Ireland day 1288. Tuesday 08 April 2025- Odd Jobs and Sun

Today’s summary	Spent the morning doing some admin then after a lunch of biscuits(!) we went on a walk round the demesne. Afterwards I had a very brief phone call with a friend currently in Chile and we went to the Garden Centre to get some potting compost. Replanted the balcony plants then listened to some podcasts and had delicious chili con carne for dinner. Another episode of “Mad Men” later.
Today’s weather	Dry bright and full sun all day. Light north easterly wind. Appx 13c

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): Sunny Demesne anticlockwise

Commentary

The spell of good weather continued today. Unfortunately though we couldn’t enjoy it this morning as we had some admin tasks to complete.

Cards to be sent following last week’s events; and then the travel insurance policies to be renewed. Both should be straightforward jobs but they weren’t – the former because you have to buy the cards, buy the stamps, think what to write, then go to the post box. The latter because, having so many surgical interventions lately (hips and skin lesions), and being over the age of 65 now, I have to go through complex extra hoops in order to get insurance at a decent price. But both the cards and insurance are important, and the tasks were done willingly. The washing though, which we did in parallel, was completed with rather less enthusiasm I have to concede.

By this time we felt in need of a coffee – which I duly made using my new Nespresso machine – and which we supplemented with a couple of biscuits. In fact we supplemented it with so many biscuits that we decided to call it lunch. Shocking. Thank goodness nobody knows.

Once we had digested our carbs and caffeine, we did manage to get out for a quick walk in the bright sun round the demesne. It was looking beautiful. On our return, I had a quick call with a friend of mine who is in Chile at the moment on a hiking holiday, and Val went to the shops. Once she was back, we drove round to The Garden House garden centre and bought some potting compost and a couple of new balcony plants.

Afterwards, I went out onto the balcony to sort out our various pot plants and generally tidy things up, and Val made a chilli con carne. Finally, over a cup of tea, we listened to a couple of podcasts then enjoyed the chilli turned out to be stupendous. The evening was rounded off in the same way as all the rest recently have been – with a couple of episodes of “Mad Men”. We shall be bereft when it finishes!

Today’s photos (click to enlarge)


Cricket pitch looking in fine shape..	..and so it should, given the amount of year-round TLC it receives! (NB I understand the Internationals are coming here again, after a year off, this September)

The castle just visible through the trees. Once all the leaves come out, it will almost disappear	A neat row of “H”‘s on the GAA pitch



A novel view of the southbound Drogheda to Dun Laoghaire train – I got it by peering over a hedge into the cutting running south from the station alongside the GAA pitch