IF you weren't invited to at least, coffee mornings on Thursday then you know you're on a fast train to social Siberia. What is, probably the most successful (and fun) nationwide fund raiser for the Hospice Foundation had just about the entire country in caffeine fuelled jitters by lunchtime.
By far the one to be asked to in Dublin was in the very elegant Ailesbury Road home of Phyllis Seigne - and most of the residents on the street turned out. Second best (but only just) was in Fitzer's Cafe in Ballsbridge which was more of a media bash, with chief hostesses Eithne Fitzpatrick and Marie Donnelly donning Hospice T shirts and handing around some rather delicious calorific buns.
Shay Healy, Mr Pussy (wearing a rather fetching Cuan Hanley suit), Gerry Stembridge and what seemed like half of Montrose, including Marian Finucane, Brenda O'Donoghue, David Blake Knox, Claire Duignan and Mary Kennedy, were there to eat them.
Other guests seen drinking some of Bewley's best were the glamorous PR person Deborah Martin, Avoca Handweaver's designer Amanda Pratt, architect Phelim Dunne, Dr Mary Redmond and Oona Lenihan from the Hospice, (Oona came up with the idea of the coffee morning in the first place), super chef Alix Gardiner and her Hidden Ireland husband John Colcough, Patrick and Shirley Bewley, Eileen Pearson, John Waters, the very stylish Noeleen McCreevey and, suitably enough for a who's who type gathering, Maureen Cairnduff.
By the end of the morning, the hospice was £4,000 better off, which is good going considering that there were 200 people there.