Smoking break

I'd left the most potentially difficult spread to the end for the job I've been working on these past few days and made a start on it last night, returning to it this morning with a vague general idea of how I was going to tackle it. One of those moments of happenstance suddenly dropped into my lap around mid morning and I knew at once that the most awkward part was sorted. I felt an immediate lifting of spirits and was in great form when my mate Derek phoned looking for chat and coffee. I'd already arranged to meet one of my music group colleagues for coffee at 3.00pm, and intended walking to our meeting point and back. Rather than forgo seeing Derek, I compromised, told him to drop in and asked him to give me a lift down to my later appointment.

We had a good chat about this and that and Derek duly dropped me off at The Food Room. It had turned into a glorious day by then, and my previously good mood became even better as I sat in the sun waiting for Bernard to arrive. More coffee and a fab sandwich there, and off I set to walk back home (at least satisfying half my original walking intention). As I came out onto the Howth Road I decided to treat myself to a nice refreshing bottle of Bulmers. Harry Byrne's pub used be one of the most hopping places on the North Side, but even it has suffered from the downturn. Neither of the doors from the street was open, so I had to go in through the beer garden/smoking area. Two customers, that's all that were inside the back room, while the rest of the pub was closed off. There was no sign of a barman, but he must have got the nod from one of the guys at the bar because he suddenly appeared without my having spotted him. I took my refreshing bottle outside (just one other person there) and sat at the sunny shelf to enjoy my bottle.

Another customer came in when the bottle was half empty and asked to share the shelf. Then he moved on to a table in the centre of the beer garden when it was vacated. He looked as if he was enjoying his smoke as much as I was enjoying my Bulmers, and he did make a rather nice study in sunlight and shadow. I felt sure he could hear the shutter clicks as I shot off several frames. Despite having cut off the top of his head in this one, it gained blip status mainly because of the cloud of cigarette smoke.

Since the entire afternoon had turned out to be unproductive, I'll now have to make up for that and knuckle down to more work this evening. The earlier moment of inspiration will make these coming hours much more pleasurable than they would otherwise have been. In fact, I'm actually quite looking forward to the time ahead.

Smokier.