Harry's

Carl asked me to join him while he visited a few wallpaper shops and I readily agreed. We began in Dún Laoghaire, at Brian S Nolan's where he'd made an appointment in advance and we'd been given a half-hour slot. Their place is just across the road from Harry's Café Bar which we have fond memories of when Carl lived in Glasthule.

Top marks go to BSN for their Covid arrangements. Hand sanitising, of course, but we also had our temperatures taken, which is only the second place that's happened. We waited a while for the 'expert' to be free and settled down to some serious sample viewing. The guy we spoke to was amazingly familiar with the content of the various sample books and presented us with three books that contained possibilities matching photos Carl had on his phone.

It took longer than 30 minutes (a good bit longer, in fact) but we left with some good ideas before moving on to another place where I felt the staff were less on the ball. Unfortunately, their samples brought up possibilities at odds with the first lot, and we left more confused than when we went in.

We had lunch in Carl's mum's place, then had a quick visit to Carl's building site to try to visualise what it would look like with wallpaper in place (not easy with builder's rubble all around, electrical cables hanging from the ceiling and the floors unfinished). After that it was time for me to head back to my own side of the city and home.