Family

Tuesday, April 16

Regular readers will recall that herself spent three months in Tours before Christmas. Many months ago, we booked to spend a week in Tours at Easter. Serious first world problem alert – but to be honest, it was probably a bit close to our week skiing and it felt like we had only unpacked and we were packing up to head off again. Due to various commitments on my part this is the first weekend I’ve spent at home since early March (I’d say you’re delighted I’m spending it updating the old blog, go on, you know you are) and I would say I possibly over-scheduled myself.

Anyhow, we packed like pros and took ourselves off to the airport in very good time due to Mr. Waffle’s extreme punctuality. We were all a bit ratty as we found ourselves in the airport with two and a half hours to spare but never mind it’s better than being late, I suppose.

As we went through security, I tossed my jacket on top of the tray which my firstborn had selected for her gear and she looked at me in horror. “Have you not seen the instructions? When I went through Charles de Gaulle last, the security man said to me ‘Parfait, c’est juste comme il faut’ and he was pretty irate as well because the people from Honduras who went through before me were not on top of the security arrangements. You are ruining my reputation Madame ‘manteau sur sac’.” Was it for this etc?

The flight was uneventful and we got the train from Charles de Gaulle direct to Tours which was a fantastic service. Our Airbnb hosts met us at the station. When we stay places in France we often end up in places that are slightly bohemian and Michael looked around the Airbnb and said, “Why do we always stay in the same place in France?” I knew what he meant. I suppose it’s a combination of wanting the children to have a bedroom each and not wanting to spend the earth.

Relying on herself for suggestions, we had dinner in a Brasserie in Tours and a nighttime wander. It’s a really attractive small city.

Wednesday, April 17

There was a small market in the local park and I spent the morning poking around there and the local Intermarché. Don’t judge. We got the bus into town and went to Place Plumereau which is the centre of the old town where our hosts had warned us not to buy food due to the extortionate prices but we were tourists so we said to hell with it. The weather was beautiful. There seemed to be lots of French people, perhaps tourists, but very few non francophone tourists and there was little danger of people speaking English to us which is unusual in France these days, I find.

We dutifully checked out the cathedral which had particularly impressive 13th century stained glass but the children were resolutely unimpressed.

We then took ourselves home for dinner. After dinner I was sitting near the open door reading when something caught my eye. Was that a sparrow or some other bird hopping near the pot plant across the room? It was not, it was a rat. In what was, arguably, not my finest hour, I ran squealing from the room and up the stairs where I locked myself in my bedroom. Shortly afterwards, I heard noises from the living room where I had inadvertently locked in the children and Mr. Waffle with the rat. I let herself out. “How is it down there?” I asked as we cowered on the bed. “Well,” she said, “when you screamed ‘rat, rat’ the boys and I jumped up on chairs in the kitchen like in ‘Dead Poets Society’ and Daddy started thwacking the rat with the brush trying to get it out the door and it was jumping and squealing.” Not great then.

In time we all made our way back down to the open plan kitchen/living room to be greeted by a pretty annoyed Mr. Waffle who pointed out that I was useless and a bad example to the children to boot. While accepting this completely, I wanted to know where the rat was. “It was a mouse,” said Mr. Waffle and, addressing herself, “sorry miss, it ran into your bedroom but, in a house with two cats, it’s bound to be gone shortly one way or the other.” Herself, unwilling to face ratty alone, swapped bedrooms with Mr. Waffle and me and all night I heard the rat/mouse scrabbling in the walls which was, frankly, not restful.

Thursday, April 18

We decided to leave ratland behind and hire a car to visit Chenonceau a beautiful chateau in the Loire valley which I had visited with my family some 35 years before and where herself assured us there was an excellent restaurant. It was not to be. There was not a car to be hired anywhere in the Touraine. Top tip, if you’re going to Tours for Easter, book your hire car in advance.

So after a vain morning calling increasingly distant car hire locations we went back into Tours and visited the Musée des Beaux Arts which was appealing in a small regional museum kind of way but stiflingly warm.

Then we went for a walk around the streets of the old town and I tried to buy a Lapsang equivalent in a tea shop and they had hardly any left so gave me what they had for free which filled me with, possibly excessive, joy. However, overall there was a certain amount of wilting in the heat and we took ourselves willingly back to the house for dinner and I laid myself down on my bed with a migraine like a 19th century damsel.

Herself bravely decided to go back to her own room for the night.

Friday, April 19

Herself confirmed, gloomily, that she had heard the pitter patter of little paws in the night. Her father stood by his position that it was a mouse.

Herself and myself went to the pharmacist in the square to buy suncream. He looked at us in utter bafflement, “But it’s April.” He had no suncream. We left and he came running after us with two tiny little samples, “Pour vous dépanner pour aujourd’hui.” Unpopular opinion, as the kids say, French people are really nice.

I went to the Tabac to pick up the paper and had a proud moment speaking to the man behind the counter who asked incredulously whether I was really Irish. Hard to know whether this is an indictment of the language skills of Irish people in general or praise of my abilities in particular. Let’s go with the latter.

We went for lunch with the host family where herself had stayed for 3 months. They were really lovely. They lived in the sunny northern suburbs whereas we were in the distant urban southern suburbs so it was a bit of a trek to get there. But worth the effort and they gave us a lift home. I had been slightly in the horrors that the boys would refuse to eat anything but they were really good and made an effort to try lots of things and actually ate a reasonable amount. It’s like the end of an era but in a really good way.

When we got home, we turned to the train timetable to see about getting the train to Chenonceau the next day being unwilling to renounce our dream of seeing at least one castle while in the Loire valley. I said bracingly to the troops, “There’s a train at 9.10 and then the train back is at 4.36, we can spend the day there.” I met with outright mutiny with Mr. Waffle leading the charge. There was a general feeling that a whole sweltering day in the castle might not be for us and, added, Mr. Waffle, “Suppose that the restaurant can’t take us, we’ll be trapped with no hope of lunch.”

Saturday, 20 April

There was a larger market in our little square which I inspected in some detail and picked up ingredients for a picnic. We went to one of the islands on the Seine (Île Simon). We carried our picnic in a tasteful and authentic wicker basket taken from the French people’s house. Let the record show that these are awkward and heavy to carry. I’ve gone right off the idea of acquiring one. The island, however, was a delight. The children paddled in the Loire and wandered around happily. We sat in the shade of the trees and listened to the bagpipe music coming from the bandstand (yes, really, why? couldn’t say).

With our considerably lighter (though still not a negligible weight) basket we wandered into Place Plumereau and had a drink and then saw the Basilica of Saint Martin (quite the famous Catholic saint) and went to the Monoprix. I love the Monoprix. Sad, but there it is. Herself peeled off and went to the contemporary art museum but none of the rest of us could quite face it.

When we got home, we had lasagna for dinner and Michael startled me by eating absolutely loads of it, where will this end? Daniel also startled all of us by hurtling out of the bathroom at high speed shouting, “There’s a rat in there!” “A mouse,” said Mr. Waffle adding gloomily, “those cats are absolutely useless.” We tried to get the rodent out to the garden using a chicane but it wisely retreated to its lair in the walls.

Herself disseminated a quiz to us all called rat or mouse: Michael got 8/12, Daniel and I got 9/12 and herself got 10/12 but Mr. Waffle got 11/12. Maybe it was a mouse after all.

Easter Sunday, 21 April

I had announced early in our stay that we would be going to mass in the cathedral on Easter Sunday. The children were resigned. In the morning we left at 10.45 and I thought we were in good time as mass started at 11.30. It did not, it started at 11 and we were 15 minutes late. I was very annoyed. The church was absolutely packed and we had to stand in a side aisle. All of the children said they had never seen a fuller church in their lives. As mass went on, and on, I began to regret less and less that we had been 15 minutes late. It was nearly 1 when we emerged blinking in the sunlight.

We went to a nasty Italian restaurant for lunch (it looked fine, but it really was not). Then herself went off to meet her friends from Tours and Mr. Waffle and the boys and I visited the Natural History museum; small but alright. Then we went to an escape room. This was a huge success. We all really enjoyed it. Although the boys were very keen, I was pretty dubious in advance but it was great and really well organised. The boys are very keen to try something similar in Dublin. We will see.

We then met herself in the Brasserie near our tram stop and had a last drink. No sooner had we got on the tram than I realised that I had yet again been outfoxed by the arcane and complex ticketing system. “I’ll have to get off and buy a ticket, you stay on,” I said. Happily a bus arrived shortly afterwards which saw me home a good 20 minutes before the others, I was smug.

After the children went to bed, Mr. Waffle and I stayed up reading for a while. He went to feed the cats and I heard him say, “Feck it!” with feeling. There, dead, stretched out by the cat bowl was the body of the offending rodent. I took a picture. Everyone I have shown it to says it’s a rat. Feel free to weigh in.

Monday, April 22

It’s basically deathly quiet in Tours on Easter Monday. Even the local boulangeries were closed. We were forced to eat croissants from the Intermarché*. We spent the morning tidying up and then our hosts gave us a lift to Tours airport which is tiny and no place to spend ages waiting for a delayed Ryanair flight but theoretically very handy.

We were delighted to be home even though some of us had to clear up dried up cat vomit from the stairs.

Would we go back? Yes, definitely. Would we stay in the same Airbnb? Probably not.

*Sometimes I think I might be beyond parody. Would you tell me if this were the case?

Day 4 – Wednesday, March 20

The weather improved. It was a beautiful day.

Emboldened by this Mr. Waffle and I decided to explore the resort a bit further; a decision we frankly regretted as we were exhausted by the end of the morning; had missed our regularly scheduled cup of tea; and inadvertently done a couple of red runs (not for us the daring of my nephew who completed a black run very handily as my brother-in-law showed us on his phone, it only occurred to me some time later that my brother-in-law, by far the best skier in the group, must have followed his son down at a fair old clip while filming. Frankly, the horror).

All three of the children meanwhile had a very successful morning at ski school and Dan’s knee was entirely recovered. My own knee was starting to act up a bit on foot of the unaccustomed exercise regime it was enjoying.

We had an expensive and slightly unsatisfactory lunch involving venison burgers.

The boys went back to the hotel but Mr. Waffle, herself and myself disported ourselves further. One advantage of our over-exertions in the morning was that we had discovered routes to a couple of other runs that were suitable for everyone. Herself was keen to try one which she thought she might go out on at night (that did not work out for a variety of reasons but none of them were to do with her enthusiasm levels which remained very high.)

After an afternoon of achievement we stopped for a well deserved cup of tea in the Austria Inn. The staff were a bit surly and when I asked whether we could order from them, one of them eyed me dubiously and said, “It would be easier if you ordered from the bar.” “Clearly for him yes but not for me,” I thought bitterly as I clumped out from the bar with tray of drinks.

As we sat enjoying our drinks, I saw a woman of slightly similar dimensions to my own edging her way precariously and quite gingerly to the ski lift as though she had never been on skis before. I noticed she had the same skis as me, “I bet those are the skis they rent out to mediocre fat lady skiers,” I said gloomily.

We finished up to be on time for the last lift back to our side of the mountain. “Where are my skis?” I said, looking anxiously at the carousel where we had left them. “There,” said Mr. Waffle. “They’re not my skis,” I said. “They must be, they’re the only set left.” I took them down and noticed they were stuck in the snow one ski up and one ski down. I looked again. I tried them on. The bindings fitted; they were similar in colour; they had the ski hire place name on them, but yet. Anyhow, there was no other way home, so off we trotted. On the lift I looked at them more closely and said, “I think fat lady took my skis.” The others laughed at me. But yet. When we got back to the ski locker, I checked photos from earlier in the week. Were they my skis, gentle reader? They were not.

Much grief and heartache ensued. It turned out that fat lady’s skis were ex-hire skis from the year before and I had to turn them in to the ski shop to hand over to the police. I then had to pay the ski shop €270. As herself said sympathetically, “It’s like having to buy skis without getting any skis.” Sigh.

Mr. Waffle and I trudged back to the Austria Inn to see whether my skis had been mysteriously returned but no.

The children meanwhile were having a great time. Before dinner, Daniel and Michael went swimming with their cousin J while all the girl cousins (nearly 16, nearly 11, nearly 2) hung out together. My children were unfeasibly excited by the discovery that they could charge drinks to their rooms. Late in the holiday was a good time for them to discover this.

Day 5 – Thursday, March 21

After sending off the children to ski school we went off to the police station to declare the lost skis. The policeman felt our claim was a lot of paperwork – what if the skis turned up (spoiler, they didn’t) – but we needed it for insurance so we insisted. “I bet this never happens!” I said in my best Leaving Cert German. “Every day of the week,” he said dourly. I had my PSC card with me which is not perhaps the most loved Irish piece of documentation and so far has only been useful to me for picking up parcels from the post office, but the Austrian policeman unbent visibly when he saw it and picked it up with a fond smile. Papers, what’s not to love?

We ran into my sister-in-law and baby S in a ski buggy which they got from the hotel and I had my most successful interaction ever with S by hiding behind a large glove puppet. It may not be a sustainable long term strategy for building our relationship.

We met the children after ski school and went up the cable car and had lunch at the top. We got some great photos with the Hollybough. I’m hopeful we’ll make the cut this Christmas. Just saying.

Then we all skied back to the hotel together. We met with middling success. The top was a bit on the steep side and the descent was slow and careful but it picked up after a bit.

Michael and I went back to the hotel to recover after the arduous descent. Then I went out for a bit to a nice tame run with herself (who became unstoppable over the course of the week) and my sister-in-law.

Then back to the pool and dinner. The children played a complex card game which Michael had brought out to Austria from home. My niece G was so enthusiastic that I heard her ask Michael whether they could play again at breakfast. This, this is the core objective of family holidays; for your children to get a chance to play elaborate games with cousins who are, crucially, faster on the uptake and more enthusiastic than parents.

Day 6 – Friday, March 22

The boys got the bus to ski school but the Princess was keen to ski across and I accompanied her. Mr. Waffle joined me shortly afterwards and the pair of us did a bit of skiing near the children’s ski school and did a couple of new runs which was very pleasant. Then we had a nice cup of tea up the mountain and headed home to meet the children from ski school.

I got a text message from herself “I’m going to ski home from the top of the cable car lift, don’t panic.” I would have but I hardly had a chance as she arrived two minutes after the bus disgorging her brothers arrived.

We went for lunch across the road from the hotel in a related establishment where we should have gone sooner as it was handy and pleasant. In the afternoon the whole group, except for my sister-in-law who was confined to barracks minding little S, went and did some easy runs together. My brother-in-law took my nephew off to tackle a black run and while he was gone the two girls were keen to go on what they assured me was a straightforward red. As a grown-up I felt honour bound to go and check it out with them which, in retrospect, was a pity as only one person fell over on that run and it wasn’t either of them. Still the snow was soft and slushy and the only injury was to my dignity. My brother was skiing in France at the same time and he sent the photo below to cheer me. It was effective. I have to say, I would love if he could come with us next time we go because even though he drives me crazy, he’s great fun on holidays and he’d be able to keep up with the children who are going to be far better than Mr. Waffle and me very soon.

So, on to our last dinner. I was sad. More particularly so when I discovered that we had lingered so long over dessert that the cheese buffet which I had loved every other evening had been put away. Oh the cheese buffet.

Last Day – Saturday, 23 March

Departure day. We were up at 7 which wasn’t too awful. We had one last lovely breakfast in the hotel and then an hour and a bit to Salzburg and then we shunted ourselves on to different flights along with hundreds of other Irish people (the airport was full of Irish people many of whom knew each other including a friend of my brother-in-law who had fallen two days before and was operated on the day before and was sitting on a wheelchair waiting to be wheeled on to a Ryanair flight. Grim.)

So would I do it again? Like a shot; it was great. Are my knees convinced this is wise? Not entirely. Will I be saving up to pay for it? All year.

We spent a week skiing in Austria. It was terrific. We went with Mr. Waffle’s brother and sister and their families as well as another family who were friends of Mr. Waffle’s brother. I felt a bit bad taking the children out of school for three days (they had two days off anyway for Patrick’s Day) but I have decided that, on balance, it was worth it.

Day 1 – 16 March

Following the unfortunate incident with the boarding pass in Denmark last summer (let us not speak of it), Mr. Waffle had prepared a folder with 7 tabs. It worked perfectly. But some people might have thought it was overkill. Fools.

We left the house at 4.30 in the morning. At 4, Daniel and I had the following conversation.

Him: What shoes should I bring to Austria, my school shoes or my runners?

Me: Your runners.

Him: Is this a good time to tell you that my runners have a hole?

No, it was not a good time.

At the airport my sister-in-law and her husband and child were mysteriously absent. It turned out that they had only got up at 5 and considering that we left the house at 4.30 and live closer to the airport than they do, it wasn’t entirely surprising that they were late. Their travails were not helped by having two planes to Salzburg leave at exactly the same time and then going to the wrong gate but they made it.

The flight was uneventful though I noted enviously that my brother-in-law and his kids were fast asleep on the flight while we were definitely tense and awake.

There was a certain amount of tension all day. Although there was no difficulty in getting to the resort there was the usual logistical excitement of arranging lessons and ski hire. Also we had hired two apartments which were part of the hotel complex. The boys shared one and Mr Waffle, the princess and I were in the other. Sadly, she did not enjoy having her bed in the living area. “This is the most luxurious place I have ever stayed while skiing,” I told the children. Notwithstanding the bed in the living area, the children agreed that it was the most luxurious place they had ever stayed full stop.

We had booked in for half board and I approached dinner on the first night with some trepidation having a low opinion of both Austrian food and hotel food but I was so, so wrong. Dinner was terrific. Furthermore the children had their own table and selected their own food from the buffet and then went off to the games room to bond with their cousins (except herself who ditched the children and joined the grown ups – hotel had a great vegetarian menu as well, unexpected).

After a long day, things were definitely looking up.

Day 2 – 17 March

It was the most beautiful day. As a ski instructor waiting at the cafe for his class said to me dismissively, “Anyone can ski on a day like today. You need bad weather where you learn to ski with the feet not the eyes.” Ok fine, whatever, notes for the honours students, I’m still skiing with the eyes thanks.

The children went for skiing lessons in the morning. Daniel and herself loved it. Michael did not.

Mr. Waffle and I, 11 years out from our last skiing trip in 2008 took ourselves gingerly to the button lift and did a couple of green runs followed by a restorative cup of tea. Afterwards, I fell over slowly and gently on a blue slope and two nice German men stopped and picked me up. Frankly, this compares very favourably to my experiences in France where other skiers tended to swish by the fallen with a “Tsk”.

We took the children for lunch and watched in live time as they discovered it was sunny up the mountains (back to the hotel for sunglasses) yet also cold (back to the hotel for jackets).

The boys had had enough but herself came to the easy slope with me and her aunt. She was really pretty good and I kept saying it was that week of skiing she had when she was five but she resisted that interpretation.

We all took ourselves to the pool later which was pleasant but meant that after dinner we all went straight to bed, exhausted – a pattern which repeated itself all week.

Day 3 – 18 March

One of the nice things about this holiday was how the cousins got to see more of each other. Although the littlest cousin, S, (2 in June) didn’t join us for dinner, she was at breakfast each morning where she commanded her parents to meet her various needs. She talks a lot which is entertaining but doesn’t always get words quite right. For a while she called croissants “content” and it was very sweet to see her parents feeding her croissant and enquiring anxiously, “Good content?”

Good job that breakfast was good as the weather was quite awful (great, a chance to ski with the feet). When the children came back from skiing lessons, Michael pronounced that he had the worst two hours of his life and Daniel had hurt his knee. Herself continued to love the skiing but found her brothers’ fates haunting her.

While our children were suffering, Mr. Waffle and I found the ski lift which would take us safely back to our hotel after a couple of gentle blue runs and went for a cup of tea with my sister-in-law and young S.

A very successful afternoon followed for herself who came out with me and her aunt and tried a more challenging blue run.

Then, back to the hotel where Daniel was waiting for me to go to the pool. He asked to be allowed to go on his own next time. I hesitated. He said patiently, “Mum, I can stand with my head above water in every part of the pool. I’m thirteen.” I yielded.

As we walked across, I enquired whether his brother had had a shower. Yes. Did he change out of his ski socks? Quizzical eyebrow lift. It turns out he is not his brother’s keeper.

That night we thought fond thoughts of my parents-in-law who would have been 50 years married that day

Day 4 – 19 March

Mr. Waffle’s birthday. I gave him two books which I had tried to smuggle secretly to Austria. I don’t think it was really a surprise; packing was largely a shared enterprise. And a magazine subscription because he is hard to buy for and that is an easy present to transport.

We didn’t send Daniel to lessons in deference to his sore knee and took him out with us. Our gentle, undemanding pace was just the job for him. We went for a cup of tea and tried, largely unavailingly to ingratiate ourselves with young S who was out in her snowsuit with her mother.

I went to meet Michael from ski school with some trepidation. Unnecessary, he was triumphant. Skiing was the most fun ever and he was its greatest exponent. His sister found his exuberant confidence…trying.

We spent the afternoon with the cousins practicing – it was super because my guys needed the practice and they enjoyed skiing with their cousins – particularly Michael who, now that he had found his ski legs disdained any kind of turning as for the weak and ignored any advice that this technique might not be appropriate for all terrain. He beat me hollow in a race down the hill to his utter delight.

His sister asked me was she doing ok and I reassured her. Her father said, “It’s not a competition.” “Everything is a competition,” she and I said in unison. Mr. Waffle said to herself, “Seriously, whose philosophy do you prefer Brother Bear here who says that we are all of us working together or Sister Scorn over there who says that it’s a struggle for survival of the fittest?” Honestly, this is what you get if you marry a hippie. She thought for a bit and said, “Brother Bear probably but Sister Scorn is the voice I hear in my head.” Oh dear, sorry about that, sweetheart.

We bore off a cousin and went for a cup of tea and a bun to recover from our race down the hill and then, extravagantly taxied the 500 meters back to the hotel because we couldn’t face walking in our boots with our skis. Don’t judge.

When we got back, the girls went off to find their little cousin and Daniel and another cousin went swimming while Michael recovered from his exertions. I gave a waiter a packet of candles I had bought in the Spar and stretching my barely remembered Leaving Cert German to its limits explained that it was Mr. Waffle’s birthday. This was actually quite a nice thing about the resort – everyone spoke German all the time. Most of the tourists seemed to be from Germany or Eastern Europe and German was definitely the lingua franca. It made the children see vividly the point of studying German in school which was gratifying (at least they made up missed German lessons, I suppose).

When we arrived in to the dinner, the hotel had outdone themselves in making the table festive with runners and settings and a cake. The only off note was my Spar candles. I suspect they had their own, far superior, candles but thought I had a special dedication to my Spar ones. Alas. Mr. Waffle seemed pleased, however.

My brother-in-law, channelling the spirit of my late father-in-law ordered Prosecco for everyone. Herself had a glass. She was a bit underwhelmed. “Still,” said Mr. Waffle, “your first drink.” “Not at all,” said she, “Grandad was mad for giving me Prosecco.”