Middle Child

France II – Île de Ré to Arcachon

29 September, 2025
Posted in: Middle Child, Mr. Waffle, Princess, Siblings, Travel, Twins, Youngest Child

Thursday August 28, 2025

My late mother-in-law, of whom I was very fond, was very excited when the new Luas (tram service) arrived in Dublin. Despite having a commuter rail service which went to her house, she would often try to develop plans which involved getting the Luas to Sandyford which was the nearest point to her house to which the Luas went but, you know, not very near and not at all as convenient as the existing rail service. Whenever an arrangement is overly complex we describe it as being like the Luas to Sandyford. In a Luas to Sandyford type arrangement we decided that we would charge the car at the Lidl outside St Martin de Ré. Mr. Waffle brought the car to the Lidl and made his own way home; then he and I both cycled to St Martin and had breakfast; then I cycled home while Mr. Waffle drove home (I get home first proving, yet again, the superiority of the bicycle); then we both drove back to Lidl; then Mr. Waffle cycled home and I drove home. Are you with me? On the way home google maps indicated to me that it would be 2 minutes faster to cut off the main road. I did. Google maps is not really set up for European arrangements, I think. It sent me along an unpaved dirt road along the side of a field and then up a sandy trail near the house where I thought I would get stuck. Google maps loves that sandy wooded incline as it had sent us there by bike earlier in the week. It is not suitable for bikes or cars and happily I did not get stuck but, seriously, look at this picture from inside the car.

Compare this to the comfort of travel by bike on the island. The house even came with bespoke bike parking inside the front door which compared well with the car parking around the corner.

In the afternoon, herself arrived! The island is really near the airport so we had her picked up and whisked to the house in no time. We went for dinner out to celebrate. Hurrah.

Friday August 29, 2025

I went out with herself in the morning for a bit of an adventure and to show her the island. We did some mild shopping. Such was the excellence of the whole bike riding situation on the island that even herself who is not normally a bike fan (possibly in part due to my slightly rabid advocacy) said that she enjoyed cycling.

In the afternoon my beloved middle child arrived having survived exam season, an uncle in residence and the painter. I have to say it was very nice to have all my chickadees together.

Poor Mr. Waffle was a bit under the weather but still took a bus to the Lidl car park (“this is where I live now, apparently”) to pick up the car which he was charging in anticipation of our drive south the following day.

Saturday August 30, 2025

We were up with the lark. “To improve their service” to me, our Airbnb hosts had given us the opportunity to hire our sheets and bedlinen. I was not delighted and honestly think that bedlinen could have been included in the cost, I would gladly have paid a bit extra to have the beds made and not to have created a loclinge account. I had to predict the two hour window when laundry should be collected. Check out from the house was at 10 so I felt laundry should be collected before we left. So I selected the 8-10 window. This meant we had to be up and showered by 8. Were people enthusiastic? They were not. Did loclinge even turn up before we checked out? Non.

We dropped herself to the station to get the train down to Arcachon as the car was a bit small and we felt it would not be conducive to good relations to put all the children in the back. The roads were quite busy on the way down but we stopped for a long lunch in a service station (as glamorous as you might imagine) to – you guessed it – charge the wretched car. Mr. Waffle was thrilled by the fast charger and he said gleefully (after an initial disappointment when all the charging stations were full, but mercifully someone left) “It’s like the early days of motoring.” Honestly, could do without it.

Herself arrived in Arcachon first and after some tension over which I will draw a veil, we managed to find the station, collect her and drive to the house. I really liked the house. The living quarters were upstairs and it felt like living in a tree house.

There was a nice heated pool out the front and I took myself for a swim while Mr. Waffle and herself went to the supermarket to lay in supplies. One of the features of the car was that it sometimes didn’t start for us; to be fair, I think this is a feature of automatic cars more generally that they won’t start if you don’t have your foot on the brake when you turn on the engine? Anyhow, Mr. Waffle and herself were stopped at the exit from the car park and, of course, couldn’t start the car engine. Almost immediately the woman from behind beeped them. When there was no progress she hopped out of her car and shouted at them “Il faut avancer!”. While they knew that they had to advance, they couldn’t seem to persuade the car to do so. “How long will this take?” huffed the irate French woman. “About 3 minutes,” said herself with a confidence born of nothing. Their progress was possibly further impeded by both of them becoming mildly hysterical with laughter something which I suspect did nothing to calm down Madame. Anyhow, they made it home safely.

We had take away pizza for dinner and recovered from our day of excitement.

Sunday August 31, 2025

Arcachon is a small place but we were a bit of a step from the centre in quite a suburban area. We walked to what we thought was a cafe but it turned out to just be a boulangerie and, I regret to say, not a very good one at that.

We continued on to 11.30 mass. We were quite early so made meandering progress stopping at a corner shop and a newsagent and dutifully admiring the local architecture (much more of which anon). Still, despite our efforts, at 11.20 we ended up sitting on a bench across the road from the v ugly church considering our entertainment options for the next 10 minutes. I double checked my phone and realised that mass was at 11. We galloped across the road. There was no mass. On the back of an envelope pinned to the church door there was a notice saying “No mass at 11; mass at 7 this evening instead”. Not a great system if you ask me. Michael, who had stayed in bed for the whole adventure was amused but the rest of us were less than entirely delighted.

Mr. Waffle and I drove to the centre of Arcachon and did some mild supermarket shopping; it was hard to find an open supermarket and while I really welcome this at a theoretical level, on a practical level, it has some drawbacks. It was absolutely lashing rain but I said that since we were in town we should have a poke around. Rain soaked; a real end of season feeling.

But there were signs that the weather may have been nicer in the past and that the people of Arcachon would prefer if you didn’t parade around the town in your swimsuit. It seemed a very improbable concern on that particular day.

Michael resolutely refused to go out in the driving rain but the other two were curious and we went into town for a look around.

Mr. Waffle didn’t come “I’m going to the Lidl car park – my new home in France,” said he. He managed to leave the car charging in Aldi overnight and got the bus back to the house. I’m not sure that we were experiencing all of the advantages of having a hired car. Herself observed that the electric car was like the B plot to the holiday.

Since the weather for the next day was scheduled to be dreadful again, we decided that we would drive into Bordeaux. We spent the evening hunting online for a car park in Bordeaux with a compatible charging station for our car. Fun times.

More excitement to follow. Stay tuned.

20!

27 September, 2025
Posted in: Middle Child, Twins, Youngest Child

We interrupt this endless holiday description to announce that there isn’t a teenager left in the house. Honestly, quite a surprising development.

We’ve come a long way.

France I – Île de Ré

26 September, 2025
Posted in: Middle Child, Mr. Waffle, Siblings, Travel, Twins, Youngest Child

Friday 22 August 2025

We arrived in La Rochelle – direct flight from Dublin and an absolutely tiny airport at the other end very close to the city – a recommended way to travel. Strongly against my advice, Mr. Waffle, stirred by the spirit of adventure, hired an electric car. We do not own an electric car at home. I felt the holiday would be exciting enough without adding in an electric car challenge but Mr. Waffle felt it would be an interesting experiment practically on home ground (we are very familiar with France and its ways but it is not, in fact, home ground). “Right,” I said, “I think this is crazy but if you really want to do it, you can, but you will be responsible for all of the charging and making sure it works.” These were conditions he blithely (and it will be no surprise to you to learn, ultimately foolishly) accepted.

When we took the car, we were hoping for some guidance on the electric angle but Messrs Thrifty said “There’s a charging cable in the boot, off you go.” They indicated that we might like to download an app to find out about charging locations. Ominous.

For this initial part of the holiday, only Michael was with us. We drove into La Rochelle – so far so good with the car – and took ourselves to the hotel where we were staying the first night. Michael was pleased to be alone in his hotel room.

I found La Rochelle to be delightful. Despite having been there previously a number of times, due to my remembering almost nothing, it all seemed quite novel to me. It’s an extremely bike and pedestrian friendly city and it was lovely to wander around and finally be on holidays.

We had dinner in the square opposite the town hall and began what was due to be an ongoing struggle namely, speaking in French to the French.

When we got back to the hotel that evening I discovered that despite bringing the largest bag ever on holidays I had forgotten to pack shorts, cleanser, socks and pyjamas. Oh well, as my mother used to say, we weren’t going to a desert island.

Saturday 23 August 2025

We had a lovely breakfast in a cafe in La Rochelle which Mr. Waffle found for us – credit where credit is due, it’s not all misguided electric car decisions. We then strolled around the town. We went to the market and visited the weird bunker museum where the Germans had been. Mildly interesting.

Have a look at some poorly photographed German propaganda.

I enjoyed the second paragraph of this poster announcing the liberation to the locals. “[The liberation] is due to the heroism of the fighters from our country or from our empire and the brave support of our great allies” (emphasis added). You’ve got to admire the French, I mean, they were occupied and, well, you know the Vichy regime; at best they were supporting the allies but they always bring a singular vision to this kind of thing.

There’s a lot of history available in La Rochelle. It used to be a big Protestant town and I think you know how that went down ultimately in France.

After lunch (a bit unsatisfactory, despite the range of great spots available due to hunger and timing we ended up in a fast food crêperie – least said soonest mended and all that) we went to the supermarket to stock up for our house on the island.

There’s a big bridge linking the island to the mainland but it is €16 over and back so you wouldn’t want to be going every day.

We stayed in a delightful little town called La Flotte. The airbnb was nice with a really lovely garden but slightly over-engineered (himself was very handy – lots of complex gimmicks). It also had fish, guinea pigs, two cats and chickens. On the plus side, this meant lots of fresh eggs but it was a lot of livestock to keep up with. “You chose to stay in a house with animals,” said Madame cheerfully. At one level this is true, the livestock were not a secret, but at another level, we booked late and took what we could get. Mr. Waffle yet again impressed me with his knowledge of weird French stuff by asking if Linky the cat was named after the electricity smart meter they use in France. He was not.

Sunday 24 August, 2025

Leaving Michael to bond with the house, Mr. Waffle and I strolled into town to look for breakfast stopping off to hire bikes on the way. We found a breakfast place on the seafront with a couple of punters sitting out front. “Could we have breakfast?” We could not “service terminé”. Honestly 9.30 seemed a little early to have finished the breakfast service. Was there anywhere else we could get breakfast? The waiter gave an irate shrug and gestured onwards. I was glad to see that the legendary French rudeness had not abated while I had been away. We went around the corner and found ourselves in the centre of the town (lots of breakfast options) which was built around a charming little harbour.

We went on to mass. Like all French masses, it was practically endless. I was struck, however, by how many children there were. In contrast to mass in Dublin where hair is grey, white and fair, there were dark heads everywhere and lots of the middle aged as well as children. Interesting. Like La Rochelle, the island had been a Protestant stronghold which (rather unwisely) got help from the English so was turned back to Catholicism with extreme prejudice as they say. There was a bell given to the church by Cardinal Richelieu to celebrate this turn of events.

After mass we went to the market which, in this touristy place, weirdly ran every day. We got some lovely fruit. Fruit is so much nicer in France than at home; I guess it has less far to travel. I remember having nectarines and peaches in France when we went on holidays there with my parents in the 70s and being amazed how delicious they were. I feel that there were no nectarines in Cork in the 70s but can that be right? And the difference between a hard peach in Cork and a soft, juicy one in France was vast. Despite the improvements in supply chain, it still feels that French fruit is much, much better.

I went to the butcher to get lunch and saw a large canvas on the wall. It featured Cork man Ronan O’Gara who is the coach for the La Rochelle rugby team (and if you haven’t seen this video of him exhorting his troops in…French, you haven’t lived) and a past pupil of the same school my father and brother attended. A home away from home. I had a brief chat about it with the man at the cash register – big fan – also getting an opportunity to explain that I was not in fact English (as George Bernard Shaw famously said when someone asked whether he was English “au contraire”). As we were to discover, Île de Ré seems to be extremely popular with the English middle classes and to the French eye, the Irish and the English are indistinguishable; an exhausting period of correction beckoned.

After lunch I had a swim in the glorified paddling pool in the back garden; not unpleasant, I must concede. Refreshed, we cycled back into town, Michael perched slightly precariously on my back carrier until we got to the bike hire place where we picked up a bike for him too. The island is the most cycling friendly place I have ever been on holidays and is criss-crossed with a huge network of segregated cycle lanes which were used by a range of people of absolutely all ages. The towns are set up around bikes and pedestrians and there is hardly any driving. I was really struck that the cars we did see were what I would consider normal sized cars not the ludicrously enormous SUVs which are so much a feature in Dublin (I speak as the owner of an enormous station wagon here so I understand that I am part of the problem).

We decided to cycle to St Martin de Ré. This was a terrible decision; yes, the cycling infrastructure was great but it was like cycling in an oven.

The town was really pretty but I was far too hot to appreciate it properly. We did wander the quaint streets of the old town and they were quaint but we had to stop more than once for a sustaining drink.

I made the guys climb up a tower. I love a tower with a view. I was not disappointed: great views.

I also took the opportunity to visit the pharmacy. I had a mosquito bite on my hand which had swollen up in an alarming manner. The island is basically one big marsh so mosquitos are inevitable. I am not sure that the pond in the back garden of the Airbnb was much of a help either. I was not the first mosquito bite that pharmacist had seen and almost before I had finished speaking she had slapped three items on the counter: a steroid cream; anti histamines and a homeopathic remedy. Had she pointed out to me that one of these items was homeopathic, I would have left it behind me but there you are. I would have thought they would have had pretty strong rules on this in France but, if so, they were observed in the breach.

Suitably recovered we braced ourselves for the homeward journey but we were pleasantly surprised to discover that it was only about 15 minutes back the house.

Monday 25 August, 2025

We went on the obligatory lighthouse visit. Although the lighthouse on the far north of the island was perfectly reachable by segregated bike lane, it was far and we were slightly scarred by our very toasty experience the previous day. It’s called Phare des Baleines (lighthouse of the whales) and in the tat shop outside there was a whale shaped butter dish that I came very close to buying. But I resisted on the grounds that I have two butter dishes already and how many does one person need but still I slightly lament it. It was nice in the standard lighthouse way.

It boasts a view of an older lighthouse which is novel.

We had lunch just beside the lighthouse. A touristy spot and rather slow but not unpleasant.

After a swing by the supermarket we went back to the house to find that there was a power cut which meant that we couldn’t put the blinds up. Sub optimal.

As we were sitting in the gloom, I managed to chip a tooth. Alas. However, due to my depressingly close involvement with my dentist, I had an appointment already booked for the week we returned. Nonetheless unsatisfactory.

I am pleased to report that the electricity came back reasonably quickly and we were able to get out again. We had a lovely cycle into town and a walk around. It was a really charming little town.

Oysters are big locally and are available 24 hours but I am not sure getting oysters from a dispenser can ever be a good idea.

We got slightly lost on the way home and enjoyed an exciting cycle through the forest. It’s all an adventure. I’m not sure whether it was there or elsewhere that a daring mosquito bit me just below my eyebrow. You have to take your chances, if you holiday in a marsh, I guess.

In other disappointing electricity news, our solar power app (very exciting material as you will know, if you have ever been bored by someone who has had solar panels installed) failed. We rang home where my brother and middle child were living together in a sort of odd couple arrangement but nothing untoward seemed to have happened (I can exclusively reveal that we rebooted the internet when we got home and it all worked fine again).

Tuesday August 26, 2025

This is the unwelcome sight that greeted your correspondent in the morning. Tactless members of the family said that they didn’t notice anything. I felt like Quasimodo (“I’m ugly, ugly“). It was quite sore too. Happily, I was in a location where wearing sunglasses was appropriate. In case you didn’t know (and why would you?), the symbol of the island is a donkey in trousers – traditionally, they put donkeys legs in trousers to stop them being bitten by mosquitos. I have to say that I shouldn’t have been surprised by my mosquito issues, the signs were there.

Mr. Waffle and I went out to breakfast overlooking the harbour which was very nice and I was able to observe the English middle classes at play from behind my dark glasses. Regular readers will know how much I like to complain so I enjoyed telling Mr. Waffle about my sore thumb until he observed that I was “the only person ever to have got gamer’s thumb from doing online Sudoku”. A very depressing and entirely accurate insight.

After lunch we cycled to Ste Marie de Ré and had a lovely swim at Montamer. The tide was extremely far out when we arrived but came in super quickly. I went in first and I came out and warned the others about the fast-advancing tide. The beach was kind of stony but Mr. Waffle parked his shoes on rocks a good way from the shore. Nevertheless when he emerged, a good Samaritan was holding them up in the air having rescued them from the advancing tide. Exciting stuff. We had a restorative cup of tea and ice cream in the town before heading back. The town was on the opposite wilder side of the island and I decided that all the nice towns were those facing the mainland built around harbours based on…nothing. Great was my rage later in the holiday when I discovered that one of the “plus beaux villages de France” was only a little way further up the coast. Next time.

We had dinner at home; something eggy for me. The hens were busy producing 2-3 delicious fresh eggs a day but I was the only one in the house who liked eggs. A challenging time. Have a view of the garden with the hen run in the distance.

Wednesday August 27, 2005

Michael peered at my eye in the morning and said, “If I saw this, I would never think it was a mosquito bite; I would think it was some kind of deformity.” Thank you, Michael, great news.

Another breakfast behind dark glasses in la Flotte before cycling to the ruined abbey. It was mercifully a bit overcast. The abbey was quite like a lot of abbeys we have at home but you know, grand.

We went on to the Fort de La Prée which, as a tourist offering I would say is still in development. Vauban who did the more impressive fortifications in St Martin apparently called it a “fort d’operette” which is perhaps a bit harsh but you get the picture.

Cycling around the island, it is really very beautiful and all of the buildings are tasteful and similarly decorated. It is apparently “hyper reglementé”. I noticed that there were no solar panels and apparently they have only very recently been permitted. Shutter shades are all the same. I saw this in the market showing the range of acceptable colours.

I am a bit ambivalent about this. On one level it is lovely and really delightful but it feels a bit constrained and unreal. Weirdly, it reminded me of the Lake District in England where strong planning rules are also a feature. I mean, what we have in Ireland (bungalow blitz anyone?) is not good but I am not sure that this is the solution either.

Michael and I had a quiet afternoon at the house while Mr. Waffle spent two hours looking for a place to charge for the car. The Lidl had two slots but one was full and one broken; the Intermarché’s slots were broken (he asked inside, do you know how desperate he must have been to actually ask?) and the chargers in the Leclerc wouldn’t fit the car. He signed up to the Chargemap app. They took €14 from him and gave him the unwelcome information that the physical card was now on its way to Dublin. He came home muttering furiously that maybe another app was the solution. Disturbing all round.

The child in Dublin repeating an exam under sub-optimal conditions (Uncle – agent of chaos in the house, painter in the house, parents away) did fine. Relief all round.

Mr. Waffle disappeared for another 2 hours. He had a new app and he found somewhere to charge it but the car charged very slowly; only a couple of percent over 30 minutes. Honestly it was not going well.

Stay tuned for further updates.

Why?

20 August, 2025
Posted in: Middle Child, Twins

Earlier in the summer my beloved middle child came home looking like the victim of a shark attack covered in abrasions from the all-weather surface very close to our house where there had been an impromptu basketball game. For added ouch factor each foot was covered in an extensive array of blisters. Apparently there was no grip on the old shoes but, gentle reader were there new shoes at home a 5 minute walk away? Yes there were. Was it better to play on all weather in socks for 3 hours? Apparently it was. My children are such a puzzle for me.

Plum Tuckered Out

9 August, 2025
Posted in: Dublin, Ireland, Middle Child, Twins

It has been a bumper year for fruit here in Waffle Towers. I have never had seen so many plums on the plum tree out the front. I would pick up all the plums from the path and what I laughingly call the lawn every morning and by lunch time there would be the same again. And then all over again in the evening.

The fridge looked like this almost all the time.

A plastic bowl lived by the front door and anyone who was going out had to fill it with plums. We encouraged neighbours to come and take them. I was almost constantly in jam production mode. They all had to be stoned.

Then boiled.

One day I made 13 kgs of jam. 13 kgs.

I ran out of jam jars and had to get on to the neighbourhood whatsapp group to get more.

Happily the plum harvest is now complete just in time for the beginning of apple season (enthusiastic readers will recall that we have THREE apple trees in the back garden). I cut up loads of (it felt like 100s, can it have been 100s?) windfall apples this afternoon after my trip to watch more polo (I can see myself becoming a fan, we chatted to a lovely older gentlemen who told us more about the rules and his Argentinian friend whose ranch he went to a couple of years ago to play – he seemed a bit old for it but, I guess, the horse does most of the running – and who was here now on a visit and playing with a local team). This is the current situation in the kitchen on apple jelly production.

My beloved middle child who is interested in cooking made hot sauce this morning and very nice it was too but it only used two apples. More drastic measures are called for.

In other garden produce news, for my breakfast porridge in the morning I can now step into the garden and pick fresh berries. True, those berries are blackberries which were very much self-seeded. My tiny garden is out of control. A friend of mine said years ago, “Every garden has at least one thug.” And I found it comforting but now my garden seems to be entirely thugs as follows:

Brambles;
Convolvolus (everywhere, absolutely everywhere);
Coltsfoot (somehow also everywhere);
Some very invasive blue flower that Mr. Waffle’s friend gave to him as part of an Irish wildflower pack (hard not to be bitter about this one);
St John’s Wort;
Ivy;
Copious quantities of the usual dandelions, daisies and clover of course;
New this season: nettles and dockleaves;
Montbretia which I like but which we all know is basically a weed;
A Japanese anemone which I planted like a fool; and
Many other things that I do not know the names of but I know a weed when I see it.

Still, I grew these in my garden. It’s not all bad.

Updated to add: first batch of jelly complete.

Also jam storage space in the utility room is approaching capacity.

Update – Religious

29 June, 2025
Posted in: Family, Hodge, Middle Child, Mr. Waffle, Twins, Youngest Child

I went to see the comedian David O’Doherty. I would recommend. Quite funny. He is the product of what used to be called in Ireland a “mixed marriage”. In other words, his mother’s a Protestant and his father’s a Catholic. This is not really an expression in common currency any longer but I had explained it previously to the children as I sometimes humorously refer to myself and Mr. Waffle as having a mixed marriage (I’m from Cork, he’s from Dublin, I know, I’m hilarious). Anyway it transpired that the children thought I was joking about the expression and did not believe it was actually a thing which led one of them to say to a college classmate who said he had a Protestant mother and Catholic father – “Ah mixed marriage” to which the friend put jazz hands in the air and said, “That’s me.” My mortified child then said, “What, that’s actually a real thing?” Truly the past is another country.

Anyhow David O’Doherty covered this extensively in his gig including the line that his mother played tennis (or possibly hockey) for Ireland, “It’s not as impressive as it sounds, all the Protestants got a go then.” Got a good laugh for him.

I know I am going back a bit here but we had a two hour mass for the Easter Saturday vigil and I am still not the better of it. For the first time that I ever remember there were actual baptisms during the mass. There were real converts; three of them. I was astounded. One of these was a Spanish man called Jesus and I am really baffled by this development. I mean how did a Spaniard called Jesus not get brought up Catholic almost by default? A mystery. The service contains this line, “This is our faith and we are proud to profess it.” Honestly, I’d never really thought about this line one way or another before but it was surprisingly moving in the context of the converts. I guess it’s a bit like when you see how pleased people are to become Irish citizens at the citizenship ceremonies and you think, “Maybe it is kind of good to be Irish.”

As we entered the church at the start of what was going to be the longest mass any of us had ever attended (giving the Orthodox Catholics a run for their money), the trainee deacon fell upon us like the wolf on the fold and said he needed someone to do a reading. On the one hand, this is a very reading rich service, on the other hand it is the highlight of the liturgical year and you’d think someone would already have been selected. Herself nobly volunteered to fill the gap. She was told to go and find Joan who was organising. She could not find Joan; one of the choir said, “Tch, Joan, she’s very disorganised.” Not words to inspire confidence. We never did find Joan and herself went off to join the other readers with some trepidation.

We ended up sitting behind a pillar which was annoying as I did not get to see herself reading to the unusually full church but I did get to hear her so there’s that. Afterwards she said that there had been a very nice Mauritian woman who had explained everything to her and stayed with her throughout. We went up to thank this heroine and it turned out that she was one of the nurses from Mr. Waffle’s mother’s nursing home so that was nice.

On Easter Sunday we had Mr. Waffle’s sister and her husband and daughter for lunch which was broadly successful though we had far too much food. My husband’s family have bird like appetites. For the occasion, I was wearing a dress which I got in Cos; a shop much loved by middle aged women. It’s the home of the shapeless garment and like the rest of my tribe, I love it. My lovely green dress is sort of a-line in shape and my heartless family promptly nicknamed it “the sail”. As I was rushing from one room to the next on Easter Sunday morning, it caught on the door handle, “Sail caught in the rigging?” asked one of the family wags instantly. I truly have a lot to put up with.

Our cat’s water and food bowl live in the utility room. Keeping us all on our toes, they move about the room. The water bowl is always full of water and I have overturned it more times than I can say. In rushing around on Easter Sunday morning, needless to say, I kicked it over soaking myself and the floor. As I cursed in the utility room, I heard sniggering in the kitchen. “What?” I said grumpily. “Your nemesis is a bowl of water on the floor.”

We push on through further religious services. We had the feast of the Holy Trinity. The priest repeated what he described as an old joke but it was new to me. Stay with me here. Back in the day, the bishop would come and examine you on your catechism before you were cleared to make your confirmation. In retrospect, I am unsure that anyone was barred from the ceremony on the basis of ignorance but our primary teachers had us drilled in the Bishop Lucey catechism. My strong memory is that the catechism was written by Bishop Lucey and I distinctly remember a yellow and brown book but the internet seems unaware of this. Maybe the force of his grace’s personality was such that I believed that he had drafted the catechism although he had not. Anyway, we learnt it off by heart, he examined us with much less thoroughness than our teachers had led us to expect and that was that. Ok the joke is coming now: A bishop went into a school to examine the confirmation candidates and he asked one boy what the Holy Trinity was. The child, having learnt off the answer responded at great speed. The bishop was unable to follow his answer and said politely, “I’m sorry, I don’t understand.” The child replied smartly, “You’re not supposed to understand, it’s a mystery.” I enjoyed; you may feel that it was not worth the build up.

Last Sunday was Corpus Christi except the priest called it the festival of the body and blood of Christ and I was genuinely sitting there thinking, “What is this? I’ve never heard of this in my life.” Which just proves how ancient I am. Also does not reflect well on my general intelligence levels. I got there in the end. Slightly related, would you like to see a medal from the Eucharistic congress in Dublin in 1932 which I found in my jewellery box earlier today; I have literally no idea where on earth it came from. A mystery as the young man said to the bishop.

A final religious news item: I found my father’s (I think it must be but how did it get here?) missal in the great shelf reoganisation. I expressed some surprise. “Look your grandad’s missal,” said I to middle child. “Oh,” light dawning over rugged country, “I’ve never heard the word missal before, is that why the leaflet in mass is called the missalette?”