JUST TO SAY THANK YOU......

Everyone has by now heard of the Blarney Stone and the Irish gift of the gab, what not many talk about about is what we call here 'dildaar', the large hearted-ness of the Irish. We were lucky to be at the receiving end of enormous Irish dildaar many times over. And the couple who extended it most was Maeve and Kenneth Gavin of Dublin - they not only paid for our lunch without our knowledge of course, but rued the fact that they could not invite us home because Ken was travelling to Italy the next day for work. We still feel the all embracing warmth of that dildaar act! And I am not saying this because they took care of the tab! It was the attitude and natural friendliness.

We met Maeve and Ken at Howth, the fishing/port village, part of the Howth Head peninsula in the north of Dublin Bay. When we set out from Dublin in the morning, it was an overcast grey sky threatening to spill over in heavy rains any moment and it continued all the way to Howth where it eventually let it all out, soon after we arrived there. Much before Howth, the Bay made its presence felt with the waters disappearing into grey skies in the distant horizon. The train station at Howth is an old  quaint building with a yellow coloured frontage, something out of a storybook. The first thing we did was go into a provision store close to the station and guess what, the proprietor is  Chinese and the young Chinese lady manning the store was more than eager to talk. She was certainly far away from home which, she said was close to the Russian border! While we were bundled up in jackets, she chirped away nineteen to the dozen.... the cold in Ireland was nothing compared to the one they had back home, she loved the place, she liked her job, only that she didn't get enough time to make lots of friends!

As you walk down from the station, the harbour appears on the left, packed with fishing trawlers and everything that  operate on water. While it is still a good walk away, the cold gusty wind swooshes in making one tighten the jacket and hold up a hand over your eyes to stop the stray flying hair as well the piercing wind get into your eyes. The downpour is sudden, even though expected, necessitating a dive into the first cafe we hit. The grey outside darkens further while piping hot fried bacon, chips and the works buoy up our spirits. However, there is no bar here and heavy drizzle or no drizzle we decide to find out one. It's The Abbey Tavern, another old world pub. all busy and bustling with quite a few large parties of families and friends. One wall is rugged natural stones and polished old wooden furniture gleam in the golden lights. The barman is on his toes and waiters rush about with tall glasses and platefuls of food.  But we have to get to the harbour and we do, lashing wind, heavy drizzle and the ever growing ghoulish grey all around notwithstanding. There's a lighthouse in the distance but there is no question getting there in the weather we are experiencing. In fact, the all grey water and sky, the rains and the full speed wind enough to knock a child off would have been, in another day and place, the perfect day to cuddle up in bed with a good read and a steaming cup of ginger tea. There is a semi circular ancient stone wall, with broad steps on the inner side, snaking around beyond which lies the sand and the waters. It becomes a matter of this far and no further, but we do climb the steps and laugh out loud at the sheer enjoyment of it all. For some strange reason we seem to be bubbling with laughter and going out ' wooo...' at the top of our voice.
 

 

 

When you walk into Howth from the train station, the Howth Market on the right, a little way down is eye catching despite the inclement weather. Markets to me translate into magnets and naturally one had to check it out. Small stalls with bright facades and varieties of goodies from fruits, veggies, kitchen ingredients (all mostly organic) to cafes, trinkets and such. There was one with  tempting array of breads, rolls, buns etc and and the wafting aroma called for closer inspection.The apricot bread won hands down, simply scrumptious bursting with fresh apricots which, initially had the family amused at my bread hang up but later they couldn't get enough of it! I also couldn't stop myself from picking up a small bottle of the luscious and tingling balsamic vinegar (condimento balsamico made in Modena, Italy) because that it was so good and not because the person manning the stall was drop dead gorgeous and so Italian!

 

 

   

Lunch time finally and the spouse is keen to go to a restaurant called Aqua, which seemed to be well known. But it was not our day as it was closed for lunch and off we went again to Beshoffs- oyster bar, fishmonger and market - all under one roof, where earlier on our way to the harbour we had admired the sea fare on display for sale. And there is where me met Maeve and Ken who had come to Howth for the day to lunch and pick up seafood. Besides Irish apple cider, wines and delicious piping hot mussels and chili hot (as requested) crab claws among other we are on a binging trail. Seeing the camera, the gracious lady at the next table asks she could take a family picture for us. We are only too happy and that's how we got talking. She is Maeve, mother of two daughters and a son and a grandmother. Her husband, Ken who was briefly away joins in and we crowd around a table.  He is an IT consultant, travels a bit, she is a homemaker and together they are also part of the Airbnb (www.airbnb.com) and have two guests at home. They have not only visited India but attended an Indian wedding at Bengaluru and done the Agra-Rajasthan circuit and walked through Chandni Chowk markets in Old Delhi. Its much fun to talk of India and Ireland, of families and food. Ken says that if he wasn't travelling on work the next day, they would have invited us home. It made us feel as if we had known them forever. Unfortunately, friends, old and new, have to move on and it is then their hospitality almost reduced me to tears. In between Ken had excused himself to go to the toilet and we never suspected a thing. He had cleverly settled the bill. It felt like being back home eating out with family and friends and all clamouring to pay the bill.  

 

As someone blessed to have travelled a bit,  this was our first such heart melting experience. This is not to say that taking care of the tab alone was the clincher or that those elsewhere are less friendly - in Delft (Netherlands) someone escorted me a long way to the church I wanted to see on a cold rainy April Sunday saying he would be happy to take me there or the two gentlemen working in a cafe-bar n Sofia (Bulgaria) who not only went out of their way but even drove me to yet another church that I was looking for - but just that the Irish gave us that unexplainable feeling of being among old friends. Like the old gentleman on a walk in Dun Laoghaire (it is not pronounced as it is written and trying to say the name like the Irish do turned out to be my bane! But I was told that the English way of saying it was Dun Leary) who not only patiently explained to us the way to the seafront and harbour, walking alongside, but that we had to go into a particular ice cream joint to try certain flavours. Then there was Father Patrick, handsome white haired and so endearing who also got along his friend and visiting priest Father Marcos from Seville to meet us. Then there was the gentleman at a fruit stall in Howth Market whose son, believe it or not, was right then in Arunachal Pradesh in extreme North East India (bordering China) teaching football! 

After Howth, it was time for Don Laoghaire and am I glad that we took the train to the east coast where it is located. In a departure from the norm at one of the stations a woman boarded the train and it was crystal clear that she was high on something else other than alcohol. With tattered jeans halfway down her bottom, reed skinny, tangled hair and emitting enough body odour to awaken the dead, she sprawled on the seat trying to drink milk from the little jerrycan she carried, with more dripping her vest like T-shirt than going down her throat and spilling all over the seats and floor. What I liked, as a woman, was that far from invoking sneering comments or ugly stares she was politely told what the time was when she loudly asked for it and, when a few stations away she rushed to the exit door and tottered in the process, many hands went up to help her.No judgements at all!

Don Laoghaire boasts of a lengthy harbour with rolling hills behind, an equally long pier and beautiful stately houses on the grounds rising up from the sea front. This is the place where you find the renowned James Joyce Tower and as all readers of Ulysses will recall, the tower is the setting of the first chapter. The tower is now a museum dedicated to Joyce.The Joyce legacy announces its presence firmly in other ways too like the lines from his semi-autobiographical, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, 'The first faint noise of gently moving water......broke the silence, low and faint and whispering,' painted on the blue wall beyond which the waters moved faster and with enormous noise thanks to the wet weather.  We of course, had to go to Teddy's the suggested ice cream parlour; the marshmallow one looked cute, all pink and white but the sweetness was a tad overpowering.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Soon it was time to head back to Dublin and as the train rolled by with stations with poetic names it seemed perfectly in sync that Ireland is where several towering literary giants lived, worked and wrote and still do...........................