belgianwaffle

Archives for April 2004

Fascinating flooring


Posted in: Mr. Waffle, Princess

If you consult the pictures of our infant daughter on my photoblog, you will see that she is a messy eater. We have wooden floors which really should be revarnished so the constant addition of water and random food to the floor surface is not ideal. I suppose it wouldn’t be ideal under any circumstances but with the floors needing revarnishing, things do tend to leave marks (we have a trail of vaseline handprints on our bedroom floor from when the Princess managed to get hold of a tub of the stuff and smear it all over herself).

I thought that I would go to IKEA and get a cheap, tasteful, washable floor covering which we could put on the dining room floor. I got to IKEA and, you know what, tasteful and washable don’t really go together. So I thought that I would get a cheapish rug which we could dispose of when the Princess learned to eat without scattering debris. IKEA is not as cheap as all that. The rugs in the size I wanted were about 600 euros. Imagine then my delight when I found one for 80 euros. True, it looked a bit like underlay, but it looked robust also. I snapped it up.

I brought it home. I explained my reasoning to Mr. Waffle over the phone.

“Hmm,” he said, “I don’t know if a rug is what we need, but for 8 euros, I suppose you can’t go wrong”.
“Umm, no, not 8 euros, 80.”

Horrified silence.  “You shouldn’t have told me that. I mean all we really needed was a square of lino for under her high chair”.

“Actually, it’s called vinyl flooring these days”

When he came home, he took one look at the rectangular, dark green rug and said “Ah, the 80 euro putting green”

And, inevitably, it’s a bit of a disaster, whereas before debris could be swept up or mopped up, now we have to get out the hoover after every meal.  Also, given that it has the texture of underlay, it is a little rough on the royal knees.  I may have to take it up, I suppose what I really need is a square of lino.

Comments
Locotes

on 30 April 2004 at 18:16

It’s true. Never correct the other half in matters of cash. It’s safer. That’s assuming of course you keep the accounts under tight lock and key. It’s safer.
Oh well – I suppose you meant well eh?
😉

belgianwaffle

on 03 May 2004 at 14:59

You two want me to deceive my husband…never!

Thank you for not smoking


Posted in: Family, Siblings

A series of unrelated ramblings which are all, somewhat tenuously, connected by my family (no pun intended).

My sister is thinking of changing her phone number. She has only just got it, but it appears that the previous owners were bad debtors. She has been fielding calls all week from annoyed credit agencies. On Saturday night she got a call asking whether she would take “a collect call from Will”. She doesn’t know any Will, so she said no and hung up. A couple of minutes later she got another call would she “take a collect call from Will?”. She said no and hung up. The phone rang again would she take a “collect call from Will”? She decided that unless she spoke to Will, this could go on all night so she said “ok”. A recorded voice then told her “please be aware that this call is being made from inside Cook County correctional facility”. She decided not to talk to Will after all. Clearly, these people were very bad debtors.

Things continue to be uneventful on the job front. Got this email from my brother:

“How are you, are you job hunting like crazy or has the extended period of  unemployment induced apathy? How’s the Princess getting on, has she done anything that a godfather should know about like walk, talk, got teeth/hair, or got a new job (at this rate she’ll probably enter the labour market before you)”

I am beginning to feel that he might be right.

My mother has laughed cruelly at our holiday plans. “Why on earth would you stay in Dungarvan?” she asked between snorts of hysterical laughter. I appreciate that Dungarvan may not have the cachet of West Cork or the wilds of Kerry but, I’m sure it will be lovely. While I’m speaking of West Cork cachet, I heard the following mildly amusing story about one of the local hotels in Schull. The hotel bar was open on Good Friday which it shouldn’t have been (Ireland is a catholic country in fits and starts). The car park was full to bursting as parched punters from all over the county turned up for an illicit pint. They furtively drank their drinks in the full knowledge that by being on the premises they were committing a variety of offences.  However, there was one offence that was not committed, the car park was full of smokers dutifully complying with the smoking ban and having their fags outside.

Finally, went to the paediatrician the other day where the Princess was pronounced healthy and bouncing. She weighs 8.3kgs, measures 72cms and got a shot. That was very traumatic for me, but she didn’t seem to mind much. She opened her mouth to howl and her face went ominously purple but then she decided not to bother. My daughter is the picture of bravery.

Comments
Locotes

on 28 April 2004 at 18:42

Who would have thought Dungarvan would have an official website – how the times are a changin’. I don’t have a problem with the place myself – though I suppose it lacks a bit of glamour alright. When are you heading over?
By the way, your brother was a bit cheeky wasn’t he? Personally I think he deserves your wrath more than your sister…silveretta: pavement smoking is alive and well, and yes at times you have to fight your way through the crowds. Still delighted with the ban though.

belgianwaffle

on 29 April 2004 at 14:58

Actually, haven’t been in Ireland since the smoking ban arrived (well, was there for day 1 but then hightailed it back to Belgium) so am not really sure what it’s like…but am very enthused by forcing unfortunate smokers out into the rain.
Locotes, do you have a younger brother…they’re all like that – am struck by a sudden thought – you are a younger brother, aren’t you?

Locotes

on 29 April 2004 at 21:50

I sound like an older brother? No you were right the first time – I do have a younger brother. He’s more a messy slob…though he can be a cheeky bastards as well now I think about it.Well if you’re a non-smoker you HAVE to get out and about and make the most of it. A great feeling. Even more amusing to watch friends depart on their lonesome to the cold outside. Har har. Not that I laugh in their face or anything. That’s just rude.

belgianwaffle

on 30 April 2004 at 08:57

Yes, indeed, the younger brother, Cork model, your only man. Can’t wait to see smoking ban in operation. Am a cruel fascist non-smoker. Clearly.

Famous to 15 people


Posted in: Reading etc.

As I seem to spend a lot of time in the car and my books on tape are all finished, I was listening to the World Service again the other day (I know, it’s like a terrible affliction). There was a programme on blogging. I particularly liked this comment:

“The artist Andy Warhol believed that everyone would be famous for fifteen minutes, but now – say the wits – with a weblog everyone can be famous to at least fifteen people.”

Quite.

And I finished “The Dante Club”. And it is brutally disappointing. In my heart of hearts, I know it is going to be made a huge Hollywood blockbuster, just to spite me. Like bloody “Cold Mountain”.

And finally, from this week’s London Review of Books:

“Summer, 1974. Everybody was kung fu fighting.  Not me, I was revising the sociology of Paulo Freire.  Who’s laughing now, sixth-formers of Sherbourne Fields School, Coundon?  Mortgage-free M and perennial Friends Reunited outcast.  Box no. 06/06”

French leave


Posted in: Princess

Yesterday, an old friend of mine came to visit, she’s staying in Brussels for a couple of days. We used to live together in Brussels when we were both young, free and single and now we are both married with babies. Odd.

Her little girl is two months old and narrowly escaped being called Calypso. Luckily for her, her Da put his foot down.  Anyhow, she and her Mama arrived yesterday, beautifully turned out.  I was wearing my slippers (I can explain, I can explain, now that the Princess is crawling and eating off the floor, we wear slippers indoors in an endeavour to keep the floor clean, tragic, I know, what’s worse is, the other day I put on my leather jacket – note the trendiness of this for added bathos – tossed my handbag over my shoulder, tucked the Princess under my arm, went out to the car parked across the road and only then realised that I was still wearing my slippers: a double tragedy, firstly, the humiliation and, secondly, it means that my slippers are now contaminated). The Princess was going for that trendy tights over t-shirt and pulled up to the chest look.  Frankly, we were not at our bright and beautiful best.

Two month old baby E was wearing an adorable pink hat, matching pink babygro and tights and little white boots. She looked beautiful. I suppressed a deep sigh of envy as her Mama gave me a fab MaxMara coat to hang up.  Important point of clarification, coat belonged to Mama. However, baby was dressed head to foot in Jacadi so suspect that her outfit cost only marginally less. Mama is French, so, for that matter is baby. When the Princess was born, guess who gave her her only baby Dior outfit? I used to shop with Mama when we lived together and she always impressed by her unerring ability to pick out clothes that suited her. That girl never bought a dud, I on the other hand, am a dud purchaser par excellence. I remember particularly vividly the shocking pink pumps and matching handbag which I bought in a moment of madness and subsequently gave to the delighted 5 year old daughter of a colleague.

Mama is back to work next month. They only get 2 and a half months paid maternity leave in France. Which is extraordinary. This is almost American in its parsimony. Even in England, where let’s face it they are not known for the wonderfulness of their “social contract” they get six months. I thought that the absolute minimum was three months as set by the all benevolent European Union. Maybe even now, the Commission is preparing a case against France for its general rottenness on this point. On the plus side, Mama is a civil servant and so gets 53 days paid leave a year. Yes, 53, this is not a typo. She tends to take a long weekend every week during the summer and a month in Summer, two weeks in Winter and a couple of other weeks when pressure of work allows. If you are really busy, you take just your statutory minimum (20 days everywhere in Europe, I think – Americans, read and weep) and you save up your other days and after 6 years, you take a year’s paid sabbatical. Nifty eh? Which doesn’t stop the maternity leave being rotten.

Anyhow, M’s husband was made redundant just before her baby was born, which is obviously not great. On the plus side, he has got a decent payment and is available for baby minding. They decided to bottle feed and so split the night into shifts but now, baby E is sleeping through the night anyway. Bitter, me? M prepared a bottle for baby E and saying, kindly but firmly “no bottle without a bib” placed it in view while she tied a sparkling white velvet bib around her baby’s throat. Young E took this very well, my experience of babies is that normally once they see the bottle, they do not brook delay, but baby E is a saint. She then drank her bottle, without drooling, sat up and failed to regurgitate anything on to her mother’s black (the extraordinary risk…) outfit.  M showed me a barely visible stain on the neck of the bib and asked “Do you have trouble getting out these stains? I can’t seem to find anything that works.” I was hard pressed to answer.  All of the Princess’s bibs are stained red from tomato sauce or pink from some of her other clothing running in the wash

(speaking of which, had a nervous 1950s moment the other day –

Me – Dear, you know your Yves Saint Laurent shirt?

Mr. W – Yes (tone of deep foreboding) why?

It had emerged lilac from the wash, my husband is not the kind of man to buy a lilac shirt. In fact, mildly surprised that he would buy a YSL shirt, let alone a lilac one.

Me – Um, what colour is it?

Mr. W – A kind of pale purple.

Well, fancy that, how little we know our life’s partners.)

I opted for a truthful, “well, we use a plastic bib now”.

Further French childcare problems.  Apparently, there has been a baby boom since 2000 and the authorities are completely unprepared. Having spent years trying to persuade the populace to have babies and offering all kinds of incentives, they seem to be deeply surprised that it has worked. Anyway in M’s corner of Paris, only 20% of creche applications are successful, so everyone has to get a nanny. There is a special “share a nanny” website where you can find someone close to you to share the expense. They’ve found one, but it has to start in May. They can’t afford to lose the place in case M’s husband gets a job, so they’ve got to start then. It’s going to cost 800 euros a month and then there’s the rent on their flat which is, of course, extortionate and only one income. Ouch. Nevertheless, M is sanguine and has proposed that today we will stroll down the Avenue Louise looking at expensive baby clothes shops.

Comments
belgianwaffleon 24 April 2004 at 15:02Only if you’re a civil servant…is that comforting or not. I suppose not.

bluepoppy(Homepage)on 27 April 2004 at 16:03

Reading and weeping here. Yes, I knew there was such a thing as these magnificent European holidays, but dear god– 53 days .. ? It’s going to take me all day to get that out of my head– why did our ancestors EVER leave Europe?!! This americaine wants to know.

Beth(Homepage)on 28 April 2004 at 17:50

Oh my – I wish that 2 and a half months of paid maternity leave really were “almost American in its parsimony.” The standard in the U.S. is 6 weeks – unpaid.

belgianwaffleon 29 April 2004 at 15:11Poor bluepoppy…the whole American lack of leave is a source of constant shock to us over here. It’s appalling, it’s terrifying. But still, I suppose it means you use your holidays for thrilling things, i.e. not going to Dungarvan.
Beth, the US standard is dreadful. Truly, it is rotten. It is a wonder that American women have children at all. Is there any chance it will ever change? Yours in sympathy..

Beth(Homepage)on 30 April 2004 at 18:42

There was a new law passed a couple years back that enabled most women to take up to 12 weeks off for maternity leave (along with a few other reasons like adoption and family illness) but once again it is unpaid. Many women can’t manage 3 months without a paycheck. I can’t imagine a national paid maternity leave plan would ever make it – social welfare programs just aren’t a priority. Just another of the many reasons I want to move to Paris!

belgianwaffleon 03 May 2004 at 14:58Move to the UK for excellent mat leave though…

Mostly listening


Posted in: Reading etc.

Just polished off the following 3, b’day pres from sister in law the publishing exec:

“Jude the Obscure” by Thomas Hardy – could this be more depressing?

“Jamaica Inn” by Daphne Du Maurier – enthusiastic review elsewhere

“The Mill on the Floss” by George Eliot – have a bit of difficulty with George Eliot, I did “Silas Marner” for the Leaving and frankly, learning that maudlin, depressing tome in detail when I was 17 put me right off George Eliot.  However, I met a guy at a party who convinced me that I had misjudged her and had to read “Middlemarch” which, he said was fantastic. I did and I didn’t like it much: So, I approached “The Mill on the Floss” with some trepidation. It is beautifully written (or, abridged, given that I heard it on tape) and I did actually enjoy it, but it was a bit depressing. Should I try further George Eliot? I just don’t know.

Anyway, after the “Mill on the Floss” finished, I tuned into the World Service and there was an interview with Tracey Emin which was mildly interesting as the Glam Potter knew her at college. She, Tracey Emin, was on a programme called “Masterpiece”. If I were the GP, I think I would die of envy, but she is a better person than me, so doubtless will bear it with equanimity. Is most unfair though because, if you ask me, GP is infinitely more talented.

And finally, read a mildly amusing book called “Mortification: Writers’ stories of their public shame“. The motto appears to be, if you are a writer, avoid book readings. I gather from this book, that everyone else avoids them anyway and must confess, I have never been to one myself.

And, finally, on things cultural, due to my contacts in the diplomatic underworld, I have managed to get various Irish Presidency goodies, including 2 CDs containing, allegedly, the best of up and coming Irish music.  Frankly, not as restful as you might expect…but not bad either. If anyone is interested, I might be bothered to list some of the 32 offerings that it is felt represent the best of new Irish music, since, as far as I can see, they don’t rate a mention on the Pres website.

Blog crisis


Posted in: Reading etc.

Ladies and gentlemen,

I have a crisis.  I didn’t read the rules on sweeties. I thought that you got a new supply every week. Was wondering why I hadn’t got any new ones and read the rules.  I have nothing at all interesting or sweetie worthy to post, so am sweetie bereft.  Can you get sweeties on credit?

Yours in anxious anticipation,

BW

(Jojo, wouldn’t it be a good idea to give everyone a couple every week, go on, please…)

Comments
belgianwaffleon 24 April 2004 at 15:02

You are as kind as you are (I’m sure) beautiful.