Ireland day 1486. Thursday 23 October 2025- Almuerzo
| Today’s summary | Walked out to South Kensington to meet a (Spanish) former colleague from the Natural History Museum in for lunch in a tapas bar. An interesting conversation then walked back via Hyde Park. Had a Charlie Bighams fish pie for dinner then met up with family in the evening. Waited up for Val to arrive on an extremely delayed flight from Dublin to Stansted | ||||
| Today’s weather | Heavy rain overnight then showery all day. Moderate northerly wind. Appx 10c | ||||
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| Today’s overview location (The blue mark shows the location of my route) |
Close-up location (The blue line shows where I walked) (Click button below to download GPX of today’s walk as recorded, or see interactive map at bottom with elevations corrected): Almuerzo with Javier |
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Commentary
A very interesting day today, as it turned out. The main event I had scheduled was lunch with a former colleague from the Natural History Museum, and who I hadn’t seen for several years. So as soon as I’d had breakfast and several cups of tea, I set off to walk across town to meet him in a tapas bar (“Brindisa”) in South Kensington.
The first challenge I encountered was the weather. It had just started to rain (again) and it turned out that as well as requiring top to toe waterproof clothing, the shoes I was wearing had almost zero grip on the wet pavements. So I had to pick my way carefully along the concrete all the way to the restaurant, lest I should slide and end up upside down. Most unbecoming.
Anyway I eventually made it in one piece and we had an enjoyable lunch. My colleague had just written a book on Mars so we had an interesting discussion on extraterrestrial geology. He is also Spanish, así que podría practicar hablando español con el.
After lunch, I walked up to the museum itself and had a look at the excellent new Evolution Garden, at the front of the museum alongside Cromwell Rd. I really enjoyed checking out this new facility, and judging by the number of people there, it’s already proving to be a hit with visitors.
From there, I walked back across through the city centre, making a big detour via Hyde Park and Mayfair. London was looking busy and prosperous – rather confounding the doom and gloom we read in the newspapers. Despite the showers which struck from time to time, all in all, it was a very good enjoyable walk.
In the evening, I got a Charlie Bigham’s fish pie for dinner, then met up with our elder son for a couple of drinks. At this point, Val was supposed to join us from her evening flight from Dublin to Stansted. But unfortunately her departure was delayed several hours (amazingly just a few minutes less than the three hour delay which triggers an automatic €300 compensation payout) so she had a very tortuous coach and bus journey into town and didn’t make it until after 3am. I felt partly responsible for this as she had never wanted to fly into Stansted in the first place, and always prefers to use Gatwick. But I’d persuaded her that the flight times to Stansted were much more convenient and that everything would be fine. Unfortunately it wasn’t!
Anyway, alls well that ends well. Hopefully tomorrow will be equally interesting, but perhaps a bit less stressful.
Today’s photos (click to enlarge)
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| Eros keeping an eye on things in a wet Piccadilly Circus this morning | A self explanatory icon in Piccadilly |
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| Apsley House – home of the Duke of Wellington (who was, of course, born in Dublin and schooled in Drogheda | My lunchtime companion has just authored this fascinating – if niche – book |
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| The new Evolution Garden outside the front of the Natural History Museum is impressive, and really well done. It’s also clearly very popular | I spotted this in a Bentley showroom as I was walking back through Mayfair. Every growing family needs one |
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| Albert as impassive as ever, as the world passes by | |
Interactive map
(Elevations corrected at GPS Visualizer: Assign DEM elevation data to coordinates )
Max elevation: 123 m
Min elevation: -2 m
Total climbing: 389 m
Total descent: -276 m
Total time: 04:24:16
You can read earlier and later days’ blogs below
Ireland day 100X. XXXday 0X Month 2025- Descriptor
| Today’s summary | Text here | ||||
| Today’s weather | Text here | ||||
| 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): Hills of Howth walk |
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Commentary
Text here
Today’s photos (click to enlarge)
| Text here | Text here |
| Text here | Text here |
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| Text here | |
Interactive map
(Elevations corrected at GPS Visualizer: Assign DEM elevation data to coordinates )
Max elevation: 123 m
Min elevation: -2 m
Total climbing: 389 m
Total descent: -276 m
Total time: 04:24:16
You can read earlier and later days’ blogs below
Previous day’s blog
Next day’s blog
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