Underfoot

In my beginning is my end [TS Eliot East Coker, The Four Quartets (1940)] Yes, I started where I finished, though Eliot probably meant optimism and despair, renewal and decay, all of which works for this walk too.

In fact I did two walks. For the first, we took Gus who after three wet and muddy kilometres, shook himself dry in the hall. The floor was cleaned - looks like the white wall will need to be repainted.

Then, alone, I walked in the rain along the beach to the Boat House in Bray where I had a deserved latte. It took a lot longer there than back because the tide was full and I was limited to walking on the conglomeratic shingle banks. Fortunately, for the return, the tide had fallen to reveal the easy walking wet sand we know and love. A flat 20 km but the walking surfaces made it harder; there was one place with a welcome mat on the muddy path.

In the place where we have often watched dolphins cavorting, there were two people on paddle boards. One of them had a barking dog standing beside him. Thoughtless if they expected dolphins. Thoughtless anyway: this is the treacherous Irish Sea not a lake. Mind leap: it reminded me of a woman we know who played a gramophone to a small island harbour some 25 km north of here: back in the 1940s, it attracted curious seals to a place where there were no rivalries for fishing-pot owners.

The recent storms have done damage to the ice-age mud cliffs, especially along the less well known section between Shanganagh Castle and Woodbrook. More collapses and erosion than I have ever seen before. The sand martins will return in April and have to build new nesting burrows in the freshly exposed sandy layers. On a positive note, there was much less flotsam and jetsam than in years gone by - hooray if the MARPOL regulations for ships is even vaguely responsible.

So, in sum, 23 km today, leaving 411 km, which keeps me on track for the magic 500.