Snippets

We took the loop around 'the hill' with the dog after breakfasting on strong coffee and what I'll call lava bread from Iceland. And after that loop, I took off down the coast towards Greystones and a stretch goal, maybe getting to Delgany or Kilpedder.

It's been a couple of weeks since I took this route and in that time the sand martins and terns have returned from winter warmer climes. Flocks of ten and some of twenty oystercatchers alternated with groups of turnstones in leaving the beach ahead of me. Later, I briefly watched swans in Bray Harbour protecting their tiny chicks from the swoops of predatory gulls.

The weather forecast was off by 12 hours. The cloud and drizzle didn't arrive until after my walk. I wish I'd brought my hat; four hours of bonce toasting was not good for me.

And while I think of it, a note to an unknown Bray chef; raw cabbage leaf is not equivalent to coleslaw in a ham sandwich.

Overheard snippets of conversations between Killiney and Greystones - make of them what you will. About 40% of conversations I heard were in Polish or Portuguese or German or other languages I couldn't identify.

Family on beach:

Dad: Mate, which way you going?

Toddler: My way!

Ladies walking:

I'm much tireder than I used to be. I find that often I don't have the energy to sit down.

Couple chatting:

Him: I heard he's coming back from South America a few days early.

Her: What? He's coming a few days before the wedding?

Ladies walking:

Rents have got unaffordable. The government hasta bring back rent control. We simply has to have it.

Two 'English' ladies:

All I remember is the poverty. And look here. It's an ice cream van, of all things.

Australian retirees on The Promenade:

It could be very nice in the right season.

Today's walk was a relatively flat 23 km. And I remain on track (sic) as you can see from the graph. To be clear, it will take me over 100 hours to complete the promised 500 km. So please remember to sponsor us.

Reykjavík

There's something about the grandeur, the isolation and the simplicity of Iceland that reminds me of things I saw in New Zealand. The outdoors is the lifestyle, perhaps. Or maybe the tin rooves are common.

There's also something ironic about having your heating on and the windows open - is it because geothermal energy is so cheap? And water conservation isn't high on the priority list either.

We went to the Perlan revolving restaurant on a water tank but the revolving restaurant was closed because the geothermal hot water storage tank is being upgraded to include a museum. This is a practical nation, people who are finding novel ways to entertain the tourists who outnumber them by 4 or maybe 5:1. And it must have been such pragmatism that guided them to build the bejewelled Harpan Concert Hall during the worst of the 2008 recession.

Overheard at breakfast, an Irish contender for Private Eve's Pseuds Corner - "O'Donnovan Rossa was bourgeois."

Not puffin or minke or foal but tomato juice, carrot juice, double espresso, miso soup, pickled herring and a boiled egg - breakfast buffets are fun, especially after a 6 km sunrise walk on Reykjavik's icy Saebraut seafront pathways, in April snow flurries. I was happy to see a large flock of Eider down on the sea below me and a pair of Whooping Swans flew past, birds I don't normally encounter.

People had placed inukshuks along the coast and the snowy mountains on the other side of the bay dominated the view, just being there, like this sentence. 

"Independent People": how excited and proud were Icelanders when Halldor Laxness won the 1955 Nobel prize for literature, just eleven years after independence from Denmark? Sixty years on, it seems that beating both England and Ireland in soccer have assumed more importance to their daily lives.

PS Here's a tip for managing the expense of Iceland - budget for a seven day trip and stay only three.

Kingfisher

A walk done many times and this time I was accompanied. Which gave me reasons to look and remark on things I take for granted. The tree, for example, in Harefield Golf Course that was killed by lightning a few years ago and now has become covered in countless woodpecker holes. The invasive parakeets who noisily go about their business overhead. The dismantled gravel loading points for the much touted great transport transfer from road to canal barges, during Olympic venue construction, now occupied by coots and moorhens. The honking of four Canada Geese flying above us, hidden by the tree canpopy. The swans seeming to stand on water to do neck calisthenics, doubltless impressing the twenty tufted duck close by. And then at Denham Deep Lock, where the Colne joins the Union Canal, there was a kingfisher perched on the NO FISHING sign; it saw us, there was a flash of blue and the moment was gone.

My 13th walk in this campaign, another 6.5 km walked off and I have thus exceeded my distance goal for March. This means I'm walking down the deficit of 25 km I carried from February. So I should be back on track by the end of March which will leave 350 km to be done by June 23.

Our fundraising continues well too. We had an office pot-luck lunch last Tuesday that brought out some excellent dishes and raised another sensible amount of money. Money? Are there any readers? Is it yet time for them to donate here?