Daniel:What are the dark ages?
Me:Well, after the Fall of Rome..
Him: With the Goths and the Vandals and the Ostrogoths..
Me: That’s it. Well people forgot about a lot of the things that they used to know and there wasn’t much science but then the renaissance came [Insert digression here on the topic “what do you think renaissance means?”*]
Mr. Waffle: But before that the flame of civilisation was kept alive by monks on a tiny island. Do you know where that was?
Children in chorus: Ireland.
Mr. Waffle: That’s right and there’s a story about how Charlemagne the great Emperor wanted to know about solar eclipses and an Irish monk had to explain it to him.
Herself (slightly sourly): And only look at us now.
*Is it any wonder my poor children tend to wander away from the table over dinner?