Ireland day 1436. Wednesday 03 September 2025- Jelling

Today’s summary	Spent the morning finishing making the blackberry jelly which we started yesterday. It tastes good. A light lunch then took the train (delayed because of a power cut at Malahide station) into Dublin. Wanted to visit some new areas and also to do some shopping. Largely unsuccessful on the shopping though we did manage to get some Valentia Island vermouth. We also visited a travel agents before returning to Malahide. Beef casserole and vermouth for dinner.
Today’s weather	Heavy overnight rain then showery with occasional sun most of the rest of the day. Light westerly wind. Appx 16c

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): Dublin Distractions

Commentary

Making blackberry jelly is a two stage process. The first stage was completed yesterday, with the cooked blackberries and crab-apples left to strain through a jelly bag overnight. The second stage was today. This involved adding sugar and lemon juice to the fruit juice that had strained through overnight.

Once I’d done that, the fruit and sugar solution just had to be boiled up until setting point was reached (as defined by the infallible wrinkle test). This was reached surprisingly quickly – in fact after only 15 minutes, it was starting to set very firmly. So probably 10 minutes boiling would have been enough. The jelly was decanted into jars and I ended up with the grand total of 4 small-ish jars after all that effort. But thankfully it does taste rather good.

By this stage it was time for lunch and Val pulled together a super-healthy salmon tomato and grape salad.

In the afternoon we went into Dublin. The journey in was quite eventful. Rail services were temporarily suspended because of a power cut at Malahide station. So we tried to get a bus instead – but the 13:29 H2 never canes, and the slightly later 42 was too full to get on. Anyway after spending all this time faffing about, the trains had re-started. So we eventually made it into Dublin on a diesel, about an hour late.

Once in town, we wanted to have a look round some “new” (for us) areas of Dublin and do some shopping. So we had a look at The Convention Centre and some of the posh shops tucked away behind the Westbury hotel. Our shopping aspirations were mostly unsuccessful- though we did manage to find an off-licence selling Valentia Island vermouth. We bought a bottle, as we had heard good things about this new arrival on the drinks scene (we tried it this evening and I can confirm it is good).

Before returning to Pearse to catch a train back to Malahide, we called in at a travel agents in Dawson Street then pressed on to the station. We were back in the flat by 7pm, by which time we were both starving. So Val reheated some of the same beef casserole that I’d had yesterday, and we were soon tucking into a tasty and nutritious dinner. Enhanced of course by the vermouth!

Today’s photos (click to enlarge)


Sugary boiling in progress	Wrinkle test after 15 minutes – probably a bit too well set, even by then. There must have been a lot of pectin in that fruit

One of the disused docks adjacent to the Epic Centre, and currently cut off from Liffey and Canal	We took a look at the Convention Centre, a bit further downstream from the Epic

Never having been in the Convention Centre, we thought we would take a sneak look in the foyer. It’s an impressive place	The Westbury Hotel – tucked away in a side road off Grafton Street. I’d never noticed either it, or the boutique shops which neighbour it

Straight from the west coast. We were on Valentia Island almost exactly a year ago, so our purchase today seemed particularly apposite. And it’s nice on the rocks, too