I blame Denis. I was all flustered that morning because I was late for the train up to see Jennifer, my second youngest. She’s due now in the next couple of weeks. The fiancé is a bit of an eejit, but that’s another story.

Denis said he’d drop me to the station in the lorry, but didn’t he get talking to the Stop-Go Man where they’re fixing the Bad Bend and miss his turn. Denis won’t die of stress anyway.

So, when I got the train, I was late and I hadn’t time to go to the horsebox for tea. Imagine saying that now. But do you remember when you couldn’t get tea anywhere else in the country only out of a horsebox? Freya my niece told me that she heard someone in her class describe a horsebox as a converted coffee shop the other day.

I found my seat on the train. There was a fella opposite. He smiled and then went straight onto the phone. Tapping away.

The inspector comes down to do the tickets; or host as they call it now. “Any sign of the tea trolley?” I said. “I thought it was coming back.”

“Not yet on this route,” he says. “They’re phasing it in.”

“PHASING IT IN,” I roared inside in my head. How much “phasing” do they need for one fecking trolley to go up and down and sell an oul purple Snack? I’ll push the thing myself. But I didn’t say that to the host. You can’t be rude to your host.

He saw my face.

“You should complain,” he said. “Why don’t you complain?” I said. “I don’t drink tea,” he said and laughed.

I was gasping for a cup of tea. It was going to be an hour and a half to Dublin.

TikTok Tea

The fella opposite me hears all of this and he must have seen the go brónach face on me. He puts the phone away, or rather leans it against his book.

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“I never leave home without it these days,” he says. He pours out the tea. The smell of it. It was like smelling bread. Then before I open my mouth, he’s out with a little metal bottle for the milk. Honest to god, it was like watching a craftsman. “Say when,” he says. And he pours it perfectly.

“You’re like the fella with the wine in the restaurant. You didn’t spill a drop.”

“Could you say that again?” he says.

“What do you mean? ‘Say it again?’”

“I’ll cue you in. Three-two-one,” and he points his phone at me.

“Here we have an Irish Mammy, maybe the last in the series, getting the tea-bag rescue from your host, The Teabag Geebag.”

“Excuse me now,” I said. “What’s this?”

Mammy teabagging

“It’s content for my TikTok Irish Mammy Teabagging – 50,000 followers! I’ve been giving tea to Irish mammies on Irish trains for a couple of years without the trolleys. I thought I was finished, but looks like we’re having one for the road. I’m basically your good Samaritan.”

“But I don’t want to be on your TikTok,” I said.

“Public space,” he says. “I can film you.”

“Please get rid of it. I don’t want it out there.”

“Sorry fam, there’s gold in this content.”

I lost it then. I didn’t even know who fam was.

“I’ll give you discontent,” I said. And God forgive me, didn’t I put his phone into the tea!

“WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?” He started shouting at me.

The host was walking past.

“Excuse me, this man is harassing me,” I said

“You’ll have to move to another carriage or I’ll call the gardaí,” he tells him.

“But I’m hosting a podcast,” said yer man.

My man gives me a wink.