belgianwaffle

Archives for June 2023

Bloomsday


Posted in: Dublin, Ireland, Middle Child, Twins, Youngest Child

I do feel sorry for the Joyceans who like to head out in straw boaters on their bicycles today. The fine weather has ended. It is raining. The boys only have one exam each left to do (German was this morning, alright thanks, in preparation we finished watching Dark last night, series 3 nearly killed me, 100% could not recommend). Coincidence? I think not.

I am glad that yesterday, I went out for lunch by the seaside, had a swim and earlier in the week walked to the theatre in sunshine (play about mental asylum a bit harrowing but still bright when we got out). Am I smug? Is this not what you come here for?

Done


Posted in: Dublin, Family, Ireland, Middle Child, Mr. Waffle, Princess, Twins, Youngest Child

So what have I been up to? I know you are on the edge of your seat out there. I went to the Dalkey book festival last Saturday. I mentioned it to a friend in the context of not being available for something else and he said, “[Snort] the Dalkey book festival, could you be any more middle class?” Well, I could, in fairness. I could actually live in Dalkey which is a lovely sea side village with the most expensive houses in the country.

I enjoyed my trip to Dalkey. Mr. Waffle and I went to see Lea Ypi whose book I recommend. I found her interesting. Quite angry and still, I think, at heart a communist. You can take the child out of Albania etc. The setting was a Protestant church and I found the seats exquisitely uncomfortable. A former colleague of Mr. Waffle’s was there and she asked a hard question. I was suitably impressed but it disappeared in the deluge of other questions.

The parents of a boy who was in Daniel and Michael’s class in primary school had a party to celebrate their third and final child finishing primary school. In a very real way, we helped them to find the school. The mother met the Princess in the park – aged 5- with her minder and cross-questioned her on the school. She liked what the Princess said and the cut of her jib more generally and decided to send her precious first-born there which is how he ended up in Dan and Michael’s class. I have never before considered how much you have in common with parents of children who went to the same primary school as yours. Even if we didn’t know the parents (and we knew lots of them) we mostly knew them to see. We were all able to admire the school class photos which our hosts had dug out. It was a lovely idea and everyone had a great time. There was even dancing.

Sunday was Fathers’ Day – bit of a quiet day but, you know, grand. Mr. Waffle got a card and a present. And I thought a bit about my own father who was always pretty disapproving of Fathers’ Day; a festival designed by Hallmark, in his view.

No idea what happened on Monday but on Tuesday I was up with the lark, out for a swim, then a cycle in, alas, driving rain which I had not at all planned for.

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I then had a very satisfactory long lunch with a friend, cycled up to the school for a last engagement (uniform swap, all of the children’s uniforms have been given away, I am a model of efficiency) and on the way home from school I found a swarm of bees in the lane and got a beekeeper to come and take them away. Your correspondent was exhausted but broadly pleased.

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Wednesday was June 21 the longest day of the year and also the day of Dan’s last Leaving Cert exam. It was physics and he was pleased with the paper. In the newspaper a teacher was quoted as saying that it was “a very fair paper”. “That’s teacher code for easy,” said Dan. Herself was pleased with results also so it was a good day all round.

Thursday saw me beating the locked doors of the church with a new father to get in for a baptism prep meeting. The house of the Lord is never closed eh? Anyway, in fairness, the parish priest let us in so new father’s trek from the other side of the city was not in vain (he believes our church to be a half way point between his wife’s family and his, I believe he is mistaken).

And today was Michael’s last exam. It was economics. He had a long time to prepare and he was not enjoying working when Dan was finished but at last the day dawned. He did not like the paper, sadly, so has finished on something of a low. However, it is done and as my father used to say, “students are very poor judges of their own performance”. We all went out to lunch to celebrate. That’s really the very, very end of school. How peculiar.

Foreign Parts


Posted in: Middle Child, Mr. Waffle, Princess, Travel, Twins, Youngest Child

At the crack of dawn on Sunday morning, the boys and I hopped on the ferry to Wales. We were quite tired so it was a shame that we only discovered at the end of the journey that the swift ferry (a catamaran, bumpy but, in fairness, swift) seats recline. Alas.

We arrived at 10ish and then had a long, long drive to go and pick up herself and her belongings. The guys were charmed by the signs in Welsh. They were less delighted by the discovery that England is a quite big country. We only arrived at our destination about 4.30 having briefly stopped in a motorway service station for what, in my view, was a deeply unsatisfactory lunch. Dan had never had Gregg’s before and he thought it was the best thing ever. Honestly, no. He needed filling up as he was sitting up front as my navigator and car DJ – he actually did an excellent job on both fronts. I wouldn’t have minded a paper map as back up to my phone but Mr. Waffle had gone to Eason’s to see if he could pick one up before we left but none were for sale. What is this brave new world?

On arrival we filled the car to the gunnels with stuff. Very tiring but herself was touchingly grateful for our efforts. Actually more her siblings’ efforts than mine. While living on the fourth floor with no lift, I am sure, has advantages, they were not immediately apparent as we toiled up and down the stairs in 30 degree heat.

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Unfortunately, herself had an ungettable out of engagement that evening but the rest of us went to Pizza Express and, I’ve had worse. Definitely in Gregg’s.

It was pretty toasty the next day and we met up after breakfast to do various touristy things including a boat trip and a not terribly scary ghost tour but it was quite interesting as a walking tour so there was that. I had hoped to get in a swim but logistics and dreadful traffic prevented it. Still, we had dinner by the river which was lovely.

The following day, I rearranged everything in the car, I wouldn’t say it was comfortable but it was ok. After an elaborate shared breakfast we went to a local art gallery (herself, at work as scheduler extraordinaire again) and then hit the road. It was much less trying than the journey there on Sunday and, in fact, we made far better time. Are all road works in the UK scheduled for Sundays, I wonder. I had thought we would be super speedy on Sunday but in fact it was very slow and busy whereas Tuesday was, by comparison, painless. Michael whiled away the drive by reading Lady Gregory’s Irish Myths and Legends. He kept us updated on new facts. There was a lot about the impressive fighting force that was Na Fianna. “Apparently,” said he, “the old High Kings were a bit nervous about the power of Fionn and the Fianna, a bit like Putin and Prigozhin.” I like to think that this was the first time this comparison has been made.

So speedy was our journey that we were a bit early for the ferry. I wish Holyhead boasted more delights. Inevitably the ferry was then late. The food on the ferry was appalling. Let us not speak of it. We got home about 1.30 in the morning, nearly two hours later than planned, but at least we were home. When we took all of the stuff out of the car, I was amazed that it had all fitted in along with the four of us.

We only had a flying visit from herself as she is off to Italy today but back again in a couple of weeks. It is nice to have her home and her bedroom full of stuff again.

My Work Here is Done


Posted in: Middle Child, Mr. Waffle, Twins, Youngest Child

Me: Hell is other people.

Michael: Did Oscar Wilde* say that?

Me: Nope, Sartre, I think.

Mr. Waffle: Yes, “L’enfer, c’est les autres.”

Daniel: L’envers c’est les potes.

*Thus yet again proving the great Dorothy Parker’s line: “If, with the literate, I am/Impelled to try an epigram,/I never seek to take the credit;/We all assume that Oscar said it.