belgianwaffle

Archives for September 2026

The Hedge Hating Peasantry

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Posted in: Dublin, Family, Ireland

We had two men cutting back in our garden all day yesterday. They did a bit of a radical job but it can grow back over the next 12 months. I regret my lilac which they cut within an inch of its life last year. It grew back but, understandably, didn’t produce any flowers. “Next year,” thought I to myself. Alas, I didn’t single it out for protection and it has, yet again, been scalped.

Youngest child, who daily grows more like my father (who gave us the title of this post – it was what he always said gloomily when hedge clipping was imminent), says that it is awful when the garden is shorn but without the intervention of these men, I honestly think we might be fully overwhelmed.

Here’s the before.

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And here’s the after. It actually doesn’t look that different in the photo but you will have to take my word for it that this is a radical change.

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Apple Jelly

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Posted in: Dublin, Ireland

Our three apple trees have had a productive year. Again. I am exhausted from my jelly making efforts and out of jars but still the apples come.

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My Latest Obsession

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Posted in: Mr. Waffle, Princess

When we were in Sweden (full account to follow, I know, you can’t wait) one day at lunch time herself said that she had been working hard at reducing her time on the phone and had got it down to an average of 25 minutes a day which she felt was the minimum needed to function – messages, calls, banking etc. Mr. Waffle then looked at his screen time on his phone. An average of an hour a day. I looked at mine. Three and a half hours a day. I don’t think I have a spare minute in the day so how am I spending three and a half hours on my phone?

I immediately started to try to reduce my time. I am nothing if not competitive. I’ve given up doing sudoku on my phone and am doing it on paper. This has a treble advantage of reducing my screen time; when I do it at night, I just get tired and go to bed whereas I somehow never felt tired on my phone; and finally giving some relief to my aged arthritic fingers. The other thing I have done is turn my phone to silent permanently. It’s much less distracting that way and it turns out I do not need to see each of the many, many messages that come in on the “random ladies tennis” whatsapp group.

Still despite all my efforts although I’ve got it down to about an hour a day now I can’t seem to get it below that. Even at the end of the day when I feel I haven’t touched my phone there it is an hour a day. Herself just leaves it at home when she goes out. Maybe that is the move but I listen to my podcasts when I am out and about and I love them (podcasts don’t count as screen time – I mean the screen isn’t on – in case you thought that was where your vast screen time stats were coming from). I do seem to have a bit more time though and I am kicking myself that since I first got a smart phone (probably about 15 years ago) I have let so much of my life be mediated through it.

Any tips for reducing my use further?

Have Nothing in your House that you do not Know to be Useful, or Believe to be Beautiful*

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Posted in: Princess

I have been in lampshade hell recently (I will spare you the details, I am merciful). The upshot of it is that I have a newly acquired (not particularly cheap) 30cm diameter barrel lampshade with a William Morris print on it and no particular location for it. I said hopefully to Herself “Do you think you would like a William Morris lampshade in your newly decorated room at home?” “I would not,” said she, “William Morris is the ‘live, laugh, love’ of Victorian decor.” Sharper than a serpent’s tooth and all that for as the words left her mouth, I knew she was right.

*My mother was particularly fond of this William Morris quote and it seems apt here somehow.