belgianwaffle

Archives for February 2004

Worries


Posted in: Mr. Waffle, Princess

In no particular order:

*The Princess will never learn to crawl (10 1/2mths and still no joy)

*The Princess will learn to crawl (and we will have to clear out everything at ground level)

*The Princess has a slight temperature this morning – could this be the start of chicken pox? Incidentally, the evil chicken pox carrier rang yesterday, he’s just back at work. He was mildly contrite. He said “you know it’s good for her to get it out of the way”.
“Not when we’re just about to go on holidays it’s not.”

“No” he conceded.

“And Mr. Waffle hasn’t had it.”

“Oh dear”

“And I haven’t seen anyone for a fortnight and Mr. Waffle has warned people at work that he might be incubating chicken pox”.

“Yeah” he said “I was going to ring you to tell you to do that but I was too sick”.
Has the man no shame? I did not express my annoyance as eloquently as I might have done at another time as a) she has apparently not got it and b) she was screaming blue murder so I had to get off the phone.

*Mr. Waffle will freeze to death on his bike. This morning I heard him rummaging about in the hall. I saw his swimming goggles on the bedroom floor. I thought to myself “ah, today must be swimming day” and appeared with them in paw, saying “Are you looking for your goggles?”

“Yes, oh no, not those goggles, I’m looking for my skiing goggles”

“Do you really need to do that now?”

“Yes, it’s snowing”

“Good grief, let me give you a lift”

“No, no, it’s fine, I’ve found my goggles now” said he unearthing them from the depths of the large bag in the hall.

So he set off into the snow looking like the creature from the black lagoon. Poor Mr. Waffle.

*The Princess may be developing a new and alarming sleeping pattern. She seems to wake up for two hours in the middle of the night (typically 4 to 6) and want to chat and play. Frankly, this is not the joy it might be to her parents.

*The remote control for the nightlight thingy that plays a tune and sends her to sleep (yes, really, only works at bedtime though) has disappeared and, for reasons that I can’t quite explain, I am terrified that I have inadvertently thrown it in the nappy bin (11.23 – one worry less found the remote under her cot, but, alas, not until after I had searched in the nappy bin).

*I will never get more than four hours sleep in a row again.

*I will never find any job.

*I will never find a job that I like.

*Mr. Waffle has volunteered to organise a family thing. I love Mr. Waffle’s family but trying to organise them is like herding mice at a crossroads (in normal circumstances, this is part of their charm). Mr. Waffle is no good at mouse herding, he expects people (yes, including his family) to be as organised as he is. Nobody is as organised as he is (for example, he has left me this morning a list of things we need to pack for skiing). I see challenging times ahead.

*It is snowing today (see above), so I’m not sure that the Princess and I will be leaving the flat and I will go insane. I suppose we could go for a drive in the car but I’m not sure how stimulating that would be for either of us. Suddenly the large out-of-town indoor shopping centre is looking very attractive. You have no idea how depressing I find it that I am pleased about this.

Comments
jackdalton is abandoning until April 11. A full debrief will be provided on our return. I bet you’re on the edges of your seats out there.
belgianwaffleon 08 March 2004 at 12:39

No rush to reply as I see, on brief inspection, that you’re sticking to your lenten thing. Look forward to a long update on what you did with all your free time on your return to the land of blog..

And, also, one kitchen sink


Posted in: Mr. Waffle

Now that (touch wood) it looks like we are going to go away after all, the vexed question of packing needs to be considered. We have to bring the following:

1 baby

1 travel cot

1 pushchair

Given that we will be travelling by train and by bus, Mr. Waffle has stipulated that only one other bag will be allowed. Into this bag will have to go ski and evening gear for parents and all the Princess’s paraphenalia. I am not convinced this is possible. Last night we discussed minimising our stuff:

Mr. W. – We can assume that we will have to go to a launderette mid-week, so we only need 4 sets of everything.

Me – OK, but we need day and evening wear because we can’t spend the evening in our sweaty ski gear.

Mr. W – Fair enough, but it’s not like we’re going to get out anywhere in the evening so perhaps we don’t need socks for the evening – we can just go barefoot.

Hmm. Total space saving minimal. Potential discomfort due to chilly feet – considerable. Furthermore, we are sharing a chalet with six other people and do they really want barefoot Waffles wandering around?

Now we are one


Posted in: Princess

Yesterday, baby L, the Glam Potter’s daughter was one. We attended the party after reassurance that all the other invitees had had chicken pox (still not a sign of a spot). The Princess was delighted with the range of toys and gifts available and beat off all comers so that she had complete access to everything all the time.  This was particularly rough on baby L, who was, after all, the birthday girl and, technically, the owner of all the presents. However, she comforted herself by hunting for electrical sockets into which to force her little fingers. There was a sweet little German boy who brought his own toys. The Princess relieved him of them one by one and he smiled patiently. It was only when she swiped his bottle that he decided that it was time to protest. We were mortified.

A number of childless adults attended the party also, which was very brave of them.  I was cornered by a woman whom I had previously met at a GP event.  She asked how my job search was going. V. depressing to have to report no news.  She asked whether I had thought of retraining as a nurse.

“Noooo” I said.

“I just thought that you might be good at it”.

“I’m really not very good at sciency things”.

“Oh, you don’t need any science to be a nurse”

“Er, yes, I think you do, actually”

“Well, I think you need to be more open to different career possibilities”

“You know, I think I’ll go and get a sandwich”

Baffling.  Maybe attendance at a children’s party had pushed her over the edge.

Comments
Angie

on 23 February 2004 at 20:35

Oh! I’m so glad she has not been “spotted”. Hopefully you’re now over the chicken scare hump!

belgianwaffle

on 24 February 2004 at 14:55

Thanks guys for your encouragement on chicken pox front. Becoming increasingly, perhaps foolishly, optimistic.

Grand Bazar


Posted in: Belgium

I know that I haven’t posted anything in a while but every waking moment has been spent inspecting my infant daughter for chicken pox.  So far, so good, but this weekend is when she’s most likely to get sick so I’m obviously looking forward to that.

I did some mulling on Belgian supermarkets this week (look, I said it had been kind of slow).  I shop in the local GB.  The staff there are kind and sweet to my little daughter but in general act as though having customers in is ruining their day. They stack shelves and block up the aisles so that customers have to turn around and retrace their steps. They sullenly ignore your requests to get by.  They are singularly unhelpful when it comes to looking for missing products. For three weeks, there was no dental floss in our GB.  The Waffles were facing a floss crisis, our strategic reserves were running low.  When I asked when they would get floss in, the floor staff, oblivious to our potential crisis, said that they didn’t know and maybe there was a problem with production.  This is the inevitable response when something is missing. I’m just not convinced by this production problem.

Now, I know, the staff probably get paid almost nothing, but I presume that the same is true in Irish supermarkets, yet somehow, staff are more helpful, why is this?  And I bet the holidays here are better; I heard two assistants chatting and one said to the other “Can you believe that I only get 28 days holidays? Isn’t that terrible?”  “Dreadful” said her colleague.  Now not to be all American about this, but that sounds alright to me.  And I suppose that the atmosphere in GB staff relations generally is not outstanding.  When I googled GB and Belgium to give you the link above (yes, I know, the research and effort that goes into this blog is phenomenal), the first two matches were about industrial relations problems.  Still and all, on the whole they’re not a customer friendly bunch.

Then the way the supermarket is set up is kind of irritating. There is only one check-out wide enough to take a trolley with a baby seat and that is invariably closed, so you have to put your purchases through one check-out and scoot down to the one at the end to push the trolley through. Very trying.

Now, wasn’t that fascinating?

Comments
Thierrry

on 21 February 2004 at 15:44

Great post.
Did you know GB stands for “Grand Bazar”?
“Ceci explique cel?”!…
http://bruxelles-ma-ville.skynetblogs.be/

belgianwaffle

on 23 February 2004 at 14:44

PFT, I am disappointed to hear that Tesco in the UK is similar…I labour under the (obviously mistaken) illusion that the service industry in the UK is excellent.
Thierry, thks, no, I didn’t know that. Tout s’explique.

My standards have fallen considerably since I wrote this post.


Posted in: Mr. Waffle, Princess

Last night we went out for dinner for Valentine’s day.  Mr. Waffle’s parents had kindly agreed to babysit, the Princess was almost entirely recovered from her bug and things were looking promising.

Then I got a phone call.  A friend had been in Brussels during the week and had spent an afternoon with us.  When he was here, he mentioned that both of his children were down with chickenpox.  It never occurred to me that he might be infectious.  I assumed he had had it.  I would never in my wildest dreams go to visit a small child where there was the slightest risk that I might give them something.   I assumed that, as a parent, he would apply the same standard.  Apparently not.  I am incandescent with rage.  What a stupid, thoughtless thing to do.  Mr. Waffle has indicated that this man is never coming near us again without a medical certificate.  On the plus side, it appears that chicken pox in children is usually not very serious, on the negative side our internet research reveals that it is most infectious in the day or two before the spots come up, i.e. exactly when this wretched man was visiting and sharing biscuits with our Princess, so, odds on, the poor thing will get it.  Furthermore, the incubation period is 10 to 20 days, so she will probably get it when we were supposed to be going on our skiing holiday, so no skiing for us.

Armed with this alarming information we went out to dinner.  We could only get a booking for 9.30, so we were both kind of hungry.  I had come down with the Princess’s cold so I had a sore throat, headache etc., slightly improved by paracetemol consumption.  The restaurant was (understandably) heaving.  We had to wait to be escorted to our table in a distant and less glam part of the restaurant, nobody took our coats which sat on the radiator alongside us for the duration (except when the slid down on top of us).  Our wine failed to materialise until we had nearly finished our main course.  When we asked where it had gone our waitress gave us two glasses of white.  We had ordered red.  We had been given someone else’s bottle.   The red, when it finally arrived, was almost undrinkable. We had ordered water but never got glasses for it despite repeated efforts to grab a waitress.  Starters were expensive and mediocre, main course was, in fact, fine.  However, when we were offered the dessert menu, for the first time ever, I said, no just the bill, thanks.  To get to the bathroom, I had to wait for two members of staff to finish a blazing row (apparently some people had left without paying the bill – could you blame them?).  Naturally, our conversation over dinner related almost exclusively to chicken pox (which, I concede was not the fault of the restaurant) which is not romantic, I think you will agree.  We had a miserable time. I’d rather have gone to Mona Lisa Smile again.

Things are much better today, you will be glad to hear. Princess is completely well again (except for the threat of chicken pox, of course) and weather is lovely. I am on the mend and the Princess has gone out for a walk with her father and grandparents leaving me the run of the house, the Sunday papers and a couple of croissants.  It could be a lot worse.