Ireland 2017; Day 2

Day 2, March 24^th, 2017:

Margaret, the B&B wife, is preparing breakfast.  I come down to the dining room from my bedroom and she asks me if I want a traditional Irish breakfast. I’m tempted to tell her it’s too early to drink whiskey, but instead I say, “Sure. What’s Irish breakfast?”

Out comes ham, sausages, fried cherry tomatoes, and an egg on top of a potato waffle. Hmm. Okay. Also, I have wheatabix for the first time in thirty years. So that’s something.  Then we chat as I drink coffee and she gets around to asking me about Trump.

Then we get talking about refugees and whatnot and whothehellknows and howdidIgetropedintotalkingaboutthis?  It’s chilly but sunny and she tells me that there’s a nice greenway walk that will take me down to the harbor.  Perfect, I say.

My friends are getting into town roundabout three and the greenway is a short walk so I take my time being lazy in the morning. Then I head to the greenway. 

It is fully paved the entire way, though, yes, there’s plenty of green all around and the 2^nd half of the mile and a half walk is next to meadows and reeks of sheep and cow poop, which, unexpectedly, is perfect. 

At a little playground built along the path, a mother is feeding her toddler and I am unaware until that exact moment that an Irish child, with that sing-songy little lilt, saying “banana” is somehow the cutest thing that’s ever been said out loud.  But I look a vagabond so I say nothing and smile to myself and keep on my way.

I’m deposited at the harbor and I understand now when Margaret finds my question earlier, about the port being open still, as strange.  The tide is so low that I’d be concerned with running a skiff through there.  But it’s very scenic, the water with hills and an honest-to-goodness mountain around it.  

I find a beer garden next to the water, and though it’s  53 degrees, in the sun it’s warm, so I order a beer or two and drink in the sunshine and life is not so bad sometimes.

It’s time to get back into town finally, so I take a different route back and discover that every other building in the area is a B&B.  Westport has about 5000 people. If the tourists stop coming, this place will implode. The buildings that aren’t B&Bs are mostly bars.  The very few places that aren’t B&Bs or bars are weird hybrid shops, like the taxi and mortuary service shop and the grocer and ironmonger.  

I look into the supermarché and their cheese area is called “cheesemonger.” I believe there have been points in my life when I could be described as one of those.

I have a light lunch and meet up with my friends back on the greenway, because they were told that’s a nice thing to do. So I repeat my day. Down the greenway, sheep-poop in the air, beer in the sun, past all the B&Bs and bars and taxi/mortuary and grocery ironmonger and then it’s dinner time.

And we go to an Indian restaurant inside a desanctified former church and the waitress is insane and sassy, so I match her and she’s perplexed and my friends are shaking their heads.

Waitress: For here or takeaway?
Friend: Here.
Waitress (smiling): You want a table, you gotta pay for it.

Me (smiling): I have a knife.

Waitress: In that case, no charge. Follow me, please.

Friends: Um.

And then we’re to meet other friends so we head to Matt Molloy’s again because, apparently, I’m in some sort of cycle where I do what I’ve done again and we wait to meet up and the other friends say they have to eat so they say they’re going to find food but will be back and we wait for them and drink beer and recite poems at each other and locals ask to take pictures wearing my poncho and hat and buy me a beer because I’m such a great guy for letting them take photos with my poncho and hat and then our friends who were supposed to meet up have been waiting at a different bar to get food for over two hours and I’m tired and I don’t feel like being out all night if we’re going to be at a 12 hour wedding celebration the next day so I wander back to the B&B  and sleep, blessed sleep.