Ireland day 1005. Saturday 29 June 2024- Flavours of Fingal

Summary	Cleaned and tidied the flat first thing then walked round the lagoon to the “Flavours of Fingal” county show in Newbridge. It rained consistently all day but the show was interesting, extensive and seemingly well attended. Caught the train back and the went to the airport to collect Val in the evening.
Today’s weather	Steady rain all day. Moderate northerly wind. Appx 14c

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): Flavours of Fingal

Commentary

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

After three days of bachelor-living, the flat was beginning to look a bit down at heel this morning. So, since Val returns from London tonight, my first job was clean and tidy the place up a bit.

Once that was out of the way, I consulted my tide and lunar charts and concluded that I could probably walk round the Broadmeadow Lagoon today with only a risk of some minor paddling en route. That was fortunate because I wanted to go over to the “Flavours of Fingal” county show in the Newbridge demesne, and as it is only on today and tomorrow (and tomorrow I have other plans) it was a case of now or never.

The only fly in the ointment was the weather. It was raining when I set off and it didn’t stop for a moment the whole time I was out. So I put my waterproof outer-layers on as soon as I stepped out of the flat, and kept them on until I got back.

I did – mostly – manage to get round the lagoon, though the tide wasn’t quite as low as I had expected, so I did have to paddle for a couple of short stretches.

Once I made it round to Newbridge, I found that the Show was well underway, and there seemed to be a decent number of visitors, despite the rain. Everyone was putting a brave face on things.

There was lots to look at, though I did find the huge agricultural machines, the cows that were getting vacuum-cleaned, and the goose-herding sheepdogs particularly fascinating.

I had my sandwich lunch in the rain, serenaded by a folk band who bravely played on despite that fact that everyone seemed too wet to listen to them.

Once I’d seen as many cows, sheep and flower-arrangements as I needed for one day, I headed for Donabate station. As luck would have it, a train across the embankment to Malahide turned up only four minutes later so I was back on the south side of the lagoon in next to no time.

(By the way, as I was being whisked across the embankment by Iarnród Éireann, I noticed from my seat window that work on the new greenway seems to progressing well on the north shore too – the activity isn’t just confined to the south. The materials appear to be in place to construct the bridge-spans now, so perhaps it want be too long before we will be able to give it a test-ride?)

Once back in Malahide I dropped down to Tesco to get a few essentials, including dinner for tonight, and then returned to the flat for a cup of tea and then shortly it will back on the road, heading to the airport to collect Val.

It’s been a quiet few days while Val has been away, but I feel like I’ve managed to fit in a reasonable amount of exercise and I’ve quite enjoyed it. The positive benefits of the walking are, however, sadly being neutralised even as I write this, by the packet of half price Bakewell slices which I managed to slot into my shopping basket, in between the loo roll and pre-packed ready meals.

Today’s photos (click to enlarge)


The path along the wall top along the north shore of the Lagoon is getting steadily more eroded and interrupted with trees and mini-landslides. But maybe it won’t be necessary any more when the Greenway is built?	Dressage, I think

Folk group making the best of the weather, though the audience seemed distracted by the rain	No idea what this thing does, but it looks expensive

No County Show would be complete without a sweet-pea competition	One of last year’s cygnets, just shedding the remaining vestiges of ugly duckling plumage

The curious case of the cow and the vacuum cleaner