Ireland day 1262. Thursday 13 March 2025- Guests Day 2

Today’s summary	A quiet day in and around Malahide castle with our friends. Dinner out at “The Greenery”. A nice day, especially with the good weather, but a bit of a cloud cast by some news we received in the early afternoon
Today’s weather	Bright, sunny and dry. Practically no wind. Appx 7c

Today’s overview location (The blue mark shows the location of our route)		Close-up location (The blue line shows where we walked) (No GPX today)

Commentary

We’ve been very much enjoying having friends to stay for the last couple of days. The weather has been cold but dry and sunny – and not too windy – which has made everything very pleasant. Ireland has been looking beautiful and I think our guests will leave with a great impression of the country.

So today, after a relaxed start with bacon blaas for breakfast – which Val magicked up out of seemingly nowhere this morning – we decided to stay local and have a good exploration of Malahide Castle and the demesne. We slowly made our way up to the castle with a trundle round the highlights of the demesne en route. By the time we got there it was – amazingly – already time for refreshments. So we dropped into Avoca for a cup of coffee and a piece of Millionaire’s Shortbread.

Afterwards, Val pulled a few strings and managed to get us onto a tour of the castle – which, as always, was interesting and entertaining. It’s the second time I’ve been round, though of course Val knows most of the people who work there – and their anecdotes – from her job at the Museum. Then we slotted in a quick look at the Talbot Botanic Garden and learned some of the intriguing history of Milo Talbot – the last Lord of Malahide Castle.

We rounded off the day’s explorations with a light salad lunch in the flat, then a couple of hours relaxation.

For dinner, we drove a short way down the coast to The Greenery restaurant, where we had an early supper.

It was an enjoyable day, but tinged with a little unhappiness as Val and I learned at around lunchtime that one our oldest joint friends from University days died in the early hours of this morning. We had enjoyed 44 years of happy friendship and have many happy memories to cherish. But still a very sad time. RIP Graham.

Today’s photos (click to enlarge)


In the ancient main keep of the castle – some of the walls of this room date back to the original 12th-century castle	The giant dining room – with Minstrels Gallery above

The portrait room – actually it’s tiny, but the camera distorts it and makes the room look much bigger than it actually is.	Outside Malahide castle

I love this acacia tree, outside the Talbot botanic garden. It’s always one of the first to flower in the spring, and it brings a welcome dash of colour to the garden	In the butterfly house!

Graham (on the left) enjoying Irish hospitality in Temple Bar, Dublin, February 2022