WE sat at Belfast’s Lock Keeper's Inn as the sun shone on bleached white cottage walls and clumps of midnight blue irises bruised the daylight.
Green leafy trees and a still river are easy to love. There’s a timeless quality about the old lock – the vivd green of duckweed on still water – the image of the huge dray horse.
Down the alleyways of memory, the echo of horses’ hooves ring out in the early morning.
“A whole family of 10 were reared in that cottage,” I told my son.
At the cottage doorway the ghost of a mother lingers… shooing the children outside to play or calling them back in for tea. It was a small space to rear a family. My mother and her brothers and sisters grew up in a two-bedroomed house… eight in that space.
In her adult life, she always wanted more space.
As children we visited our grandfather living alone in that same house… the hollow tick of a clock, the sweet smell of pipe tobacco, his bed so high that we had to take a running jump to clamber on; heavy black rosary beads under the starched white pillows.
He was forever dapper in his suit and waistcoat with a gleaming pocket watch.
He took a raw egg with a dash of milk with his breakfast. He rested his pipe on a cream and orange china bowl on top of the dresser. That was long ago.
In the warm sunshine of this June day, my son and I sat near the Lagan towpath and ate out for the first time in a year-and-a-half.
A fry in a bap – him – and pancakes with berry compote – me.
Here’s to the abnormal normal. How you queue up at the window to give your orders, how you get a little buzzer that goes off when your food is ready, how everything is served on paper cups and plates and plastic cutlery.
Young mothers pushing prams relieved to fall in with other young mothers to talk more than baby.
Toddlers throwing off sun hats, refusing the baptism of sun cream.
Sweaty runners gulping down water, cyclists in wraparound sunglasses and skin tight shorts.
Small children laughing and dogs barking under your feet.
Older retired types in fleecy jumpers because when you have weathered many storms then you know how the clouds can gather and are prepared.
Black faced gulls swooping near and close – knowing there is a crust in the offing, diving in for the kill.
The smell of coffee; the hum of an electric lawn mower; a ripple of laughter; a small dog’s bark.
The familiar is unfamiliar… this other world we had missed. We are jolted back to life with an electric shock.
After the food, we took the walk along the river on a path edged with the bridal frill of cow parsley and the sudden flash of bluebells.
Up past Shaw’s Bridge and onto Minnowburn, we walked.
And here’s the thing. I’ve walked to the iron bridge with friends before but suddenly I was lost.
It happened in the underground car park at Forestside too.
“It’s all the wrong way around. I turned left but I ended up at the other side. It should have been the Marks & Spencer entrance but it wasn’t... I know it’s been a while but how come I can’t figure it out,” I asked my sister.
“Well, they haven’t switched Marks and Sainsburys around,” she said.
But it feels like they have done; like somebody has played a dirty trick on me.
The world is out of kilter.
My friend joined me for lunch outdoors.
“Next week we’ll try an indoor coffee,” she said.
We’ll take the bus next. What a strange thought. Like when you learn to drive and you get in the car and you’re whispering to yourself: “Mirror, signal, manoeuvre” and you actually learn off braking distances but you haven’t a clue what they look like. The steps are small.
Just a coffee on the patio in the sunshine.
We have not welcomed people inside, but that is coming.
And back to the office. No more rolling out of bed at five minutes to start time and wearing pyjamas til lunch.
“Take it nice and slowly like a rocket on re-entry. You don’t want to burn up,” said my sister.
The 7B beckons– I hope it’s the friendly bus driver.
