Just a perfick day

♬ ♪ ♫ Lou Reed ♫ ♩ for background.

Back in the days when letters were sent & stamps were purchased, I visited A Lot of post-offices; from the GPO [Cúchullain! 1916!] on O'Connell Street to the sub-post office at the back of Greene's Bookshop round the corner from work in TCD. There was a marked difference in service culture among these several stamp-vendors. I developed a theory that sticking dingy sub-post offices at the back of a shop and a long way from natural light bred a service of sighs - surly tending to snappy and officious. Not all post offices!!

The 1915 vintage Post Office, with its classical facade just up from the river in Bagenalstown was worth the visit: a little cramped but with big windows and many nice architectural details. The Beloved claims she sometimes drove straight through Borris PO [crabby postmaster] to send a parcel from B'town. These premises were shuttered many years ago and the PO moved to the back of a petrol station at the very edge of town. The Old PO grew increasingly forlorn and shabby. Last year, it was reborn as The Old Post Office Café. "Welcome to The Old Post Office, a café with a stamp of history." (ark ark)

We knew nothing about this until Dau.II announced that she was incommming for a couple of days midweek. Driving between Aldi and the Library before the train arrived we noticed a new paint job and the menu-board on the pavement. There was a scheduled 0900-1300 power-cut back home and we intended to take Dau.II-the-Foodie off for lunch; why not check out the new place? And it was so. Turns out there is an enormous hall down some stairs behind the old PO counter. Apparently, this was also the telephone exchange for the whole of County Carlow. The Art Deco door is still in place and the new owners salvaged  the 1970s vintage [complete with Dymo labels] plywood post-sorting pigeon-holes [R]: Presentation Convent; M.Connolly & Son; Meat Packers; District Hospital; Corries Cross; Newtown . . .now used for misc condiments.

Unlike some members of the party, I had eaten breakfast before leaving home and at 11.30 it was a long way from lunch; so I ordered a scone and flat-white. The others went full-metal brunch. A hockey-puck is only 3in across: my scone was ⌀ 50% bigger . . . a leetle dry but comes-with two butter pats, whipped cream and strawberry jam. The brunches arrived in enormous soup bowls with close to a kilo of spuds, egg, tomato, black-pudding etc. over beds of wilted spinach. Had to deep-six thoughts of starvlings in Gaza. 

We got up burping and waddled back to the car. Next destination Altamont Gardens which we had intended for lunch. We went for a walk there [OPW free in! parking all-day €2] instead. All the way down to the R. Slaney through the formal arboretum, past the duck&lily pond and back again. It's lovely and there is a café and shrub-shop. 

We were heading for Altamont because it was adjacent to Malone Fruit Farm on the N80. Dau.II was determined to make a batch of strawberry jam. I checked their webpage to see if they had strawbs for sale and they did . . . at a very reasonable €6/kg frozen. When we rocked up, it transpired that their webpage was frozen in time (Copyright © 2013 Malone Fruit Farm): frozen fruit was actually €13/kg!!  This makes it barely economic: 5 pots of jam for €15 ingredients [fruit, sugar, lemon] not including labour. But Dau.II's position is that, in contrast to all other varieties, shop-made strawberry jam and home-made are noticeably different in quality.

Anyway, when we eventually got home, power had been restored and we were ready for a nice cup of tea.