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Princess

The sea, the sea

28 May, 2004
Posted in: Belgium, Princess

We went to Knokke yesterday with the Glam Potter and baby L.  Though it was overcast in Brussels, it was relatively fine on the coast.  The Princess doesn’t “think much of the ocean, the waves they was fiddly and small” and also rather cold.  However, she did consent to dip a small toe very briefly in the North Sea.  The beach was another matter and she played happily with baby L’s bucket and spade while L made a run for the main road nearby.

Knokke is a funny place.  The Belgian coast is rather unbeautiful. High rise towers gazing out on a chilly grey sea.  But they love it.  And the coast is really expensive.  A flat in one of those towers could set you back the same amount as a flat in Dublin.  In Ranelagh.  And Knokke is full of very rich Belgians. I heard a news item on the radio that the local council in Knokke has banned helicopters from the area.  Apparently, so many residents had helipads the area was becoming very noisy and it was losing its cachet.  Odd.

Still, it was lovely to be by the sea.  Maybe, when I win the lottery, we will be able to put a deposit on a small flat near Ostend.

Comments
belgianwaffle

on 28 May 2004 at 12:17

Nah, couldn’t afford that really..

And what can we do for you, Madam?

19 May, 2004
Posted in: Family, Mr. Waffle, Princess

As you know, this is a bank holiday weekend in Belgium and to celebrate this we are going away tomorrow night. Yes, Thursday night only. Try to keep up. Yesterday, I began to wonder what we would do in our château, so I called the châtelaine.

Me: Hello, we’ve reserved a room for Thursday night…

Ch.: Yes. You know you can only arrive after 6.30.

Me: Yes, I know this.

Ch.: And we don’t take credit cards.

Me: Yes.

Ch.: And you have to check out by 11.00.

Me: Yes. Um, I was just wondering whether we could book in for dinner on Thursday night.

Ch.: We don’t do dinner.

(Why advertise two dining rooms on your website then?)

Me: Oh, I see, well could you recommend a babysitter.

Ch.: No.  Are you bringing a baby?

Me: Yes (and we told her this when making the booking, so I don’t know why she sounded so appalled, maybe she’d repressed the memory).

Ch.: Well, you’d better have all the equipment for it, because we certainly won’t be able to accommodate it.

Me: Ok, fine.

Hmm. The Princess goes to bed at 7.30 – 8.00 and she likes it to be dark. Are we going to spend our night away sitting silently in a dimly lit room?  Apparently.  Do you think we would be able to order Chinese to the château or should I bring sandwiches?

And Mr. Waffle came home this evening with a cold.

I am feeling very positive about this.

Comments
Angela

(Homepage)

on 20 May 2004 at 00:21

Jeff and I went out of town last weekend, and when MC went to bed at 8, we were also forced into going to bed at 8.
Oh, we *tried* to watch Harry Potter on the television, but the flickering light kept stirring our wee one, so we were forced to turn it off.
And sit in dark silence.
And as we sat, I wondered if I would have any luck sticking tiny earplugs into MC’s ears. Also, one of those sleeping masks in a tiny tiny size…
Good luck to you!

stroppycow

on 20 May 2004 at 17:50

I had not seen such customer focus in a long time. Very funny.

belgianwaffle

on 20 May 2004 at 19:10

Jack, I am touched by your enthusiasm. Angela, for all the wrong reasons, tiny earplugs are unnecessary. Stroppy, we may never know what she is like in the flesh.

jackdalton

on 20 May 2004 at 19:54

Yes, but I love all that stuff about Waffle-generated chaos — half-brains and keys and change…..

belgianwaffle

on 24 May 2004 at 14:41

Jack, suddenly I am less keen on your enthusiasm and slightly reluctant to blog on my unfortunate w/end cinema experience but, deep breath, am sure that it won’t at all confirm your views as outlined above. No, really.

Socialising

17 May, 2004
Posted in: Mr. Waffle, Princess

I was just about to finish a really excellent entry, no truly, when I lost it all by going to check on Google whether the Czech foreign minister really is Polish or whether they were just laughing at me at the party on Saturday night.  I’m not sure whether I have the heart to start again. And I still don’t know whether the Czech foreign minister is Polish.

To summarise. Went out Friday night to Glam Potter’s where she had foregathered a selection of her glam friends and me. Prize for glamness goes to the girl who’s just managed to get herself seconded to Miami for work. On full pay. To do research. Plus a per diem allowance. She wants us to know that she also applied for Pittsburgh. Second prize for glamness goes to the GP herself who launched into an anecdote as follows, “when I lived in Miami, I had this convertible…”

Saturday saw myself and the Princess loyally supporting Mr. Waffle and his team in their attempt to win a work tournament. They lost. They must continue losing for a number of weekends before they can stop. Let’s hope the weather stays fine.

Saturday night myself and Mr. Waffle went to a party upstairs. The Anglo-Czech couple on the top floor sent everyone in the building notes inviting us to come and asking us to let them know, if they made too much noise. Since they are the only people in the building who make no noise, this was particularly endearing. We got an oral invitation as well, because I feed their cats when they are away. I thought the cats were named after a flying beast and a fast train respectively but my sister-in-law the publishing exec tells me that they are in fact called after 16th century English choral composers (and a small prize is available if you can tell me their names based on these hints alone). Despite the undoubted pretension of their cat naming policy, they are very pleasant, so we were happy to trip along on Saturday night. It also gave us a chance to see what they had done with that awkard space behind the sofa (bookshelves, since you ask, but, you know, I feel, behind the sofa is a bit unsatisfactory for bookshelves).

Everyone at the party was either English or Czech. There was also a three week old baby who was both. There are a lot more Anglo-Czech couples out there than you might think. I now know a lot more about the Czech republic than I did last week. I offer you the following:

Women from Prague are very pretty;

The same cannot be said for the men;

Czech women get a year’s maternity leave on 70% pay and up to three years in total. During that time, they do not leave their children. At all. I was an object of wonder because my baby was downstairs with a babysitter – Fluid Pudding, there is a nation out there that relates to you;

Ostrova is the third city and good for mining and clubbing. People from Prague do not go to Ostrova and laugh uproariously at the suggestion that they might. I tested this theory on the sample available to me and it seems to be true. Comparisons between Cork and Ostrova are unhelpful and unworthy, now obviously, if someone were to compare Limerick to Ostrova, we might be getting somewhere;

John Kerry is Czech.

Their foreign minister may be Polish.

They’re a friendly bunch the Czechs.

On Sunday we finally tried to book something for next weekend. It’s a four day weekend (if you’re American, you should know that in May, Europeans hardly bother working at all) and the thought of spending all of it in Brussels was unappealing. Obviously, we are not the only people who think this because everywhere is fully booked. We finally got a room in a chateau near Lille for Thursday night. That’s it. I have determined that to prolong the holiday spirit through the w/end we will get a babysitter on Saturday night and go to see Troy. If you feel that this is a terribly bad idea, please tell me and make a better recommendation. Note, however, that you are speaking to a woman who intends to watch “Noi Albinoi” on DVD tonight. Yes, that’s right an Icelandic film. Hmm.

Comments
belgianwaffle

on 19 May 2004 at 09:14

Entirely correct. You are a brilliant Belgian with a bizarre knowledge of English choral composers. As prize, I will tell you that the other one is Byrd.

Thierry

on 19 May 2004 at 12:42

Thanks!
In fact, I just had to goggle a little bit ! (?_-)

Renee

(Homepage)

on 19 May 2004 at 14:43

They have a cat named Byrd? That’s funny!

belgianwaffle

on 19 May 2004 at 15:27

Renee, this aspect of matters had not occurred to me until now. As you observe, it is funny.
Thierry, am impressed by your googling though your reputation in the field of English choral composers is now in freefall.

Cough cough

12 May, 2004
Posted in: Princess

The Princess has a cough. She woke up last night at 11.00 coughing. She refused to go back to bed and stayed in my arms dozing and coughing until 1.30 when she finally agreed that it was probably time to consider going back to her own bed. She woke again at 5.00. She was convinced that it was morning.  It was bright and she was ready to party. Tried to put her back to bed but she roared. Soft hearted Mr. Waffle said “bring her into our bed”. She was delighted, she waved and clapped her hands. She practised her new found standing skills using her parents’ prone bodies as climbing frames. She stuck her fingers up her father’s nose, repeatedly. This is an exciting new game which gets an excellent reaction. Picture the scene, her Daddy is drifting off to sleep, his defences are down, a small digit is thrust up his nose accompanied by the sound of a manic chuckle.

At 7.00, I decided that there really was no chance that she would go back to sleep and she and I got up. There are few things more fun than Dr. Seuss at 7.00 in the morning. “Mr. Brown can moo, can you?” At 8.00 Mr. Waffle appeared. A very flat Waffle. At 8.15 her imperial highness said “Minion, I am tired bring me to the royal cot”. It is now 12.00 and she is sleeping still. Is there a sign of a cough out of her?  No, there is not.

After she went back to sleep, Mr. Waffle and I chatted.

“I’m very glad that I got the new soap dish in the bathroom, now that we have two…”

Mr. Waffle lifted his head from the table where he had been resting it between mouthfuls of cereal and interrupted my fascinating discourse on soap dishes “What are you wearing?”

“My dressing gown”

“It’s got porridge encrusted on it”

“Well, you know, I wear it when I give her her breakfast.”  I peered at the offending garment. I sniffed it. “I think it’s also faintly smelly, want to smell?”

“No, I do not. Oh my God, what have we become? There’s a word for it. Oh yes, parents”

I have decided that it’s time my dressing gown went in the wash.

A long distance call for you

11 May, 2004
Posted in: Princess

The phone bill has arrived.  Somebody was on to Djibouti for 7 seconds at 10.30 on April 8.  I don’t know about you, but I suspect that the Princess has contacts in distant lands.  That child will have to be kept away from the phone or we will be beggared.  I suspect we are looking at the beginning of a long term problem here.

If you live in Djibouti and on April 8 had to get out of bed to answer a caller who hung up immediately, sorry about that.

Reasons to suspect I am losing my mind

5 May, 2004
Posted in: Mr. Waffle, Princess

1. The other day, I parked in an underground car park. I extracted her highness, I locked the car and opened the boot. I took out her pushchair, strapped her in, attached the string bag, grabbed the rucksack and double checked that I had my keys in my pocket before closing the boot. You see, I am cunning, I have often worried that it is easy to lock my keys in the boot and that, frankly, would be disastrous. My keys were not in my pocket. I checked the string bag. No. I checked under the car. No. I double checked my handbag. No. Not in any of my four pockets. I took the Princess out of her pushchair and checked whether she was sitting on the keys. No. I put her sitting in the boot and checked around her. I took out everything in the boot. No. I double checked my pockets. No. I emptied out the nappy bag. No. This was ridiculous. I had used the keys minutes ago (about 15 minutes ago at this stage) to lock the car door. Could I have left them in the door? Could somebody have come and taken them while I was getting the pushchair out of the boot? That was the only explanation. You know, “when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth” or words to that effect. I decided that I had better ring my loving spouse to get him to come and rescue us, bringing his car keys. I went to the car park entrance to get a signal, carefully keeping the car in view lest the scam artist should come up and try to drive it away. There was, of course, no one in the reception area which boasted a number of cameras. A pity, if there had been, I would have asked them to replay so that I could see the person who had stolen our car keys. I rang my husband and started to explain what had happened. “Um” he said “the keys wouldn’t be in the lock of the boot, you know, it would be up in the air and you wouldn’t see them.” Yes, that’s where they were.

2. On Monday morning, a friend of Mr. Waffle’s was in Brussels and, since I’m not working, I invited her round for coffee. While she was here, a friend of mine telephoned. Conversation was as follows:

Me: Hi, I can’t actually talk, there’s a person here, sorry not a person, a friend, well, not a friend of mine, a friend of Mr. Waffle’s, well, sorry a friend of mine too, but not as good a friend of mine as of his.

(Friend person – Um, I’ll just go to the bathroom).

Me: Oh well, she’s going to the bathroom so we can chat for hours, well, not hours, obviously, but minutes, well, a while, anyway.

Friend person sidles out of the room nervously.

3. Yesterday afternoon, I dried all my liquits with a teatowel. Liquits are these little plastic sacs of washing liquid that dissolve in water. You shove them in with your washing and hey presto the plasticky stuff dissolves away in the wash and your wash comes out clean. I suspect, they are almost certainly as damaging to the environment as SUVs. I don’t care. Unfortunately, it’s a bit of a design flaw, like superheros, their greatest strength contains the seeds of their destruction, they dissolve in water. I keep them under the sink. So some water dropped in on them. And they started to dissolve. So I took them all out and dried them lovingly with a teatowel to preserve them. Even as I was doing this, I wondered “should I be safely in an institution?”

Completely unrelated point, if you are Irish and haven’t heard it, have a listen to this http://www.rte.ie/radio1/morning/morningireland/. Click on audio for today Wednesday (don’t know if they archive, so hurry) and listen at about 8.30. Cathal Mac Coille (who I normally loath) does an outstanding job interviewing Beverly Flynn.

Comments
Locotes

on 06 May 2004 at 03:29

I fear you are indeed losing your mind. At the same time, I am no psychologist or other brain-expert-type-person, so don’t take my word for it. I prefer to stay honest instead of worrying you unnecessarily about brain-shrinkage.(I actually typed that as brian-shrinkage first – which is a whole other matter. Brian is embarrassed about the whole thing, but is consulting his doctor at the moment. God willing, the problem will soon be solved through a strict regimen of tablets and massage therepy.)

jackdalton

on 06 May 2004 at 11:04

Locotes couldn’t even spell honest without a spell checker, so ignore his jibe…
Kambuchi is also said to be good. Or fortified wine. Or failing that, vodka straight from the bottle…
[Only kidding about the vodka: do not try this at home, whether in the company of Mr W’s old flames or not.]

Locotes

on 06 May 2004 at 14:28

Now that’s harsh. Everyone know’s I’m one of the most honesht…hunest….honnets….ahem…. people around.This coming from the guy trying to turn a married woman with child into an alocholic. You’re doing that on enough other blogs surely…

belgianwaffle

on 06 May 2004 at 15:49

Hello there lads, had another lost keys incident yesterday so feel that there is no hope for me. Jack, very perceptive, friend person is indeed an old flame of Mr. W’s though safely hooked up with someone else now…

jackdalton

on 07 May 2004 at 14:26
(
Comment Modified) There is no such thing as safely and hooked…

But I gotta hand it to you Waff, that was a six megaton job you did on the poor girl. Just think about it…
She went away with the jitters AND saying to herself: ‘He preferred her to me… oh. my. god. What must I be like..?’
Aces high… 😉

belgianwaffle

on 07 May 2004 at 15:55

Funny, funny, Jack. This girl is from Cork (he likes Cork girls) – and as you will be aware, self doubt is unknown to us…

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