Ireland day 1537. Saturday 13 December 2025- Fifth Birthday

Today’s summary	I celebrated my birthday today, for the fifth time since coming to Ireland. Val bought me a new down jacket and a pair of waterproof trousers. Perfect for the Irish weather. Went into Dublin for a tapas lunch at “Table 45” restaurant. It was excellent. Spent the evening chatting to family around the world and then watching some TV. We were both very full from lunch so skipped dinner. Thanks to Val, my family and my friends, it was a great day.
Today’s weather	Overcast but mostly dry with just occasional drizzly rain. Strong south 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) (No GPX today)

Commentary

I could exclaim in disbelief that I this can’t really be the fifth birthday I have celebrated in Ireland. But that would be an easy device. Because of course it is. It doesn’t take a mathematical genius to work out that seeing as we moved here in September 2021, there must have been five December birthdays between then and now.

Anyway, today it was my birthday and what a wonderful day it was. We started with tea and porridge in bed then I opened my presents and cards. Val got me a down jacket and some overtrousers (much needed in Ireland, as we know from recent experience!) as well as some socks and some chocolate. Just perfect.

Once we’d breakfast-ed and present-ed, we got ourselves ready and caught a Dart into Dublin at about 12:30. Our destination was the “Table 45” restaurant in Hogan Place, central Dublin, where Val had booked us in for a tapas lunch at 1:30.

It was an easy journey – though the train was quite busy with Christmas shoppers heading into town. We arrived a few minutes early but were seated straight away and had ordered only a few moments later. Unusually for us, we started off with cocktails – Bloody Mary for me and Pisco Sour for Val – before eating. A real treat though my head is paying the price as I write this a few hours later. The large glass of Malbec probably didn’t help either.

Our tapas was cooked to perfection and the seven mini-dishes we ordered between us (plus of course arroz con leche as postre for me, afterwards) left us full enough not to need to eat for a day or two.

The service was swift and efficient and the restaurant was busy. So it had a good vibe and we lingered for a while, enjoying the atmosphere over our post-dinner coffee (or fresh mint tea in Val’s case).

Eventually it was time to go. We made our way slowly back to Pearse and caught a Dart to Malahide a few moments later. We were soon back in the flat, though I diverted briefly via SuperValu to pick up a few essentials before returning to the Casino.

We had a very relaxing evening after all these excitements. Val did a bit of knitting while I engaged birthday calls with the global family. After our massive lunch, neither of us felt very hungry so we skipped dinner and just had some of my birthday chocolates instead (well it is my birthday after all). Finally, we watched a bit of TV, featuring today a Netflix documentary about famous chefs.

A really good day and particular thanks to Val, my family and my friends, for making it so special.

Today’s photos (click to enlarge)


First things first. We are in the midst of a period of high sunspot activity at the moment and, as a result, last night there was supposed to be a good aurora visible all over Ireland. I went down to the estuary at about 10pm last night to see what I could see. And the answer was – precisely nothing.	The Ginger Man on Fenian Street. It’s said to be Dublin’s most decorated pub – and it was certainly looking very Christmassy as we walked past on the way to the restaurant. On the way back, in the middle of the afternoon, there was a queue of people waiting to get in going halfway round the block. It’s certainly doing something right

Cocktails – Pisco Sour for Val and Bloody Mary for me. It almost blew my socks off!	It was the fiftieth anniversary of the Dublin Walking Club earlier this year, and one of the longstanding members wrote this poem to commemorate the event. He circulated it with his Christmas cards and we received it this morning. I thought it was well written and rather touching.



Lunch! One of our favourite restaurants in Dublin