Ireland day 1094. Thursday 26 September 2024- Feet Up!

Today’s summary	Our guests had an early ferry back to the UK so we were up at 5:30 to see them on their way. Spent most of the rest of the day relaxing, doing Spanish homework, and sorting out the washing. Went on a walk to Centra later on in the teeth of a storm that blew up out of nowhere at lunchtime. Lots of rooks wheeling in the gale. Leftover casserole and apple pie for dinner then another episode of “House of the Dragon” in the evening.
Today’s weather	Overcast in the morning then stormy with rain in the afternoon. Gale force north easterly wind. Appx 13c

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): Storm and Rooks

Commentary

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

Phew! It’s been a busy – though rewarding – few days. We really enjoyed having guests for the last couple of days but they had an early ferry back to the UK this morning so we were up at 5:30 am making breakfast so that they could be on their way on time at 6. That, combined with the activities of the last week, plus shingles and minor surgery, left me and (perhaps to a slightly lesser extent) Val feeling definitely in need of putting our collective feet up for a while today.

So once our visitors had left, I made cups of tea and returned to bed and we both promptly fell asleep again.

The rest of the day was spent catching up on all those chores that get neglected when you are busy doing more interesting things. There were numerous loads of washing to be done and I have to admit that today I put the tumble dryer on to get some of it fully processed. Though it is against my better judgement in view of the amount of electricity it uses and I much prefer letting things air dry. But neither of us could bear the notion of having acres of damp sheets decorating the living room for they next two or three days, slowly inching towards desiccation in the humid air.

Once all that was done, we put our feet up – literally – for awhile then I knuckled to some Spanish homework. By this point decided I needed some fresh air so headed out to the demesne to walk on down the Swords Road to Centra. It was quite an interesting walk, actually, as a strong north easterly had sprung up suddenly around lunchtime, so the normally-calm Broadmeadow lagoon was whipped up into a meringue of foam and waves. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen it looking quite so rough. The wind also seemed to have stirred up the local population of rooks, as they were wheeling around in great clouds, squawking and screeching as they went, before landing on the lawns and shorelines seemingly energised collectively to peck for worms.

Once I was back, taking in a partially-successful bargain hunt at Tesco on the way, I had a video call with family then we settled down to plough through another episode of the rather unimpressive “House of the Dragon” whilst finishing off the leftover chicken casserole and apple pie from Tuesday.

Well, that will do for now as I really do have to go and put my feet up at last!

Today’s photos (click to enlarge)


The wind and rain had kept people indoors, so I had the whole demesne more or less to myself	Pathway poetically paved in gold leaf today

Swirling rooks seemed to have been disturbed by the wind and were out and about in great clouds, settling briefly on the shore and having a good peck at the grass	My favourite path along the shoreline near the yacht club is closed at the moment (luckily someone tipped me off before I started from the far end of the walkway)



A trio of swans on the shore, heads down, tucked out of the wind