So I’ll assume if you’re still reading along that you’re ok with nauseating twee therefore allowing me to indulge in the telling of our excursion last evening. My mother had visited from Cork and as good grandmothers do, she said, ‘away with ye out for the evening’. She didn’t have to ask twice.

So we found ourselves in a pub in a seaside village some ten minutes away trying not to look so comfortable in each others company that it was ok to just stare at the goings on around us and not actually converse. We could, after all, chat anytime. Over three meals a day in fact, everyday as it goes. Exposure to the everyday rituals of young people, or indeed people in pubs we were short on. Did you know, for example, that in each others company, people now spend a lot of time staring at their mobile phones? Honestly.

One person who didn’t seem to notice was the man singing on the guitar in the corner. He was, or at least it seems, very used to being the much ignored troubadour in the country village of a week night. He didn’t seem to mind. On the contrary, he sang as if he were playing a large stadium to an audience of thousands. Lost in song, eyes closed and wrinkled, guitar high on tummy, he sang (and here comes the twee – you’ve been warned) his heart out. The usual repertoire for his audience, rock songs, old ballads, that Pink Floyd number for Tommy who danced along (I suspect since lunchtime), the hits and the supermarket ditties that make us cringe normally. Not last evening.

No. Last evening, we swayed. We were held in the half asleep reverie that haunts parents of all young children, under the spell of a man who had spent years singing in pubs with bad amplification and audience participation. With little feedback other than the promise of a quiet and not assured round of applause at the end of each song but for the view of the odd sleepy couple in the corner swaying to his tunes.

It made me think, how even when you don’t think you’re making any bit of difference, that someone sways to your tune. Your passion and enthusiasm go not unrewarded whether you’re selling newspapers, baking bread, teaching, nursing or working in an office for when you go to the point that you invest yourself so fully in an enterprise where you give your all, you make an impression. And you never know who needs your smile, your excellent service today, your ability to impress your love for what you do on another, your voice.

A reminder to myself foremost to remember to leave ’em swaying.

I know, I really should get out more often.