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Middle Child

21 Today – The Years of Unc Begin*

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

It’s been quite a while since this post. It seems like a very long time ago and, in that weird way that time telescopes as you get older, not that long ago at all.

Youngest child had a party at home last night and it was still in full swing when we got home from the cinema but this morning when we got up, it was all cleaned up. I was truly impressed (but I felt a little guilty, surely he knew that he could clean up in the morning, has my insistence on picking up after oneself been just a tiny bit overdeveloped?).

They firmly but politely refused to have a party together (which seemed ideal to me). Instead of celebrating with his brother last night, middle child is having a joint party with a friend at his place next weekend. They are twins with distinct social circles.

We went out for lunch today to celebrate and had tea and cake at home afterwards. Relatives have dutifully come up with presents and good wishes. Mr. Waffle did one of his legendary treasure hunts for them.

All is right with the world.

*At lunch they told us that unc is slang for old and basically uncool but really only used on young people, we are so unc we don’t even know it; we’re beyond unc. It’s not very recent slang apparently but it’s new to me and perhaps to you also. Just wanted you to be as with it as me.

Queen of Cafés


Posted in: Dublin, Ireland, Middle Child, Mr. Waffle, Twins

I met middle child and Mr. Waffle for lunch today in a café where I have been going for many, many years. I used to work near there and go there a fair bit but I work in a different part of town now and go much less frequently. Middle child had never been there – as Mr. Waffle said, they have anti-student prices – but enjoyed it. Both of my lunching partners were surprised to see one of the waitresses surge out from behind the counter and embrace me saying, “We haven’t seen you in ages.” I was a little surprised myself but gratified. “I have been here 19 years today and I remember you coming in when I started working here,” she said. When it came to time to leave she whispered to me, “Open your bag; we made extra scones today and I will give four to you”.

I remember once years ago at a slightly low point they gave me free cake. I tell you, loyalty has its privileges.

Silver!


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

Those of you following along at home will know that Mr. Waffle and I celebrated our 25th wedding anniversary in July. We celebrated on the August bank holiday weekend with his family and mine in a nice guest house in Wicklow where we have been before with the family.

There were various alarms in the approach – despite constant reminders, it came as a surprise to my brother; although my children knew they had to be there, their arrival was challenging in the case of the two who were abroad.

Herself was due to arrive from London at lunchtime the day before the dinner but missed her flight. After a fun day spent in Heathrow, where she learnt a great deal about airport administration and ticketing, possibly to the irritation of some staff members including the woman who said severely, “This young lady has been told she can’t get on a flight before 8 this evening”. The angel with the flaming sword was in an Aer Lingus uniform but apparently all the staff in Heathrow are subcontracted – who knew? I can’t help feeling that actual Aer Lingus staff would have been nicer. However, even her colleagues agreed that angel with the flaming sword was a bit grumpy (herself got to know them all) and the Princess finally got away on an earlier flight and was home by 8.

Meanwhile middle child was returning from a slightly disastrous sojourn in Paris. This child on crutches and a boot decided that rather than book a direct flight from Paris to Dublin – something that is readily available – that changing in Manchester was the better option. This may have saved €20 but it was €20 I was more than willing to pay. And it wasn’t just a quick stop in Manchester either; it was about 5 hours. Not really long enough to go into Manchester and explore (remember the crutches and the boot) but long enough to get a bus to the library in some nearby place and do some studying. I have so many thoughts. But I did get sent a picture of the police station in “Life on Mars” which seems to be relatively near Manchester airport – a genuinely excellent show which we watched over the winter and which has stood the test of time but not, I would say, worth travelling to Manchester for. It’s no Game of Thrones tour, I’ll say that. So, I was back to the airport at midnight to do another pick up.

Notwithstanding airline difficulties, I was extremely pleased to have all my children back in Ireland at the same time.

On Saturday we went off to Wicklow which took a lot longer than expected due to the Bray air show but we got there and we had tea and scones and then I found myself wondering what were we all going to do in the couple of hours before dinner. I had brought a photo album charting our 25 years together but that was hardly likely to keep us going until dinner time. My genius sister had prepared a quiz – and vitally – prizes. The quiz was all about Mr. Waffle and me so I really triumphed. So pleasing. Mr. Waffle felt it was unfair – he likes the sanctity of the quiz format to be respected, but I did not care.

The remainder of our time passed off without a hitch. I gave my speech (carefully prepared, heckled by my brother); Mr. Waffle gave his (invented on the spot, also heckled by my brother). I had wondered how the two sides of the family – who don’t see each other so often – would merge but that actually went really well. And I was thrilled that all the young cousins were there. It was really nice to do something to celebrate and I would totally recommend it.

Untitled

The next day the party split up and my sister said she was going to the outlet shopping centre and a number of us said we would go with her. In fact, two cars were needed to get there. In each of these cars there was one person who knew it was wildly out of the way and assumed anyone with a modicum of intelligence would know that. The rest of us with our tenuous grasp of geography thought it was only half an hour away and did not know that we had committed to hours in the car. By the time we arrived there, all tempers were extremely frayed. I had Mr. Waffle drop myself and middle-child at the shopping centre and then sent him and Michael on his way back to Dublin; a long journey as became apparent on the trip down, and one they were not super looking forward to. Herself, who travelled in the other car, said things were no better there. In fact, no sooner did the other car arrive than having disgorged the Princess and my brother, they hightailed it back to Cork. As part of my, unstated, plan was to have them drive us to the station at the end of the day, that was a matter of regret. It’s not that the station is far but one of our number was, you will recall, on crutches and in a boot.

I am very ambivalent about outlet shopping. I hate everything about it in theory but I love it in practice. We actually had a great time and got loads of nice things but I hate myself for enjoying it. And the walk to the station was grand in the end.

Coda. When Mr. Waffle and I got engaged, we went to a lovely jeweller in the Galeries de la Reine in Brussels to look at rings. She asked our budget and said dubiously, “For a small budget like yours, I don’t think I have anything; come back for your 25th wedding anniversary”. It sounds like she was being mean but she was actually charming. Now that saintly Mr. Waffle has shelled out for our 25th anniversary extravaganza in Wicklow, he may think I have forgotten this, but I have not.

I Despair


Posted in: Middle Child, Twins

You will recall that middle child is on crutches and has to wear a boot following an incident last Monday. Today we deposited our precious child at the airport to go to Paris for a bit. The journey passed off peacefully and the wheelchair assistance at both ends all worked fine. So far, so good.

Unwisely, however, I did not supervise the booking of accommodation. When I rang this evening to check that all was well, I was told that the flat is “6ème étage sans ascenseur”. This is a Paris classic, the maid’s room under the roof, 6th floor and no lift and just not suitable for someone on crutches. To add insult to injury, the bed is on a mezzanine. So you get up to the 6th floor and then you have to hop up the ladder to the bed. It is true that in the booking process I was asked to explain what a mezzanine was but I thought that my description would steer my beloved child away from the mezzanine option. More fool me.

By our mistakes we learn. Keep your fingers crossed that that ankle improves rapidly.

Trying


Posted in: Dublin, Ireland, Middle Child, Mr. Waffle, Twins

After a lot of humming and hawing, middle child decided that it was time to get away for a working summer holiday and yesterday booked tickets and accommodation to depart tomorrow.

Last night as I was at my bookclub sitting in the back garden; enjoying the cheeseboard; and chatting merrily in a sort of end of term way, my phone began ringing off the hook. It was middle child injured in a park on the opposite side of the city but sounding reasonably cheerful, if immobile. My immediate reaction was to say, “Ring your father!” but then I remembered we are a one car family and I had the one car (serves me right for not cycling). Off I went to the rescue.

On the drive home, Mr. Waffle rang me to remind me that we had a double mattress in the boot and it would need to be removed to accommodate both the injured warrior and the injured warrior’s bicycle. Why did we have a mattress in the boot? Well, you may recall that I spent months swapping the content of the box room (the former fastness of youngest child) and the double room on the return (the Princess’s old room). I did this on the basis that she will probably never live at home again (sniff) and the youngest child should have the larger bedroom. For obvious reasons she was not pleased. He said he didn’t care beforehand and he was remarkably consistent afterwards. “How do you like your new bedroom?” I asked perkily. “Fine,” he said with zero enthusiasm, “but the mattress is really uncomfortable.” So we bought a new mattress and put the old one in the car to take to the dump. But then Mr. Waffle discovered that Dublin City Council are doing a mattress collection and all we had to do was email them and they would collect it from the front of the house. Great news. We await confirmation of our date but, in the meanwhile, the mattress is living in the boot.

I came home and dislodged the mattress. Meanwhile the texts from the park were becoming increasingly alarming: “I really can’t move at all.”; “Maybe I need to see a doctor?” I said to Mr. Waffle “Perhaps you should come too.” When we got to the park, Mr. Waffle went in to find the afflicted child and I looked for parking. Then Mr. Waffle called me to collect them. Mr. Waffle and I are not good at communicating directions of any kind to each other and it took some time to locate them. I heard Mr. Waffle say tetchily to the victim, “Your mother and I lack a common language for communicating directions.” I felt somehow that I was being blamed. One of us spent formative teen years orienteering and it wasn’t me. When we eventually found each other, the poor old victim was looking a bit miserable. A faithful friend had stayed with the victim to the end and I could tell that, eyeing the parents, she felt more support might be needed but we thanked her and sent her off into the night about which I felt a little guilty but we were in no position to offer anyone a lift home.

The victim’s poor ankle was swollen like a balloon and we felt that perhaps we should go to accident and emergency in the local hospital. Then we realised that three of us wouldn’t fit in the car with the bike. In retrospect, I feel we should have interrogated that assumption a bit further but as I said, we were tetchy. So I said grumpily, “You guys go in the car, I can cycle no problem” not for a second thinking that I would be left to cycle 3kms in the dark on a bike with a crossbar which was much too big for me. But my remarks were taken at face value and I found myself wobbling down the road in that lofty vehicle high dudgeon (not my joke, I suppose really high nelly here). It was ok but anytime I had to get on and off which was with surprising frequency, I kind of got my leg stuck in the basket at the back while swinging it over the crossbar so it could hardly be called elegant progress. I went through a park where someone was giving his XL bully dogs a run without muzzles or leads, one of them frolicking alongside me was some kind of enormous Doberman cross and I was nervous especially since I knew I wasn’t going to get up a head of speed on the bike but it just frolicked and left me to my cycling.

When I got home I hopped on my own normal sized bike and went to A&E. I foolishly thought it might be quiet on a Monday night in July. It was not. It was absolutely heaving and very miserable. We stayed until about 1 in the morning and did not even get to see the triage nurse let alone a doctor so I took an executive decision that we would go home and go to the private health clinic in the morning when it opened. I was a bit worried that the ankle might be broken and moving would make it worse but on the other hand, the child was exhausted and in pain and at the rate we were going, likely to be there all night. We went home.

After the misfortunate child (literally) crawled into bed, we put ice on the ankle and doled out powerful painkillers (the victim had some in stock having been prescribed them earlier by the dentist for impacted wisdom teeth, it hasn’t been a great time healthwise) and hoped for the best.

The swelling had gone down a bit in the morning but the ankle was still very sore so I took the morning off work (usually Mr. Waffle does this kind of thing but he had a conference in the morning and I, miraculously, had no meetings) and drove the afflicted child to the clinic. I was not delighted to be charged €75 almost before I got in the door. What am I paying an enormous sum in health insurance for, if I have to fork out in the clinic? This is not a question for Americans who seem to enjoy their own weirdly painful regime which is maybe even worse? On the plus side, a greater contrast to the hellish scenes of A&E the night before would be hard to imagine. The patient was seen immediately, x-rayed immediately, diagnosed immediately and the seats where we barely had to sit and wait were leather and not wipe clean plastic. Great news – no break! Less great news – a bad sprain, a torn ligament, crutches and a boot. The doctor looked slightly askance at the painkillers the dentist had prescribed and said that he would prescribe something less strong. I mean he didn’t know that the dentist looked at those wisdom teeth and said, “Wow, wow, wow!”

Anyway was this a child who was going to be going on a plane at 8 the following morning? It was not. When we got home we changed the flight booking. It was hard (expense, on hold to aer lingus – twice, you know the drill). But we did it. The question of accommodation we punted to another day and I went off into work on my bike to spend an afternoon catching up and Mr. Waffle promised to drop home over the afternoon to see how the sufferer was.

When I got home from work that evening like a damp, exhausted rag and told Mr. Waffle of my adventures he, very tactlessly, said, “But wasn’t this supposed to be a working holiday, is there any point going at all in a boot and crutches?” A fair point but an unwelcome one.

“And how is the sufferer?” you ask. Much improved after a day in bed and, as I write, at a friend’s house watching the world cup match.

How have the last 24 hours been for you?

A Question of Taste


Posted in: Middle Child, Siblings, Twins

My brother of whom I am fond when he is not driving me crazy has firm views on what size a television should be and his view is that it should be the size of one wall of your house. This is not a view I share.

Before we moved to this house he very kindly bought me a present of a television. I didn’t want a television, I thought my normal sized non-slimline TV was fine. In our old, small house, the new television loomed in the downstairs room where we basically did everything; I did not love it. When we moved to this house which is mercifully bigger, the new TV looked a lot better and I am now pretty pleased with it and would not part with it. It is about 15 years old but it has worked faithfully for us all these years with no problems of any kind. “What a successful present!” you say.

However, my brother is unhappy. Television technology has advanced and this TV which he kindly bought all those years ago is now too small he feels. It is a 32 inch screen (I’ve just measured it for you, you measure diagonally apparently). It drives my brother bananas and I would be lying if I didn’t say that this was, perhaps, not the least of its attractions. In his own house he has an enormous television which feels like it’s following you around the room. We enjoy regular free and frank exchanges of views on television sizes. I honestly thought that he was the odd one however some alarming evidence that there may be something in what he says has come my way recently.

Middle child had some friends around and reported to me the very unwelcome news that they said, “Why is your TV so old and small?” SMALL? What is this craziness? One of the offending children looked around the room and said, “It’s because they spent all their money on lamps.” Who doesn’t like mood lighting and despise the harsh central light? 20 year olds apparently. So long as my brother never finds out, we’re alright, I suppose. Might I ask, what size is your own television?