Archives for 5 April, 2005

My friend D had a baby girl at 10.26.  I got a text message at 10.29 yesterday morning. I was very impressed.  Then I met Mr. Waffle for lunch and he said “10.26 pm!”. Ah well, attention to detail was never really my strong point.  You will be delighted to hear that mother and baby are doing fine.  Have not yet spoken to the baby’s mother but did ring C (baby’s aunt) to find out how things were going.  She confirmed that the baby is beautiful and that she, C, is all excited.  She said “when I woke up this morning, the
first thing I thought of was how is the baby?”  Is this not endearing? Lucky baby.

I find myself surprisingly distressed by the death of the Pope. I mean, we didn’t really see eye to eye on a lot of things and I can’t help feeling that that nice liberal man from Milan would be much more likely to make me a happy Catholic.  But all the same, you have to admire the man for whom the cliche “indominatable spirit” could have been invented.

I have been thinking about his trip to Ireland in 1979 and the excitement that generated. I remember I was sick and no one came near me to bring me succour or squeezed orange juice and I had to drag myself downstairs and watch the Pope on the telly with my mother to get any attention at all.  My best friend got taken to Limerick by her parents and got up at 4.00 in the morning to get a good place to hear the Pope say mass. She brought me
back a picture and a papal flag which are probably still behind the wardrobe
in my parents’ house in Cork. Meanwhile, even more thrillingly, my cousin PJ was offered the opportunity to serve mass for the Pope. To his parents’ eternal (and I do mean eternal here) shame he asked what would he be doing if he wasn’t a papal altar boy and when his teacher said “well, you’d just have the day off school, I suppose”, PJ said, “well, thanks, but I think that I’ll take the day off then”.

Ireland in 1979 wasn’t exactly booming and it was such a lift when the Pope came, I think then that it was the best thing that could have happened to us. Now, of course, we’re all far too sophisticated to care where the Pope visits. I suppose the memory of how dynamic he was then has stayed with me and it was a shock to see how frail he was latterly but, by God, he had a will of iron and unshakeable faith. Fair dues as we say in Cork.

On Sunday, on foot of Thierry’s recommendation we went to see the Trash People in the Grand Place. As we approached, I was seized by fear. Was it an April fool’s joke� I had seen no mention of it anywhere but Thierry’s blog. Really were they going to fill the Grand Place with Trash People? Really, they were and here is a photo to prove it.  Thierry, forgive my doubting.