MANY INSPIRATIONS FOR THE BALLROOM CAFE

 
   This was a favourite spot when writing The Ballroom Cafe and no wonder then that Ella O'Callaghan so often found comfort looking out on the rhododendron grove at Roscarbury Hall from her upstairs  Ballroom Café.

   I often travelled to this lovely place- Kilmacurragh, Co Wicklow - to sit among the trees and the  towering rhododendron when I was deep in my novel, The Ballroom Café

   Beautiful with the rhododendron in bloom, these gardens near the East coast of Ireland are an oasis of peace and calm at any time of the year.

No wonder that Ella O Callaghan likes to walk by the rhododendron grove and finds her comfort looking out on these beasts of plants which for a short time in April and May  astound with the most stunning wondrous flowers bringing the colours of  far away places to our doorstep. Vermilion red, orange pink, cerise as fine as any sari colour in India.

   It is these colours that  are reflected so beautifully in the Weiss brooches that Ella O Callaghan likes to wear. 

Often as she sat her dressing table overlooking the parkland,  she picked out a brooch that equally mesmerised with its wondrous colours. If Ella was picking today, I think she would pick this lovely Weiss vintage brooch.