The Casino. Marino

I was up bright and early again, and was in front of the pooter before 8.00, annotating yesterday's copy-edited paper to recommend where speaker-support slides would be appropriate, and what their content should be. I had this ready for the client by 9.30, and then I grabbed the opportunity of making my less-is-more argument, in an effort to discourage the usual bullet-pointed Powerpoint overload. Unfortunately the client came back to say he'd envisaged 'lots of slides' and having these constitute the post-talk handout. He's to phone tomorrow morning to discuss. What's to discuss?

Anyway, the sun was brightly shining, I needed to fit in my daily walk, it'd been a long time since I'd gone out with my camera bag and the wide-angle lens (too often after surgery), and this seemed like an ideal opportunity to make up for this. I had no clear idea where I was headed until I actually got outside. That's when I decided to at least begin at the Casino in Marino. I've blipped here before, but that was before the days of the wide-angle lens. Today, I was torn between the actual blip and this picture-postcard alternative, but this one won out in the end.

I half thought of continuing my walk down to Fairview and up to Clontarf, but abandoned that idea when the clouds began to roll in. Carl came over later on, complete with a load of washing he'd done for me, and we headed out for a bit of a drive. Going to Howth was at the back of my mind, but I didn't fancy going by the coast road because it gets so clogged with slow-moving traffic, so we went out the Malahide Road and stopped first in Malahide itself, wandering around the bustling village streets before moving on through Baldoyle to Portmarnock. The sun was breaking through the clouds, and the beach was thronged with strollers. It was full of little clumps of human interest, including these splashing babies who very nearly became today's blip.

From Portmarnock we continued to Howth. It was quite dull by now, but we headed towards the harbor anyway before getting side-tracked by the inviting beer garden outside El Paso restaurant. Back at the car after a quick pint we decided we'd had enough fresh air and I was feeling the need for some grocery shopping. We opted for Superquinn in Sutton and spent quite a while going up and down every aisle filling our trolly. Generally speaking, I'd only buy the amount of food I did today if I was getting stuff in for a dinner party or a Grand Prix lunch. But I've been falling back on my eating habits since I ended my Carl-based convalescence, and I've fallen away from the regular eating I'd enjoyed there and in hospital. Let's hope that the well-stocked state of my fridge will not prove to be a flash in the pan. I'll certainly be eating well for a while.

Carl dropped me back home, we unpacked the supermarket bags, he headed back home, and I retired to bed for a bit of a nap before coming back down again later on for food and a return to work. All in all, a packed day.

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