Ireland day 1057. Tuesday 20 August 2024- Long Lunch

Today’s summary	A very leisurely day. Spent the morning organising some travel for later in the year and finishing off reading my (depressing) climate change books. Then walked over the hill and round the coast to the Grand Hotel for a long lunch. Made dinner (more salad) and watched TV in the evening
Today’s weather	Mostly dry and bright but with a couple of torrential showers. Strong westerly wind. Appx 17c

Today’s overview location (The grey mark shows the location of our route)		Close-up location (The orange line shows where we walked) (Click button below to download GPX of today’s walk as recorded, or see interactive map at bottom with elevations corrected): Long Walk to Grand Lunch

Commentary

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

We’re having a relatively quiet phase at the moment. Perhaps that’s what you are supposed to do when “retired”. But I don’t think that either of us really consider ourselves to be in that state, so generally we keep busy doing things. But from time to time there’s nothing on the agenda and it’s quite nice for a change. Today was one of those days.

Despite the empty calendar, I have been waking up early the last few days – I don’t know why. So, seeing as I was bright eyed and bushy tailed by 6 am, I slipped into the living room so as not to disturb the dormant Val, and finished off my book while sitting in the early morning sun streaming in through the balcony window.

It was a lovely ambience to read my rather downbeat book on climate change. I won’t go into the details here as it’s too depressing, but the book (“Runaway Climate” – the sequel to “Brief History” – which I finished a few weeks ago) discusses what would probably happen if the earth’s climate suddenly warmed up as a result of manmade greenhouse gas emissions, in a way similar to the change that happened 55.5 million years ago (called the Palaeocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum, or PETM).

Needless to say the consequences are pretty catastrophic (almost all areas of the world currently inhabited by people would become too hot for humans to exist), and could happen quite quickly (next 100 years). What with this and “The Wire” I am thinking I need to seriously lighten up my entertainment channels!

Anyway, moving on to a lighter note, we are planning a walking holiday with friends later this year so I spent a couple of hours making some of the arrangements and, of course, searching out the relevant maps. Once that was done, we decided to get out into the sun and treat ourselves to lunch at the Grand Hotel. We took the “long” route over the hill and round the coast and made the mistake of setting off without waterproofs. Needless to say, halfway round the heavens opened and we were caught out in a torrential pouring deluge. Luckily it didn’t last too long and we found a nearby tree to shelter under while it passed.

Eventually we made it to the hotel and had a super healthy lunch of salad (and pudding of course) then wandered back to the flat via the shops, ready to start preparing the next meal. It’s endless, this food preparation. I can see why people go and live in hotels! It’s another salad and definitely no pudding tonight as I already had one at lunchtime and I haven’t expended enough calories today to justify two.

We have only six more episodes of “The Wire” to go now, so we will probably finish off another couple as we dine. Then after today’s diet of climate catastrophe and gangland crime, I’ll retire to bed and lie there wondering why I can’t sleep properly.

Today’s photos (click to enlarge)


On the top of Paddy’s Hill just ten minutes before the downpour	And approaching the hotel in full sun just ten minutes after the downpour

Our private dining room (shared with about 150 others)	A very interesting and enlightening read, but depressing in their assessment of the prospect for our future climate

Super healthy lunch (apart from the lemon meringue pie which I had afterwards)

Portrane slowly disappearing into the downpour