unironedman

Well Paddy’s Day has come and gone.

I was never much of a fan. I had one or two experiences as a nipper, perched on the shoulders of adults, freezing and soaked, watching some odd floats trundle past in the nation’s capital.

In those days, mercifully, the festival did the decent thing and contained itself within a twenty-four hour period. These days, it’s expanded into a week long extravaganza. I’ve no doubt the fare on offer has much improved. But at my age (and more to the point, the age of our kids), I won’t be tempted into the Dublin Parade anytime soon. I’m not even going to get into the whole drink thing…

As it happened, events were conspiring against me taking part in our local parade as well. Despite spending about two hours in the station scrubbing and polishing the fire engine, and tarting it up with flags, balloons and bunting, we had no sooner arrived at the head of the parade when I spotted a plume of smoke on the edge of town. Within minutes, we were heading off to tackle a fire in a derelict house.

Apart from all that drama, the week’s training has been going okay, with a couple of swims (one for a mile, the other about 50 lengths), some gym, and plenty of running.

The pick of them was on Paddy’s Day itself. The weather was fine, but cool, and I did an 8.4 km in the park, and I took a few pics of the trails.

A view of the Liffey and flooded field through the trees from the top path.

The top path.

The woods beyond the top path.

My long shadow points towards the Great Beech.

The daffs are out!

The weekend is upon us. Not sure what joys await as regards training, as it’s been proving tricky to get out on the bike due to staffing levels. I need to get the turbo trainer out; once the new bike arrives, I will set up the old one as a permanent fixture, so there will be no excuse for not getting in the hours…

P.S. I spotted a Kingfisher about the same time as I took the pics of the daffodils, by the river just above the weir, and near to our house, a male Blackbird has been singing away for the last week or so, and it’s clearly mimicking a car alarm. Here’s a recording I made on my phone at the back of the fire station.