Ireland day 1538. Sunday 14 December 2025- Chesterfield Avenue

Today’s summary	Val was working at the Museum all day and I went into Dublin to join a Club walk round Phoenix Park. Good to see everyone and the weather actually stayed dry. Had a look at the Farmleigh Christmas Market then walked on to finish the walk at Ashtown. Caught the train back to Malahide via Connolly. For dinner, had a glass of Malbec and finished off the beef casserole.
Today’s weather	Overcast with occasional drizzle. Moderate southerly wind. Appx 13c

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): Farmleigh via Chesterfield DWC

Commentary

Val hasn’t been working at the museum for the last couple of weeks, but was called in to do an all-day shift today. So we were up relatively early to get breakfast and make packed lunches, so she could be away for her lengthy commute to work (all of 2 minutes) promptly at 9:15 am.

That left me with a solitary day, but it actually worked out OK because there was a Club walk in Phoenix Park scheduled, which I knew would occupy most of the daylight hours.

So, shortly after Val had left, I packed my rucksack and walked over to the station to catch a DART into town. After a quick transfer onto a Lúas at Connolly, I was at Heuston in plenty of time for the 12:00 noon walk start time.

There were a dozen of us on the walk today – although two dropped out early on to go to the pub (!) and as usual there was lots of chat to catch up on. But there was a sad backdrop to the excursion, as we learned that the Club Chair, Anne Dooley, died suddenly last night. A real shock to all of us.

Despite the sadness, I think we all enjoyed the walk. Our destination today was Farmleigh, and we got there by walking more or less straight down Chesterfield Avenue. Right down the middle of Phoenix Park. It’s difficult not to be cheered by Phoenix Park. It’s such a wonderful, wide open, space.

Eventually we made it to Farmleigh, where we had our lunches at some picnic tables under the cypress trees. Afterwards, we went further out and had a look round the Farmleigh Christmas market. Lots of jams and candles for sale. I just treated myself to a slice of Christmas cake (it was actually very good).

By this stage, it felt like the end of the afternoon wasn’t too far off. If we didn’t get a move on soon, it would be dark before we finished. So while the others spent a little longer looking round the market (and then retired to the pub!), I decided to quit while I was ahead and walked round the edge of Phoenix Park to Ashtown station.

It took me about half an hour to get to Ashtown and when I got there, I discovered that there was a 20 minute wait for the next Connolly-bound train. So I thought I’d get a coffee while I waited at the adjacent “Douglas and Kaldi” café – rendezvous point for so many Club walks in recent years. But to my horror I discovered it had shut down – completely. I don’t know when or why. Anyway luckily I had a plan B and crossed the road to SuperValu and got a coffee from the machine over there. So my coffee-craving was met, but the closure of the café was still a sad loss.

Once at Connolly I had another 20 minutes to wait for a train, but it went quite quickly and I was back in the flat by about 5:30. Val was already home so we opened a bottle of Malbec and toasted absent friends. Then for dinner, I reheated the last of the beef casserole, which we had with some rice while watching some light TV comedy on Netflix.

Quite a momentous day, really. RIP Anne.

Today’s photos (click to enlarge)


Ticket hall at Heuston station. It actually looks quite magnificent in this photo. I’d never really seen Heuston in this light before	With the club outside the Áras an Uachtaráin, complete with reindeer and Santa (and a rather incongruous bin-bag of “presents” at his feet)

Farmleigh Christmas market	The broken-down bus was badged as “zero emission”. Well that would certainly have been true this afternoon

Sadly – closed! What will the Walking Club do??	Plan B. Farmleigh Christmas cake and SuperValu coffee on Ashtown Station “down” line platform. Not a bad substitute

Raw horsepower in a rare conjunction at Connolly station this evening