Ireland day 1560. Monday 05 January 2026- Changes

Today’s summary	Another cold bright day. Spent the morning doing some packing for an imminent move (see main blog) then after a snack lunch walked out to Centra to get some fresh air and enjoy a brief refreshment stop overlooking the lagoon. Had the rest of yesterday’s curry, with some soup, for dinner then watched Netflix on the iPad
Today’s weather	Cold dry and sunny again. Light Westerly wind. App 2c

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): Cold again to Centra

Commentary

Some major changes are afoot with the Dawson Irish contingent.

We’ve been spending a lot of time lately – and especially over the Christmas break – thinking about how we want to spend the next period of our lives. After a great deal of soul searching, we have come to realise that we want to be a bit closer to our family. That means we have decided that for the time being we are going to move back to the UK – both so we are a bit nearer to our Oxfordshire family, and so we will have easier access to the Canadian branch through more frequent flights to Vancouver.

We are going to be leaving with very mixed feelings. We love it here and have made it out home for five winters now. The people have been wonderful and Ireland is incredibly beautiful with a huge diversity of scenery packed into a small country. We will miss all that but are looking forward to being able to get more involved in our families’ lives.

We have set ourselves the target of leaving Ireland at the end of January and have worked out a timeline of trips back and forth, in order to transport everything over to the other side of the Irish Sea. Our first venture east will come on Wednesday this week, when we are taking the Trusty Yaris across to the UK on the ferry, packed with all our bulkier belongings like the TV. We will be taking them to a storage company in the south of England for safe keeping until we figure out what our longer term plans will be.

So today, after tea and yogurt for breakfast, we started the process. The TV and our new chair were dismantled and loaded into the car. Along with all the other big items, like the printer and folding bike, which we want to keep but couldn’t carry on a plane.

So now the flat is starting to look a bit empty, and the Yaris is looking a bit saggy on its suspension. We have decided to make it a slow but steady repatriation to the UK – this is just part one of what will be a multifaceted logistical exercise. We’re not trying to do it all in one go, and have some flights planned too.

Anyway, packing took all morning and a bit of the afternoon too. Midway through we had a snack lunch and I also fitted in a quick visit to the accountant. Eventually we had done as much as we reasonable could, so decided to go out to get some fresh air.

We ended up just doing our favourite “Centra” walk and getting some coffees to enjoy on the lagoon shore. We also treated ourselves to some mince pie flavoured pastels de nata which we nothing if not unusual – but actually surprisingly nice.

It was cold again today – and I’m not sure I have really warmed up properly from yesterday. So we only paused for about five minutes to enjoy our drinks and cakes, before heading off again back along the shore. Besides, it was almost night by this time and we didn’t really want to be stumbling about in the dark trying to dodge the mud and puddles.

We were soon back in the flat again as we upped the pace to try and stave off the chill. So now we have the central heating on, we’re clutching the radiators and reheating some soup and the curry left from yesterday.

Now we just need to figure out how to watch Netflix without a TV. Time to fire up the iPad!

Today’s photos (click to enlarge)


Beginning to look a bit empty now. The flat minus the TV	Hazel catkins in Seabury Drive. A sign of spring to come
in
Only in Ireland! Mince pie flavoured Pastel de Nata	Finding our way back along the coast path from Centra in the gathering gloom



Trusty Yaris stepping up to the mark once again!