Ireland day 1079. Wednesday 11 September 2024- Cold Coast

Today’s summary	Val was working at the museum all day today so I took the opportunity to walk down the coast to Howth. Went well with sun and cold but brief showers. DART and bus back. Beef pie for lunch and chilli con carne for dinner. Continued watching “House of the Dragon” series 2 in the evening. Shingles pain continuing.
Today’s weather	Plenty of bright sun interspersed with vigorous showers. Strong to gale force north westerly wind. Appx 14c.

Today’s overview location (The grey 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): Coast to Howth GPS fail

Commentary

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

By all accounts I should have been feeling awful when I got up this morning. Overnight, the pain in my left arm and shoulder had got markedly worse and ibuprofen didn’t really seem to resolve it. I only slept fitfully between bouts of pain until sometime in the middle of the night I had a particularly unpleasant spasm. Unexpectedly, though, this seemed to herald the arrival of a period of slightly declining discomfort. Anyway I eventually dozed off and slept right through until 7:30.

So when I woke up I was expecting to feel rough. But actually, apart from the hangover-y feeling I always get after taking painkillers, I felt a bit more cheerful and less painful than I have in recent days. The discomfort has got slightly worse through the day but I’m hoping that last night’s convulsion might have signified a bit of a turning point on the road to recovery. Even if it has, there’s still a long way to go. But I’m remaining optimistic.

Moving on. Val was booked to work a full shift at the museum, so I had the day to myself. I find that the best way for me to manage pain – toothache is my most relevant recent experience – is to keep busy. It’s distracting and takes my mind off things. So as soon as I’d made packed lunches for us both (we had Kerrigans’ beef and Guinness pie with roast vegetables that I cooked while we were having our cup of tea in bed) and Val had gone off to work, I pulled my things together and headed out too.

I decided that since the weather was mostly quite good, I’d try and walk down the coast to Howth. It’s a bit like the Sutton walk we did the other day, though rather longer. Like the Sutton option, the 102 and then DART tracks alongside the walking path much of the way, so I knew there would be an escape route if I didn’t feel up to it.

There was no need to worry, as it turned out. I felt quite good as I walked, and managed to pick up a decent pace. The wind was cold and strong, but as it was coming from the north west, I had it on my back most of the way. The tide was favourable too, meaning I could walk round the Sutton golf club peninsula onto Burrow beach, and then on via the coastal route to Howth itself. The only real discomfort I faced was from the rain. Icy squalls which came and went unpredictably, meaning it was a real waterproofs-on, waterproofs-off sort of a day.

When I reached Howth (in well under 3 hours, which I was pleased about as the “real” distance is closer to 13km than the 7 mis-recorded by my GPS) I had my lunch on the station then caught a DART and bus straight back to Malahide. I didn’t hang around as I wanted to get to the library in time to collect a book that I’d ordered and I thought it shut early on Wednesdays (it doesn’t).

Once Val was back from work, after a few moments to review the day’s events, we had chilli con carne (left over from yesterday) for dinner and then watched some TV in the evening. We have started on “House of the Dragon” series 2 which so far is incomprehensible and somewhat disappointing. Still, we enjoyed “Game of Thrones” and “House of the Dragon” series 1 which preceded it, so will stick at it and see how we get on.

Hoping for a slightly less painful night tonight, but whatever, I’ll deal with it.

Today’s photos (click to enlarge)


Today’s snapshot. I’m trying to convince myself that the rash looks less aggressive than yesterday. Though in reality it looks pretty similar (perhaps the spots are drying up a bit)	On the Velvet Strand. I’m having to wear my rucksack just over my right shoulder, as my left is too sore

Nice view of Ireland’s Eye from below Sutton Golf Club. The beach was almost deserted today. A real contrast to the busy days of high summer.	The seven gigantic blocks of new flats on Howth seafront are taking shape. I hope the locals like them. They are bound to have big impact on the area as I calculate there must be at least 500-1000 apartments in them, which means another 1000 or so people at least, using schools, hospitals, shops, etc.

At Howth station – the new canopy on the platform (to the left of the picture) is finally taking shape – a year late	My reading for the next few days – recommended by a friend in London, actually

Samphire (it’s edible though salty) on the rocky foreshore under Sutton station