Ireland day 1021. Monday 15 July 2024- Howth Quickly

Today’s summary	Val was working up at the castle again today. I used the free day to spend the morning doing paperwork then walked to Howth in the afternoon. More TV in the evening
Today’s weather	Light rain in the morning and mid afternoon, overcast but dry at other times. Easterly breeze. 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): Quick Walk to Howth July 2024

Commentary

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

Val had been asked to do another shift at the castle today (they are apparently short staffed for to various illnesses etc at the moment). So I had intended to use the day to go into Dublin to look at an art exhibition. But after a bit of googling, I discovered that the gallery I was hoping to visit was closed on Mondays (in common with a lot of public attractions in Ireland on Mondays, it seems). So I had to do a bit of rethinking.

I decided that, although it wasn’t top of my list of enjoyable things to do on a spare day, I had better spend a little while this morning catching up on some of the mountain of paperwork that has built up over the last few weeks. After all, I can’t just keep sweeping it under the carpet for ever.

So, once Val was off on her way, I sat myself down at the desk and got on with it. But to make the task less daunting, I “rationed” myself to just one hour and then once that was up, I finished for the day and decided to do something more interesting instead.

Given that Dublin was off limits, I decided to go on a short walk. The easiest, and possibly the most enjoyable, option was just to walk down the coast to Howth, and then get the train and bus back.

So that is what I did. I cut out most of the twiddly bits of the route to pare back the distance (and time) so that I could slot the walk in between showers – which I successfully (just) managed. I was pleased to cover the 13km in 2¼ hours which comes in at 10m12s / km which is only slightly slower that my 10 min/km target pace. Still room for improvement but steadily getting better.

Once at Howth, I headed straight to the station and had lunch in the shelter as the rain came down and I waited for the train. It duly arrived and in due course sped me to Sutton. I had another brief wait until the 102 turned up (just long enough to get a cup of coffee and a croissant from Sam’s station café) then was back in Malahide by 4pm.

I dropped into Tesco to stock up on a few essentials before making my way back to the flat and getting the kettle on, fortunately in time for Val’s return from work. It turns out that she’d decided to drop into the garden centre on the way back, so now we have some rather nice salvias and carnations decorating our balcony.

Summer is blooming in the Casino! Now it’s time to start thinking about dinner and our TV viewing for tonight. It never ends!

Today’s photos (click to enlarge)


Testing out a slice of Val’s Onion and Sage bread – made last night to an authentic Irish recipe and it’s delicious!	Yes here I am on Paddy’s Hill again

Crocosmia dazzling on Radlett Grove, Portmarnock	Viper’s Bugloss (or similar – Echium vulgare) on the Baldoyle Greenway. It’s supposed to be attractive to bees and there were at least a few to be seen around and about today – but the nearby ragwort was cinnabar moth-less

Beautiful wildflower meadow carefully sown in someone’s front garden on Burrow Road, Sutton	DART for the return journey to Sutton arriving in Howth station

Sutton’s Burrow Beach with Ireland’s Eye on the horizon