Ireland day 1428. Tuesday 26 August 2025- Catchup

Today’s summary	Had a relaxing day with Val at the flat. Started raining in the afternoon just after we had decided to go on a walk. Once it had stopped, we set out on our usual circular stroll over the hill and down to the coast at Portmarnock. Fish finger curry and a nice glass of Lebanese wine in the evening.
Today’s weather	Bright and sunny in the morning then showery rain in the afternoon. Strong south westerly wind. Appx 19c

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): Familiar Hill and Coast recovery walk

Commentary

It’s been a busy few days travelling round the UK – and especially so for Val. A few days of recovery with a bit less pressure were definitely called for and today was our first opportunity to put our feet up for a bit.

As there was nothing specific in our diaries today, and as it was a nice sunny morning, we got the dining chairs onto the balcony and had breakfast – coffee and porridge – out there. It’s so rare to be able to sit outside here that we have to take advantage of the good weather whenever we can.

The time passed by quickly and before we knew it, breakfast seemed to have morphed into lunch. At that point, Val made some tasty snacks of dried tomatoes on mini-crackers to keep us going until dinner time.

Once we had eaten, we felt like a short walk would be in order so we got ready to go out, at which point the heavens opened and it started to pour. Anyway, it turned out to be just a passing shower, so we were eventually able to get away at about 4:30.

It was a very enjoyable outing, and everything was looking refreshed by the shower. The hedgerows we full of mellow fruitfulness as we passed along – with the blackberries seeming especially abundant this year.

We paused for the obligatory refreshments at Portmarnock, which for me being on a bit of a health-kick at the moment, consisted of a banana and an energy drink. We sat for a while on the beach, but the sun went in and the wind came out and it started to get cold. So we upped-sticks and set off back to Malahide along the coast.

When we got back, I took a look at the Spanish homework I need to finish before tomorrow’s lesson while Val rustled up dinner. In the end I decided to put off doing the lions share of the homework until tomorrow while Val rather more successfully pulled together our current favourite dinner of fish finger curry with red wine. A delicious treat for a Tuesday evening. Now just time for a couple of episodes of “The Windsors” to round off a perfect day of recovery.

Today’s photos (click to enlarge)


Rain pouring down over our balcony shortly after lunch	The cricket stands up in the Demesne are coming along nicely. The first match is scheduled for 17 September

Happy on the Hill (Paddy’s)	Solitary jackdaw keeping an eye on easy pickings outside Tesco from his perch in Malahide Green

The newly-refurbished path to the road from our apartment block is almost finished and is looking good. According to the engineer who’s doing the work, it should be open for us to walk on again tomorrow	We tried out the bottle of Lebanese wine from Gibney’s tonight. Not as good as the best Musar, but pretty decent for a change

Abstemious snack on the beach!