Mona’s ‘social, safe’ tea party

IN pre-Covid days, Skibbereen’s Mona Best liked to sit outside her front door with a cup of tea and chat randomly to her friends and neighbours as they passed by, writes Jackie Keogh. Mona has been cocooning since the lockdown began, and promptly closed her famously quirky bed and breakfast business at Market Street.

Recently, however, she decided to revive her afternoon tea party but, this time, she held it behind large, secure gates. And, for the added amusement of passersby, Mona even added a couple of mannequins to round out the table.  ‘I did it for the drama, for the fun aspect of it,’

Mona told The Southern Star, ‘but I found it social too because even from a 2m distance I was able to speak to the people who stopped to have a look, and a chat. It was social but safe.’ (Photo: Garry Minihane).