belgianwaffle

Princess

Christmas Cheer


Posted in: Dublin, Ireland, Princess, Twins, Youngest Child

We went up to Farmleigh this afternoon. It was restored for the nation by the office of public works and is open to the public when very important guests are not staying there. It was bought from the Guinnesses for €29.2 million (ah, that property boom again) and it is a, not very attractive, piece of high Victoriana, in my view. I can’t help feeling that there are many other buildings the nation might have been better off spending its money on.

Nevertheless, as our politicians are fond of saying at the moment “we are where we are”. There are markets in the courtyard and events all year round. I have been consistently disappointed in the Farmleigh offering but the fact that so many other people regularly have a great time there keeps drawing me back. Today, wasn’t too bad. The courtyard was chilly and cheerless and the Santa unconvincing but the house was warm and manned by people in 19th century gear (I am a sucker for costume – I nearly died of happiness in Upper Canada Village). In the ballroom, there was a big Christmas tree and a choir were singing beautifully. All around were people like us with small children, spellbound. Children were sitting on their parents knees, rocking back and forth – their little faces all aglow from the cold weather outside. When the choir stopped singing, you could have heard a pin drop. Two childish voices piped up into the silence:

Childish voice 1: This is boring.
Childish voice 2: Yeah, this is boring, I want to go somewhere I can spend my money.

No prizes for guessing whose children these might be.

Parenting Thrill


Posted in: Princess, Reading etc.

My daughter loves to read. I am delighted. A lifetime of happiness opens up. When I see her reading at breakfast, reading in the car, coming out from school with her coat and bag under one arm and a book held open as she walks, I am thrilled. She will read anything. I used to try to keep up with her but I’ve given up. I cannot face “Milly Molly Mandy” or “The Naughtiest Girl in the School”. The other night, I found her reading “A Christmas Carol”. Not an abbreviated version for children but the original. She cannot have understood more than one word in ten but dogged determination kept her going to the bitter end. I suspect that this is much the same spirit that moved me to finish Winwood Reade’s “The Martyrdom of Man” aged 11 to the shock and awe of my parents who, I think, were both defeated by it – needless to say, I retain almost no memory of this seminal text.

She has started to use words that she has only found in books. So she talks of the “wilder ness” and is indignant to be told that it is not so pronounced; “but it’s spelt “wilder ness”” she protests. I have already told her about epitome so she won’t be caught out by that one.

Wildlife in the Classroom


Posted in: Princess, Reading etc.

There was a mouse in the Princess’s classroom yesterday. The teacher stood on her chair and yelled. They all had to decamp to another room while the principal (God love him) caught it to “send to the pet shop”. He tells me he has had to fork out €800 to Rentokil to make sure that all the mice in the building make it safely to the pet shop.

And today’s links:

We get to find out what Mike has been up to. And very interesting it is too. Particularly, if you are interested in furniture and design.

My sister-in-law is losing the will to blog. Go on, give her a comment. Yes, I know, not only am I nagging for comments here but there too. It’s all too much. Thank you for commenting here, by the way. You might like to know that, on foot of that last post, my mother has offered to buy us a dryer for Christmas. Mr. Waffle won’t let her because of the environment.

My brother drew my attention to this interview by a cranky Cork footballer. Cranky, but I suppose he has a point.

Ireland has been underwater for a couple of weeks. Except Dublin. Dublin has been pretty dry. For days, the Irish Times had to put pictures of places outside Dublin on its front page. The pain. Obviously, there was a flood (ha, ha) of complaints as the Dublin Intelligencer (as my father calls it) ignored the needs of its nearest and dearest. On Monday, they could stand it no more and, with most of the rest of the country under several feet of water the Irish Times ran with “Debris is washed ashore as southwesterly winds lash the South Wall pier at high water in Dublin yesterday” and a nice picture of the local debris risk.

Blessed are the merciful, for they shall be mortified. Oh dear.

Eeek!


Posted in: Cork, Family, Ireland, Middle Child, Princess, Twins

My children do not enjoy as diverse a diet as I did when I was their age. In part this is because I am not at all as good a cook as my mother and in part because they are the pickiest eaters in Ireland.

I am spending a couple of days with my parents (photos of flooding may follow, hold your breath) and this evening my mother cooked prawns for the offspring. It was then that I realised that they had never even had a frozen prawn before, let alone one still encased in its shell. They gazed in horrified fascination at the little bodies laid out for their delectation. They winced as I screwed off the thorax and pulled out the edible part. The Princess then began to create new bodies using the heads and pincers. The boys were too afraid to even touch them. So, your best guess, did they eat any dinner tonight?

A new twist to a classic tale


Posted in: Middle Child, Mr. Waffle, Princess, Twins

Princess: What’s “The King and I” about?
Mr. Waffle: A woman goes to Siam (explanation that this is now Thailand, eye-rolling in the back of the car from herself) to be governess to the king’s daughter.
Me (feeling that this is an important plot point): And the King’s wife, the Princess’s mother, is dead.
Daniel: I don’t want my Mummy to die.
Me: Mummies almost never die. Don’t worry. It’s very unusual.
Princess (impatiently): What happens?
Me: They fall in love.
Her: The king’s daughter and the governess?

And a good morning to you too


Posted in: Middle Child, Mr. Waffle, Princess, Twins, Youngest Child

5.45: Princess arrives into our room coughing and chatting.
6.15: Mr. Waffle gives up the struggle and gets up, goes downstairs hangs out the washing and makes the children’s sandwiches [yes, I know, a treasure]. The Princess follows him.
6.20: The Princess returns; her father would rather hang out the washing than talk to her.
6.30: I decamp to the Princess’s bed.
7.00: The Princess wakes me and says she is going downstairs, I can go back to my own bed. I do.
7.05: The cat jumps on me and starts running up and down my person.
7.10: The cat finally settles on my head with her tummy purring over my ear and her paws kneading my cheek.
7.30: Mr. Waffle gets into the shower. The cat leaps from my head so that she can stand outside the bathroom door meowing loudly.
7.45: I get up.
7.50: Mr. Waffle leaves for work – mercifully, it is only one day a week that he has to leave so early.
8.00: The Princess re-emerges. She asks for a hot water bottle. I give it to her.
8.05: Daniel emerges. He takes me by the hand and shows me that the cat has settled in his bed. He demands pancakes for breakfast. Their father, the only person who can make pancakes, has gone to work. Daniel gets cranky. I remember that my sister brought Ikea pancakes when she came to stay. I root around the freezer, find these and deploy them. Revolting though they appear, they meet the identified need.
8.20: I leave the pair downstairs and go upstairs to wake Michael. I decide, in my ultimate wisdom that now would be a good time to put away laundry. Because I have so much spare time. That must be it.
8.30: I get Michael up. He has wet the bed (alas).
8.35: The others come upstairs. I persuade them into their clothes. The Princess is helpful – hurrah. She reads a page of Dora for every item of clothes the boys put on. They are all dressed. Rejoice.
8.50: We go downstairs. The cat has, as, alas, is becoming her habit, used the time while we were upstairs, to do a wee at the bottom of the stairs and cover it with plaster from the ever growing hole in the wall. I stop the children (all in socks) on the stairs and mop up the wee.
8.50: Michael has to have breakfast. I start my morning refrain “The school has already opened its doors, there are children there already, classes are about to start.”
8.55: Pack the Princess and Daniel into the car. The Princess insists on bringing her hot water bottle. Daniel brings a library book.
9.05: Pack Michael into the car. The Princess has stolen Daniel’s library book. I tell her she can hang on to it on condition she reads it aloud. She does so.
9.15: Arrive (5 minutes late) at school. Daniel refuses to budge from the car until he has had a chance to flick through his library book himself. A free and frank exchange of views follows which ends with both parties glaring at each other. I bring the other two to the door of the school and go back for Daniel.
9.20: Ensconce boys in classroom; make up with Daniel and have a quick word with the teacher. Emerge to find herself waiting in the corridor. She wants me to accompany her to her classroom – four floors up. Do so. Am then sent about my business and told not to kiss her as this is embarrassing.
9.30: Arrive back to car (hazards flashing – I am that annoying driver) and zoom to work. Traffic miraculously light allowing me to be at my desk at the breath-takingly early hour of 9.45.
9.45: Colleague telephones to give me a blow by blow account of her difficult meeting. Sympathise. “Is it only 9.45?” she says. ” After going through that, I feel like it’s four in the afternoon.” As do I.
10.00: I realise that I forgot to feed the cat. Ring Mr. Waffle to see whether he can get home during the morning. He reassures me that he fed the cat before he left.

Today’s lovely links:

One of my favourite bloggers is back. Hurrah.
Pretty pictures.
Knowledge of French and Belgium required to appreciate this one; but very much worth it, if you fall into this category.
Dot supplies the answer to a question that has been plaguing the Waffles.
Our Justice Minister is
upset about yesterday’s soccer match.
I really like these little google videos. Health warning: my husband thinks that they’re creepy.