• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

belgianwaffle

  • Home
  • About
  • Archives

Boys

Update – Religious

29 June, 2025 2 Comments
Posted in: Boys, Daniel, Family, Hodge, Michael, Mr. Waffle

I went to see the comedian David O’Doherty. I would recommend. Quite funny. He is the product of what used to be called in Ireland a “mixed marriage”. In other words, his mother’s a Protestant and his father’s a Catholic. This is not really an expression in common currency any longer but I had explained it previously to the children as I sometimes humorously refer to myself and Mr. Waffle as having a mixed marriage (I’m from Cork, he’s from Dublin, I know, I’m hilarious). Anyway it transpired that the children thought I was joking about the expression and did not believe it was actually a thing which led one of them to say to a college classmate who said he had a Protestant mother and Catholic father – “Ah mixed marriage” to which the friend put jazz hands in the air and said, “That’s me.” My mortified child then said, “What, that’s actually a real thing?” Truly the past is another country.

Anyhow David O’Doherty covered this extensively in his gig including the line that his mother played tennis (or possibly hockey) for Ireland, “It’s not as impressive as it sounds, all the Protestants got a go then.” Got a good laugh for him.

I know I am going back a bit here but we had a two hour mass for the Easter Saturday vigil and I am still not the better of it. For the first time that I ever remember there were actual baptisms during the mass. There were real converts; three of them. I was astounded. One of these was a Spanish man called Jesus and I am really baffled by this development. I mean how did a Spaniard called Jesus not get brought up Catholic almost by default? A mystery. The service contains this line, “This is our faith and we are proud to profess it.” Honestly, I’d never really thought about this line one way or another before but it was surprisingly moving in the context of the converts. I guess it’s a bit like when you see how pleased people are to become Irish citizens at the citizenship ceremonies and you think, “Maybe it is kind of good to be Irish.”

As we entered the church at the start of what was going to be the longest mass any of us had ever attended (giving the Orthodox Catholics a run for their money), the trainee deacon fell upon us like the wolf on the fold and said he needed someone to do a reading. On the one hand, this is a very reading rich service, on the other hand it is the highlight of the liturgical year and you’d think someone would already have been selected. Herself nobly volunteered to fill the gap. She was told to go and find Joan who was organising. She could not find Joan; one of the choir said, “Tch, Joan, she’s very disorganised.” Not words to inspire confidence. We never did find Joan and herself went off to join the other readers with some trepidation.

We ended up sitting behind a pillar which was annoying as I did not get to see herself reading to the unusually full church but I did get to hear her so there’s that. Afterwards she said that there had been a very nice Mauritian woman who had explained everything to her and stayed with her throughout. We went up to thank this heroine and it turned out that she was one of the nurses from Mr. Waffle’s mother’s nursing home so that was nice.

On Easter Sunday we had Mr. Waffle’s sister and her husband and daughter for lunch which was broadly successful though we had far too much food. My husband’s family have bird like appetites. For the occasion, I was wearing a dress which I got in Cos; a shop much loved by middle aged women. It’s the home of the shapeless garment and like the rest of my tribe, I love it. My lovely green dress is sort of a-line in shape and my heartless family promptly nicknamed it “the sail”. As I was rushing from one room to the next on Easter Sunday morning, it caught on the door handle, “Sail caught in the rigging?” asked one of the family wags instantly. I truly have a lot to put up with.

Untitled

Our cat’s water and food bowl live in the utility room. Keeping us all on our toes, they move about the room. The water bowl is always full of water and I have overturned it more times than I can say. In rushing around on Easter Sunday morning, needless to say, I kicked it over soaking myself and the floor. As I cursed in the utility room, I heard sniggering in the kitchen. “What?” I said grumpily. “Your nemesis is a bowl of water on the floor.”

We push on through further religious services. We had the feast of the Holy Trinity. The priest repeated what he described as an old joke but it was new to me. Stay with me here. Back in the day, the bishop would come and examine you on your catechism before you were cleared to make your confirmation. In retrospect, I am unsure that anyone was barred from the ceremony on the basis of ignorance but our primary teachers had us drilled in the Bishop Lucey catechism. My strong memory is that the catechism was written by Bishop Lucey and I distinctly remember a yellow and brown book but the internet seems unaware of this. Maybe the force of his grace’s personality was such that I believed that he had drafted the catechism although he had not. Anyway, we learnt it off by heart, he examined us with much less thoroughness than our teachers had led us to expect and that was that. Ok the joke is coming now: A bishop went into a school to examine the confirmation candidates and he asked one boy what the Holy Trinity was. The child, having learnt off the answer responded at great speed. The bishop was unable to follow his answer and said politely, “I’m sorry, I don’t understand.” The child replied smartly, “You’re not supposed to understand, it’s a mystery.” I enjoyed; you may feel that it was not worth the build up.

Last Sunday was Corpus Christi except the priest called it the festival of the body and blood of Christ and I was genuinely sitting there thinking, “What is this? I’ve never heard of this in my life.” Which just proves how ancient I am. Also does not reflect well on my general intelligence levels. I got there in the end. Slightly related, would you like to see a medal from the Eucharistic congress in Dublin in 1932 which I found in my jewellery box earlier today; I have literally no idea where on earth it came from. A mystery as the young man said to the bishop.

Untitled

A final religious news item: I found my father’s (I think it must be but how did it get here?) missal in the great shelf reoganisation. I expressed some surprise. “Look your grandad’s missal,” said I to middle child. “Oh,” light dawning over rugged country, “I’ve never heard the word missal before, is that why the leaflet in mass is called the missalette?”

A Project

25 June, 2025 7 Comments
Posted in: Boys, Dublin, Ireland, Michael, Mr. Waffle, Siblings

We have a lot of books. I was lamenting my book overload problems and commenting on my long term plan to get built in bookshelves in the dining room (v long term – about 12 years at that point) to my sister and she pointed out that her friend is married to a carpenter and perhaps he could do it for us. I seized the day.

We began decanting books from the existing bookshelves on May 10. This was exhausting. My sister commented when she saw the piles “bookshelves are a really good storage system”. She is obsessed with storage systems but she wasn’t wrong.

Untitled

Will we just have a look at that again from another angle?

Untitled

It’s not like we hadn’t selected any books to give away but I would have to concede that progress on that front was pretty poor. I note from inspection of the picture below that the giving away pile initially included “A Town like Alice” which I subsequently rescued. Not a huge success.

Untitled

Then we had to move the existing bookshelves out of the room. We moved them upstairs. Some of them we repurposed but some we needed to give away. I placed ads on various “things to give away” websites. We had some interest but not as much as I would have hoped and, indeed, one bookshelf that I want to lose remains squatting upstairs.

As always when dealing with the public, one is surprised by people’s unreliability and how little people take in of what one writes. One young woman turned up with a granny shopping trolled to take away a set of bookshelves and seemed disappointed when shelves which I had specified in the ad needed a van to take away would not fit. A number of people believed that the shelves could be dismounted but found as I had specified in the ad that they could not (Habitat glued them as well as screwed them together, I don’t know why but they were pretty sturdy). Two young Latin American women (one from Chile, one from Mexico – we had a chance to chat later) turned up at 11 at night to collect a smaller (but still heavy) bookshelf and proposed to carry it to their accommodation about a mile away; they could barely carry it down the stairs with our help. I drove them home with the shelf in the boot for which I will doubtless get my reward in heaven.

The desk where I compose this deathless prose was removed also. That’s why there hasn’t been deathless prose for a while. I do not enjoy typing on the phone.

Untitled

We also removed from the room a Victorian pod table (this link shows the kind of table which I note was for auction; was in better condition than mine and was cheaper than my repair estimate, we move on) which used to belong to my Nana and which, sadly, lists. Having moved it out along with the vast stock of photographs which used to sit on it, I bit the bullet and called an antique furniture restorer to come and have a look at it. Ages for him to come. Ages for him to send the estimate (“I’m on holidays at the moment, text me again in 10 days”) and within 20 minutes of him sending the estimate, I got a contrite call from Mr. Waffle telling me he had broken the leg off the table while trying to put it back together. I nearly cried. In the end, you will be relieved to hear, the restorer said that his estimate was already so vast that fixing the leg made no difference; he didn’t put it in those terms but that was the implication. When can he collect it you wonder? “Text me after the weekend and we’ll agree a date.” Of course.

John the carpenter made the shelves in the room. He looks after the children at home so he could only work 10-2 (after dropping the children to school and before picking them up). It took a good while but it was an excellent job. He left us for a well-earned family holiday on May 27 (and returned after the holiday to fix a number of other items around the house which had been bothering me for some time and which I had raised with him during his time with us – honestly my marriage to Mr. Waffle united the two unhandiest people of our generation).

Untitled Untitled Untitled

Then nothing happened until June 11 when the painter was finally free to come. Based on progress on day 1, I thought this would be a quick job.

Untitled

Well that was stupid of me.

Untitled Untitled Untitled

The painter left us on June 18 and then the paint had to dry. Finally, on Sunday June 22 we began putting books back on the shelves. It certainly felt like the longest day of the year. Our relationship nearly broke down over the categorisation of memoir and biography. I wanted a separate historic biography section but it was not to be and now Bruce Springsteen is beside George III and if you think that’s right, you’re wrong. My legs have only just recovered from climbing up and down the ladder.

Untitled Untitled

We did find some more books to give away with great reluctance. Our selection of coffee table books about Brussels, for example, took a bit of a hit.

Untitled

I said to Mr. Waffle, “This feels like Swedish death cleaning”. “Don’t worry,” said he, “there’s still a huge selection of 90s novels for the children to throw out after we die.” It is true that 90s novels feature strongly as those were formative years for us and also, now we are much more likely to borrow from the library than to buy a book. I also have a huge collection of very heavy art books which I have not had access to in years. Quite excited to see these and also a bit nervous that the shelves will not bear their weight. But behold the finished product.

Untitled Untitled

My brother came to stay last night and I made him admire the bookshelves. He had to admire because they are admirable and I made him. “But why do you need so many books?” he asked, spoiling for a fight. “You will never read them all again,” he said pointing out the blindingly obvious. “Well, they’re to show people how clever we are as well,” I said. “In that case, ‘The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo’ by Stieg Larsson isn’t doing a lot of heavy lifting.” Unanswerable.

I could honestly do with fewer tradesmen in the house after our epic bookshelf project but earlier in the summer we met a solar panel salesman. Our neighbour had got them and we went with the same crowd. The salesman made it sound amazing and pain free. It has not been amazing and pain free. Among the elements not covered by the salesman but articulated by the engineer who came some weeks later in the salesman’s wake was that we would need to get our own electrician to link the hot water tank in the utility room to the fuse box beside the hall door (surely there was already some link?). Anyway the electrician came and said we would need to get rid of all of our under stairs shelves to fit the wires; next day John the carpenter came back, talked to the electrician and took everything out (all the contents of under the stairs are now in the utility room, thanks for asking) and the electrician is going to come back on Friday. And I am hoping John who, I suspect, is regretting that he ever came near us, will come and put them back next week. And we still haven’t actually got the solar panels. More on this story as it develops.

Michael has taken to singing this song around the house.

Testing Times

22 April, 2025
Posted in: Boys, Daniel, Michael, Princess, Work

Herself is back in England after a week at home. She had to go back to deliver a paper at a conference this afternoon. She was tense. No update as yet.

Michael did his driving test today (no, alas, thanks for asking) and his exams start next week.

Daniel’s exams started at 5 this evening (not a conventional time, you will agree and one which leaves a lot of today to be got through).

And I, like a complete moron, signed up to do an economics course last autumn which I deeply regret. The written final exam is tomorrow morning (thoughts and prayers, please). I last performed under exam conditions in 2019 and I thought that I liked it better than assignments. I am seriously re-evaluating my conclusions in this regard.

Suffice it to say that everyone’s Easter was pretty much ruined with studying and prep.

Once I get this wretched exam out of the way, I will have thoughts on the Easter season more generally; something for you to look forward to.

Arts etc.

30 March, 2025
Posted in: Boys, Cork, Daniel, Family, Ireland, Michael, Mr. Waffle, Princess, Reading etc., Siblings

Mr. Waffle and I went to see “Dr. Strangelove” at the Bord Gáis Energy Theatre. It’s where all the big shows that come to Dublin go. I find it unsatisfactory as a theatre as it is ginormous and a bit lacking in atmosphere. The sets were amazing but the play only alright. I don’t mind Steve Coogan but I don’t love, love, love him. However, the rest of the audience were apparently only there to see him and when he appeared on stage he had to break character to acknowledge the rapturous applause. I only went because Armando Ianucci was involved and I love him and had heard him interviewed about the play on “This American Life”. Honestly, I wouldn’t say it was his best work but I may have been prejudiced by the fact that everyone else found it hilarious and it only occasionally made me smile. I thought the woman beside me was going to have to be stretchered out such was her hilarity while I smiled thinly at the very odd joke that appealed.

Michael went to see “And Juliet” which was recommended by a commenter. His friend got tickets for her birthday and invited him along. He found it reasonably enjoyable. I am coming to the conclusion that my family may be hard to please.

I took a half day from work to see Michael in a lunchtime performance of a college play. It is doubtless his mother’s prejudice but I thought he was really excellent.

Untitled

Mr. Waffle and I investigated an Argentinian Bakery in the Liberties. It is called Bakeology and I would recommend. Our empanada needs are met for the foreseeable.

Untitled

There has been plenty of cinema in my life since I was here last. I enjoyed “A Real Pain” as did the Oscar voters. “Bridget Jones” did not trouble the Oscars but I must say I really enjoyed it. A friend and I went for dinner after work and then saw it in the Stella in Rathmines which I would recommend for a little treat.

Mr. Waffle and I went to see another Iranian film – “Seed of the Sacred Fig”. You would want to be in the whole of your health for these Iranian films, I will say that. Very worthy and good and all but I was a bit wrung by the end.

As part of the festival of the Francophonie we went to a Moroccan film (and international buffet – can I deny that this was the major temptation? I can not). The film was “Animalia” and it’s about a girl who marries into a rich family and struggles to adapt; she stays at home one day while they are all out and – plot twist – gets cut off from the family by an alien invasion. The budget doesn’t really stretch to aliens so it’s just lights in the sky and fog. It was ok, I would say. Buffet was great – lots of Moroccan specialties. We met the Moroccan ambassador (who had introduced the film) having a cigarette outside afterwards. “What did you think?” he asked. “It was delicious,” said Mr. Waffle. “No, the film,” I hissed. “Um, very thought provoking,” he said politely. “It was a bit strange alright,” said the ambassador “and what a time to screen it early evening during Ramadan.” Not something that had occurred to me, I must confess, but it certainly made me think that he had performed his part admirably for someone who hadn’t had anything to eat or drink since before dawn.

I saw Edmund de Waal give a talk in the Chester Beatty library. I found him an amazing, fascinating, heart warming speaker. If you ever get a chance you should definitely go and see him. This was all the more amazing as it was online (only the elect got in person tickets and I was consumed with envy as he passed around netsuke for people to hold) and online things are, as we all know, not as good as in person, and it was still absolutely amazing.

I went to a talk on the Flying Dutchman in art which appeared to be largely a plug for the Flying Dutchman which the Irish National Opera are running in the Bord Gáis theatre. My guess is that they may have overestimated the appetite of the Irish public for opera (it’s a big, big venue) but who knows? I once saw “Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg” from the gods of the Brussels opera house and it has effectively extinguished any desire I might have to ever see another Wagner opera so it’s a no from me. I was chatting to the INO people afterwards and told them how the Princess had done a project with them during Covid and it had saved her sanity. Like many another thing the Princess does, her application to take part in this project took her parents by surprise as we are not particularly in opera and she had certainly never seemed interested before but then she is a constant series of surprises to her parents.* This lovely woman Sharon Carty put in loads of time online one on one with her and she has an abiding enthusiasm for and interest in opera. So, it’s not like I’m not grateful to the INO, just not grateful enough.

I also went to a talk on Mazzolino and the renaissance in Ferrara. I mean, alright. Can’t say that I now love Mazzolino of whom I was entirely ignorant previously but interesting enough. I went to a talk on Sarah Cecilia Harrison whose portraits I really liked and who seems, in life, to have been a very interesting and extremely contrary person. Finally, in visual arts news did I mention that I went to a talk on Eileen Gray? I will say this, the more I hear about Le Corbusier the less I like him. While I was there I had a look at the Harry Clarke stained glass which is temporarily in Dublin as Cork’s Crawford museum is closed for renovations. It was strange to see these old friends in new surroundings. I think the detail below is a self-portrait of the artist. A handsome man whose private life was, I believe, complex.

Untitled

Let me throw in some more pictures of his glass from Bewley’s cafe in Grafton street. Because I can.

Untitled Untitled

As I mentioned above, the Crawford Gallery is closed for renovations. Alas, alack. It’s not open again until 2027. It is being extended. Here is the text about the extension.

Untitled

Here is the artist’s impression of the extension.

Untitled

Really, the glass box on the roof will ensure that the character of the gallery is “maintained and enhanced with great sensitivity”? It’s appalling. I mean, I feel you King Charles. I’m sure it will be lovely from the inside but it’s quite dreadful from the outside.

My sister is still cleaning out my parents’ house and I am generally pretty ruthless about saying I don’t want things but books are my Achilles heel. My grandmother bought a large mahogany book case and its contents from Canon Mulcahy in Kilmallock at some point – maybe in the 40s. The bookcase and all its contents made their way to my parents’ house probably in about 1970. This means that my parents’ house had a fine collection of 19th and early 20th century books with a strong focus on theology, if that was your thing, but also other books: Thom’s directories, etiquette books, (worthy) novels etc. My sister pulled from this range of books a physics primer from 1874 and asked whether I would like it. Well, as you can imagine, I should have said no but we have a physics student in the house and I was weak and said yes. I showed it to my physics student who said a lot has changed in physics since 1874 but whose eye was caught by the name on the flyleaf. We found our man – JJ Joyce – in the census. He was a Jeremiah Joyce son of James W Joyce who was a successful businessman in Kilmallock and who was very active in the land league. Kilmallock (which has a great deal of local history for such a small place) has an active local history society and we were able to find out much more about James W. He was gaoled for his activities in the land league and kept a diary – it mostly seems a bit dull about managing his business back in Kilmallock – but look, look at this entry, what did he get sent to himself in Limerick gaol? Yes indeed, the physics primer which we now held in our little paws.

Untitled

So that was pretty cool. I rang my sister to tell her and she thought I had discovered that the book was valuable. Alas, no. But still, my physics student brought it in to college where it was an object of fascination to the young people. One of them had an uncle in Kilmallock so he got to keep it. This seems a much better fate for it than any other I can imagine although I do wish I’d taken a photo.

Yesterday Mr. Waffle and I went on a nearly 3 hour walking tour of the city – v good, I recommend Arran Henderson for all your walking tour needs; I always learn something new and I have lived here a long time. As we were looking at a Dominican church he said how intellectual and clever the Dominicans were. As though reading the minds of his audience, he said, “Have you heard the joke about the Dominicans and the Jesuits? As you know the Dominicans dealt with the Cathars and the Albigensian heresy and the Jesuits were set up as a counter reformation force. Have you ever met a Cathar?” The poor old Cathars. As we walked on Mr. Waffle murmured to me, “Just brute force, no subtlety or intelligence.”

In the afternoon, we went to a talk by fantastic author Jan Carson who I nearly saw in 2022 and have been keen to see since. The French literature festival put together an excellent programme – all free, you’ve got to love the French – and who was on it? No prizes. The links to French literature were a bit tenuous, I mean Jan Carson’s French publisher was there? I think Jan Carson is an extraordinarily talented writer and I loath magical realism which, honestly, is a big feature of her work but somehow it’s ok when she does it. But, you know, being a great writer does not necessarily translate to being a great speaker so I wasn’t quite sure what to expect. As they say, I need not have worried.

I found her really interesting. She comes from a very strict religious background. She’s from Ballymena in the North and when she was a little girl there was a sign on the roundabout saying “Ballymena still says no” and she thought it meant to line dancing as she had heard so much against it from the pulpit. Her family seem to have been very strict: no cinema, no theatre and the Bible as, if not the only book, certainly the main book available for reading at home. She attributes her interest in magical realism to hearing sermons on the Book of Revelation every Sunday between ages 10 and 12. When asked about her family and community’s attitude to her work she said that that was the first question she was always asked. She told a very moving story about a children’s play which she wrote which is currently on in the Lyric theatre in Belfast. Her mother a woman of 70 who had never been inside a theatre before, came to see it and sat and cried throughout the show. The mother said, “All these people are here, and they’re enjoying themselves and you wrote this.”

After this very touching reply, the next question came from an older gent with a booming voice and apparently unshakeable self-confidence. “Which lady writers have influenced you?” he said. “Do you like Simone de Beauvoir?” There was some hilarious confusion as she had just not heard the word “lady” and thought he meant French writers but the interviewer clarified. “I like Flannery O’Connor,” Jan Carson offered helpfully. “Is he an American?” our patrician gentleman boomed back slightly disapprovingly. He seemed not one whit discomfited by the information that Flannery O’Connor was a woman and it was poor old Jan Carson who seemed momentarily discombobulated.

Anyway recommended and not as well attended as it should have been. A win for me I guess as I got her to sign a book for me and there was almost no queue. She mentioned that she has another new book out next year. Bound to be worth a read.

Any cultural outings of your own?

*Text received last Monday: “I’m on a plane on my way to Warsaw. Did I mention I was doing this???” Reader, she did not.

Weekend Round Up

19 January, 2025
Posted in: Boys, Daniel, Mr. Waffle, Work

Gym update (not from me obvs): Dan reports that Dermot Bannon was on the gym TV on Saturday and not only did Dan recognise him but also the episode Mr. Bannon was presenting. Definitely my fault. And I’m making them all watch The Traitors too. Quality television for the mind, that’s me.

I went into town yesterday and parked my bike in a perfectly normal fashion and came back to this psychotic situation.

Untitled

Today has been a glum day as I have spent hours avoiding doing my project work for a course I am doing at work (nobody made me do it, I volunteered for it like a complete fool); two hours actually doing the project work; and, when I gave up in despair, about 5 minutes realising that there is at least another four hours work in this (which will have to be done this week) and that there is an examination in April which, based on my meagre understanding of the course so far, is going to require a bit more studying than I have done to date (i.e. none).

We have selected our books for the year for Monday night book club – here it is in case you are interested and have any views on the books (“Death at the Sign of the Rook” is the new Kate Atkinson).

Untitled

A lot of them look a bit worthy despite everyone’s best intentions. And I’ve just realised that I have to read the book for my Sunday book club this week having failed to do so over Christmas. I may have to call a moratorium on all these hard books and go back to re-reading Georgette Heyer for the month. It is proving a long January. And I am out playing tennis once a week too which, in the current climactic conditions, feels like masochism. I honestly think my hobbies may be going to kill me.

The only bits of good news from this weekend are:

  1. Mr. Waffle and Dan went to a match, their team won and they were on the telly in the crowd shot (perhaps not a great shot of Mr. Waffle but fame is fame).
  2. When I was in town yesterday, I got a text from Mr. Waffle saying “I have booked dinner for us in a mystery location on Valentine’s night.” I have spent my whole life saying Valentine’s day is a cod and you should go out some other night and I really thought I meant it. Clearly, however, I did not as I was thrilled to the core of my being by this text.

How was your own weekend?

What Fresh Hell is This?

8 January, 2025
Posted in: Boys, Daniel, Michael

One of my twins is applying for summer internships, the other is not interested in employment (a separate concern). Applying for internships is not straightforward as evidenced by this anguished message I received:

“[This employer] has just asked me to download their app to apply for an internship. Dante would create a new, linearly independent system of hells for this”

  • Page 1
  • Page 2
  • Page 3
  • Interim pages omitted …
  • Page 170
  • Go to Next Page »

Primary Sidebar

Flickr Photos

IMG_5983IMG_5993IMG_6005
More Photos
July 2025
M T W T F S S
 123456
78910111213
14151617181920
21222324252627
28293031  
« Jun    

Categories

  • Belgium (148)
  • Boys (986)
  • Cork (239)
  • Daniel (716)
  • Dublin (514)
  • Family (644)
  • Hodge (51)
  • Ireland (954)
  • Liffey Journal (7)
  • Michael (693)
  • Miscellaneous (70)
  • Mr. Waffle (674)
  • Princess (1,145)
  • Reading etc. (603)
  • Siblings (247)
  • The tale of Lazy Jack Silver (18)
  • Travel (221)
  • Work (206)

Subscribe via Email

Subscribe Share
Privacy & Cookies: This site uses cookies. By continuing to use this website, you agree to their use.
To find out more, including how to control cookies, see here: Cookie Policy
© 2003–2025 belgianwaffle · Privacy Policy · Write