away the time.
There were already two customers sitting at a table in the window, one eating a lemon drizzle cupcake. Gina had made it herself, getting up at six this morning to bake, and Paul, her husband, had dropped her off at work with her just-baked delivery for the café. Then he had gone off to deliver her order to Beech Hill, the old folks’ home on the outskirts of Kilfinn, and another dozen of both cupcakes and brownies to Ramona’s Coffee Shop in the nearby town of Castlecomer.
Twice a week Gina rose early to bake, amazed that something she loved to do was also proving a fairly regular source of income for the family. In fact it was her brownies and cupcakes that had first helped her to get to know Norah. She had come into the café with some free samples of her baking and Norah had tasted them and given her an order straight away. Three months later, whenSonya the girl who helped out in the café decided to head off to Australia with a few of her friends, Norah had asked Gina if she would be interested in coming in and helping. Gina couldn’t believe her luck, and though her salary was nothing to write home about, it was a job, when she hadn’t expected to find one and when she and Paul needed work.
That was two years ago, and it had been one of the best decisions ever. She loved working in the village café, meeting the regulars, hearing all that was going on in Kilfinn and having the chance to test out a dish of her own every now and then on the customers. Her boss, Norah Cassidy, was a good woman – old-fashioned and somewhat stuck in her ways, but a good cook. Okay, she tended to have the same dishes on the menu week in, week out, but the food was always good and, if possible, sourced locally. Gina tried to expand the menu range every now and then, with Norah sometimes grudgingly admitting that the customers liked something new.
Norah was working away in the kitchen, the smell of her warm tarts filling the café. She might not be the most adventurous of cooks, but she was a dab hand at pastry. People went mad for her apple tart and ice cream. It had been strange for Gina coming to work in a small village café after her job in a busy catering company, but Norah had been kind and generous to her and over time the older woman had come to rely on her.
The past few years had been tough, with Paul’s job in construction just disappearing overnight, and then Grattan’s Gourmet Foods, the busy caterers where she’d worked part-time for years, getting into financial difficulty and eventually shutting down. They had struggled on for months, not knowing what they should do, when fate had intervened and Paul’s mother Sheila had offered them to come and live with her in Kilfinn.
Sheila Sullivan had fallen downstairs at home and broken her collarbone and wrist. However, the hospital discovered that she was suffering from heart failure and suggested that she move into a nursing home. But Sheila, an independent, feisty woman, madeit very clear she was not budging and wanted to stay in her own home. Paul and Gina coming to live with her in Kilfinn was the obvious solution.
They had put their own three-bedroomed house in Dublin on the market, and to their relief had actually managed to sell it, finally able to clear their outstanding mortgage and pay off everything they owed. There had been no money left over – not even a euro – but it was a huge weight off their shoulders.
Saying goodbye to their neighbours in Firhouse had been hard. Also, their two boys had kicked up a huge fuss about leaving their school and their friends and moving to the middle of the country to live with their granny. But in time Conor and Aidan had both settled really well into the local village school and made new friends. Now they both played Gaelic football and were obsessed with their local team and the big gang of kids that they hung around with.
Paul, who had grown up in Kilfinn, was happy to come back to his home village and
There were already two customers sitting at a table in the window, one eating a lemon drizzle cupcake. Gina had made it herself, getting up at six this morning to bake, and Paul, her husband, had dropped her off at work with her just-baked delivery for the café. Then he had gone off to deliver her order to Beech Hill, the old folks’ home on the outskirts of Kilfinn, and another dozen of both cupcakes and brownies to Ramona’s Coffee Shop in the nearby town of Castlecomer.
Twice a week Gina rose early to bake, amazed that something she loved to do was also proving a fairly regular source of income for the family. In fact it was her brownies and cupcakes that had first helped her to get to know Norah. She had come into the café with some free samples of her baking and Norah had tasted them and given her an order straight away. Three months later, whenSonya the girl who helped out in the café decided to head off to Australia with a few of her friends, Norah had asked Gina if she would be interested in coming in and helping. Gina couldn’t believe her luck, and though her salary was nothing to write home about, it was a job, when she hadn’t expected to find one and when she and Paul needed work.
That was two years ago, and it had been one of the best decisions ever. She loved working in the village café, meeting the regulars, hearing all that was going on in Kilfinn and having the chance to test out a dish of her own every now and then on the customers. Her boss, Norah Cassidy, was a good woman – old-fashioned and somewhat stuck in her ways, but a good cook. Okay, she tended to have the same dishes on the menu week in, week out, but the food was always good and, if possible, sourced locally. Gina tried to expand the menu range every now and then, with Norah sometimes grudgingly admitting that the customers liked something new.
Norah was working away in the kitchen, the smell of her warm tarts filling the café. She might not be the most adventurous of cooks, but she was a dab hand at pastry. People went mad for her apple tart and ice cream. It had been strange for Gina coming to work in a small village café after her job in a busy catering company, but Norah had been kind and generous to her and over time the older woman had come to rely on her.
The past few years had been tough, with Paul’s job in construction just disappearing overnight, and then Grattan’s Gourmet Foods, the busy caterers where she’d worked part-time for years, getting into financial difficulty and eventually shutting down. They had struggled on for months, not knowing what they should do, when fate had intervened and Paul’s mother Sheila had offered them to come and live with her in Kilfinn.
Sheila Sullivan had fallen downstairs at home and broken her collarbone and wrist. However, the hospital discovered that she was suffering from heart failure and suggested that she move into a nursing home. But Sheila, an independent, feisty woman, madeit very clear she was not budging and wanted to stay in her own home. Paul and Gina coming to live with her in Kilfinn was the obvious solution.
They had put their own three-bedroomed house in Dublin on the market, and to their relief had actually managed to sell it, finally able to clear their outstanding mortgage and pay off everything they owed. There had been no money left over – not even a euro – but it was a huge weight off their shoulders.
Saying goodbye to their neighbours in Firhouse had been hard. Also, their two boys had kicked up a huge fuss about leaving their school and their friends and moving to the middle of the country to live with their granny. But in time Conor and Aidan had both settled really well into the local village school and made new friends. Now they both played Gaelic football and were obsessed with their local team and the big gang of kids that they hung around with.
Paul, who had grown up in Kilfinn, was happy to come back to his home village and
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