Ireland day 1184. Wednesday 25 December 2024- Xmas Mayo 5

Today’s summary	Christmas! Got up incredibly early (9:30am) and after breakfast drove to Old Head Beach for a Christmas Day swim and wood fired sauna on the beach. Mad but fabulous. Back to the cottage at about 1:30pm for Buck’s Fizz and turkey dinner. Quiz with Katie’s family and more dinner in the evening
Today’s weather	Bright with occasional drizzle, sun and rainbows. Moderate to strong south westerly wind. Appx 11c

Today’s overview location (The red mark shows the location of our swim)		Close-up location (The red mark shows where we swam) (No GPX today)

Commentary

It’s Christmas! And we’re all together with the family – great as it’s such a rarity.

So we were up bright-ish and early-ish to get the turkey in the oven (well others more skilled than me did that bit). Then after cooking and breakfast were despatched, we drove about 10 minutes to Old Head beach to join the thronged masses ”enjoying” a Christmas Day swim.

This is something I had sworn I would never ever do but all the rest of the family stripped off and jumped in, so I just had to follow suit. It was truly horrible but at least I didn’t die. And it was made a lot better because James had booked a wood-fired sauna right next to the beach for an hour to warm up in. Brilliant. And a totally amazing way to start Christmas Day.

Once back at the cottage about 1:30, the turkey had finished cooking so preprandial Buck’s Fizz was enjoyed. After that, dinner was polished off, accompanied by a glass of Irish red wine (bought many months ago at the Lusca vineyard). The dinner was excellent and the wine – well – unique.

Lunch lasted until 5pm then we went straight into an online Teams quiz with Katie’s family dotted around the world. We had prepared some questions on PowerPoint on the theme of “Festive Foliage” which went down well and even the technology worked! In the end we came third out of seven teams, which was pretty decent.

Now it’s time to open the stockings(;-)), break out the Christmas pudding and finish off dinner. Then maybe we will dig out a suitably light film to stream, which will finish off the festivities nicely

A perfect day.

Today’s photos (click to enlarge)


Sauna at the ready!	I am as cold as I look

Santa’s been!	We came third

It’s been a long wait and the Irish vintage was pretty decent	Delicious Tiptree Christmas pudding, courtesy of Fallon & Byrne

The family – minus Val (who took the photo – and went in up to her waist!)