At work, at lunch with the Oirish community. There’s Noelle, the one in the pretty, colourful dress who, of late, has been immensely proud of herself for incorporating sprouts (“is that what they are??)” into her salad for that extra nutritional punch; Aoife, the tall, willowy brunette who swears by fetta cheese and always proclaims “Aww yeah, aww right!!” whenever something suddenly makes a remarkable amount of sense; Mairéad, the red shirted lassie who uses the word “anymore” all strange-like. “I don’t like Coles and I’m going to Woolworths anymore”, she declares. We turn to her: “Don’t you mean “from now on? You’re going to go to Woolworths from now on?” — we all expect Mairéad to fall about in a fluster correcting herself– but no, Mairéad isn’t swayed and assertively corrects us: “No, I’m going to go to Woolworths *anymore*.” She adjusts her glasses and nods. We all purse our lips together and stare down at our food. Silence. Then someone chuckles softly and we all lose it. It’s just too funny.
Then there are the lads: Jono, the consistently sweet and smiling gentle giant with the glasses who, like me, is an honorary Oirish, and persistently offers sauerkraut and kimchi to anyone who enters the kitchen, and of course, last but not least, Mulligan. The mischievous trouble maker from Dublin who mooches on a Monday and is full of jokes and naughty lines every other day. You can see in the top picture that today, he was showing us a clip of that fake devil baby scaring passersby on the street. Like typical boys, Jono and Ger were in stitches; Noelle, not so much.
On a side note, Oimee O’Brien and Daphneee, we miss you!!
