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Princess

Christmas Round-Up


Posted in: Dublin, Family, Ireland, Princess

On Christmas Eve, we went to midnight mass which starts at 9. Baffling, I know. The Princess had to sing a solo and carry the baby Jesus to the crib. Before doing the latter she had to hold him up for the congregation to view and part of me was very afraid that the porcelain baby Jesus would tumble on to the steps of the altar and break but, mercifully, no.

Christmas Day itself passed off peacefully, you will be pleased to hear. We had various in-laws for dinner and it was all very pleasant. We played some games after dinner with varying degrees of success. Least successful was “Articulate” where due to a lack of attention during team formation, the three adult men in the room were put playing together and wiped the floor with the rest of us. The object of the game is to describe a word which your team mates try to guess. My own personal triumph was when Michael, who was playing with me, said, “They used to oppress us!” “England!” I shouted triumphantly pointing at my sister-in-law’s husband who is English but is not personally responsible for 800 years of oppression etc and is, on the contrary, a charming dinner guest. The answer turned out to be “Europe”. Clearly, the anti-troika rhetoric has had an impact on Michael. After the less than happy “Articulate” experience, we played a charades type game which involved holding the Princess’s Christmas phone up to your forehead. Oh yes, she got a phone from Santa and is very pleased.

Finally we passed to playing cards where the London contingent cleaned up and between them won pretty much everything – they had complementary skills. They made up for this by inspecting several Minecraft worlds which the children had created with every appearance of interest.

Today we went for our now traditional St. Stephen’s Day orienteering trip in the Dublin mountains. Although Christmas Day was beautiful, even when we set out this morning it was overcast and shortly after leaving home it began to rain and expanding on that theme it rained more and more heavily. We got there and we ran through the mud. The children were pretty cheerful considering that they got their feet wet and were frozen.

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I think we have had pretty bad luck with the weather at this event given that it almost never rains in Dublin. Really. Cork, now in Cork, it rains. Speaking of which, we are off to Cork tomorrow so fine weather beckons. I wonder whether they might like left over turkey.

And how was your own Christmas?

Questionable Wisdom


Posted in: Dublin, Ireland, Princess

They had a Christmas quiz, in English, in the Princess’s class. One of the questions was, “What did the wise men bring to the baby Jesus?” Mostly, the answers the teams came up with were the standard ones: gold, frankincense and myrrh. One table, however, came up with “gold frankincense and fingers”. If you speak Irish no further clues are available as to why they reached the unlikely conclusion that the baby Jesus received a gift of fingers.

If you do not, you should know that the Irish for gold, frankincense and myrrh is ór, frankincense agus myrhh [our celtic ancestors, I suppose, not having much experience of or need for the last items, there are no particular Irish words for them]. The Irish word for finger is méar. Do you see where we are coming from here?

Christmas Disasters


Posted in: Family, Princess

The other day the Princess and I were working on the composition of a poem about the Titanic [do they learn anything in school but information about the Titanic? All three of my children have far more information about it than might be thought necessary for a generalist] when an unpleasant smell assaulted my nostrils and I was off to the kitchen like a coursing hare leaving the Titanic to fend for itself (insert your own joke here).

Not only had the pot in which I was gently steaming my plum pudding boiled dry but the metal steamer on which the pudding bowl was sitting had lost a leg and the plastic at the bottom of the bowl had melted through the holes in the steamer rendering pot, steamer and pudding a lost cause.

I made cranberry and orange sauce and gave my sister a jar to take back to Cork. She packed it carefully with a camel coloured coat. Do I need to say that the jar lost its lid? I think not.

On the plus side, the teacher was taken with the Princess’s poem on the Titanic and stuck it up on the wall of the classroom.

Share your own mild Christmas disasters. Please.

Haircut


Posted in: Princess

I have had my annual haircut.

The children took pictures; this may explain my slightly manic look but, maybe that’s the way I look all the time.

Before:

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And after:

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It’s shorter. Herself reported to me that on observing that she was wearing nail varnish the childminder reproved her. He pointed out that her mother wore no make up and had preserved her “jeunesse naturelle”. “And,” as I said “he’s French which makes it even better”. He said that before the haircut, mind you.

Culture


Posted in: Princess, Reading etc.

We all went to see “Minuscule” as part of the French film festival and it was delightful. Highlight was small child speaking clearly and crossly in a gap between adults laughing hysterically, “C’est pas rigolo!”

Last night the Princess and I went to see Oliver Goldsmith’s “She Stoops to Conquer” in the Abbey. It was our Christmas outing and while nothing will probably ever match the thrill of her first theatre outing (“Little Women” in the Gate in 2011 or so the internet says) this was pretty good. Our expectations were on the low side which is always helpful. The set was amazing and as we walked into the theatre she clutched my arm in delight at the sight of the stage. The costumes were also superb. The whole thing was played hugely for laughs and almost like a pantomime in places but really entertaining for both of us. Brilliantly done and we loved it. There were no other children in the audience that I could see which was a pity because, it was very suitable and really funny. It was her first trip to the Abbey (“our national theatre” as the portentous voice before the play told us) and it was great but she was lucky as it is not always thus. In fairness to the Abbey, since the revamp there doesn’t seem to be a bad seat in the house. We were in the front row and, although we were, inevitably, slightly looking up the characters skirts, visibility was really good. Tickets were as cheap as any I have had, €13 each. When you consider that it costs €11 to go to the cinema, I think this was really good value for a lovely experience. You should go, if you live in Dublin, and bring your children aged 11+.

More Adventures in Public Transport


Posted in: Middle Child, Princess, Twins

One morning Michael was sick and Mr. Waffle had to stay home with him. I had an early meeting. We struggled to work out how herself and Daniel would get to school. In the end they took the bus into school together without any adult supervision. It all went fine, thank you very much. This whole public transport thing has a lot going for it.