belgianwaffle

Archives for May 2012

Big Day


Posted in: Boys, Ireland, Michael

As Michael told us last night, today is a big day: the new edition of the Club Penguin magazine is out, it’s the day before school sports day; and it’s referendum day.

I brought the children with me to vote. The nice girl at the desk gave them jellies. “Who’s the youngest?” she asked. “Me!” said Michael. The girl gave him the ballot paper. “Only by 20 minutes” said Daniel. “You can put it in the box, then.” He promptly proceeded to do so and only quick reflexes on everyone’s part stopped a spoilt vote.

The secrecy of my ballot was compromised by Michael roaring at me in the booth: “Why did you put an x there and not a tick; you want to vote yes!”. This gave everyone in the room a laugh. The attendants looked pretty bored. I’d say turnout has been atrocious.

Busy


Posted in: Family

Things the Waffles did last weekend: we had my sister to stay; I went out with her on Friday night; Daniel played football on Saturday morning; simultaneously, herself and her father cycled into town so that she could participate with the school choir in the first communion excitement; we took in a cousin for a sleepover and handed over herself in exchange; on Sunday the boys played in a tennis tournament in the afternoon in a difficult to find and inconveniently located tennis club; on Sunday evening we reversed the exchange. In a dreadful moment, we thought we had lost the cousin’s DS but after 24 painful hours, it turned up under the passenger seat of our car.

Game On


Posted in: Dublin, Ireland

I was trying to buy quails at the butcher’s but he had none and, in a moment of weakness, I was upsold. He pulled a pair of pheasants from the freezer and sold them to me with the novel line that they were only a bit larger than quails.

I retained dim memories from my youth of my mother’s cousin, a farmer, turning up at our front door with birds he had shot but didn’t fancy eating which my mother subsequently hung in the attic. I feel they were nice when we got them. They were not, however, frozen. The non-frozen pheasant may be the better bird. On the plus side, I didn’t have to pluck them myself. [Aside, once my sister’s friend, the vegetarian, called to the house and my mother answered the door in a lab coat covered with feathers while holding a largely plucked pheasant by the neck.]

The pheasants lurked menacingly in the fridge for a bit but tonight I decided to cook them. I feared that the outcome might be reminiscent of the great wild boar disaster of ’07. Certainly, pheasant is not seasonal at the moment. I decided to create pheasant stew. I lashed in the root vegetables, bacon and red wine. I couldn’t easily source chestnuts, what with it being May and everything and substituted mushrooms. It cooked happily all evening filling the summer air with toasty winter smells in a disconcerting and ultimately unsatisfactory manner.

It’s just out of the oven and there is masses of it. The stew is actually quite tasty in an ideal for mid-winter kind of way but the pheasant itself is, alas, deeply unpleasant, stringy and tough. Alas. Still, that’s dinner for tomorrow ready all the same. Hurrah for me.

Unanswerable


Posted in: Boys, Daniel

Daniel: I don’t want to go to bed. I want to play desert soldiers.
Me: It’s bed time. You had all afternoon to play desert soldiers.
Him: But I only thought it up now.

Litter Watch


Posted in: Dublin, Ireland

The other day, I saw two teenage girls walking along the street. One asked the other whether she wanted some Lucozade. When her companion said no, she just tossed the bottle on the ground. I was outraged. Particularly since there was a bin only about a metre away. I toyed very hard with the idea of saying something but my nerve failed me. We live in quite a rough part of town, you will recall.

Mr. Waffle tells me that our neighbour, who was born in her house around the corner and who is quite elderly is more than a match for the local young people. He, she and other virtuous members of the residents’ association were out cleaning up litter (thank you Lucozade girls) which they do a couple of times a year. As Mr. Waffle and our neighbour were working away, a boy of about 14 came by with a girl. He threw some rubbish on the ground. “Pick that up,” said our elderly neighbour. “Ah feck off, missus,” said he or words to that effect. At this point I would have abandoned in fear and mortification. Our neighbour is made of sterner stuff. She reached up and clipped him round the ear and said firmly, “Pick that up now and none of your nonsense.” He picked it up.

London


Posted in: Travel

So, then my trip. I haven’t been on a plane in about two years. Imagine. There was a time when I used to fly weekly for work and think nothing of jetting off for a weekend but now I almost never travel for work and haven’t flown for holidays since we’ve moved home from Brussels. I haven’t missed it.

I took myself off to the airport in very good time for my midday flight and it all passed off uneventfully. The plane was, as predicted entirely full of Leinster rugby fans. Travel by train and tube to my city centre hotel was lengthy but straightforward. But yet, on arrival, I was absolutely exhausted. And I had not even travelled with a child. Partly, I think I was so tired because everything was just a bit different from when I had done it last and the novelty made it tiring and partly because it IS tiring and you don’t notice it so much when you have to do it regularly.

Our hotel was free thanks to my sister’s travel points (hurrah for her) and we were upgraded (hurrah again). Once recovered from my journey, I went to the National Portrait Gallery which was having an evening thing. Then on Sunday, we both went to the National Gallery. My friend Michael says that going around the National Gallery is like constantly running into old friends – my goodness, are you here too? And I have to say, both the Portrait Gallery and particularly the National Gallery have the absolutely superb collections. I had never been to the Portrait Gallery before. As Irish history and English history is very closely entwined before 1922, the Gallery is full of people who had a very significant effect on Irish history also. But Ireland gets scant reference – at least it features in the description of Cromwell who plays a very large role in every Irish history book.

We met my sister’s friend and my sister-in-law the author (have you bought her book yet? Have only been paid cup of tea for this endorsement) and her boyfriend who is from London. We met then in Fortnum and Mason and he had never been there before. “Well,” we said to the Londoner, “what do you think?” He looked around him at the ridiculously expensive stock and said in slightly disapproving tones, “Pretty much as I imagined.”

After some thought, we decided that we would go to see “The Mousetrap”. This was a mistake, I fear. Longevity is the only thing that is keeping it on the stage. I was, however, smug as I guessed who the murderer was before the interval.

As far as I could see, London’s attention was equally divided between the Queen’s jubilee (who knew?) and the forthcoming Olympics (yes, we all knew that). And it was much fuller than I remember from previous visits. The homogenisation of shops in Ireland and the UK meant that there wasn’t much point in going shopping as all the shops were the same (insert your own text here about globalisation, demise of independent retailers etc.)

The best thing about the weekend was having a chance to talk to my sister which is surprisingly difficult most of the time. She’s busy. I’m busy. I hope to make a weekend away with her an annual event, if my loving family can face it. My domestic credit is currently close to zero as while I was away, Mr. Waffle nobly spent the weekend ferrying children to various events (including an early morning GAA match in Meath which nearly sent him to an early grave) and keeping them from murdering each other. All this takes its toll. He’s almost recovered now but, somehow, I see this weekend being a busy one for me.