Going for a drive

Yet another beautiful day. Breakfast safely out of the way we decided to go for a drive and headed south, into County Wicklow.

Roundwood was our intended destination, but first Carl needed to fill the tank and pump the tyres. It's good to see petrol prices coming down again, from the dizzy heights of €2.20 per litre to €1.96 or so (who would have ever thought that we'd be happy to see only €1.96 when not so long ago €1.60-ish would be considered pricey). It took some manoeuvring on the forecourt to get to the air machine and then back to the approved exit (Extra 1), but we managed and off we went.

We saw no need to rely on the car's sat-nav or the Maps app on our phones since it was obvious that we just needed to get onto the M11 and take the appropriate exit, but we overshot and had to admit navigation defeat. A longer than necessary journey didn't matter in the least because our route took us through magnificent scenery which was better than the proper way would have been. It's a while since we've been in this neck of the woods and it did us good to soak up what Wickow ("The Garden of Ireland") has to offer.

Lunch in Bryne & Woods in Roundwood (Extra 2) was excellent and the sun shone with gusto as we stuffed ourselves on chicken and seabass and sorbet and ice cream and coffee. After Roundwood we decided to go to Laragh but again got a bit lost and got there rather circuitously. An internet warning that Sundays in Laragh tend to see gatherings of bikers turned out to be accurate and the village was too busy for our liking anyway so we turned back and got back to Carl's place around 4pm, stopping off at Vartry reservoir to admire the Lower Draw Tower (the blip) and the water treatment plant across the road from it (Extra 3).