What
a treasure I found today!
This
is the beautiful Seaport of Howth, Just
a 20 minute ride from Dublin on the Dart.
As planned, I met a friend Daria Walsh at Jamie’s Café just across the
street from the Howth Station.
Daria is a lovely Irish Storyteller. We first
met on Facebook where we exchanged info about ourselves, she told me about her
writing, her storytelling and her life there on Howth. She told me her husband
Paul had just written a children’s book and illustrated it himself. I told her
about my book Sweet Tomatoes, we were instant friends.
I
have to say, I knew we would have a good time today and we would “get on well”
as the Irish say, but little did I know what a treasure I would find in my new
friend. Daria is the happiest, most
positive, lovely person with stories that made me laugh, cry, yes there were times when we were both
dabbing our eyes.
She said she has been
a storyteller all of her life, as she comes from a family of great stories and
tellers of them. She now has about 200 of her own that include family, legends
and Myth and her own original stories that she wrote and created herself.
She was born and raised in Pennsylvania and
with both parents being of Irish descent fell in love with Ireland as a lot of
us do. She moved to Ireland about 11 years ago, and is now living in Howth.
We
started with coffee this morning, and then we walked over to where she entertains
the locals and tourists with her storytelling. We had lunch, then dessert. When
the waitress was leaving, we realized we had been there a long time. She told
us it was 7PM. We had been there since about 12:30. Neither of us skipped a
beat as we sat for about another hour and then we walked back to the Dart.
As
we hugged and parted, Daria asked me what I had planned the rest of the week. I
told her on Thursday I was going to take the tour to Newgrange. Her response
was:
“Oh My God. Your head is going to pop off!”
So,
if you don’t hear from me after Thursday, you’ll know what happened.
Feeling
blessed by the beauty of Howth and my new friend Daria.
I shared your book Sweet Tomatoes with a young girl at work the other day. She was about the age of 4 and requested I read it to her 3 times in just the short time she was there. I let her borrow it so she could take it to pre-school and share it with her teacher and friends. So thankful I stumbled across your blog, looks like you are enjoying yourself so far! I hope you have a wonderful trip, can't wait to follow along :)
ReplyDeleteHi Meghan, Thank you for the nice comment. I'm happy to hear you enjoyed "Sweet Tomatoes" and are sharing it. I am indeed having a wonderful time here in Ireland. I hope you get the chance to come sometime, I think you will love it. Thanks for following the blog, I'm having a good time writing it. I love you, Barb
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