Ireland day 0912. Thursday 28 March 2024- Sunny Malahide *

Ireland day 0912. Thursday 28 March 2024- Sunny Malahide

Today’s summary	A leisurely morning then Val went on a run and I went on a walk round the demesne. Met up in the new Pavilion café for refreshments afterwards. Shopping in Clare Hall later then some Netflix in the evening.
Today’s weather	Heavy overnight rain but bright and sunny most of the rest of the day. Light easterly wind. Appx 8c

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): Sunny Demesne walk while Val running

Commentary

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

It’s been very wet here in Ireland this winter – in common with much of northwest Europe I think. And true to form, it poured down much of last night, too. So it came as a bit of a relief to wake up this morning to see the sun shining and offering every prospect of it being a nice day outside.

We were keen to make the most of the good weather – though not that keen that it stopped us enjoying a couple of cups of tea in bed first. Val is on a bit of a mission to improve her fitness at the moment and has enrolled herself in a Garmin training programme which seems to require her to go running for long distances virtually every day. So when she announced that she was going to do a 10km run around the demesne, the least I thought I could do was go out a walk round the same route, albeit I cut bits off it and I was much slower.

To give us a bit of an incentive, we agreed that we would meet up at the end at a new café – The Pavilion – that has just opened close to the golf and tennis centre. It turned out to be an enjoyable treat, though it was clearly very popular with families and their large flocks of children.

After our various exercises, we returned to the flat, had a light lunch, then drove down to Clare Hall to do some shopping (specifically – I lost my valuable glasses on my walk yesterday and I had to get some more for the princely sum of €3.25). Once that was successfully out of the way, we returned, made dinner (a half price bacon and cabbage meal from SuperValu that I picked up last week and which was actually a lot nicer than it sounds) then fired up the TV to watch a bit of Netflix.

I must say it was nice to have Val back and also not to be rushing around quite so much today.

Today’s photos (click to enlarge)


My favourite flower-bed by the entrance to the demesne. It’s always a bit of a mystery what’s going to pop up next. The daffodils have finished now, and it looks like it might be the grape hyacinths	Another botanical favourite – the redwood tree by the cricket pitch. Apparently there are more redwoods in the UK than there are in their native USA now, and I wouldn’t be surprised if there were even more in Ireland. They seem to be everywhere, but I’m not complaining as I think they are very statuesque

Enjoying the sunshine. Quite cool again, but like yesterday I’m following the “be bold, start out cold” approach to avoid getting sweaty	The cricket pitch, getting ready for the next season. I hope it dries out in time

There’s a new café called the Pavilion just opened up in the demesne, and we thought we would give it a try. It was pleasant, and obviously popular with families with small children(!)	Cappuccino and scone were nice!

Val in full flow