Ireland day 1225. Tuesday 04 February 2025- Bottom Of Class!

Today’s summary	First thing this morning, I went up to the Avoca café by the Castle for coffee and a catch up with a friend from the Walking Club who’s been ill recently. Spent the rest of the morning finishing off my Spanish homework ready for tonight. Then I dealt with some admin matters, made a couple of phone calls, and did the shopping. In the evening had to go into class early for extra tuition because my last homework had so many mistakes..
Today’s weather	Heavy rain overnight but then bright and clear for most of the rest of the day. Moderate westerly wind. Appx 8c

Today’s overview location (The grey 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): Meeting up with Garry

Commentary

A bit like yesterday, today has been relatively quiet, and to kick it off very much on the right foot, I had the had the rare opportunity to sleep right through until 9am this morning.

But once I’d stirred myself into life and had a cup of tea, I was pretty much straight out of the front door and off up to the Castle. I’d arranged to meet a friend from the walking club for a coffee at Avoca. It was good to see him and to catch up on the news, as he’s been unwell recently and out of circulation for a few weeks.

Once we had downed gallons of coffee and put the world to rights, we went our separate ways and I made my way back through the sunny and sparkling Demesne to the flat.

It’s Spanish class at Portmarnock tonight, and I still hadn’t finished the homework we had been sent while I was away in Oslo last week. So my next task was to try and get that polished off. Which I duly did, but I’m still finding it hard.

After a light lunch, I did some more admin work and made a few phone calls. Including briefly to my friend in Texas. Next on the agenda was the shopping. Val is back from her travels tomorrow and I need to have some “proper” food in stock for when she gets back (i.e. no more pop-pop meals!).

And now I have to steel myself for my Spanish class. The last lot of homework I did wasn’t entirely satisfactory, I’m afraid. In fact Maria, our teacher, told me that I had made so many mistakes, that I needed to go in early tonight for an extra session of remedial tuition! Perhaps I don’t know my “ser“s from my “estar“s as well as I thought I did. So now I am officially bottom of the class, which is a novel and not altogether welcome experience. Anyway, you just never stop learning, it seems – even if it goes get progressively harder and slower as you get older!

Today’s photos (click to enlarge)


The castle looking splendid overlooking the vivid green demesne	View down what I call “Tree Fern Alley” from the signpost

A lone jogger – at least twenty years older than me – zoomed past me and disappeared into the distance as I ambled along!	Looking a bit further down Tree Fern Alley

Text here	Text here

The Demesne really was looking fantastic today. Blue sky, vivid green lawns, hardly anyone about. If it was twenty degrees warmer, it would be perfect!