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? 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 …

“I gave you your passport in the last shop and you have LOST IT AGAIN! Look in your bag, LOOK IN YOUR BAG, for God’s sake!”

I am in Butlers Chocolate Café in Terminal 2 at Dublin Airport. I have calmly cleared security in 20 minutes. My shoulders are dropping and my grip on the leather handles of my Longchamp bag is loosening as I join the short queue for a skinny flat white. It’s at this point, every time I fly, that my holiday really begins, a coffee in hand and a blissful week stretching ahead.

At the top of the queue, a perplexed man in a baseball cap is berating his wife who is wearing a tinted visor with terry headband last seen at Wimbledon in the 1980s. Unperturbed at his outburst, she rummages in her tote and locates the passport. His mouth is set in a grim line but she smiles sweetly as she pays for their two lattes, nudging him and whispering, “Cool your jets, honey…you’ll give yourself a coronary.” He laughs, tension dissipating.

“He’s seven months now but this is the first time we’ve travelled. I’m dreading the flight, you know, when the ears start to pop.”

A little fella with ginger hair and a brown Babygro is dandled on his granny’s knee while his mum has a conversation with a lady at the table adjacent. His eyes are brown, like chocolate truffles, and he has a slow, lopsided smile.

“He’ll break hearts, that one,” says the lady adjacent, in that time-honoured Irish way of predicting romantic success for just-born tiny men in Babygros. “Stop!” shrieks the mummy, “I can’t bear to think of handing him over to another woman!”

“Has Daddy gone for a pint?”, another woman asks her toddler, “Has Daddy gone for a pint?” She gives the question the singsong cadence of a nursery rhyme. She looks tired and closes her eyes as she slowly sips her cappuccino. I am afraid she might fall asleep and look around for Daddy. After a few minutes, her eyes open again and she takes in Daddy, coming into view, clutching his own cappuccino. “How are my two favourite girls in the whole world?” From his pocket, he produces a little chocolate bar for his little girl.

“You know what, I think the reality is, he’s not finished with her, and she’s going to keep popping up and wrecking my buzz. You know what? I’m just going to enjoy myself for a week and not think about it, or her.” A twentysomething sips and shudders.

Her friend nods. “You’re dead right. She’s a right one. She’ll meet herself coming back, please God.”

Time to go to the boarding gate. Last sip. Restored. Relaxed. Ready.

Holidays start here – but first, coffee.

After you check in, check out Butlers Chocolate Café in Dublin Airport. Take a moment to savour that well-deserved coffee after braving the early start and bag drop off. Don’t forget to pick up some travel essentials – sweet treats for the trip or gifts for the host. www.butlerschocolates.com