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Archives for July 2007

Why travelling for work is a strain for everyone, frankly

4 July, 2007
Posted in: Family, Work

Before – Phone call from the airport

Me: Is this a good time?
Him: Mmm, I’m in the bathroom, the children are in the bath.
Me: I’ve just done a really stupid thing. I’ve taken your keys as well as mine.
Him: Why?
Me: Accident, sorry.
Him: [Sigh] OK, we’ll manage.
Me: All well then?
Him: Well, the Princess and L put marker all over the walls.
Me: Ah.
Him: And, that nasty smell?
Me: Mmmh?
Him: It turned out Daniel had done a poo, there was a pellet floating in his nappy for the past couple of hours. I found out when I took off his nappy and it fell into the bath.
Me: I see.
Him: Listen, I’ve got to go the boys are starting to drink the bathwater.

After – Returning home

23.30 Return from the airport.
23.45 Stop myself compulsively tidying the house and go to bed.
00.15 Give a bottle to Michael.
00.30 Give a bottle to Daniel.
01.20 Welcome warm, miserable Michael into the parental bed.
03.20 Princess joins us.
03.30 Go to boys’ room with Michael. Daniel starts to howl. Much running around and parental cursing. Princess luxuriates in double bed to herself.
03.40 Mr. Waffle dispatches Princess to her own bed, she threatens to bring the house down. We swap children.
03.45 I go to the Princess’s narrow single bed and calm her down. She refuses to go back to sleep and keeps nudging me awake.
05.45 I storm out of the Princess’s bedroom to my own room in a force ten huff. She howls. We ignore her. She falls asleep. So do we.
06.15 Michael wakes up. Mr. Waffle takes him to play.
07.00 Daniel wakes up.
07.15 The Princess wakes up.
07.30 It becomes clear that Michael is too sick to go to the creche. We ring around for babysitters.
09.00 We sit exhaustedly at our desks and wonder why anyone would employ parents.

Musical History

6 July, 2007
Posted in: Reading etc.

I wouldn’t say I’m entirely indifferent to music but I wouldn’t say that I’m exactly entranced by it either. In fact I’m too indifferent to even call myself middle of the road. I like some mild classical music playing in the background. I could recognise maybe half a dozen classical pieces. Despite repeated efforts on my friend M’s part, the enthusiasm I can muster for opera is severely limited. I really wish I knew more about this. I feel that there is a whole world of entertainment out there that is baffling to me. And, obviously, it’s not so good for the music round of pub quizzes either. I haven’t been to a non-classical music concert (I understand it’s called a gig m’lud) since I was pregnant with the Princess more than four years ago, so it’s not like I’m a winner on the contemporary music stakes either. When I was in my 20s, I was once stopped on the street by someone selling ‘placebo tickets’ my very first thought was, how odd, why would anyone want to buy tickets that weren’t real.

I do like certain songs but more for their associations than the music, which is fine but never central for me. I don’t think I’m tone deaf and I believe I can hold a tune – though I may be mistaken, I suppose. My lack of interest seems to me to be, if not unique, certainly unusual. I am always slightly appalled when somebody proudly says ‘I don’t read books’. It always seems such a loss. There are so many wonderful books, so many different genres, so much entertainment to be had, how can anyone not read? Everyone else in the world feels the same way about music.

My brother and sister both have strong views on music, my sister even spending a significant slice of her income to travel round to see her favourite bands. My father likes classical music – horribly loud – I must have been the only teenager regularly saying to her father “could you turn it DOWN, please?”. I would be very hard pressed to say what kind of classical music though I know he doesn’t like Wagner and neither do I after having seen the Meistersinger of Nuremburg on a very uncomfortable seat up in the gods. My mother learnt piano in school which she didn’t like much and dropped Joan Baez when she married my father: he didn’t approve and her loyalty was to him rather than Joan, there’s a joke about Bob Dylan in there somewhere but I’m not sure what it is. Mr. Waffle’s family are all very musical and I am lost in admiration. His mother and sister sing, his brother is a very successful amateur piano player (winning all kinds of hard competitions for serious amateurs) and his father came out of the pub to hold an umbrella over us last time we went to hear his mother sing the Messiah in her choir.

The other night, rather than sleeping, I stayed up late watching a programme on the BBC about British indie music of the 80s which I found strangely compelling in the way of late night television that you can’t turn off. I realised that the soundtrack to my college years was entirely established by my indie loving then boyfriend who pressed upon me tapes of the Stone Roses, Inspiral Carpets and, of course, the Smiths at the same time I was forcing him to read Georgette Heyer: maybe we should have called it a day at that point, rather than continuing on and off and on and off for years.

In a slightly different category, he also pressed upon me 10,000 Maniacs and the Go-Betweens Not bad, but nothing I would have listened to off my own bat, though I am beginning to think that very little falls into that category. My limited knowledge of the Go-Betweens has lead to continuing mild embarrassment. One of the Go-Between’s more obscure numbers was played at the party of a friend of Mr. Waffle’s shortly after I had begun going out with him (my husband, not the random friend, try to keep up) and I recognised it. The host was delighted and took me to be a genuine fan, which my college boyfriend was, but my interest was tepid, at best. Now, when I see Mr. Waffle’s friend, he is never at a loss for conversational gambits and my attempts to divert him with talk of almost anything else are always headed off in favour of intense analysis of the Go-Betweens. I read recently with the liveliest alarm that they have reformed. I see much social misery ahead building on nearly 10 years of feigned interest in this band.

Yet, somehow, I felt a real fondness for all the music on the telly. I also realised that Johnny Marr must really be Johnny Meagher and that no one in England can pronounce Gallagher including Liam Gallagher but I wouldn’t say that to his face because he sounds like a right git, not like that nice Damon Albarn?? from Blur who is clearly someone you could take home to meet your mother. Mind you Liam Gallagher was funny talking about “Wonderwall” which, he said, appealed to the squares. He made four million in a week. There are a lot of squares. But I’m not even a square. Though I think Wonderwall is quite good, unlike Liam who when asked what its appeal was said ‘I dunno, you’d have to ask someone who liked it’.

The indie music which left me cold at the time had the soft sepia tinge of nostalgia. I was reminded fondly of the unfortunate boyfriend’s remark to the Cork Examiner on the much hyped new U2 album – the antithesis of indie, you understand. Fresh from a Summer working in the States and with an indie crush, he was disparaging about the new album. His remarks were dutifully reported on the front page of the local paper the following day to the horror of his mother: “[X] from Montenotte said that ‘U2 suck'”.

But you know what? They had some clips from the Libertines whom I thought were only famous for providing Kate Moss’s boyfriend and actually, they weren’t bad but it’s not like I’ll be rushing out and buying an album or something rash like that.

Scattered Showers

7 July, 2007
Posted in: Mr. Waffle, Reading etc.

I am reading “The Pope’s children” about how Ireland has changed in the last 10 years. The author classifies people in groups. I asked my loving husband “are we Kells angels?” “No” he said, he’s read it all the way to the end, “we’re Hicos.”

“Sorry?”

“Hibernian cosmopolitans: we’ve lived abroad for a bit and we have seen what works elsewhere”.

“Yes, I was just thinking that when I was watching the Princess’s show at the end of her course – child care is so well managed here. I just wish she hadn’t flapped her arms, jumped and stuck out her tongue while the other four year old children stood in line singing to variations on ‘Water Music’ (I love the middle classes). I suppose I wasn’t as embarrassed as the father who’s son spent the performance with his hand down the front of his trousers clutching his penis”.

“Anyway, we’re always going on about it and annoying everyone”.

“Ah yes”

“And we’re vaguely worried about the direction the country is going”.

“Yes!”

“And we would pay more taxes for better healthcare.”

“Yes!!”

We’re off to Ireland for a fortnight’s holiday tomorrow. Let’s hope we don’t manage to irritate too large a proportion of our long suffering friends and families.

R&R

10 July, 2007
Posted in: Family, Travel

All morning: Michael has attacks of vomitting and diarrohea.

15.15 Two taxis arrive to carry us to the bus stop.

15.30 We finish packing in our equipment and children.

15.40 We arrive at the bus stop. Load our stuff. Get on board. Mr. Waffle and the Princess go to get her a bottle of water. The boys howl and wriggle trying to go with them. The bus driver starts his engine.

16.10 The bus driver tells us that, as the bus is full, we will have to carry all our children on our laps. No one is very happy about this arrangement infringing as it does on safety, sanity and dignity. He relents.

17.00 We arrive at Charleroi airport in bucketing rain. Uniquely, in my experience, Charleroi airport does not have trolleys. I wait with the children in the heaving terminal building while Mr. Waffle ferries across the luggage and the three car seats. Miraculously, car seats do not count towards your luggage allowance on Ryanair which seems extraordinary. This means that, hurrah, we are within our allowance unlike the young man from Limerick in front of us who is resignedly putting on as many clothes as he can from his overweight bag.

18.00 We board using our exciting priority boarding cards because Ryanair will no longer call people with children first and we were worried that we might not get to sit together. Not only do we sit together but the only seat left empty on the plane is beside me. Double hurrah. Journey is uneventful but tiring because my children only love me at the moment and none of them wants to be with their lucky, lucky Daddy.

19.00 (Irish Time – 20.00 Belgian Time) : We land and go to seek dinner in Shannon airport. Everything is closed which we discover after an extensive search. We get some sandwiches in the Londis shop.

20.00 We get into our hired car and drive to Cork.

21.00 The boys finally fall asleep.

21.10 I fall asleep.

22.00 We arrive in Cork. The Princess who had been flagging is all perked up and rushes in to the attentions of her loving granparents. We unpack and put the boys to bed.

22.30 Kind nana puts the Princess to bed and we sit down to a well-deserved cup of tea.

22.35 Michael gets sick all over his bed. We clean up and lull him back to sleep.

23.00 We go to bed ourselves and aside from administering some bottles, the night is peaceful.
05.45 The Princess wakes us up and our holiday begins.

Did I mention that it’s been raining since we arrived and the forecast is for more.  On the plus side, Michael appears to be well again.  On the minus side, Daniel got sick at lunch time.  Oh well, at least we have an army of loyal babysitters on call.
I am so looking forward to travelling to the US in August.

Another holiday could kill us

23 July, 2007
Posted in: Family, Travel

We’re back. Did you miss me? No, well, we’re back all the same. Much as I love all my relatives, it is fabulous to be back in our own house. Also, Belgium is not damp. It is, I hasten to add, raining, but my clothes are not all damp in the way that they tend to be in Ireland where damp is endemic and the hot press a way of life.

So, we spent a week in Cork. As always, we went to Fota where Mr. Waffle and I were entranced by the llamas, kangaroos, monkeys and (I think) prairie dogs lolloping about and the children fell in love with the ducks all over again. Just because it’s a cliché, doesn’t mean it isn’t true. The weather was pretty good all in all, we had a paddling pool in the garden which the children loved and on the most rain sodden day we went to the Glucksman gallery which they also loved. Video installations are the way of the future.



For a couple of days they had their Uncle Dan in Cork as well which they loved because they are as feckless as he is and they recognised a kindred spirit. I was touched to see how sweet and patient my brother was with them: tossing them in the air, reading to them, playing football with them, outlining to a restive audience the rudiments of rugby, waving at them gamely when they went in to his room at 6.00 in the morning to tell him that daylight had broken and it was time to rise and shine. Not actually rising though. However, the star of the show was their Nana who spent hours playing with them, cooking for them and chatting to them. Their Granddad also contributed his mite by waving at them from behind his paper from time to time as appropriate and announcing when they seemed likely to do anything particularly dangerous. My parents house is great for this and Michael, in particular, got great entertainment from the hacksaw on the landing.

On Sunday we set off from Cork to Kerry with tearful farewells on our part (Nana, Nana, NANA) to the loving Cork grandparents and, I suspect, mild sighs of relief from them, though they looked suitably downcast. I imagine that the minute we left, they rushed in to have a quiet cup of tea and savour the silence. We left on a high as we had all gone to mass that morning and the children were as good as gold. Especially welcome since my aunt had done a reading and I wouldn’t have liked her to be shouted down. My aunt lives next door to my parents and is the least materialistic person I have ever met as well as an early riser. This was a phenomenal combination for a mother of three small children and most mornings saw us going through the back garden and tapping anxiously on her window so that we could go in, play her piano, test the durability of her china and wooden ornaments and demand that we too get porridge for breakfast.

The journey to Kerry was distressingly eventful. We were diverted from Macroom to Millstreet due to roadworks. We were stopped for about half an hour by an accident just before Sneem (isn’t that the most delightful name for a town?) and once we got to the other side, we promptly rolled over a stone and got a puncture. Subsequently we discovered that Sneem was the subject of much bad feeling among the holiday group as one of their number, a Canadian too, a visitor to this country, had been kicked out of a café there for breastfeeding her 5 month old daughter. I must say I have never ever had such an experience and nor has anyone I know. I suppose it must happen but not surely with a very discreet mother and a small baby and in modern Ireland to boot? Well, apparently, yes, poor J who was on her own with baby A was tossed on to a street with the words “this is Ireland, you can’t do that kind of thing here”. You will be happy to know that, even as I type, a number of irate letters are winging their way to the Irish Times headed “smirched in Sneem”. But honestly, who’d have thought?

I digress. We got to Caherdaniel in the end where we were greeted by another set of loving and excited grandparents, fresh to the fray. The parents-in-law described life in Caherdaniel as resembling a Feydeau farce with a vast rotating cast (though, to my knowledge, no infidelity). They had rented a large house as had their friends, the Canadians and the cousins. The previous week, the cast had featured, the Canadians’ son-in-law the theatre director and his daughter from an earlier relationship who had left for Las Vegas (fancy) to talk about a show, the Canadians’ daughter’s school friend from Ireland (I should perhaps mention that Mr. Canada is a diplomat who has spent time everywhere and is now finishing off his career as ambassador in a glamorous posting which comes with a house with eight bathrooms which we have been invited to sample and we may yet) and her husband (who was the year behind Mr. Waffle in college and remembered him but of whom Mr. Waffle does not have even the faintest recollection, and yet he can describe to you in detail the flags of 189 different countries, mysterious) and three children. More or less simultaneously with us arrived the Princess’s only first cousin and attendant parents, Mr. Waffle’s cousin J’s new girlfriend and Mr. Waffle’s cousin S who is working in Australia for a year and who is quite possibly a saint having travelled for 24 hours and after a brief respite in Dublin, driven to Kerry and spent many more hours entertaining a crowd of adoring four year olds. In situ for the duration were Mr. Waffle’s parents, the Canadians (friends of the parents from their Dublin posting), their daughter, her four year old and 5 month old daughters, Mr. Waffle’s uncle and aunt, their three children and their daughter’s 4 year old son. Are you still with me?

The Princess had great fun with the other children. In particular the Canadian four year old who was a quite extraordinarily entertaining and charming child (not obviously as extraordinarily entertaining etc. as my child but close and, on the plus side, she seemed to be quite happy to keep her clothes on much of the time unlike my hardy nudist daughter). I did think as I watched them gathering shells on the beach together with enormous concentration, how lovely it must be for the parents-in-law to have their granddaughter and their old friends’ granddaughter playing together. I am a sucker for this kind of thing. Her second cousin is a boy and he was better for jumping on beds but not as good at the shell gathering which he scorned in favour of shrimping with his mother and nana.

And the sun shone. This was nothing short of miraculous as there were floods everywhere else in the country. Obviously, the sun didn’t shine all day every day but we went swimming a number of times and, given half a chance, the boys would have launched themselves across the bay to Cork. How they loved the water. The Princess and her father went down to the pub one night with various cousins and aunts and uncles and while he sat and talked in a manly way she had crisps and bonded with her cousins which is a quintessentially Irish holiday experience and one that reminded me nostalgically of my own youth spent in similar hostelries in West Cork. On the Wednesday night, the ambassador brought his guitar round and there was a big dinner which necessarily involved cross-questioning the misfortunate new girlfriend (please see dramatis personae above) and her boyfriend, Mr. Waffle’s cousin. As I extracted much information from both by my use of the direct question (I am the only Irish person alive capable of asking a direct question and I find it hugely effective in getting information from my shocked compatriots), my mother-in-law kept saying “please forgive her, she’s from Cork”, she once tried this on a wheel clamper in Dublin and it didn’t cut the mustard there either. Nevertheless, the wider clan was captivated and the girlfriend bore up spectacularly well though I did think she quailed slightly when Mrs. Canada senior asked what they got up to after dinner on their first date.

The Ambassador is a really good guitar player. Normally when I see a guitar in the hall, my heart sinks, but “The Boxer” was not played once. There were some lovely Canadian folk songs including one which the Princess wants me to find about a boy who sinks another ship for the captain of his ship in exchange for gold silver and the captain’s daughter but, alas, drowns before he can claim his bounty. Unfortunately, I can’t remember the tune or the words which is a little problematic but I do think that it shows how attracted she is to cheerful tales. Incidentally, have I mentioned that my daughter can recognise sarcasm at 20 paces; I feel that this is one useful skill for life with which I have equipped her.

On Saturday we went to Limerick where we stayed in the grandly named Clarion Suites but I have to give it a plug because it was so nifty and I found it. Two bedrooms, a kitchenette and a sitting room. I am a genius. Having tried and failed to arrange to meet our only friends in Limerick we ran into them on the street and went out to dinner with their one very well behaved child and our three hyper ones. We exchanged fragments of conversation over dinner – Oh I see, you were in Washington when we called, five in the morning eh, fancy that? – No, no bugs except, of course, Daniel was sick in the car, I think I’ve got most of the large pieces of sausage he regurgitated out of the car seat – not sleeping through the night, no, oh you neither, great, um, no, sorry about that – your family have moved back to CAVAN? And so on. Slightly more satisfactory than it sounds but tiring. Limerick was as depressing as I remembered and not at all celtic tigery unlike Cork which is absolutely booming and looks fantastic but not overcrowded and overdeveloped like Dublin. Apparently the celtic tiger never crossed the Shannon; Limerick sits squarely on the Shannon and, frankly, it looks like it’s doing a good job barring the entrance. Maybe if I hadn’t seen it in driving rain, I would have felt more warmly towards it.

On Sunday we began the marathon journey home stopping at Bunratty Castle, no, stop your sniggering, we did not go to the medieval banquet, we had lunch. We got to the airport, unloaded our two bags, three car seats, buggy, assorted miscellaneous junk and three children from the car in driving rain and went to stand in the enormous queue for an hour to check in our luggage, then queued for security (fold up the buggy, take off all shoes, taste the milk in the bottles), then queued to get on the plane, in due course queued to get into Belgium, queued for our luggage, carried into arrivals two bags, three car seats etc. etc. as Charleroi airport continues to be trolley free by choice. Discovered we had just missed the bus for Brussels and would have to wait an hour. Spent the time stopping our hyper boys from pushing each other under a bus. Queued to get on the bus, got to Brussels, waited for two taxis, got home at 8.45. Will never travel from Charleroi again.

We’re flying to Dublin on Saturday and then on to Chicago a couple of days later. Reassure me. Please.

Knotty questions

25 July, 2007
Posted in: Princess

Me:  Look, all the people in the cafe are mothers and daughters.

Her: Well, everybody is somebody’s child.

Me: True.

Her: Except God, of course.

Me: Well, no, Mary was God’s mother.

Her: I didn’t realise that Jesus and God were brothers.

Me (anxiously though, you know, quite pleased as well that she’s getting the hang of family relationships – I have drawn family trees on the back of envelopes to show her how third cousins work, degrees of cousinship is such a useful thing to know and it’s a bit like public procurement or state aids, so few people know anything about it that even showing a little knowledge is enough to gain you much admiration): No, um, actually, you know, I might be wrong there, I think God is actually Jesus’s father, though of course the Trinity is one of those theological mysteries which are, um, mysterious.

Her: Can I have lemon tart?

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