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Archives for May 2022

Words are the Daughters of Earth, but Objects are the Sons of Heaven

2 May, 2022
Posted in: Cork, Family, Ireland, Siblings

I was in Cork over the weekend a couple of weeks ago. My brother announced that he had thrown out a couple of books from my parents’ house. “You shouldn’t have done that, I might have wanted them!” I cried. “Well,” he said, “You’ll just have to manage without Common Household Insects and Pests“.

My sister and I spent hours clearing out my mother’s wardrobe; you will recall that my mother died in June 2019 so this was overdue. It took a lot out of both of us.

The clothes were ok actually though why I thought that I would fit into a size 10 jacket – which I have now donated to herself – is beyond me. We found an enormous number of kid gloves in yellowish white all of which I have given to herself in the – possibly forlorn – hope that she will find these vintage items of interest.

There were furs which had belonged to both my grandmothers. In surprisingly good nick but, I don’t know, fashion may have moved on. Mr. Waffle believes there is something distinctly disturbing about the little paws on this scarf (intertwined dead rodents is how he describes the whole), hard to disagree. These were standard issue for everyone’s granny when I was a child but not so much anymore.

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Herself says her fellow students are always leaving unlikely things at nightclubs and posting distraught messages to social media saying things like “I lost my Great Aunt Edith’s pearls at Wild Nights, has anyone seen them? My parents are very cross.” I can’t help feeling that her great grandmothers’ furs are more unlikely lost items than most and she might enjoy having them.

The wardrobe also contained a mountain of papers, most of which we threw out: old theatre programmes; dinner menus; conference programmes; receipts; hand made cards; bafflingly, an entire Cork Examiner from December 1985 kept for no discernible reason; photographs; a letter from my father from London; chequebook stubs; and postcards.

I kept a description of the dying days of our cat written by my mother which was surprisingly emotional for a hard headed farmer’s daughter. I also kept her insurance book issued from when she went to Freiburg as a postgraduate student in the 50s.

There were some lovely photos of her time as an international student in Freiburg as well as some from her graduation and UCC balls. We kept all the photos, of course and also all of her out of date passports.

I wonder where the people in this photo are now? My mother is in the middle of the front row. If you know any international students who spent 1957/58 in Freiburg, get in touch!

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I kept three of her old cheque books from the 60s. Many of the stubs were not filled in – I regret to say an abiding failure of hers. There was one though for £600 to a garage in Farnborough and I think that must have been for her beloved mini cooper. I kept one of my homemade cards – there were many but I remembered the pain associated with creating this particularly elaborate one. There was a German calendar for 1958 and some unused postcards from Copenhagen, I kept those too.

There was what I can only assume was an unopened wedding present from 1967. We used them for breakfast the other morning. Good to see them getting a trip out after a wait of 54 and a half years.

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It’s funny how few things remain of a whole life time, a whole beloved person; and I am conscious, not necessarily the things she would have chosen to have kept or be remembered by. That’s how it goes, I guess.

Scary

3 May, 2022
Posted in: Princess, Work

I got a third pair of glasses at the weekend. I now have one pair for the car, one for the television and one pair to carry around in my handbag in case I get jumped by an unexpected powerpoint presentation.

Herself when asked for an opinion said, “Scary”. Hard to argue with that. I see big lenses are back. I can’t say I love the result on my small face. Oh well. Everyone will be too intent on following the presentations to notice.

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La France a Voté

4 May, 2022
Posted in: Boys, Michael, Princess

I am not sure how much more bad news I can take so the results of the French election are welcome. Michael was glued to it and even watched the Le Pen/Macron debate in French. If only I had known that this was what it would take to make him voluntarily watch French TV.

I was messaging my friend in Paris during the election and asked her whether there was any chance she knew of some job that my child could do in Paris over the summer. Sadly, she did not. Her own daughter is back for the summer (she too is studying abroad) and my friend is hunting for a job for her. How glad you must be to have her back “pour l’été” I typed. “Pour l’éternité” Apple autocorrected which caused some mild confusion. I just thought you’d like to know how ineffective it is in all languages. I am driven demented with envy by my husband’s absolutely brilliant Android autocorrect.

Great Lives

5 May, 2022
Posted in: Reading etc.

I think all bookish people of a certain age know the name Kaye Webb. She was the reliably excellent editor of Puffin books and her name was on all of my favourites.

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The OJGC lending library, you may wish to know was part of a club library. We had a large house and an attic room was assigned for our club meetings. Members were my older (by 11 months) friend who had lots of brilliant ideas, my brother, my sister and me. As neither of my siblings were great readers (being only 2 and 5 at the time they suffered from an obvious handicap) my friend and I were the mainstays of the library element of the club.

So when the radio show “Great Lives” – can be a bit hit and miss now – had a programme about Kaye Webb, I had a listen. She was married to Ronald Searle. I was completely astonished, it was like two of your friends being related and nobody telling you. That is all.

Bank Holiday Weekend Round Up

6 May, 2022
Posted in: Boys, Daniel, Ireland, Michael, Princess, Siblings

We had my brother to stay for a couple of days last week and then my sister and her partner came around on Saturday. Very satisfactory. I do wish my siblings didn’t live quite so far away. Oh well, I suppose Cork is not as far away as it once was. When I was growing up it was a five hour car journey and trains were prohibitively expensive. So better these days I suppose. My brother is coming back this weekend to watch a rugby match so no cause for complaint there really.

Our neighbour gave us rhubarb from his allotment and I stewed it and then made custard. Then I made pavlova from the left over egg whites. Achievement level unlocked. Daniel says this is very appropriate turn of phrase as gaming instructions are often overly elaborate like this: “You have made custard and you have leftover egg whites, what do you do?” Insert warlocks and spells for custard and egg whites and there you go.

On the bank holiday Monday, we went for a walk in Wicklow. It was well trailed and the boys left the house with minimal grumbling in fairness to them. We went up to Eagle’s Crag where we have often gone before.

It didn’t rain much.

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Daniel stayed with me so that I would have someone to talk to and to give me a pull up the steeper slopes. I am curious about when we swapped roles.

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We missed herself.

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Beyond Outraged

7 May, 2022
Posted in: Work

I sat down beside a colleague in reception the other day. He was waiting for someone and I stopped to chat to him before nipping out to get a sandwich.

Him: I’ve only just heard your news.

Me: About my year out of the workforce?

Him: Yes, good for you but why now?

Me [I have to get some kind of pat answer for this]: Well, no one reason in particular, lots of different reasons. [I start to list them]. And finally, I was going to retire at 60 [depressing that I should now have reached the stage of mentioning retirement but so it is] and I thought I could take this year now or later and I thought, I’d rather put in the year at 61 than now.

Him [getting the wrong end of the stick]: Are you really 60?

I have no words lads.

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