Ireland day 1087. Thursday 19 September 2024- Greenland

Today’s summary	A wonderfully leisurely morning again, although that did include doing some work on tax. After lunch of breaded fish and potato croquettes, decided to go into Dublin to visit Cotswold outdoor store to collect some waterproofing wax I had ordered. Val watched “A Very Royal Scandal” on Amazon in the evening and gave me a potted review afterwards
Today’s weather	Another dry and sunny day. Light north easterly wind. Appx 16c

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): Walk to Greenland via Cotswold

Commentary

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

The day started confusingly. I received an email from An Post announcing that my parcel had been successfully delivered – yet a search of the post area in our block of flats revealed no such parcel. The email (which I had checked for phishing) did have an order number – which looked completely unfamiliar. Any in any case, I couldn’t actually remember ordering anything that needed delivery.

But on the off-chance I typed the order number into the search function of my email app and it revealed – lo and behold – that it was the internal number that Cotswold – an outdoor store in Dublin – had used to order some waterproofing wax for the new hiking trousers that I’d bought in the shop last week. Luckily I had been copied on the order details so I had a matching record. So the wax had actually been successfully delivered to the store in Dublin, not me – but the notification, for some reason, had been sent to my email address, not the shop’s.

With that mystery sorted out, we decided that we’d have a short sojourn into Dublin to pick up my new purchase and generally to see what was going on. Before that, though, we’d had a very leisurely morning, even if I did have to spend some of it sorting out a few tax matters. That aside, it was a real tonic. We followed it up with a light lunch of breaded fish, peas and potato croquettes, left over from last night. Tasty and nutritious!

To mix things up a today we went to Dublin by bus – the H2 gently and slowly rocked us into town – and I am pretty sure that both of us fell asleep briefly along the way. When we got into town, the first thing that we discovered that was going on was a large demonstration in O’Connell Street. We gave it a wide berth and crossed the river over to Westmoreland Street and from there on to St Andrew St and the Cotswold store. When I got there, the shop manager was as confused as I had been, in his case as to why this mysterious package from Fjallraven had suddenly arrived unannounced this morning. Anyway, I was reunited with my wax and all was well.

Once the mystery of the wax had been untangled, we headed out and had a quick look round Fallon & Byrne in Exchequer Street before walking back to Grafton Street for a rather civilised cup of coffee and croissant in Bewleys. Very Parisien.

Our return journey to Malahide went swiftly, departing on a DART from Pearse after only a brief wait. Now it’s time to contemplate what to make for dinner, how to wax my “pants”, and where we can stream the latest drama “A Very Royal Scandal”. Actually Val managed to locate it and she, being more interested in these things that I am, watched it then gave me a précis afterwards. She found it riveting, apparently, though I suspect Prince Andrew may have found it slightly less so.

Today’s photos (click to enlarge)


The view from the bus. Had to move back from the front seat on the upper deck as it was in full sun and too hot. A very remarkable occurrence	From the upper deck looking to the Island where we were yesterday – you can see how narrow the estuary is

An “Ireland for the Irish” anti immigrant demo was going on in O’Connell Street when we arrived. Being immigrants ourselves, we gave it a wide berth	*“Salamanca” in St Andrews St. The only Spanish restaurant I know in Dublin – will have to probarlo!*

Dropped in to have a look round Fallon & Byrne deli. You know it’s posh when a packet of liquorice allsorts costs €6.50	Tonight’s task – melting the wax into my new Fjallraven hiking trousers (or “pants” as I think they are supposed to be called)

In Bewley’s. Not looking too bad, all things considered (me that is – Val of course is as ever radiant)