We have been in the new house for ages now. It still seems extraordinary that it belongs to us. It is so lovely. The Princess and I went back to inspect the old house, the other day and she shed a few tears. It is hard to move and it still feels a little bit strange.

But I hope that we will all settle in well in our new house. The neighbours have been in with wine, champagne and scented candles and have children of appropriate ages who are company for our lot. The mirror has been hung up over the fireplace. The cat is settled. She has managed to lose her collar and magnetic yoke to open the cat flap. We have taped over the magnetic bits of the cat flap so that she can come in anyhow. A strange cat has taken advantage of these new arrangements and wandered up to the landing to have a look around. Michael spotted the strange cat and shouted loudly, and unhelpfully, “Cat!” Nevertheless, cat collar difficulties aside, all seems very promising.

For the Princess’s birthday, I took her and two friends to Milano’s in Temple Bar for pizza. I might digress here and say that I quite like Temple Bar, it’s always full of tourists being cheerful and it feels a bit like being on holidays as there are never any Irish people there. Mr. Waffle and most Dubliners avoid it like the plague. Mr. Waffle always refers to it as “Dublin’s cultural quarter” in sardonic tones. And though, I concede that it is a bit pub heavy for a cultural quarter, I quite like it. So, if you are ever in Temple Bar and meet a real live Irish person it will be me because I am the only one who ever ventures in there.

That was a digression. I just wanted to record my unluckiness in choosing to go there on the day when all of Europe’s finance ministers were meeting in Dublin castle (just adjacent), when an anniversary performance of Handel’s Messiah was taking place around the corner on the site of the original performance (Messiah, first performed in Dublin, you know) and concerned citizens were marching against the new property tax (protest unavailing, it seems to be here to stay). It was bedlam. Alas.

At mass, Michael announced to me in an under-voice, “Two boys from my class say that there is no Santa.” “Rubbish. Who brings the presents then?” I asked. “They’re not sure, maybe another magic person.”

Daniel: Who’s Peter?
Me: You know, Peter, first pope?
Daniel: No.
Me: Thou art Peter and upon this rock I shall build my church?
Him: What?
Me: Well Peter means a rock.
Him: No it doesn’t.
Me: Look it doesn’t work so well in English, you’ll just have to take my word for it.
Mr. Waffle: Tu es Pierre, et sur cette pierre je bâtirai mon Église.

Daniel: Have you still got the mark from where you burnt yourself filling the hot water bottle?
Me: Yup. I might have it forever actually.
Him: You’re lucky that you didn’t get that in the late 90s.
Me: Why is that Dan?
Him: You would probably have been burnt as a witch.

Mr. Waffle does the laundry. He says if it were up to me, we would never have a clean stitch. I vigorously deny this. I was wearing clean clothes when I met him, wasn’t I?

Four weeks after we moved into the new house, I went to put on the washing machine and remarked, slightly shamefacedly, to herself that this was the first time I’d used it and I wasn’t quite sure how it worked. “Think of it as a small victory for feminism,” she said.

I went into town with herself and we had a look at the National Gallery and then we got back into the car and drove to the Queen of Tarts. Just as we were settling down, my work mobile started to ring. I looked at it balefully. Unknown number. I answered coldly. The caller asked my name. I told him, with increasing coldness. “It’s just that I’ve found your purse on the road and your card is in it.” The saintly finder dropped it into the local Garda station and I was able to go and pick it up (everything still there) even before I had realised it was lost. It is quite true what my mother says, “People are mostly very nice.”