Ireland day 1072. Wednesday 04 September 2024- Tired

Today’s summary	Felt rather tired today. The shingles rash appeared more extensive this morning, but not as red as before. Got up slowly, then went to Newbridge for a walk in the demesne before cup of coffee and a cake in the café. Salad lunch once back at the flat then had a rest in the afternoon. Chicken bubble and squeak for dinner then some TV. Nurse Val doing a fine job.
Today’s weather	Sunshine and showers. Light northerly wind. Appx 15c

Today’s overview location (The green 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): Newbridge recuperation walk

Commentary

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

With a good dose of antivirals and paracetamol before I went to bed last night, I actually slept quite well. I also added some cetirizine hydrochloride (a hay fever drug) to the mix as I’d heard it can help relieve some of the symptoms Anyway the cocktail seemed to work because this morning, although a few new spots had appeared overnight, generally I’d say my shingles rash looked a lot less inflamed than yesterday.

But, maybe as a result of the massive pharmaceutical intervention, or maybe because my immune system is going into overdrive to kill off the virus, I felt pretty wiped out all day. I was supposed to be traveling to London today, and am really glad that I’m not. The other benefit of not going was that I had nothing in the diary at all. A clear day to get on with recovery.

So we started the day as we meant to go on – slowly. We lingered over tea in bed then once up, Val suggested that we might drive over to Newbridge to try and slot in a short walk while the sun was shining. I thought this was an excellent idea, so I gathered a few things and we set off.

The Newbridge demesne was looking good once we got over there. Fresh and green, and with the sun and blue sky, it was the ideal setting for a restorative walk. So we plodded off and did an anticlockwise circuit of the whole estate, including picking up a couple of areas that I don’t think we had seen before.

By the time we finished our loop, it was coming up to 11:30 so ideal timing for a cake and a cup of tea outside the “Brambles” café. After a while – luckily, only once we had almost finished our refreshments – it started to rain. So we scoffed the rest quickly then dashed to the car.

Once back in Malahide, Val made a rather nice salad for lunch then I got on with some paperwork. By the time I’d finished, I was whacked so in an almost unheard-of move, I went to bed for a while and actually briefly fell asleep. This is definitely not normal for me.

The evening was rounded off in a similarly low key way – chicken with colcannon for dinner (another delicious Val special) then an episode of “The Hour” series 2.

Hopefully I’ll have a bit more energy tomorrow, but I suspect it’s going to be a fairly long haul.

Today’s photos (click to enlarge)


Enjoying the sunshine and dodging the rain	Val checking out the curious old lime-kiln (which now seems to have been converted into a rubbish-bin)

Lanesfort castle	The way to go. Look at that blue sky!



All in the name of recovery