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A Surprisingly Educational Adventure

22 September, 2022 Leave a Comment
Posted in: Boys, Daniel

Daniel has recently acquired the video game Assassin’s Creed and I am transfixed by the quality of the graphics. It looks amazing.

“Look Mum, I can take you on a guided tour of Alexandria,” said he. It includes a lot of history including the hilarious factlet that when Alexander the Great laid out the outline of the great city he did so with flour which was promptly eaten up by local wildlife. Can this be true? We went around the great library of Alexandria and climbed the Lighthouse. As his little avatar (Queen Cleopatra, in case you’re wondering) nimbly jumped up from floor to floor and then looked across the whole bay from an extremely precarious perch, I found the soles of my feet prickling. It felt very high and slightly disturbingly real: great view though.

When we’d finished our tour, the screen flashed up “rare achievement unlocked by only 1% of players” so clearly not the most popular feature of the game. The work that went into something which is obviously very much a minority interest for gamers is spectacular. Honestly, no wonder they made a film out of it.

Just in Under the Wire

21 September, 2022 1 Comment
Posted in: Boys, Daniel, Michael, Mr. Waffle, Princess, Siblings

It was the Princess’s 19th birthday in April. I always manage to do a birthday post before her brothers’ birthday on September 27, but it’s a bit tight this year, I would concede. I thought I might stop after she turned 18 but she asked me when I was going to put up her “GDPR breaching” birthday post, so I took this as royal permission to continue.

I usually look back on the 12 months up to her birthday when I write these and the first photo I came across was from late April 2021. It strikes me that she looks very young here even if she had just turned 18. She’s grown up an awful lot over the past year.

She became a big fan of getting up at the crack of dawn and cycling around the park during Covid. She was fit as a fiddle. I went with her a couple of times which was always very pleasant though early which is not where my strengths lie.

Building on her Dublin cycling, she went on a couple of very long cycles with my brother (40-50kms) which she seemed to enjoy. Here she is enjoying a late lunch after a 50km cycle. Whatever floats your boat, I guess. I think she cycles less in England but she still whizzes around on her bike in Dublin.

The big event for her last year was the Leaving Certificate. Covid uncertainty made it all pretty difficulty (would there be an exam, wouldn’t there? what would be examined?) but, in fairness to her, she worked very hard. We had some slight anguish about her French which she was doing outside school. The French woman who was doing conversation classes with her was a PhD student out in UCD with no real idea of what the expected level of French in Irish schools is. She (generously in her own mind) predicted a H2 (between 80 and 90 percent). We were all outraged on the Princess’s behalf. Students were allowed to sit the exams in person and get predicted grades from teachers and choose the higher of the two. She sat all the exams as well as getting the predicted grades and, very unsurprisingly, secured a H1 in French (over 90%) in the exam. In fact when she did the oral, the interviewer seems to have really stopped examining and started chatting explaining that the exam is designed for students with much lower levels of fluency. Herself noticed that the examiner made a couple of errors, so I think we knew we were alright there. She was pretty calm throughout the exams and broadly took things in her stride. Slight trauma about the physics exam (fine in the end, you’ll be pleased to hear) but otherwise she sailed through it.

The now traditional holiday with friends after the Leaving Cert was obviously much curtailed and instead of going abroad, she went to Killarney which, you know, was ok. Personally, I went to my friend’s parents’ holiday house in Rosscarbery so I know how it feels.

She finally got her braces off. Honestly, that whole process was disastrous. The pandemic delayed matters. The whole thing was lengthy and painful (and expensive, needless to say). But, I must say, her teeth look great. Still not sure that I would do it again. Or certainly not with the same orthodontist.

She had a summer of waiting. The exam results which are usually issued in mid-August were due to be later this year. She had a place in a college in England contingent on her results and she’d applied to colleges in Ireland as well but the tension in the run up to the results was significant.

While her brothers were off for a week in Cork we brought her out to dinner with just her parents – to celebrate the end of school and the end of the exams – which she is still young enough to enjoy.

She tidied out her room with alarming thoroughness and culled many books which ended up finding homes elsewhere in the house.

We went on what I thought might be our last family holiday (although in the event she came to Stockholm this year so my weeping and gnashing of teeth may have been premature). That holiday feels like a long long time ago now.

She and her brothers are getting on pretty well as they all shade from adolescence into adulthood. Of course they see a lot less of each other now which I feel may help a bit. They haven’t bickered much in years which I suppose is a good thing but sometimes I think it’s maybe because they lead such separate lives. I would love them to stay close. I am really close to my siblings even though we regularly drive each other crazy. And, as they say, it’s the longest relationship you are likely to have in your life, so it’s an important one.

She often seems more than two and a half years older than the boys. And, the fact that they are the exact same age means that they have much more in common with each other than they do with her. But I think, as they all get older, this will change. The boys will be in college next year (gasp) and they will all three have more in common again then.

To no one’s surprise (including her own, I think) she did very well in her exams and comfortably made her college offer in England. Still, I don’t think I will ever forget going into her bedroom after she had downloaded her results and seeing her radiating happiness. We were all delighted.

I honestly didn’t think that I would be the kind of person who would be sad when my children left home. Well, it turns out, I was totally wrong. I expected her to go to college in Ireland and I thought she wouldn’t move out until she’d got her degree which is what happened with me and my siblings and, indeed, most city dwellers in Ireland. There’s a tradition of not going away to college unless you have to. But I should have known that she would be different, she has always been fiercely independent and keen to live away. She loved her three months in France when she was 15 and I think it made her really determined to study abroad. All the same, 18 seems so young to leave home and I was stupidly unprepared for that development.

It was so sad saying goodbye but she was so happy to be there. Mr. Waffle and I flew to England with her and spent an exhausting time setting her up.

She took to college like a duck to water, she liked the work, she liked living in England, she made loads of friends and she was just very happy and excited. My dentist’s daughter also went to college in England. I saw a lot of my dentist in the six months after our daughters both started college (it was a tough time toothwise, let us not speak of it). His daughter was always on the phone to them, came home for all the holidays and they had been to visit her many times. I think she was probably miserable and homesick and though I was thrilled that herself was not, I couldn’t help but feel a bit envious of the dentist and his ongoing access to his daughter. Herself informed me tersely that she was not enjoying being compared to the dentist’s daughter.

One thing that was really good about her going to England was that the college year started in person as normal. In Ireland, we were much more cautious and her friends who went to college in Ireland took a lot of courses online from their bedrooms which was a bit grim.

I was thrilled when she came with us to the Netherlands for a long weekend but already after only a month of college, she seemed to have grown and changed a lot.

She got Covid in December and I felt so sorry for her. Firstly, she was sick as a dog and all alone in isolation in her college room. Secondly, she had planned to go on a college ski trip and a weekend in Paris with a friend both of which had been paid for and she couldn’t get refunded for either. Then I began to panic that she might not make it home for Christmas. I suppose there will come a time when she can’t make it home for Christmas but not while she’s in her teens. I nearly cried. But, I am delighted to report that she did make it home and she got to go and visit some of her friends’ houses in England over the (very long) winter break. After the first, longest term, we were beginning to get the hang of our new relationship. Still every time I leave her off to the airport, I feel a bit heartbroken.

We went to visit her in England at the February mid-term. I think she enjoyed showing us around. We met her friends. Better, she was really keen for us to meet her friends. They were lovely. They were particularly nice to her younger brothers which is generally the way to my heart. It was good to see her happy, established and settled.

Her aunt and uncle in London were a godsend as, if anything went wrong, they were nearby and when she went to London (which she did a fair bit) they very kindly put her up. She gets on very well with her London aunt the author (who has in an absolutely delightful development dedicated her latest book to her nieces, herself is thrilled) who is extremely kind to her.

My own brother and sister are fantastic as well. She is constantly broke so cash from kindly relatives is very welcome. She met my brother in London and they went to some cool restaurant she couldn’t otherwise have afforded to visit. When he left her he gave her a lump of cash which she promptly went and spent on a (lovely) coat. Improvident but I suppose you are only young once. All her Irish-based relatives are relieved by the current relative strength of the euro against the pound.

Having missed the debs at home due to Covid, it was the year of her first balls. She liked them.

She was home for a good long break over Easter – when she celebrated her birthday. I loved having her home for ages. Herself and Dan worked on the design of the Easter table. I was suitably impressed by their efforts.

It’s funny, I was walking through our local urban village with her recently and I asked whether she thought a lot had changed. “Well no,” she said, “because I’m home all the time.” To be clear, this is not, as they say, my truth.

This birthday post is a lot more about me and my feelings than it is about her, I think. That’s largely because she doesn’t live with us anymore and I just don’t know quite as much about her life as I did. I am so pleased that she is happy and well and things are going her way. But the granular detail I had about her life from living in the same house all the time, just isn’t there. And that takes more getting used to than I expected. I still occasionally lay the table for five.

This year with me not working and her more settled into college life, I expect to see a lot more of her. She will visit home a bit more. I will visit her in England more regularly. I feel, however, that this year we have set out the parameters for our future relationship with our adult child.

Daniel, unhelpfully, said to me, “By the time your child is 18 you have, on average, already spent 90% of the time you are going to spend with them.” However as my friend D pointed out, a lot of that time is spent walking up and down in the middle of the night with a crying baby, it’s not a lot of fun but the time now is all good.

In that spirit, Mr. Waffle and I are going to Paris at the weekend to see her. She’s spending the month of September there doing an internship. Isn’t it well for her?

Relationship Status: It’s Complicated

19 September, 2022 4 Comments
Posted in: Boys, Cork, Daniel, Ireland, Michael, Mr. Waffle, Princess, Siblings

Mr. Waffle and I were on a lovely walk (well lovely in parts, parts were a bit inhospitable, but the views were generally nice and the weather was fantastic) in Carlingford the week before last when my phone started pinging.

It was my Sunday afternoon book club speculating about the health of the Queen of England. They weren’t wrong, we arrived home in time to see the BBC read out news of her death. I was startled by how shaken I felt up there on the mountain. I mean, she was 96, it was hardly a complete surprise.

I suppose she reminds me a bit of my father who was of the same generation, just a year older; the old order changeth and all that. I remember my father telling me about the death of the old King – George V – in 1936 when my father was 10. There are few enough people now who remember that. I am surprised that, 100 years after independence, the death of a British monarch still has so much relevance here including for me

The Irish papers were full of the symbolic importance of her trip to Ireland in 2011. The children were in primary school at the time and the school closed down for the day as it was a bit close to the Queen’s visit to town. People were pretty nervous, I remember (presumably not as nervous as she was). It all went off peacefully though. She went to Cork (“Rebel County” snorted Mr. Waffle as gangs of school children waved flags to greet her on the Grand Parade). The fishmonger in the Market made a career from his brief encounter with her much to my brother’s ongoing chagrin. He feels that the fishmonger may have gone overboard on the marketing. He got a book out of the two minute encounter which was featured all over again in the Irish coverage of her death.

On the Sunday after she died, I was surprised when the priest prayed for her at mass. “We pray now for Queen Elizabeth II and that she will be forgiven her sins, and received into the Kingdom of Heaven,” intoned the priest. “That’s what we do when people die, we pray for them and for God to forgive them their sins,” he informed the slightly startled congregation.

This Sunday, I noticed on the missalette under the list of mass intentions (a list of people for whom parishioners have paid for masses to be said – don’t talk to me about the Reformation – for special intentions, anniversaries, exams, dead family members, whatever you’re having yourself) that on Monday, 19 September, somebody was having a mass said for Queen Elizabeth II (RD). RD stands for recently deceased. Like we didn’t know. There she was sandwiched in between Bennie and Maisie (anniversary) and Pat and Mary (deceased) and sitting underneath the information that it was the feast day of Saint Januarius, Bishop and Martyr.

The second reading from St. Paul (something of a pragmatist) to Timothy was timely:

My advice is that, first of all, there should be prayers offered for everyone – petitions, intercessions, and thanksgiving – and especially for kings and others in authority so that we may be able to live religious and reverent lives in peace and quiet. To do this is right, and will please God our saviour: he wants everyone to be saved and reach full knowledge of the truth.

It really feels like the end of an era.

Updated to add: this appeared in today’s Irish Times. My brother is going to get a hernia.

Reading

17 September, 2022 3 Comments
Posted in: Reading etc.

The Raptures by Jan Carson

This is a really great, beautifully written, entertaining and engaging book. I truly recommend it. It has some weird supernatural stuff in it, but not in a bad way, kind of matter of fact. It’s set in Northern Ireland and involves strict religious sects and children dying BUT do not let that put you off. It’s actually quite funny as well.

The Firestarters by Jan Carson

I enjoyed “The Raptures” so much that I got this earlier book of hers out from the library. Although many of the same themes are present and it is pretty good, it’s just not as good. However, I will be running out to the shops to buy whatever she writes next.

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot

I listened to this on audiobook. I find that a completely different experience from reading a book and, for me, never as satisfactory. It was very interesting – with some truly shocking revelations about the treatment of black people in America – but it felt a bit worthy

Thirty Two Words for Field by Manchán Magan

Mr. Waffle bought this and I just picked it up not intending to read it. I hate Manchán Magan. He has a column in the Irish Times and he comes off as very holier than thou. Herself was rendered incandescent by a column where he said that he’s able to live a simple life and do what he wants to do by not having saddled himself with a massive mortgage as he bought a plot of land and house out in the country with a bequest from his grandmother. In fairness, I think he does live quite a simple life and is trying to live sustainably but he just seems a bit preachy. However, to my enormous surprise, I loved this book. It got slightly trying towards the end but basically he is looking at the Irish language and all the words that derive from the landscape and are specific to where we are. Very many of them are in real danger of disappearing forever. It’s a lovely, heartfelt book and I have had to reconsider my prejudices against Manchán Magan which is an exhausting endeavour at my age and stage.

Northern Protestants: On Shifting Ground by Susan McKay

I thought this was really good. Susan McKay is a Protestant journalist originally from Derry and she goes around interviewing Northern Protestants and letting them tell their stories. It’s a very interesting perspective from a community I know surprisingly little about.

Can Medicine Be Cured? by Seamus O’Mahony

The Way we Die Now by Seamus O’Mahony

I’ve already read a book by this Cork doctor and I got these two on the strength of it. He’s about 15 years older than me and went to the boys’ school up the road from my girls’ school so I feel, probably quite wrongly, that I know a lot about him already. He is a very good writer and, although somewhat cynical, pretty compelling about the problems of modern medicine. I found his books fascinating.

Free: Coming of Age at the end of History by Lea Ypi

This is a book by an Albanian woman about growing up in a very repressive communist state and then struggling when the regime collapsed. It’s very well written and very interesting and – bonus prize – relatively short. I suggested to Mr. Waffle that we might go on holidays to Albania after reading it but he remains unconvinced.

The Troubles with Us by Alix O’Neill

Another book in my Northern Ireland summer reading list. This is funny even though the story is quite dark in places. It’s also interesting. It’s a sort of Derry Girls for Belfast vibe. However, it’s unfortunately not very well written and I found that a bit jarring.

Three Women by Lisa Taddeo

This was a big hit when it came out. It’s about the sexual lives of three women. Herself didn’t like it; she told me I wouldn’t like it. She was right. I thought it was a bit exploitative. Well written though.

Heartland by Sarah Smarsh

I read somewhere that this was a much better book than “Hillbilly Elegy” by JD Vance. I thought that was an excellent book, so I decided to give this a go. The themes were pretty similar, it was about, as the blurb said, “Growing up poor in the richest country on earth.” The author is much more left leaning than JD Vance (I suppose, isn’t everyone these days?) and her account is probably a bit more nuanced than his but like him, she’s someone from a poor background who ended up safely in the middle class and is trying to explain the constraints of being poor to her new tribe. She also had a strained relationship with her mother. I noticed that the book dedication was “For Mom” and that was one of the most moving things about the book once you’ve read it. In fairness, it was good but, in my view, not as good as the JD Vance book.

This Much is True by Miriam Margoyles

This actress’s autobiography was launched in a blaze of publicity and I am unable to resist a blaze. She’s a character actress. Overall it was fine with some interesting parts including her relationship with her parents but like many another celebrity autobiography as she goes through life it becomes a bit episodic and who I met at dinnerish. Grand though and undemanding.

Will she do? by Eileen Atkins

Someone on the ever-excellent Slightly Foxed podcast recommended this and I thought I would give it a try. It’s an autobiography by the actress Eileen Atkins (of whom I had never heard – she plays Queen Mary in The Crown). She came from a working class background and had basically worked on stage all her life from an early music hall start to theatre, television and film. She is quite frank about the awful times when she couldn’t get work. She can be very funny in parts. I think it was better than the Miriam Margoyles book. Although they were near contemporaries (Margoyles is seven years younger) they had very different lives and I just found Atkins’ experience and descriptions more interesting. She seems a bit more reserved and reflective than Margoyles and, ultimately, for me, that made it a more interesting book.

The Death of Stalin by Fabien Nury

The graphic novel on which the film was based. The film stuck pretty closely to the book actually. Short and mildly interesting.

Chivalry by Neil Gaiman & Colleen Doran

I thought this was sweet and Mr. Waffle thought it was nauseating – take your pick. A graphic novel for children featuring Lancelot transported to modern times.

Fleischmann is in trouble by Taffy Brodesser-Akner

This was the novel of the summer when it was published in 2019. I come to its joys three years later. Topical. Mr. Waffle loved it, really enjoyed it. I thought it was grand, a bit long and a bit plot free. It’s about a New York couple splitting up and there are lots of details about trying to get their children ahead, her job (she is the main breadwinner and has her own showbiz agency) and his (he’s a senior doctor) and the resentments and unhappinesses of life. He is a bit superior and annoying about all the things their money can buy and that is kind of funny. Ultimately I found the absence of plot unsatisfactory but it is very of the moment (where the moment is summer 2019 – I have to say, I am curious about these characters might have navigated the pandemic).

Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus

This was a big hit and lots of people whose views I respect really enjoyed it. It’s about a research chemist who makes a career for herself in television. It’s basically a feminist fable and I assume is not really meant to be believable. I didn’t love it myself but it’s a runaway best seller and an easy read so I give you that.

Crome Yellow by Aldous Huxley

I really enjoyed this slight novel. It’s, I think, his first novel. It’s set over a weekend in a country house and there’s no particular plot. It just pokes fun at all the characters. Apparently it’s a roman à clef but even if you were only vaguely aware of Ottoline Morrell and had never heard of Garsington Manor (your correspondent), it’s still very enjoyable. Mind you, it’s a bit savage, I’d say that the originals on whom the characters were based were not delighted; in fairness, he’s probably hardest on the character who is clearly our young author himself. It reminds me a bit of Evelyn Waugh’s Vile Bodies. Really recommended and, if science fiction is not your thing, fear not, despite Huxley’s later fame in this field, this book is a science fiction free zone.

Echoes by Maeve Binchy

I have enjoyed Maeve Binchy novels in the past. I didn’t like this one. Very readable as all her books are but there was something sanctimonious about the characters here that put me off.

City of Bones by Cassandra Clare

This is the first installment of a young adult fantasy series about demon killers. I picked it up from a basket in a shop saying “Free Books” (so dangerous). The writing is really poor and quite jarringly so. However, I am forced to confess, that I flew through it and quite enjoyed the pacy plot. I am judging me, feel free to join in.

City of Ashes by Cassandra Clare

So I got volume two out of the Library. This was really poor, much less good than book 1.

City of Glass by Cassandra Clare

I was going to stop after book 2 but I got book 3 out of the library at the same time. Better. People, I’ve ordered book four.

The Candy House by Jennifer Egan

I find Jennifer Egan a bit hit and miss. I’ve read a number of her books and I don’t always go for them. However, a kind friend gave me this one at the start of my break from work and I thought I should give it a go. I am pleased to report that I enjoyed this one very much. Like Fleischmann, it’s very much of the moment. I found the thinking around online lives and where they are going really interesting. Like all her books there were loads of different plotlines all of which I found good. Recommended.

Climbing the Stairs by Margaret Powell

Another free book from the basket of books. Curses. This book apparently inspired both Upstairs Downstairs and Downton Abbey. It’s a bit odd but not uninteresting. This woman went into service in the 1920s and then ended up writing a number of books about her life. This is the second. It’s a bit episodic and peculiar but quite a range of insights.

The Black Dress by Deborah Moggach

This is full of twists and turns. It’s about an older woman whose husband leaves her and how she manages. Well written and not too demanding. Good holiday read.

Grey Bees by Andrey Kurkov

Oh God, I got this out from the library to try to round out my knowledge of things Ukrainian. It’s tough going. Literary fiction about a man from Dombas who ends up on a trek around Eastern and Southern Ukraine. You’d want to be in the whole of your health. Mr. Waffle enjoyed it but he likes hard books.

What Abigail Did That Summer by Ben Aaronovitch

A children’s book from the Rivers of London series about magician policemen. I quite enjoyed this and, in contrast to the books from the series aimed at adults, I mostly understood what happened.

The News from Waterloo: The Race to Tell Britain of Wellington’s Victory by Brian Cathcart

Daniel got me this for Christmas. I thought I would read it in tandem with “A Civil Contract” a favourite Georgette Heyer novel part of the plot of which turns on how long the news took to get back from Waterloo to London. I took about two days to reread the Georgette and nine months to read this book so not exactly an in tandem experience. To be honest, the author is lucky to get a whole book from this but it skips along reasonably entertainingly. It struck me forcibly that a lot of Irish men were involved in the story: Wellington (though you will recall the stable remark), Stewart, Castlereagh and the Knight of Kerry all have big roles. They all have a hybrid Anglo-Irish identity which was much easier then than it is now, of course. The author comments that Wellington and Castlereagh knew each other from Dublin but like they were just passing through (which in some ways they were) but not noticing or commenting on the fact that they were Irish. The text of the original Waterloo dispatch is included and by the time you get to the end of the book, you’re pretty keen to read it. It was a great victory but the losses were really immense. I am a bit reluctant to say this but the author tackles the battle much more effectively than Georgette does. She sets at least one novel in Brussels at the time of the battle and it is dire and the descriptions of the battle are very confusing. This book is relatively clear; not sure that military history is really my thing but this was pretty readable.

Now So

16 September, 2022 2 Comments
Posted in: Boys, Michael

In Ireland now means shortly. “I’ll do it now” means “I’ll do it in a minute.” Meanwhile I fight a completely unavailing battle to retain the original meaning of “presently” i.e. shortly. Stay with me here.

At dinner the other night Michael asked me about something on the internet. “I’ll show it to you now,” I said meaning once we were finished dinner.

“So,” said Michael, “you won’t use presently to mean now but you use now to mean presently.”

I feel a bit hoist by my own petard.

Berlin – Part 3

15 September, 2022 2 Comments
Posted in: Boys, Daniel, Michael, Mr. Waffle, Travel

Tuesday, August 16, 2022

This was our last day in Charlottenburg. For our second week we were going to somewhere slightly more outside the city with a swimming pool. I had had some communication with our Airbnb hostess already and I did not like the cut of her jib (she messaged that on arrival we would need to pay the Berlin guest tax and an extra daily fee to use the pool – these were covered in the small print of the Airbnb ad as I discovered on examination but if you ask me, the red hand rule should apply). Over yet another lovely breakfast in Savigny Platz, I mourned Charlottenburg, our charming apartment and our laid back musician host.

Our new hostess informed us that check-in was at 4. She did not seem inclined to be flexible. We were due to check out from Jan’s place at 12. What would we do in the heat of the day with all our luggage? When Jan came to the flat accompanied by a huge bunny (somehow typical), he very kindly said, “Stay as long as you need to, I have to run to a class, can you keep the rabbit?” With that he threw a bunch of rabbit food pellets on the drawing room floor, dropped the bunny beside them and zoomed out the door.

Delighted with ourselves we left the bunny with his lunch and went out for ours to an Asian place around the corner.

After lunch we left Jan’s place and after some difficulty with the Berlin taxi app (it won’t let you register with a foreign number) got a taxi from across the road where the taxi driver was returning from his lunch.

Our new hostess – let us call her Margaret – was there to greet us when we arrived in her place deep in former East Berlin. I think, probably, her heart was in the right place, she was training in a Ukrainian teenager to work for her, but she put the heart cross ways on me. Unlike Jan’s house, hers was absolutely immaculate. The instructions on what we could and could not do and how all the appliances worked took forever. She lived downstairs and honestly, I was terrified to put a foot out of line for the duration of our stay. Had I had young children, I think I might have died of nervousness as the house was full of breakable china at child height. It felt…unfriendly. But I have to say she had the portable air conditioner as promised and the pool (daily fee dutifully paid) was super.

It was much more rural but that was part of the plan. Mr. Waffle and I went to the absolutely enormous local supermarket (the size of an IKEA, impossible to find anything due to too much stuff) and the boys attached Michael’s laptop to the TV and sat down (moving Margaret’s furniture, gasp) to play some game on the big screen.

Wednesday, August 17, 2022

We had a swim in the morning and then Mr. Waffle and I decided to trek into town leaving the boys behind and imploring them to take great care not to upset our hostess. There was one bus stop nearby but the bus came every ten minutes (how often during our stay did I stand across the busy four lane road watching the bus arrive and depart without me? Very often) and it only took 15 minutes to get to the centre. It was kind of amazing because it really felt that we were staying out in the sticks particularly after the previous week when we had been right in the centre.

When we got into town, the Neues Museum had sold out for the day (do you detect a theme in our museum visits?). We went to the cathedral instead and climbed the 267 steps to get a view. Toasty and tiring but worthwhile.

The cathedral itself is largely reconstructed. In a gesture which tells you a lot about the East German regime the only part of the cathedral undamaged during the war was the Hohenzollern chapel but when the rest of the (damaged) cathedral was being restored in 1975, the regime blew up that bit for ideological reasons. Apparently it was amazing and had survived the war entirely intact. Oh well.

Confusingly, a range of Hohenzollern tombs are still available to view inside.

There was a large statue of Martin Luther at our bus stop in town.

He’d been around.

On the bus home there was a couple with a small baby who howled. I felt really sorry for them. The mother waved a muslin square over the pram but the baby continued to howl lustily. The mother was beautifully dressed and looked very fashionable and in control but from beneath her trendy sunglasses, a tear escaped and her husband patted her anxiously on the arm. When they got to their stop, they leapt off and the mother immediately took the baby in her arms. It reminded me so vividly of when herself was a small baby and it took me an hour and a half to drive the 20 minute journey to a friend’s house. Every time she cried, I stopped the car and sat in beside her and took her out of her car seat and sometimes cried myself. Ultimately, this is not recommended but having a small baby has its challenges.

We had a swim with the boys when we got home; getting full value for our daily pool charge.

We had dinner in an Australian bar in the Sony centre in town (judge away, I would). I had Currywurst again but I couldn’t recapture that first fine careless rapture. It was a handy spot because we were going to the cinema nearby afterwards.

As I was leaving the Gemäldegalerie on my recent trip, people had been putting out deckchairs on a small part of the vast desolate tree free plain that surrounds it. Upon inquiry it turned out that they were laying them out for an open air cinema screening. Notwithstanding my trauma, I was intrigued so I booked us four tickets to see “The Godfather – Part 1” which, as it happened, neither Mr. Waffle nor I had ever seen.

This was the night of the screening or return to the scene of the crime. There was an Arte short first on “The Thinker” by Rodin which, as Mr. Waffle said – sorry about this but it’s true – explains why no one ever watches Arte. Nevertheless, the setting was superb – by night, by day it obviously remains a boiling desolate plain – the temperature, just right and the seats more comfortable than you might expect. We all enjoyed “The Godfather”. Talk about the film that spawned a thousand tropes.

As all had gone so well it was almost inevitable that something would go wrong on the trip home. And so it was. We had some difficulty getting the bus, so much difficulty in fact that we ended up having to get a taxi home. There were recriminations and a disagreement about which bus stop we should have stood at – sharpened by the sight of the last bus sailing past on the other side of the road – the curse of the Gemäldegalerie. Still, all in all, a pretty good day.

Thursday, August 18, 2022

In the morning, we got further value from our swimming pool fee and spent ages tossing a ball around the pool.

I finished the pack of 1980s perfume miniatures which I had been trailing around Europe with me. We found them in the bottom of my mother’s wardrobe and in a waste not want not spirit of which she would heartily approve, I have been using them up. I’d forgotten about those very heavy musky scents which were popular in 80s. I felt like a spy about to seduce James Bond at the casino tables. I have to say, I was glad to see the back of them and have done my duty.

Bathed in the last of the Opium, I trotted out to the bus stop accompanied by the men folk. We went in to the Fernsehturm which is a rotating tower. Tickets were a bit pricey but I recommend. I paid extra to be seated by the window in the restaurant (I mean, if you’re going to go to a rotating restaurant, surely it’s worth spending the extra money to sit at the edge).

I said everyone could order what they wanted. Possibly a bit of a mistake. Maybe bread and water would have been better. However, as you might expect, great, rotating views over the city. Someone on tripadvisor complained that the views stayed the same as you rotated which we found mildly hilarious. Even with 90 minutes of rotating and no radical changes on each rotation, I thought there was plenty to see.

For

For dinner we went to trendy Bergmanstrasse in Kreuzberg. It was trendy and there was a direct bus home. A win.

When we got home, I double checked with Mr. Waffle that he had put away Margaret’s outdoor cushions (he had been sitting on the large terrace overlooking the forest). That night there was a thunderstorm. I woke up and went to the window to see the lightening. What did I see on the terrace? Margaret’s sun umbrellas rolling around like marbles. One of them was perched precariously over the edge of the terrace hanging on by a spoke. Below it sat Margaret’s porsche. I ran out into the rain and rescued the umbrellas in the nick of time.

I told Mr. Waffle about our narrow escape in the morning and he was suitably contrite. At the time he was draping clothes over the spiral staircase down to the pool in the hopes that they would dry. This was in our apartment but I couldn’t feel that Margaret would approve. He did point out that we were both in our 50s and living in fear of this woman was ridiculous. But yet.

Friday August 19, 2022

The weather was a bit clammy but not too hot. We were within striking distance of trendy Prezlauerberg but public transport was not ideal so I decided to undertake what google maps assured me was a 15 minute scoot to get there. I got a bit lost and it took 40 mins instead of 15 – a taxi would possibly have been cheaper but never mind, it wouldn’t have given me the same sense of achievement.

Prezlauerberg is lovely. Lots of young families, trendy cafes and antique shops.

I saw some more Stolpersteine as I wandered around. Definitely a constantly sobering sight.

That afternoon we went into the Neues Museum. There was a special exhibition on Schliemann. Mr. Waffle was the person who introduced me to the concept of the Schliemann layer, and here was a chance to find out all about him. He was an absolute disaster. He basically dug up without a care in the world for archaeological niceties. No wonder he found all those layers.

Good museum, though a little tiring.

Entirely unrelated but Mr. Waffle and I were baffled by these large pipes we saw above head height all over the city. Apparently the water table is very high in Berlin and if you are doing any building work, the first thing you have to do is pump out the water from the site. Sub optimal.

In other water related news, later that evening there was a problem with the water and I sent Margaret a message via Airbnb. She responded immediately: “The technician is coming.” Some time later, she messaged that the technician had been and the issue was resolved. When she said that the technician was coming, I didn’t think she meant then at 10.30 on a Friday night but clearly even plumbers tremble before Margaret’s forceful personality.

Saturday, August 20, 2022

After my triumph of the previous day, I persuaded a slightly reluctant Mr. Waffle to scoot into Prezlauerberg with me. Due to my efforts of the previous day, we got there no trouble. I was delighted with myself. We had breakfast and wandered around the Saturday market.

In the afternoon we went to the outdoor Berlin Wall Memorial. I thought it was really well done and very interesting.

Mr. Waffle and Michael went back to the house but Dan and I stayed on for a bit. When it was time to leave, I realised I had made a terrible mistake. We got there by tram and bus relying on Mr. Waffle to navigate. For reasons unknown Google maps holds buses in utter disdain and did not include any bus routes and Mr. Waffle was not there with his bus app. We were on our own. We hopped on a tram anyway and got out at a junction that looked vaguely right. Spoiler alert, it was not right. We ended up tramping back in the rain for miles.

Daniel was terrific, patient, cheerful not at all grumpy.

I on the other hand became gloomier and whinier by the second.

Eventually we got to a familiar landmark – the Lidl near the house. We picked up dinner because it would have killed me to have to go out to the supermarket again that day.

Sunday, August 21, 2022

We went in to mass near Friedrichshain. I will tell you this, they can celebrate the 300th anniversary of the re-introduction of Catholicism to Brandenburg all they like, it’s still pretty difficult to find a Catholic church.

The priest was Brazilian and the congregation was small. He asked whether any of us were visitors from the altar. I was horrified, Catholicism is not a spontaneous audience inclusion kind of religion. Anyhow an American family took the hit and we looked at the floor. The priest included that line from the “Our father” – “for thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory”. Protestants include that as part of the prayer but Catholics do not. Had I got up at 8.30 to go to a Protestant service? Mr. Waffle pointed to the statue of the Virgin Mary which made that seem unlikely. In fact, reassuringly, the whole set-up screamed convent chapel and school and, on inspection so it proved. The school was called after Edith Stein who is one of Europe’s patron saints – who knew. Poor old Edith converted from Judaism to Catholicism and became a nun (I’m sure her family were horrified) and then, the Nazis carted her off and killed her anyhow. Depressing.

We then had a lovely breakfast in a Russian cafe beside the local synagogue. I would give Berlin the best overall breakfast experience in Europe award.

Afterwards we scooted the short distance home. Mr. Waffle had become so confident that he even stopped crouching on the scooter and was able to exchange some rudimentary conversation. We could legally have parked the scooters ourside Margaret’s house but I knew she wouldn’t like it so I hid them down the road.

We had a quiet afternoon: a swim; a walk in the forest near the house for me and Daniel and a scoot around the glorious allotments. I had learnt from our trip to the DDR museum that about the only individual indulgence that the regime tolerated was gardening. The regime wasn’t enthusiastic but ultimately decided that gardening might be a good place for the population to channel energies which might otherwise be used for protesting. Having so little for themselves, they seem to have poured their hearts and souls into these small allotments. They were amazing and the pictures don’t at all do justice to the variety and delight in these postage stamp sized plots.

Monday, August 22, 2022

We got a taxi to the airport. Dan and our Kurdish taxi driver discovered a shared enthusiasm for Fenerbahçe FC. In discussing the fortunes of the club, Dan displayed a fluency and ability in German which was both reassuring (as he is studying it for his final school exam) and surprising (as he hadn’t spoken much German at all over the holiday, perhaps the occasion hadn’t really arisen). The taxi driver was from a place called Mardin. He was full of enthusiasm. “Is it very warm?” I wondered fresh from my fortnight of baking in Berlin. “Well, yes,” he said proudly, “it can get as hot as 50 degrees but it’s a dry heat.” Nevertheless, I think Mardin in summer time is not for me. It was his children’s first day back at school. “Ours are going back on Thursday,” said Mr. Waffle. “What, Thursday, this Thursday?” said Dan in horror. Poor Dan.

The airport experience was fine actually although we did spend some time queuing at the wrong check-in desk (maybe herself is right that we are holding her back with our poor airport performance). And then we were home and our luggage was home too.

If you are still reading, I salute you. More domestic news in due course.