Ireland day 1385. Monday 14 July 2025- Showers and Shore

Today’s summary	Val made some admin calls first thing then after breakfast we walked out along the coast, past Centra, towards Swords at the Mountgorry services. Came back along the busy Swords road, dodging the showers. Stopped in the Pavilion café in the Demesne for shelter and refreshments before returning to the flat. Fish finger curry for dinner and some light TV afterwards.
Today’s weather	Sunshine and showers. Strong south westerly wind. Appx 18c

Today’s overview location (The blue mark shows the location of our route)		Close-up location (The blue 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): Showers and Shore

Commentary

Val and I both remarked this morning that some of our favourite days in Ireland have been those when we haven’t got anything in the diary. Yesterday was a bit like that, and we enjoyed it, so we decided to repeat the experience today.

Overnight there had been a rain shower so the washing I’d left on the balcony overnight to dry was still wet this morning. Which was a bit of a pity as I had been planning to wear it today. Anyway, the laundry emergency was eventually sorted and we got up and had some porridge for breakfast.

Val had to make a couple of phone calls – to the bank and the Sky TV: you know, the sort of calls that should take at most five minutes but because of the quirks of the call centre systems, end up taking hours.

Anyway eventually she was finished and I had finished by daydeaming about imaginary railway trips around Europe. So we decided to start our leisurely day in earnest.

In reality, as we didn’t have anything particular in mind, we just decided to head out for a walk along the lagoon coast in the general direction of Swords, and see where we got to. Along the way, we soon found ourselves at Centra where we got some drinks to enjoy, under rapidly darkening skies (the weather seemed to have changed from summer to autumn overnight), in the nearby park.

We pressed on and eventually made our way to the Mountgorry service area, by way of the business park. Along the way, we did have to take refuge under a tree to escape the worst of one of the numerous heavy showers which periodically soaked us as we made our way along.

The walk back along the Swords Road wasn’t particularly enjoyable as it’s both noisy and busy, but at least it’s fairly direct. So we soon found ourselves in the sanctuary of the Demesne. We scooted on as far as the Pavilion café at which point it started raining again so we just had to stop in and get a piece of cake to keep us going. Very nice.

Finally, the sun came out again so we used the weather window to hurry back to the flat and hunker down for the evening. Val’s making a fish finger curry for dinner (I’ve been to told to keep out of the way until clearing-up time) so until then I’m going to busy myself uncorking a nice bottle of wine (or rather more accurately, unscrewing it) and deciding what to watch on the TV this evening. Maybe some YouTube videos of great railways journeys of the world, perhaps? Though I sense that might not be universally popular.

Today’s photos (click to enlarge)


Even thought it was much (maybe 10c) cooler today than yesterday, it was still just about T-shirt and shorts weather	Heading through the small copse at the western edge of the Seatown / Estuary Road park. One of very few woodland paths that I know in Ireland

Along the Broadmeadow lagoon coast, with overhead signs of storms to come	I love these pillowy-clouds. Apparently the crisp edges are a clear sign that heavy rain is imminent

In the Pavilion. I very much enjoyed the ice-cream. it is supposed to be summer, after all	My favourite sequoia, hanging out by the cricket pitch

Japanese wineberries (Rubus phoenicolasius) growing by the roadside in the Swords business park. Apparently they are edible, though I didn’t feel inclined to give them a try (especially as they were right at dog-level)