Ireland day 1195. Sunday 05 January 2025- Wet Drumcondra

Today’s summary	Took Val to the airport early, to catch a 9am flight. She’s off to London for a few days, back on Thursday. I returned to the flat then went out again to join a Walking Club excursion in the rain from Drumcondra to Ashtown. The rest of the group stopped there but I returned to Drumcondra via the Tolka River Park and Botanic Gardens where I got lunch. A quiet evening afterwards.
Today’s weather	Continuous heavy rain all day. Moderate north easterly wind. Appx 4c

Today’s overview location (The green 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): Drumcondra Ashtown Botanics wet DWC

Commentary

It feels like it’s been a long day today.

Things kicked off with the alarm at 6:15 am, signalling that it was time to get up and head off to the airport. Having just finished at Wonderlights, Val is taking the opportunity to return to London for a few days to catch up with friends. She’s back on Thursday.

Once she was safely dropped off outside terminal 2 in time for her 9am flight, I returned to the flat and – slightly guiltily – went back to bed. I didn’t sleep, but I used the time to read a bit more of the book I bought in Louisburgh over Christmas. It’s about a retired journalist who decided to motorbike from the south to the north of the Americas, and it’s quite interesting.

Just before 11, I left the flat again and made my way out to Drumcondra on the train, to join up with Club friends for a walk along the Royal Canal. I used my free travel card to get there and I must say it felt good to be getting some value from all the tax I have paid, at last.

It started raining last night and it hasn’t really stopped since, so the bold band of four who set out from Cross Guns Bridge were soon pretty much soaked through. Fortunately I had several layers of waterproofing with me, so I didn’t suffer too badly. But nevertheless the rain, wind and cold made for pretty soggy going.

As we squelched west along the canal towpath, we passed under the bridge where William Hamilton in 1843 had his eureka moment and realised that i²=j²=k²=ijk=-1 and thus discovered quaternions. They find practical application in robotics, apparently.

We were soon at Ashtown where the other three in the party decided that the temptations of the Douglas and Kaldi coffee shop were irresistible. But I doggedly pressed on, determined to get the distance and pace up a bit before calling it a day.

So I walked down to the Tolka River Park and followed that all the way to Glasnevin. I took a short cut through the cemetery to the Botanic Gardens via the rear gate, and immediately sought out the refuge of the Curvilinear Range – my favourite bit of the Mediterranean transplanted to Dublin. Ahh! Those bougainvilleas..

It was pretty quiet in the gardens – on account of the post-Christmas return to work blues and the poor weather I guess. So there was plenty of room in the café (usually it’s packed at weekends) and I treated myself to a rather nice roast beef lunch. After all, I need to build myself up while Val is away!

Once I’d eaten, I walked back down Botanic Avenue to Drumcondra station, and completed my loop walk. A train came along within ten minutes and an equally swift transfer in Connolly saw me back in Malahide in double-quick time.

I spent most of the evening in the flat, watching more travel videos and – as twelfth night is imminent – taking down the Christmas decorations. That’s always a bit of a melancholy activity, as it seems there is still quite a lot of winter gloom ahead of us, before the brighter days of spring arrive at last.

Today’s photos (click to enlarge)


Derelict mills or silos of some sort, on the banks of the canal near the start of our walk at Cross Guns Bridge	Three-quarters of our group were seduced by the easy temptations of the Ashtown coffee shop and elected to stop there..

..leaving just me to plod on through the Tolka Park and the Glasnevin Cemetery and on to the Botanics	O to be where the bougainvilleas bloom!

Mmmmm. Ten thousand calories but I felt like I had earned it	Welcoming train at Drumcondra ready to start my journey back to Malahide

A potted history of quaternions in one plaque