This week, we share Café Conversations submissions from readers and GLOSS staffers.
Don’t forget to share yours …
THE GLOSS is celebrating café conversations, with sisters, mums, chums and others! Whether planned gossip or impromptu catch-up, involving a secret shared, a problem divulged, or great news to impart, we meet up to connect and chat over coffee in our favourite cafés. And sometimes we go solo and listen to other people’s conversations. Eavesdropping? No! We prefer to say, we couldn’t help but overhear ….
What makes café conversations fascinating and fun? We’d love to hear from you. Write a short paragraph (not more than 200 words) telling us about a conversation you had or overheard, and send it to us at digital@thegloss.ie. Your piece could be selected for publication and you could win a gorgeous Butlers gift card to fund more café conversations in lovely Butlers locations all over Ireland …
Reader and writer Joyce Cleere Butler meets a former teacher …
I think we all have a favourite café. The place we go for a treat, where we can relax and just be ourselves. The coffee is great too, of course. Mine is a cappuccino. As soon as I sit down the world becomes a brighter place, and that’s the magic of it.
I normally don’t pay attention to the other customers, but one day, I saw one of my former primary school teachers, sitting across from me. I’ll call her Mrs G. She was my favourite. When I think of primary school, she is a big part of it. Back then, she wore her hair in a loose bun and had a wonderfully expressive face. Apart from a smart bob, she looked exactly, the same. And before I knew what I was doing, I was standing at her table like an excited twelve-year-old again.
“Hello! Mrs G! Do you remember me?”
She squinted her eyes for a moment.
“Yes. Of course. I can’t remember the name, but I know the face. How are you?”
“It’s Joyce and I’m great. You’ve hardly changed at all.”
She laughed.
“So, what have you been doing with yourself?”
“Oh, married, children. And I write in my spare time.”
“You write? Now, that’s very interesting. You were always a clever one,” she smiled.
And like I had just had been given a gold star on my copybook, I beamed.
Dogs have café conversations too … Sarah McDonnell witnessed one
Outside a café in Blackrock in Dublin, two pooches sat with their owners under two separate tables.
Both petite with white curly hair, well-groomed and well-dressed, one in a blue padded gilet, the other in a jaunty pink tartan coat.
Their humans wore outfits from Sweaty Betty and LuluLemon and had oddly shaped running shoes.
The dogs started to chat, Blue Gilet beginning the conversation with a small excited yap, his head to one side, one paw outstretched on the pavement.
Tartan Dog responded with two yaps, a little smile playing about her pointy white canines.
Hearing the exchange, the humans briefly nodded at each other before casting their eyes downwards again, one reading a magazine, the other scrolling on her phone. The two dogs eyed their complimentary chocolates, as yet untouched.
Blue Gilet jumped up on the seat beside his human to get a better look at Tartan Dog. Liking what he he saw, he tried a longer series of yaps.
Tartan Dog jumped up on the chair to get a better look at Blue Gilet. She was smitten.
“Nice gilet!” she enthused.
“Thanks, it’s Ralph Lauren. I like yours, Barbour?”
“No,” replied Tartan Dog, a little embarrassed, “it’s just an old thing from Petworld.”
“It’s cute. Are you on Insta?”
“Yes, you?”
They exchanged Insta handles, complimenting each other on their excellent/funny/ charming Instagram pages in an excited volley of yaps.
The ice broken, they jumped back down to the ground where they could sit close together, their two leads, one red braided cotton, the other yellow nylon, becoming entwined.
It was nice just sitting on the pavement like this, paw to paw, floppy ear to floppy ear, the delicious aroma of freshly ground coffee in the air. They sniffed, little pink noses pointed upwards, and hoped they could meet one day again soon.
Start the day the Butlers way – people watching at its finest at Butlers Chocolate Café Dawson Street.
