Howth

Sitting after lunch, I thought to join our guests on the train to Howth and walk back. A marathon distance walk needed a bit more respect than that. I'd already walked in the morning but this was too great an opportunity to improve my daily average. And so in my haste, I only wore one pair of socks. Think blisters. And add blisters under the blisters and you'll understand the consequences.

I bought bottles and bars outside the train station. Then took off up the old tramway to Howth Summit, a tramway still remembered sixty years after it closed, following just fifty years of service.

At the summit, encouraged to find Samaritan phone numbers on road signs, I made a loop back towards Balscasden Road to get some pictures of Lambay Island against the Mourne Mountains. Then down by Heather Cottage to look at the Kittiwakes crying, Fulmar's flying and Guillemots vying (for shelf space). And south to The Bailey lighthouse passing families and friends who walk like they actually want to extend their time together; imagine that. Three people taking arty photos with a small grass fire they've set to provide atmosphere - among tinder dry gorse, what were they thinking? I emerged from the rocky pathways at the Sutton Martello Tower and back on to the road again.

The views to the mountains and Killiney were very pretty. The road through Sutton among roller bladers, joggers and cyclists and on towards Bull Island was so boring that even iPhone ran out of power after 15 km. I cut across the bridge to Dollymount Strand lengthening my journey just for a change of pace. My reward were some Little Egrets, unseeable when I was growing up.

And then on through Clontarf where families were out on their Sunday evening walks, emptying their dogs before another night of guard duty. I needed a short break to deal with the blisters after less than 20 km, not even half way! An hour later, I crossed the Liffey at the East Link Toll Bridge and finally got off the hard surfaces at Ringsend, the municipal dump now reclaimed. What am I writing? All of Sandymount is land reclaimed from the sea.

The near neap-tide rippled sands were surprisingly hard to walk on yet a relief after the pavements. I watched the ebbing drainage carefully to make sure the tide hadn't turned. The sun had set and somewhere about 500 m offshore Merrion Gates, my endorphin high picked out the sodium yellow street lights, joined by the knocking shop pink floods of the hotel and the lenten lilacs of the new fugly buildings (ironically overbuilt on the former home of the blind). Yellow-lit trains and bright eyed cars were all dashing in what looked like undergrowth at this distance. The candy cane Pigeon House chimneys winked at me. The clouds were fairground flossed with hues of pink and purple-blue. I was alone on the sand in a crepuscular wonderland. It was all mine. It was like I was playing Sim City back in the 90's, the city was alive and running somehow on automatic. Eventually, after trudging through some foetid weed and mud, I 'landed' by another Martello Tower at Williamstown, oddly unfamiliar despite being less than 200 metres from where I went to boarding school.

I was tired and sore so I picked up the pace, excited to be nearing the end, careless of the increased damage to bruised and blistered feet. The hard slog ended up The Metals and the hill to Killiney amidst dark and irrational thoughts involving muggers with big knives, awakened by memories of Raonaid Murray whose murder nearby remains unsolved a decade later.

I was exhausted and sore - spent and babbling after midnight. I'd done 42 km. One marathon walked in a little over seven hours. How did Eddie Izzard manage 43 marathon runs in 51 days with almost no training?

And another thing. Why were Ulysses, Martello Towers, Daedalus and suicide recurring all weekend?

Thank you twice Bob! From here where the pain was worst and again HERE!