belgianwaffle

Dublin

Partying


Posted in: Dublin, Ireland

Last weekend, Mr. Waffle and I were invited to not one but two parties on Saturday night. As the venues were nearby, we managed to get to both.

Yesterday we were invited to two 50th birthday parties at opposite ends of Dublin so I went to my friend’s party and Mr. Waffle went to his friend’s party. I realised on the way in that it’s the first time in years that I have been to a non-work event on my own. However, the house was heaving with friends and acquaintances so all was well. The birthday girl’s parents – who are in great shape – were there. A group of us were reminiscing with her father about how we all went to visit them on Achill island in our early 20s. Of course, we felt we were all grown up but, I realised talking to her father, a lovely man, how he and her mother must have basically thought we were children. An impression not dispelled by me reminding my friend how she had been able to do cartwheels on the sand, a feat of which none of us is now capable, sadly.

I suppose 50th birthdays are a time for reminiscing. I recalled my friend coming out to Brussels to help me plan for my 30th birthday and guiding my faltering footsteps to a local DIY shop saying firmly, “What you need is a good toolbox.” Good advice and still useful after all these years. Frankly, I doubt that the fancy candles I have given her will be at all as welcome in the long run.

I suppose that’s it on the party front for the next 12 months now. Sigh.

Assumptions About Names


Posted in: Dublin, Ireland

I met herself for lunch in town near Trinity today. While she was waiting for me she overheard four students talking.

Student 1: They could have slipped in something about Roman Catholicism and none of us would have noticed except Aoife.

Student 2 (presumably Aoife) indignantly: Hey, I’m a Protestant too.

Still Sticking it to the Man


Posted in: Dublin, Ireland, Princess

A couple of weeks ago, I was cycling back to my, very traditional, workplace after lunch wearing my, very traditional, work suit when I had to stop to walk past the Extinction Rebellion installation. As I looked in, who did I see, with her face painted with leaves, only one of the Princess’s friends from primary school. I called out to her and she trotted across to me with a big smile. We had a friendly chat across the barricades and she explained that despite her very best efforts, she had not been arrested. The Guards said that she was too young to be arrested. “Where is [herself]?” she asked. “At school,” I said offering up silent thanks and asked, “Why aren’t you at school?” She paused and then offered, “My parents are hippies?” Fair enough, I suppose.

Civic Minded


Posted in: Dublin, Ireland, Princess

Herself and her friends were walking along the road when they saw a car hit a parked car and take off the side of it. The driver of the offending car, got out, had a look and hopped back into her car leaving no note or any indication that she had caused the damage.

The Princess and her friends leapt into action, ringing doorbells along the street but to no avail. Her friend N had taken the licence plate of the offending hit and runner and they were anxious to pass on the details. But no one answered the doors and they were about to give up when they spotted an older woman in a dressing gown emerging from a house on the road. Herself leapt up on her bicycle and caught the lady with the others sprinting along behind (possibly a slightly alarming sight for the frail elderly woman but let us hope not).

It turned out that the older woman was the owner of the damaged car and she had just come out of hospital. She was very grateful to the young detectives and gave them all a hug. They passed on the information they had and gave their contact details. That evening N got a call from the guards asking about the incident and it looks like they are going to pursue it.

Aren’t teenagers sometimes lovely all the same?

#Andshecycles


Posted in: Dublin, Ireland, Princess

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The other morning I was cycling in to work and I saw a schoolgirl cycling in front of me. I was delighted as you so rarely see schoolgirls cycling. The Princess’s friend E from primary school is one of the only girls, aside from herself, I know who cycles to school. I peered more closely at the child ahead of me and when I arrived at the lights, I confirmed that it was indeed E on the bike. She’s in her last year of secondary school now and while waiting for the lights to change we covered a variety of topics including how her parents and sisters were; what subjects she was studying for the Leaving Certificate and what she was hoping to study in college. I felt it was poor form of me to put off one of the few girls who cycle by introducing the additional danger of being interrogated by her friend’s mother to the already considerable dangers for cyclists on Dublin streets but what can I do, I am a middle aged mother of three and I live to torture teenagers with hard questions about their lives.

Miscellaneous Cultural Adventures


Posted in: Cork, Dublin, Ireland, Reading etc.

We went out on the town on Culture Night. It was only somewhat successful. We visited the Mansion House and the Royal Irish Academy which were both fine in their way – beautiful buildings with interesting contents – but as we’ve been to both of them before, we were resolutely underwhelmed. I dare say there are fresh things to see on every visit but we did not appreciate them as we ought.

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Probably a highlight of the evening was meeting a misfortunate teacher from the children’s school who was out with her fiancé and not entirely delighted to meet students and their parents in the wild. She left after a quick hello hauling her young man behind her at speed. Who would be a teacher?

It was also the theatre festival and the Dublin fringe festival. We went to see the comedian Alison Spittle in the Fringe. I was unamused but the venue was Dublin Castle chapel royal which was nice to be inside, so there was that.

We went with my in-laws and their friends from London to one of the worst plays I have seen in years. It was called “The Bluffer’s Guide to Suburbia” and the premise was musician who fails in London moves back to Dublin suburbia. Promising I felt. It resolutely failed to live up to the promise of the billing and although I fell asleep half way through and was spared some of the worst, I was quite mortified to have brought everyone there. The English visitors were very nice about it (there was no question but that it was dreadful

The following evening we had tickets for a play called “The Alternative”. The theatre festival is a cruel mistress. We were bringing the children and I was afraid. The premise of the play was that Ireland had never split from the UK and we were now having a present day independence referendum like the one they had in Scotland a couple of years ago. It was so good. We all loved it. It was clever and funny and inventive. The best thing I have seen in years. The children noticed the new deputy principal in the audience but we not to frighten another member of staff at a cultural event and nodded from a distance rather than approaching more closely.

In the visual arts, I forked out €15 to see the Sorolla exhibition in the National Gallery. I had never heard of him before; he’s a Spanish impressionist. I mean, fine, but I was not overly impressed, some nice interesting paintings but overall, I didn’t feel excited or delighted to have visited. In contrast the free Bauhaus exhibition in the print gallery upstairs is outstanding and well worth your time. I was also pretty impressed by the finalists in the National portrait competition which are on temporary exhibition at the moment. The Crawford in Cork is showing an exhibition about children called “Seen not Heard” around the theme of childhood and that’s pretty good. A smaller exhibition upstairs of the works that the Gibson bequest committee bought during the Emergency (known as World War II elsewhere) I found less impressive. One or two things I quite liked but overall, not the finest moment in Cork art collecting.

Herself meanwhile had been invited by a friend to hear Oscar Wilde’s grandson reading his poetry at the Abbey but had to turn down the invitation as she had too much homework. Alas.