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Archives for February 2023

Anois Teacht an Earraigh

1 February, 2023
Posted in: Boys, Daniel, Family, Ireland, Michael

Today is the first day of Spring and my mother’s birthday. I still really miss her, I suppose I always will. She was so full of enthusiasm and joie de vivre and she loved birthdays.

It’s also the feast day of Saint Brigid – Ireland’s female patron saint – and to celebrate the end of Covid, we are having a new permanent holiday on the books on the first Monday of February. My mother would have been delighted. Her grandsons currently sitting their mock Leaving Certificate examinations are also grateful to St Brigid for this relief.

And this is the poem I always think of today. Not a great translation but it gives you the idea.

Mocks

2 February, 2023
Posted in: Boys, Daniel, Michael, Mr. Waffle

Things are a bit tense here at Waffle Towers. The boys are doing their mocks and finding it trying. Yesterday evening I made them do an online session on how to do the Leaving Cert maths paper. Given that their maths teacher is on mat leave and the newly found replacement is a masters in engineering student (i.e. not a qualified teacher but any port in a storm) who is from abroad (i.e. has never done the Irish Leaving Cert), I thought it might be useful.

I reminded them of the session over an early dinner, the news was met with the levels of enthusiasm you might expect. Mr. Waffle made comforting noises as I insisted. “Why are you always bad cop?” asked Daniel. Good question. Mr. Waffle as the child of hippies is above competition, it’s all brother bear and sister moon and let’s go with the flow. Is this attitude going to get them through the exams? I doubt it.

After the online session, Daniel arrived down to give us the review. He conceded that it was actually quite useful but that he had logged off once the questions started as they were all a bit stupid.

Mr. Waffle joked, “There are no stupid questions just stupid people.” We looked at him. “Where’s brother bear now?” asked Daniel.

The Longest Relationships of Your Life

3 February, 2023
Posted in: Siblings

My brother was in Dublin for work during the week and stayed with us. Like the kind humanitarian I am, I drove him out to the airport for his morning flight. The airport was full of hares (enormous) running around the place. I counted six or seven. I went out to Malahide Castle for a cup of tea and a walk afterwards (because I can) and saw more. Is it global warming bringing us an early March hare season?

I stripped the bed he slept in later in the day and it felt curiously…warm. He had left the electric blanket on, switched to max. Who does that? Give me strength.

He is adapting somewhat to the constant tidiness he finds in my house. “You just want people not to be able to relax,” he hazarded. I refused to be goaded, “I only want you not to be relaxed.” I will be staying with him in France in a couple of weeks time and I fear the worst. I suppose it will by my turn not to be able to relax.

Also how is my younger, feckless brother turning 50 on Sunday? A mystery.

Baffled etc

4 February, 2023
Posted in: Work

A colleague just sent me this picture with the caption “glad to see that you’re still working on your sabbatical”. He thinks it’s the image of me. Really?

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Reading

5 February, 2023
Posted in: Reading etc.

This Year’s For Me and You by Emily Bell

This was written by someone I know. That caveat aside, I really enjoyed it. It’s a funny Christmas read (although the author assures me that it is an appropriate read at any time of the year). I saved it up to read in December and I found it completely charming and very funny indeed in places. I am glad to finally know what hot yoga entails.

Stalking the Atomic City by Markiyan Kamysh

This is a very peculiar book written by a youngish man from Kiev whose father was one of the Chernobyl liquidators. He regularly visits the exclusion zone illegally. It’s quite short but the writing is more like poetry than prose (in translation at least). Interesting but weird.

The Bullet that Missed by Richard Osman

Another outing for the pensioner detectives – charming and readable as ever though the plots are getting more convoluted.

City of Heavenly Fire by Cassandra Clare

The final installment in this young adult series. Did I enjoy it? Yes. Is it pretty stupid? Yes also.

And Finally by Henry Marsh

Another book by the slightly odd neurosurgeon. He’s retired now. He is a strange man and this comes across in the book. At the same time a very sensitive compassionate person and someone marching to a different beat to the rest of humanity. Recommended.

Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan

This is a tiny novella which I was VERY reluctant to read but my objections were overcome. I am so glad that I let myself be convinced. It is a beautiful, beautiful book. The writing is gorgeous and evocative. The story is a bit like a fable but the people are real. It is a bit sad but also, as our friends the critics say, life-affirming. A truly wonderful Christmas read. It’s set in the 1980s in an Ireland I remember so clearly but it seems like a long time ago. Highly recommended but you would want to be in the whole of your health.

The Marriage Portrait by Maggie O’Farrell

I found this really hard going. It’s about a young Medici daughter who marries the Duke of Ferrara and then dies (honestly, not a spoiler). There was a lot of research went into it and you can tell. Not always an advantage.

The Idiot by Elif Batuman

Herself recommended this. It is about a college student who follows her romantic interest to Hungary. It feels entirely episodic like a series of articles strung together. There’s no real propelling forward of the narrative as a whole. That said some of the pieces are very good and the interactions of girls and their mothers is really well observed and frequently hilarious. I would try another.

Act of Oblivion by Robert Harris

I don’t know why I keep reading Robert Harris books when I really don’t go for him. It’s in hope. This is about the manhunt – in New England – for the regicides who signed the death warrant for Charles I. It’s just not for me. All very erudite and well-written but I found it a bit dull. There it is.

Your One Wild and Precious Life by Maureen Gaffney

Dear God in heaven. A friend gave me this when I took my break from work. It was kindly meant but self-help psychology is not a genre I read a lot. There is a reason for this. It drives me wild. I’ve been reading this in fits and starts since I got it last June. Everything is your mother’s fault or, if you are a mother, also your fault. I found myself passing my mother’s parenting style and my own under constant review as I read this and I did not enjoy it. I told various people about it as I ploughed through it and was asked subsequently, “How are you getting on with the wicked witch of the subconscious?”. Fair question. I was outraged to see in the acknowledgements that good friends of mine were thanked. It felt like they were out to get me too. I mentioned it to herself, “I’m surprised she didn’t thank her mother,” she said. I gave it to my sister when I was in Cork. She likes this kind of thing.

The Death of Grass by John Christopher

This was recommended in two podcasts I enjoy. It’s written in the 1950s and, the clue’s in the title, grass gets diseased and starts to die. It starts in the far East and then spreads and people begin to worry about starvation and order breaks down. It sounds like my cup of tea but though I found the concept clever, I just didn’t enjoy the novel. It felt way too dated for me.

I’m Sorry You Feel That Way by Rebecca Wait

I read a good review of this in the paper. I found it very interesting on the inner workings of a family – an English family – but, in some ways, universally applicable. Her characters are brilliantly drawn and lots happens to them. There are parts that are exceedingly funny. But yet, but yet, there’s something that didn’t quite work. I can’t put my finger on it. Might try another but wouldn’t be rushing out to buy one.

Une Femme by Annie Ernaux

This is a very short biography. It’s about the author’s mother’s life. It’s a companion piece to the book about her father which I read last year. Really, really good, beautifully written (v readable in French) and interesting but a bit grim. Not maybe a feelgood read.

Spare by Prince Harry

Sorry. It was on ten day non-reservable loan in the library and I couldn’t help myself. It’s not too bad actually. I watched him give an interview on the TV (Mr. Waffle sitting beside me reading the paper) and he talked a lot about his difficulties with the media. Mr. Waffle emerged briefly from his paper to say, “It’s like being cornered at a party by the man who wants to tell you about his dispute with the council.” Honestly, there is some truth in that. He is obsessed with the media. Overall, very readable though and mildly interesting in places.

Exhausted

9 February, 2023
Posted in: Boys, Daniel, Dublin, Ireland, Michael, Mr. Waffle

Leaving the children to study, Mr. Waffle and I spent the long weekend enjoying ourselves on a series of walks which they were, obviously, devastated, to miss.

On Sunday we explored the joys of Howth and Sutton. It’s really close to the city but I felt like I was on holidays, exploring the unknown on my bike by the beach. Recommended.

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Beautiful sunset as well. The picture really doesn’t do it justice.

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We stopped off for a cup of tea in the Marine Hotel in Sutton which is an odd spot. They have very firm rules about when they will serve you. Mr. Waffle who doesn’t really list patience among his many virtues was not delighted to be told to wait outside when there were free tables in the restaurant. We got our tea eventually although it was a long drawn out process. We need an alternative tea venue.

Then on the Monday we went to Wicklow and walked to Lough Dan. It was very beautiful though a long downhill followed, inevitably by a long trek back up. Vigorous.

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Then Mr. Waffle went away for work. He reminded me anxiously of all the things that needed to be done in his absence including bringing in the green bin. When I went out to get it, I discovered that he had in fact brought it in himself before he left. An absence of trust there.

I dropped him to the airport (a – I shouldn’t be surprised but I was – lengthy process) and spent an afternoon running around doing various dull though almost continuous tasks (I cannot wait to step down from the parents council; we are currently at – v polite – war in relation to a proposed new cycle lane outside the school). The next day was the same. In the absence of a maths teacher in school – please do not ask me – the neighbour’s child who is doing a PhD in maths arrived in to give the children a grind. It went alright I think but they are absolutely flattened.

I had lunch with a friend in her house out in the suburbs – a longish cycle it transpires – and as well as lunch she gave me a plant (still alive today) and a clutch of magazines that her Dutch mother-in-law keeps for me on the Dutch royal family (they’re in Dutch, it’s educational). Very thrilling.

I collected Mr. Waffle from the airport at 11 last night and, as I said to him, I have never been gladder to welcome him home. “Imagine,” said he, “if you were working as well.” I am imagining. I suppose I would manage but I would not enjoy it.

It’s mid-term next week, thank God, we all really need a break from school.

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