Jolly met Niamh (pronounced N-Eve) at The Lamppost Cafe in East Belfast yesterday morning. Sandra and I had brunch there a few years ago. It is a wonderfully magical place - themed around the Narnia works of C. S. Lewis it sits across the road from C. S. Lewis Square, another wonderfully magical place filled with sculptures of Narnian characters.Jolly and Niamh sat in the tiny little conservatory at the back and had a lovely hour's chat over tea and caramel shortcake. Niamh told Jolly all about her travels, living and working in Finland and Japan and Iceland and the States, and about how she is making her living now as a writer of Celtic and Norse fairytales re-imagined in our modern times.
She wanted to know if Jolly was familiar with A. S. Byatt's 'Little Black Book of Stories'. It is, apparently, Niamh's favourite read at this dark time of the year. Jolly didn't feel it sounded intellectual enough to admit that he likes nothing more than settling down with a beautifully illustrated children's book, so he made the right noises and listened on. Niamh spoke for quite some time, Jolly recounted, on the subliminal menopausal messages in 'A Stone Woman', and Jolly did wonder if this 30 year-old woman was reading perhaps too much into something she might not fully understand.
He certainly found Niamh very interesting, very intense, and would undoubtedly have wanted to hear more about her campaign to re-introduce Hedge Schools to the Northern Irish education system, but he needed to get the bus back into town for his next rendez-vous. He thanked Niamh very much, accepted her friend request on Farcebook, and went to find the bus-stop, via the sculpture park.
Aoife (pronounced Eefa) works in Belfast's Central Library, a beautiful Victorian building that was one of Ireland's first major public library buildings when it opened in 1888. Aoife and Jolly had lunch in the cafe there, and shared a sausage roll stack with a delicious tomato salad. Jolly ate lots and lots, which would prove to be fortuitous.
Aoife is 37 and absolutely loves her job, she told Jolly who then told me. She works on the top floor under the wide skylights that make the most of Belfast's sometimes rare sunlight. She looks after the specialist literature collections, which is obviously in and of itself extremely interesting. However, she shared with our chum, it is also quite exciting when the BBC is filming their 'Line of Duty' series in the city. Central Library is used as Police HQ, and Aoife has often passed Adrian Dunbar not coming up the Lagan in a bubble in the main foyer.
Jolly was very taken with Aoife. He thought that her cataloguing skills would come in very handy when sorting mail back at the Post Office, and he was sure that her gentle, friendly ways would go down very well in the village. She also always has a book with her, she had confessed, and Jolly thought that she would be resourceful enough to keep herself amused during his postman's long shifts. But would she want to leave her beloved library? They exchanged phone numbers and addresses, as Aoife said that she loves to write letters: old-fashioned, on paper, sealed with a loving kiss letters. Jolly approved very much.
Jolly was nearly about to phone me to come and get him when Grainne (pronounced Gron-ya) finally appeared. She was, he conceded, extremely apologetic. Something had come up at work that she really needed to deal with there and then. Human Resources Manager for a large business in the city centre, Grainne, aged 35, is responsible for the well-being of the 200 staff under her care. Jolly was very glad that he only has to worry about one dispatch driver.
They headed into the shiny new Grand Central Hotel and Jolly gazed with awe at the view of the city appearing as the glass lift flew up to the twenty-third floor. Aoife had told Jolly that the hotel's penthouse bar was used in the BBC's filming of the crime series 'Bloodlands'. James Nesbitt had met his fictional daughter there in the opening scenes. This was when Jolly was very glad that he had eaten so well at lunchtime. Grainne, it seemed, didn't need any food because she had a gym session booked with her personal trainer at 10pm. They found two spectacular seats in the Observatory bar, high over the cityscape and ordered one bramble cocktail between them. Jolly said he felt a bit embarrassed confessing that he isn't much of a drinker. We have a question here that we often ask religious folk, 'Are you good-living?' and I am beginning to wonder if Jolly is good-living. I suppose it means that you don't drink or smoke or swear or kick your cat. People of faith get a bit frustrated because they know that a belief in and a love for God is about much more than these things. Although I'm sure that Jolly would not be at all impressed with anyone kicking anything. On the other hand he does struggle sometimes with a few very nasty dogs on his round.
Jolly said he realised that this was what he was thinking about as Grainne told him all about her joy at being back in her office after the Lockdowns, and her new car, and the trip to the Maldives that she had to cancel because of Covid, and the skiing trip too, and the yacht tour of the Greek islands. He's not sure quite how many Brambles they got through by the time Grainne said how lovely it had been to meet someone who really knew how to listen, told the waiter to charge their drinks to her expense account, and ran elegantly off to be on time at the gym.
He just has two more sleeps here and will then be packing up his bags for the return leg of his odyssey. We're going to miss him!
