Traveling While Disabled: Part V, Breakfast is Served, Madame

 

This is the fifth installment of the surprisingly rollicking adventures of a courageous disabled traveler going it alone. Here are links to the first four installments in case you missed them:

Part I: http://www.thirdage.com/blogs/traveling-alone-and-disabled-part-one

Part II: http://www.thirdage.com/blogs/traveling-while-disabled-part-ii-portland-toronto

Part III: http://www.thirdage.com/blogs/traveling-while-disabled-part-iii-wheelchair-dis-service

Part IV: http://www.thirdage.com/blogs/traveling-while-disabled-part-iv-home-away-home

 

I wake up at 5 a.m. and then 5:15, 5:30...time is being meted out like molasses through a metal sieve. I finally get up. I look in the mirror. The bangs will have to be blow dried again as they currently look like one large eyelash.

I have arranged for an 8 a.m. wake-up call at the Carriage Country House Inn in Ireland. It is my opinion that on a vacation one should lollygag in bed until you can smell coffee being brewed. Earlier than that and you reveal your slavery to a work schedule. Any later and you may be taken for a drunk. I rise, change into walking clothes and descend the various stairways, slowly because of my disability due to a disease called Transverse Myelitis.  

There are three steps up, a landing, three steps down, a landing and 13 more down. It reminds me of my Grandmother’s house that had various landings and “spare rooms” here and there behind small doors. It was heaven to race about on a rainy day looking for something of interest to find. And my grandmother had a huge collection of pine cones, framed real butterflies, and National Geographic articles filed by theme: Egypt, Volcanoes, Waterfalls, etc. She also had an antique with a tiny room that required a key. In the same way that I sought adventures in my grandmother's house, I was quite sure there were adventures to be had behind some of the doors at the Carriage Country House Inn. I love slowing down on vacation. I can’t remember the last time I thought about my Grandmother’s house. But it is a lovely mind journey, rendering feelings of excitement, adventure, and love.

Downstairs breakfast awaited. Three fourths of the dining area was a semi-circle of glassed dining area overlooking the lake and gardens. There was a buffet of fresh yogurt with raspberry current compote, fresh melon, assorted fruit, cheeses, fresh-squeezed orange juice, and my own pot of coffee.

After the "starter" for breakfast, a proper cooked breakfast could be ordered from the menu. I skipped the black blood pudding and moved on to the poached eggs and sausage links. No ordinary sausage here. This is made each week by the butcher just for Carriage House. Think plump four inch long browned links with mustard seed inside. The seeds pop in your mouth as you chew like caviar. So this is how the 1% live. Awesome. 

Soon two couples arrived and started chattering. They are from Tennessee. At breakfast one couple sat reading their I-pads. I assume they were reading parts of a newspaper because they kept reading out loud articles on health and disease. Bon appetit!

I sat there mesmerized by milky gray rain clouds spraying down on the distant mountains (Named the McGillicuddy Reeks for you “I Love Lucy” geeks). Some something on the lawn caught my eye. An orange tabby streak dashed the length of the garden, lept through the bars of the gate, and scrambled down the gravel path toward the lake. The only clear image I had was its tail flying through the gate and it seemed to have been cut off half way down. When asked about their cat, the inn folks said they had no cat. So my version of Wonderland will start with seeking out a ginger and molasses stripped linx. Cool!

To be continued . . .

Sally Franz is a former stand-up comedian, motivational speaker, and radio host. She is a twice-divorced mother of two and a grandmother of three. Sally has a degree in gerontology and several awards for humor writing. She is the author of "Scrambled Leggs: A Snarky Tale of Hospital Hooey," and "The Baby Boomers Guide to Menopause."

 

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