No run this morning just a cup of Lavazza’s best on the couch. An hour of chat later the most perfectly sunny fried egg and smoky rashers and toast and marmalade. I eat the fried egg like this: cut around the yolk and eat all the white and then precariously balance the yolk on the fork and in the gob in one go. Perhaps controversial. Bite of smoky rasher, bite of marmalade toast. Repeat. Sweet salty smoky.
Instagram’s algorithm has really been paying attention these days. Look what a mere mention of edible candles from yesterday brings on the feed today. I have an intensely long drive to do this afternoon across the country from north west to south east to see my brother and I’m already planning in my head what service stations I want to hit.
I’m flagging at 11.30 and need more coffee. Americano and a slice of mint biscuit cake with bubbly bits of Aero mint that I nibble at. Áine and I sit in the cafe and continue to plan my bday bash in December where we’re cooking an elaborate meal and can’t say anymore because invitees / my friends will read this and it’s all too secret.
Coffee goes bye bye ten minutes later with errant fingers and excitable hand gestures talking about desserts. Sticky bag sticky hands sticky phone screen sticky table on acc of the brown sugar I’d liberally added. Lovely lady brings me another.
The sun is at that crucial November 3pm height that makes driving really dangerous and I’ve stopped in Enniskillen Asda superstore for a break. I’ve spent the first hour and a half of driving cutting through Donegal and Fermanagh bogland (beautiful). My car starts to fill up with snacks and remnants of snacks. Another coffee because why not I haven’t had enough yet. Banana. Peppers. Hummus. Mango kefir. Cashews.
I love eating in the car, it always reminds me of being a child with dad before I knew how to drive myself and being amazed he could eat a large 99 and not drop the swirled mound of it whilst also focusing on the road. That was before I learned to drive myself and realised you kinda split your brain when you’re driving and your body just takes over and drives and makes decisions without you having to think too much, so driving one handed with a piece of fruit in the other or your hand in a bag of crisps or dipping into an open tub of hummus or eating a magnum or pulling a grape from a stem or gripping a Big Mac is pretty doable.
November sun gives way to rain and sips of kefir and mouthfuls of cashews bring me to my fave Circle K on this stretch of road in Kells which has a big food hall called I kid you not ‘Kells Kitchen’ and even better a carvery counter called ‘The Cook of Kells’. I offload banana skins and pepper stalks.
After another 1.5 hours, finally reach my destination. My brother gives me a tour (I demand a tour) of all the plants I entrusted him with when I left Dublin in July. He’s gotten in a Camille but I’m so tired I’m not very hungry and after a few mouthfuls of red tofu curry and rice, I’m done. Too much coffee today. My brother finishes it.
Katie Watchorn (@katiewatchorn) is an Irish visual artist who primarily makes sculpture. She is currently living in Belfast.