Ireland day 1450. Wednesday 17 September 2025- Preparing

Today’s summary	Spent most of the day washing, cleaning, tidying, shopping and cooking in advance of the arrival of some friends tomorrow, and a busy few weeks to follow afterwards.  In the morning, Val went on a run and I did the hoovering.   In the afternoon, we went to Tesco Clare Hall and then did some cooking (Val) or more shopping (me).   Watched some light TV in the evening
Today’s weather	Heavy rain most of the night but dried up in the morning, remaining overcast.   Light 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) (No GPX today)

Commentary

We do enjoy having friends visiting us, and the prospect of having people to stay does have the huge benefit of making us try and get organise and generally tidy up.   But – it is hard work.

So this morning we allowed ourselves the transient luxury of a brief lie-in (with tea, of course) before starting the day’s preparations.   First thing, Val decided to get some exercise before tackling the jobs, so went on a run around the demesne.   While she was out, I did the recycling, got rid of the rubbish, hoovered the flat and put some washing on.

After some coffee and grapes (liberated, like the nectarines, from our room in the Merrion hotel) for lunch, we gathered together half a dozen plastic carrier bags and jumped into the Trusty Yaris to do our shopping.   You have to think in advance and getting everything you will need to keep everyone fed and watered for a few days does take some planning.

We decided that Tesco Clare Hall would be our best bet for getting everything we would need, so we set off down the R107 and seemed to be there in next to no time, despite the roadworks in Donaghmede.   We parked up, grabbed a massive trolley, and headed in.

We did indeed manage to get most of the things on our list – except, surprisingly, red lentils and onion bhajis.   Anyway, we managed to pick them up later.   Weighed down with our shopping, the Yaris delivered us back to Malahide without fuss and we eventually managed to transport it all back up to the flat.

We had another snack – sardines on toast – to help rebuild our strength, then set about the next stage in our preparations.   Val tackled a huge mound of cooking (my contribution was to do the washing up) then I went out into Malahide to get the things that Tesco inexplicably didn’t have in stock.   Plus – we needed to get three more wine-glasses and I eventually managed to find some going for a euro each from the St Vincent’s charity shop (actually – as far as I know – there was nowhere else where I might have found them – Malahide is sadly lacking a domestic homewares shop).

I also spent some time working on this website, but eventually everything was bought, hoovered, cleaned, tidied, cooked and washed so we finally relaxed with a light dinner of charcuterie, and kicked back to watch some TV.

Stand by for lift-off!

Today’s photos (click to enlarge)

The Malahide cricket season has officially started!   I have no idea why it is held so late in the year, when the weather is unpredictable, but at least today the rain held off	Delicious dinner! (And I think is Mediterranean-compatible too!)
Domestic goddess! Need I say more!!

Interactive map

(No map today)

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