belgianwaffle

Archives for January 2008

More mornings


Posted in: Boys, Daniel, Michael, Mr. Waffle, Princess

Last night the Princess arrived into our bed, most unusually, at 3.00 in the morning and stayed there alternately chatting and poking until 6.00.

This morning we had the usual chivying, hurrying and harrying to get out the door with an extra nugget of exhaustion for three of the main players. The Princess was, perversely, extremely good. I am not sure whether this is as a result of engaging in charades last night when she got to pretend to be each of us in the morning in turn. It was funny. She enjoyed our appreciative laughter but maybe she finally realised that we would like it, if she would just get dressed in the morning.

Anyhow, Mr. Waffle was tired, sick and short-tempered. Michael came out of the kitchen and said crossly “Daddy, a bit mean”. Daniel sat up in his chair. His lower lip wobbled. “What’s wrong darling?” “Daddy fâché, Daniel sad.” “What that noise?” “That’s the sound of Mummy’s heart breaking”. Alternatively, it could have been Mr. Waffle saying “Oh, for heaven’s sake, it’ll toughen them up”.  At least he’s not feeding them Calgonit; you will be pleased to hear that there appear to be no ill effects to date.

Landmarks


Posted in: Boys, Princess

On Friday afternoon, the Princess’s schoolfriend L came round to visit.  We had arranged that L’s mother would take both girls back to her house around the corner later in the afternoon while I went to collect the boys from the creche (Mr. Waffle being stuck late at work).  As she departed (in her Cinderella dress), L asked whether the Princess was staying in her house.  This was something L’s mother and I had discussed but not for that evening.  L’s mother said that she could, if I agreed.  Upon being importuned, I agreed and send her off with her toothbrush, doggy, a pair of pyjamas and the confident knowledge that we would have to collect her later when she realised the enormity of the undertaking.  She has only spent one night apart from both parents in her whole life.

At 8.10 we sat together on the sofa and telephoned prepared for a tearful Princess. Not a bit of it, she was having a wonderful time and would see us in the morning.  Goodnight.  We were dumbfounded.  Through the night as we got up to ply the boys with milk and to implore them to consider sleeping as a viable alternative to shouting, we passed her empty room with the curtains still drawn and we worried.  We needn’t have.  I collected her in the morning and she was perfectly composed.  Yes, she had a lovely time, thank you.

Saturday afternoon was not satisfactory.  Daniel did not nap and our normally sweet tempered middle child was transformed into a screaming nightmare.  We went to a toyshop to buy a present for a friend and Daniel fell in love with the model train.   We could not get him to leave.  In the end his father had to carry him out struggling and bellowing.  He’s a big boy, when he struggles it is not a pretty sight.  We decided to go to a café.  When we came in with our brood, the other patrons looked at us warily, as well they might.  I couldn’t get the double buggy past the tables and that was when we should have left but we didn’t.  A kind man came and picked up the various items that we had dropped on the floor very slowly.  Mr. Waffle controlled the bellowing Daniel.  Michael and herself made a bid for freedom.  Everybody stared at us.  I thanked the kindly customer while silently cursing him for not letting me pick things up myself which would have been much quicker.  We installed ourselves.  I took Daniel upstairs to change him.  He screamed.  Michael would not be separated from me.  He screamed.  I brought the two boys up the narrow winding stairs together.  I changed Daniel he perked up and stopped howling briefly.  We were on a knife edge though.  We got back to the table.  I took off his hat.  He screamed.  I put it back on and he stopped but not before, to my mortification, a kind American lady at another table had given us a book to read to him.  We decided that I had better take Daniel home.  Michael refused to countenance my leaving without him.  I left with the boys.  Daniel would only leave on condition he got back to the train.  We went back to the toyshop.  Michael was very good about leaving.  Daniel was not.  It took all of my strength to put his writhing person back in the buggy.  We went home.  All very tiring.

On Sunday morning we went to Mass where the Princess informed me in loud tones, just after the consecration, as the church was silent that she hates Mass.  While, I can sympathise, I am not yielding.  Not yet, anyway.  Also, I’m hoping to cure them of the habit they all have of shying away when I put holy water on their foreheads.  Why is it only Protestants have Sunday school?

On Sunday afternooon, we dropped the Princess off for a party at a friend’s house or, more accurately, at the house of friends of ours whose daughter the Princess could probably not identify in a line out.  I felt a bit nervous about this as almost all the other guests were from the birthday girl’s class in school but it passed off peacefully.  I am now quite impressed by my daughter’s independence.  While she was at the party, her father and I briefly regained our sanity and then woke the boys from their nap and took them to the park on their tricycles.  When we collected the Princess, I was particularly struck by the utter lawlessness of the little boys at the party.  There were two who were screaming and jumping on balloons and a number who were thumping.  I am not sure whether this behaviour is unique to boys in this school (it’s one of these schools that encourages the development of the whole child – I have a traditional view about these things, so sue me) or, as I fear, absolutely typical of four year old boys.  I can’t wait until I have two of my own to let loose on an unsuspecting world.

And finally, this afternoon, our childminder called me to say that she was sick, so I took the afternoon off and came home to mind the troops who were suitably gratified to see me.

I was in the kitchen dispensing food and I heard Daniel say not nice.  I turned around and to my horror saw that he and Michael had bitten through a packet of calgonit and ingested a quantity of same which Daniel was spitting out.  It’s not clear to me whether Michael tried it or decided against.

Much panic ensued.  The Princess was saintly and entertained her brothers while I rang their father, the  paediatrician and then the poisons helpline (he had the number to hand). The lady on the poisons helpline was very helpful (much more so than the Calgonit website which I have been scouring since) and said that it was more an irritant than poisonous.  I said that they both seemed fine but she said that the effects might not be visible immediately and to watch out if they started to cry or wouldn’t eat.  Not conclusive symptoms, I fear.

I am watching them like an anxious mother hawk.

Mícheál


Posted in: Daniel, Princess

I have a good friend called Michael and sometimes I call him Mícheál and I have got into the habit of calling my son Michael Mícheál affectionately from time to time also.

In recent days, Daniel has started coming up to me and saying anxiously “Daniel Mícheál!”. I have tried to comfort him by telling him he is Dónal which is the Irish for Daniel or Danny Boy which is friendly but he’s having none of it; “Daniel Mícheál!” he insists.  His sister has, however, decided that the boy suffix is a good one and she now calls her other brother Mícheál Boy which shows that she really is from Cork.

While I’m talking about slang may I thank those who enlightened me on Australian slang – bonza sheilas.

A Town like Alice


Posted in: Reading etc.

My parents always had a lot of Nevil Shute books knocking around the house and I saw one second hand and picked it up recently.

I have to say I tore through “A Town like Alice” though the writing is more functional than inspired. It is also shockingly racist in a very casual, unthinking way that demonstrates how racism was woven into the fabric of society more clearly than anything else I’ve read. The framing device is somewhat odd and, judging by the author’s note at the back, it’s a tribute to a Dutch lady he fell in love with.

All in all, though, I’m inclined to give “On the Beach” a whirl. Any thoughts?

On a related note, wikipedia tells me that Nevil Shute’s father was the head of the General Post Office in Dublin during the 1916 uprising and stretchered people out. Suspect possibly not the founders of the new State.

Finally, can anyone tell me whether Australians say bonza in real life as in “Alice is a bonza town”?

Conversation with a Dublin Taxi Driver or All Human Life is Here


Posted in: Ireland

Him: Where to?

Me: The airport.

Him: Where are you going?

Me: Brussels.

Him: Just for the day?

Me: Actually I live in Brussels.

Him: Department of Foreign Affairs?

Me: Er, no (elaborate on current job).

Him: They speak Flemish there, don’t they?

Me: Some elaboration on the Belgian language regime.

Him: Je ne parler pas Francez.

Me : Oh well, never mind.

Him: Aber ich kann sehr gut Deutsch sprechen.

Me (surprised): Ich habe Deutsch an der Schule gelernt aber jetzt sprech ich sehr slecht Deutsch.

Him: Long and apparently fluent spiel auf Deutsch which is almost entirely unintelligible to me.

Me: Oh right.

Him (starting a new tack): Was Santy good to you?

Me: Er, alright. Was he good to you?

Him: He was good to the wife, she got a Fendi bag, an iPod nano, a big gift set of beauty care things and a diamond ring [carats specified but now forgotten by me] mounted in platinum. The wife has a few nice pieces. [Reminisces] I was in Antwerp in the diamond district once and I got two diamonds [again, carats specified but now forgotten by me] and then I had them mounted in platinum earrings by a friend who’s a jeweller here. Oh yes, the wife has a few nice pieces.

Me (reeling): Gosh and um, what did Santa bring to the children?

Him: A 28inch flat screen wall mounted television for their bedroom, a Wii (?) player, stocking fillers and the rest.

Me (reeling further): And what did you get yourself?

Him: A gun.

Me (faintly): Oh yes.

Him: Full details of the gun.

Me: Where do you shoot?

Him: Open land.

Me: What do you get?

Him: Rabbits, hares, deer, pheasants, ducks.

Me: Do you eat them all?

Him: Long description of how to gut and hang animals followed by information on some of his favourite recipes. They were having venison burgers the following night.

Me: Isn’t venison tough?

Him: Very detailed recipe.

Him: The young fella (9) had a day off school yesterday for a teacher training day so I took him shooting with me and we bagged nine hares. He’s an excellent shot.

Me (making mental note to stay off open land all the same): Good for him. How did you learn to shoot? Did you grow up on a farm?

Him: No, no, Dublin born and bred. I was in the army for 15 and a half years.

Me: Ah right.

Him: Medical discharge, got blown up in the Lebanon. Was in the Lebanon twice, Kosovo once and Somalia. [This was covered at some length, I have compressed it for you. I am merciful].

Me: What was the Lebanon like? How did you get on with the Israelis?

Him: We had this guy used to come and do our washing. We called him Paddy Joe, he called himself Paddy Joe [I doubt this somehow, not to his family and friends]; he was a nice old fella, seven or eight children. We were driving along the road one day and we saw him with all his gear on his ancient van. The CO said to pull over and we did and asked what happened. The Israelis had flattened his house that morning. We had a whip round for him; it wasn’t much but there were tears in his eyes when we gave him the money.

Me: There aren’t many Irish soldiers who have been in the Lebanon who have fond memories of the Israelis.

Him (indignantly): They were always shooting at us.

Me: Do you miss the army?

Him (a bit sadly): I do, yeah. You’d miss the old camaraderie and that.

Me (bracingly): Well, I’m sure that driving a taxi in Dublin is interesting too. Did you start when they deregulated?

Him: I did but they’ve handled that very badly.

Me: Have they? Why?

Him: Do you want the politically correct version or the real version?

Me (hopefully): The politically correct version.

Him: Momentarily nonplussed

Me: Alright, tell me.

Him: I’m not xenophobic or homophobic or anything like that. But the taxi regulator doesn’t do background checks on foreigners [or gays, clearly]. A woman is entitled to know she is safe in a taxi. I had a girl before Christmas, a big girl, who told me that a black taxi driver asked to touch her breasts.

Me: A foreign black taxi driver?

Him: They could be putting people in taxis who have previous convictions for rape or sexual assault, look at this.

He points me towards an article about a Czech national who has been convicted of raping and murdering a 37 year old mother of two.

Me: Was he a taxi driver?

Him: No, but he was a foreign national he should have been checked, the guards should have known where he was.

Me (leaving aside the questions of penal policy and its efficacy): Well, he was from an EU member state and, you know, we have the right to move freely in all the EU member states and it’s reciprocal. I mean, there could well be Irish rapists in the Czech Republic.

Him: I lived in Germany and they checked my papers all the time.

Me: And those of the Germans too, they have an ID card system. Would you like us to have an ID card system?

Him: Absolutely.

Me: Silent smugness as I feel I backed him into a corner. There is no way a taxi driver wants ID cards. It’s just against nature.

Him (new tack): Are you from the Southside?

Me: Very southside, I’m from Cork.

Him: Went to Cork on holidays a couple of years back. Beautiful place. After Dublin, I’d like to live there.

Me: Restrain myself from pointing out the error of his ways.

Him: We’re going to Majorca this summer.

Me: Very nice too, I’m sure.

Him: The wife went to book in December, do you know how much it cost for two adults and three children?

Me: No (though I am sure you are going to tell me).

Him: €3,700.

Me: Gosh, that is dear.

Him: That’s what I thought so I was down at the wife’s parents on new year’s night, just looking at the computer, right, and do you know what I found? Two weeks in a villa with a pool and a hired car and room for all of us an the wife’s parents as well. Guess how much?

Me: I couldn’t.

Him: : €3,900

Me (thinking): YOU”RE A TAXI DRIVER. WHAT DOES YOUR WIFE DO?

Me (saying): God, that was fantastic.

Him (clearly psychic): I won’t be driving the old taxi for much longer now.

Me: No?

Him: No, I’m starting my own business.

Me: What are you doing?

Him: I’ve patented a system for sorting municipal waste. My accountant has raised €5 million capital.

Me: Gobsmacked silence.

On recounting this to Mr. Waffle, he said that when the taxi driver asked where I worked, I should have said that I worked for the revenue, audit division.

The Island of Dr. Moreau


Posted in: Reading etc.

I heard an extraordinary thing on the radio the other morning. In Britain they are debating allowing the development of crossed human animal embryos for stem cell research, though not, as one of the speakers made clear for implantation (that’s a relief then). Is it just me or is science getting a bit beyond us?

In other news, I see that the US FDA has approved cloned meat for serving up for dinner. I rest my case.