Ireland day 0955. Friday 10 May 2024- Dental and Airport

Today’s summary	Went to the dentist first thing. All good, which was a relief. Then spent the rest of the morning sorting out an issue with this blog, which was eventually fixed by lunchtime. In the afternoon, I walked up over their hill and down to the coast, making the most of the sunshine. Collected Val from the airport in the evening. Nice to have her back.
Today’s weather	Fine and dry with plenty of sun. Moderate south easterly wind. Appx 16c

Today’s overview location (The green 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): Hill Coast and Dewberry Park in the sun

Commentary

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

I haven’t been to the dentist for well over a year and although my normal principle is not to go unless something hurts, I though perhaps it might be a good idea to have them looked anyway.

So I was up bright and early and in the dentists chair by 9 am. She had a good prod around and gave my teeth a clean with a horrible high pressure thing, but professed herself satisfied with my oral hygiene. At least she didn’t see any gaping holes that needed filling, thank goodness.

Once I had successfully escaped her clutches, I went to the supermarket to get lunch (standards slip when Val is away) then returned to the flat to finish off the cup of tea that I’d had to abandon as I rushed off to the tooth doctor.

I spent the rest of the morning doing some housekeeping on this website, and then made lunch. Actually it was a ready-made “Poke bowl” (which is basically the same as sushi as far as I can see) which I got half price at Tesco. But it tasted ok.

After lunch, I hoovered the flat and tidied away all the now-dry laundry, then set off on a short walk. I just did my normal “hill and coast” loop, though I did modify it a little to incorporate some of the grassland in the Dewberry Park area.

The sun was shining and everywhere there was vivid green foliage gleaming against a bright blue sky. Lots of flowers were showing off their spring finery all in all it looked lovely. And like yesterday, I really enjoyed the (relative) warmth after a long wet winter.

I made Parma ham salad for dinner then headed off to the airport to pick Val up after her journey back from the UK. She had a good but tiring trip so I think she will be looking forward to putting her feet up for a bit this weekend. It’s nice to have her back!

Today’s photos (click to enlarge)


I really like the sinuous paths through the woodland in the demesne	On the top of Paddy’s Hill. Last year someone thoughtfully lit a bonfire of rubbish on the summit which left a lot of debris and killed off all the vegetation. Fortunately, nature seems to be repairing itself and it is already almost back to normal.

Three-cornered leek (Allium triquetrum). It originates in the Mediterranean and apparently is a “noxious weed” in Ireland. It is spreading very fast – from this patch you can see it even appears to be successfully out-competing the surrounding nettles	Flower bed on the coast road a tthe eastern entrance to Malahide has been recently planted and is looking splendid. Though I did notice that, even after all the wet weather, the sprinklers were out in action this afternoon



This is what a half-price poke bowl looks like