Ireland day 0932. Wednesday 17 April 2024- Drumcondra Botanics *

Ireland day 0932. Wednesday 17 April 2024- Drumcondra Botanics

Today’s summary	Took Val to the airport for a short trip to London. Then made some phone calls and finished off the tax (for now). Went into Dublin in the afternoon and took the train to Drumcondra. Walked from there to the Botanics to have a look round and enjoy the tropical vibe in the greenhouses. A good relaxing day.
Today’s weather	Heavily overcast with drizzle all day. Light northerly wind. Appx 9c

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): Drumcondra to the Botanics and back

Commentary

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

Val and I are spending the coming weekend with family in London. She set out a day earlier than me so straight after breakfast we were in the Trusty Yaris heading to the airport for a 10:30 flight. I will be following her tomorrow.

Once she was safely delivered, I returned to the flat and finished off the last remaining bits of our Irish and UK tax. Doubtless there will be more data to provide in the coming weeks but for now at least it felt good to have it out of the way.

With an empty afternoon and with Val away, I was free to plough my own furrow. So I decided to visit the Botanic Gardens. I took the train into Connolly then today I experimented with taking a Maynooth train back out from Connolly to Drumcondra. It’s a 25 minute walk to the gardens from there but it runs through Griffith Park, which is quite pleasant, and it avoids getting crammed into a steamy damp bus.

The gardens were looking vivid today, after the relatively mild weather and abundant rain. I treated myself to lunch in the café then made a bee-line for the greenhouses. I like being among the tropical plants – bougainvilleas, strelitzias, palms and the rest – especially on endlessly dull wet days like today, when the sun seems to have forgotten how to shine.

I retraced my steps to Drumcondra station as the gardens were closing at 5pm, then made my way from there by rail to Malahide. Next job is to get something for dinner, do my Spanish homework, and then finally settle down to some TV. A pretty relaxing day, actually, once the tax was despatched.

Today’s photos (click to enlarge)


Transport from Connolly	Guess what? It’s raining again! By the Tolka river in Griffith Park, on the way to the gardens

At least part of my lunch was healthy	Central conservatory of the Curvilinear range. A beautiful Mediterranean greenhouse

In one of the wings of the Curvilinear range.	Impressive mistletoe growth on a Poplar. Poor tree

Beautiful Bougainvillea