Ireland day 1105. Monday 07 October 2024- Another Day

Today’s summary	Another relatively quiet day in Malahide. Made some travel plans in the morning then I walked over the hill and down to the coast, discovering a new path on the way, while Val went to the castle for a meeting about Wonderlights. Home made Seeni Sambol buns for dinner
Today’s weather	Dry and sunny almost all day. Moderate southerly wind. Appx 16c

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): Hill and Coast with extra bit

Commentary

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

I still have some lingering symptoms from my recent shingles episode – tingly fingers in my left hand, and a few spots – but they are all disappearing gradually. My chin operation also seems to be healing though I’m still awaiting the results of the histology. I’m assuming no news is good news on that one. Anyway, the upshot is that although I’m feeling orders of magnitude better than I was a few weeks ago, I still think it’s prudent to keep things a bit low key for a while longer. Val, I have to say, is showing great tolerance as I faff around and continue to be generally more indolent than normal.

So the morning was spent in a suitably subdued manner – making a few travel plans and doing some washing. Once that was out of the way, Val was called up to the Castle for a meeting about Wonderlights: amazingly her fourth season working there will be starting next month. While she was out, I took the opportunity to do my usual “hill and coast” walk but this time added on a short extension through Portmarnock at the southern end. I discovered an unexpected new path while I was down there – which, although it was only 100 metres long, made me disproportionately excited. You can see it in all its truncated splendour in the featured image at the top of this blog.

I resisted the temptations of the Spar shop on the Velvet Strand as I passed by, as my diet is in full swing now. Well at least it has been since I restarted it yesterday morning after a month of over-indulgence. I dropped into the shops in Malahide on the way back, and picked up a few essentials before returning, laden with goodies like toilet paper, to the flat.

This evening, Val has made some experimental “Seeni Sambol” buns – a vegetarian dish featuring red onions and cabbage – and they look delicious. So I’m finishing for today at this point, so I can go and give her some assistance before putting feet up again and watching “Chef’s Table” on Netflix. It’s bland but strangely comforting – just what I think we need!

Today’s photos (click to enlarge)


Curious double-bullseye fairy circle up near Paddy’s Hill. The original fungal infection must have become reactivated, somehow. There were a few more like this on the playing fields. The outer ring is about 4 metres across	On the top of Paddy’s Hill, with Lambay on the horizon by my right ear

The sandy path to the beach near the Portmarnock golf hotel. I like it because it makes me feel like I am on a seaside holiday	The end of the holiday path as it reaches the seaside

The tide was in on the Velvet Strand so I had to cling to the seawall at the northern end to escape to the Coast Road without paddling	Looking south over the high tide. Too hazy to see The Sugarloaf today

Hallowe’en is a big thing here in Ireland – and we are approaching our fourth!