Ireland day 1495. Saturday 01 November 2025- Centra Stroll

Today’s summary	Spent the morning sorting out a load of paperwork while Val made a curry for tomorrow’s dinner. After a snack lunch, we walked through the demesne and up the Swords road to the Centra shop. Stopped to but refreshments which we had on a seat overlooking the lagoon. For dinner found some more meatballs to finish off then watched a bit of Netflix and got an early night
Today’s weather	Dry and bright with long sunny intervals. Moderate westerly wind. Appx 10c

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): Centra after Admin

Commentary

Today, at last, it stopped raining. But as luck would have it, the arrival of better weather coincided with the arrival of a load of paperwork. So we put the temptations of the sunshine to one side for the morning, and set about dealing with it. I also had to do my VAT return so we decided to divide and conquer. I handled the paperwork, while Val did some shopping and pulled together a delicious smelling curry which we will have for dinner tomorrow.

Eventually we had done everything that needed doing so I rummaged about in the fridge to find some bits we could have for lunch. I managed to pull together enough to keep body and soul together for the next few hours, so we had that, sat back, enjoyed a coffee, and thought about how to deploy the remaining but rapidly diminishing afternoon daylight hours.

In the end, we plumped for an easy option. We headed out and went for a walk – which as it is our go-to activity most days, probably doesn’t come as too much of a surprise.

Today’s route took us up through the castle Demesne than out onto the Swords Road at the far side. From there we walked out through Seabury to the Yellow Walls Road. The great attraction of this particular walk is that there is a Centra store where the Estuary Road meets the Yellow Walls Road and there is a machine in there where you can get a decent cup of coffee. We had however to economise on snacks as everything – particularly crisps – has suddenly got so expensive now. We shared a packet of nuts instead, which seemed like better value.

Armed with sustenance, we found a seat in the park on the opposite side of the road and relaxed briefly to enjoy it while admiring the view over to Seafield. We didn’t hang around for too long though, as it was windy and quite cold. And I was wearing my shorts, of course.

The rest of the walk back along the coast was scenic and made more enjoyable because the path has recently been improved. So it’s nowhere near as muddy and flooded as it used to be. It was also nice to see this year’s cygnets almost fully fledged now (see banner image at the top).

Finally, back in the flat, we treated ourselves to a cup of tea and then, once the sun was over the yardarm, a glass of Noilly Prat, which is our favoured vermouth at the moment.

For dinner, we discovered that we hadn’t actually finished off the meatballs yesterday, so we had the rest of those while enjoying our alcohol and watching a bit of TV.

Let’s hope this drier weather lasts another day or two, as it’s really quite nice!

Today’s photos (click to enlarge)


Val in her home territory (the Castle grounds, where she has worked on “Wonderlights” in the past)	This green path across one of the meadows in the Demesne was so tempting we just had to walk down it

Heliotropes reappearing on the banks of the Gaybrook stream. I reckon some of them at least will be flowering by Christmas. Our fifth Heliotrope season here in Ireland	Telephoto view across the lagoon to Seafield House, taken from the seat where we had our Centra refreshments



I can’t decide if Autumn is early or late this year. But I usually calculate that the first weekend of November – which is now – is when the colours are at their best. It looks like these trees in the Demesne still have quite a way to go, though