Morning started with a drizzle, overcast and a bit chilly. Work was productive so I went to Gort for lunch and to pick up a few provisions. I went to Gabriel’s Café, a cheaply decorated in vintage Victorian style café with local foods and quirky, tattooed wait staff; a place that would fit in perfectly in Athens. In the main dining room was a table with four musicians sitting around as though they were having tea, but they were playing. Actually they were rehearsing and I figured this out because of two things: one, they would chat after each tune as to improvements and then play the same tune again, and again, and two, no one applauded after each tune. The customers allowed the musicians to have their space and everyone accommodated the other. The men played guitars and a fiddle; whereas, the woman played a banjo. Each had white hair and a softness about them that made one want to have a conversation with them but I resisted; I remembered honoring space.
The café is all out decorated with wall papered walls of old sailing ships, gold gauzy material draping the mantel and other material over doorways in bows and frills. There were an abundant number of lamps with fringy shades and cloth covers. The tables were all different hard wood tables out of someone’s dining room or kitchen. The chairs had upholstered bottoms and intricate carved wooden backs. Against the wall were built in benches, upholstered and over laden with pillows of every description. Behind the settee leaning against the wall were books and magazines, each cover facing the viewer and propped up ready to be picked up and scanned.
My lunch was quiche made with salmon and spinach, a garden salad, and a small slice of dark brown bread the area is famous for, except this slice had nuts and seeds. I am learning to drink my tea like the Irish with a bit of milk and no sugar.
Now I am back at work.
Leara Rhodes 