Ireland day 1100. Wednesday 02 October 2024- Injections!

Today’s summary	A day spent mostly in and around the flat. In the morning did odd-jobs and some Spanish homework. In the afternoon, I spoke to a friend in Houston then Val and I went on a quick walk round the demesne. At the end of the afternoon, we both headed to McCabe’s pharmacy to get our annual Covid and Flu vaccinations. Delicious home-made tomato curry for dinner.
Today’s weather	Bright, breezy, sunny and dry. Moderate easterly wind. Appx 15c

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): Around the demesne before vaccinations

Commentary

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

Our lives in Ireland tend to be a bit episodic. We have periods of seemingly nonstop activity, followed by calmer periods where we try and catch our breath.

We have just entered one of those calmer periods, which felt much needed after the busy-ness of the last ten days, which of course in my case was compounded by shingles. Anyway, we both particularly needed a “down” day today as we were scheduled to get our winter booster Covid and Flu vaccinations and I’m fully expecting they will knock us sideways for a day or two. Anyway – we’ve had the injections now, down at McCabes this afternoon, so we are just waiting for the side-effects to kick in. But after my recent brush with shingles, neither of us felt like exposing ourselves unnecessarily to avoidable disease, and the side effects seemed like a small price to pay for peace of mind.

Before heading down to the pharmacy later in the afternoon, we had spent most of the day just pottering about. Val did some shopping in the morning, while I tackled the first of a long series of exercises for my Spanish homework. Once that was finished, in the afternoon I had a video call with a friend in Houston then Val and I decided to head out into the fresh air to enjoy the autumn sunshine in the Demesne. We had a quick spin round the perimeter, which was looking particularly sparkling today, and the sun even had a little warmth in it, once we got out of the wind.

After a quick cup of coffee, we were down to the chemists’ to get injected and now we’re back and trying to decide whether to risk combining a beer with an immune response. I strongly suspect we will come down in favour of alcohol, so it’s time to browse through the fridge and see if anything suitable might be lurking inside. While I’m browsing, I’ll retrieve the rather delicious home made tomato curry which Val pulled together yesterday and which has been chilling overnight. I think that curries are always much better 24 hours after cooking, so it should be even better for dinner tonight than it was yesterday.

We are looking forward now to a few more low-key days, and I for one very much feel like I could do with them. How on earth did I ever manage to go to work?!

Today’s photos (click to enlarge)


Lovely leafy glade on the Demesne perimeter path	Still some brightness in the wildflower meadow

Distant view of the castle, looking like a proper castle should	*My favourite tree is still thriving! So glad it didn’t succumb to the potentially deadly Phytophtbhera* infection I was fretting about earlier in the year**

Callisthephus flowers on sale in SuperValu. I have never heard of or seen them before, but they looked quite nice

Armillaria (I don’t know which species) setting up home on the trunk of an otherwise-healthy looking old beech tree. I hope this fungal infestation doesn’t belie a deeper malaise