate south westerly wind. Very mild at 13c

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

Commentary

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

I have to say I think we are both enjoying having the extra time and flexibility that not working gives you. Today was a case in point. We didn’t have any specific plans for the day, so we used it to catch up on the various tasks that tend to get neglected when you’ve got other things to do.

So Val continued her violin practice and then – to boot – she got her wellies on and headed down to Malahide beach to do a litter pick. She tells me she managed to collect a very satisfactory 3 kg of rubbish which went straight in the bin.

While she was preoccupied with these worthwhile endeavours, I first-off had a video call with one of my friends in London, then did some work on my VAT return and started planning a possible Autumn holiday. When that was completed, I went into town to do some shopping then made smoked salmon sandwiches with honey and mustard dressing for lunch. Very nice, if I say so myself.

In the afternoon I had another video call to friend in the UK and then spent a lengthy period doing some very difficult deberes that our Spanish teacher has given us. It included a level B1 audio, which was far too hard. El señor Google Translate had to come to my rescue on more than one occasion.

This evening there is a play on at Portmarnock school which means my Spanish class was postponed, but for reasons that I don’t understand, Val’s Pilates wasn’t. As there was no parking for night classes tonight, because of the play, I drove up to drop Val off then while she was away, I went on a quick walk over Paddy’s Hill.

On the way back I had a good look at the roadworks which are currently underway right outside our flat. They started yesterday evening at about 7 and didn’t finish until midnight. It looks like this evening is going to be a re-run of yesterday except that the digger is even closer to our flat so it’s rather like living next door to a machine gun at the moment. I have no idea what they are doing though I have a strong suspicion that they are actually just digging the road up and then filling hole again to practice their nocturnal road building skills.

Anyway, hopefully they will be finished by the time we go to bed, provided we make it late enough.

Must stop as I need to go over to Portmarnock again to pick up Val, then it’s bubble and squeak for tea. I’m getting hungry!

Today’s photos (click to enlarge)


New moon over St Margaret’s Road	No sign of the eagerly anticipated path between Seamount and Seapark reopening. In fact the builders seem to be busily constructing a solid brick wall across the entrance where it used tostart.

Hi point on the road which marks the boundary between the Jameson estate and Robswall	Long-distance shot of Dublin twinking on the horizon, from Seamount

Tide at a low ebb at the end of this evening’s walk	Earlier today – the station windowboxes as colourful as ever, with St Sylvester’s in the background

Preparations for tonight’s entertainments well underway when I set off on my walk this evening