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Archives for December 2014

Christmas Round-Up

26 December, 2014
Posted in: Dublin, Family, Ireland, Princess

On Christmas Eve, we went to midnight mass which starts at 9. Baffling, I know. The Princess had to sing a solo and carry the baby Jesus to the crib. Before doing the latter she had to hold him up for the congregation to view and part of me was very afraid that the porcelain baby Jesus would tumble on to the steps of the altar and break but, mercifully, no.

Christmas Day itself passed off peacefully, you will be pleased to hear. We had various in-laws for dinner and it was all very pleasant. We played some games after dinner with varying degrees of success. Least successful was “Articulate” where due to a lack of attention during team formation, the three adult men in the room were put playing together and wiped the floor with the rest of us. The object of the game is to describe a word which your team mates try to guess. My own personal triumph was when Michael, who was playing with me, said, “They used to oppress us!” “England!” I shouted triumphantly pointing at my sister-in-law’s husband who is English but is not personally responsible for 800 years of oppression etc and is, on the contrary, a charming dinner guest. The answer turned out to be “Europe”. Clearly, the anti-troika rhetoric has had an impact on Michael. After the less than happy “Articulate” experience, we played a charades type game which involved holding the Princess’s Christmas phone up to your forehead. Oh yes, she got a phone from Santa and is very pleased.

Finally we passed to playing cards where the London contingent cleaned up and between them won pretty much everything – they had complementary skills. They made up for this by inspecting several Minecraft worlds which the children had created with every appearance of interest.

Today we went for our now traditional St. Stephen’s Day orienteering trip in the Dublin mountains. Although Christmas Day was beautiful, even when we set out this morning it was overcast and shortly after leaving home it began to rain and expanding on that theme it rained more and more heavily. We got there and we ran through the mud. The children were pretty cheerful considering that they got their feet wet and were frozen.

2014-12-26 11.51.18

I think we have had pretty bad luck with the weather at this event given that it almost never rains in Dublin. Really. Cork, now in Cork, it rains. Speaking of which, we are off to Cork tomorrow so fine weather beckons. I wonder whether they might like left over turkey.

And how was your own Christmas?

Where There’s Muck, There’s Brass

22 December, 2014
Posted in: Reading etc.

Do you remember that I mentioned my obsession with brass polishing? And that I was nervous about tackling the fender? Well, the month of December has seen me turn my attention to this particular labour of love.

I would like you to know that shining a brass fender is a deeply rewarding activity. Also I would have made a fantastic scullery maid.

2014-12-09 11.11.49

Cultural Differences

21 December, 2014
Posted in: Siblings, Travel

One of my sister’s best friends has married a Swede and moved to Sweden. One evening she found herself explaining the concept of the draught excluder to a group of his friends. They were absolutely baffled by the idea. After a long silence one of them asked, “Why don’t you build proper houses?”

Alas.

The End of the Recession

20 December, 2014
Posted in: Dublin, Ireland

I went for afternoon tea with some friends in early December. One of our number had been deputed in October to book us in to the Westbury in town. No dice, the Westbury was booked out for afternoon tea as were the Shelbourne and the Merrion [in October!]. We eventually got the last seats in the house in the Four Seasons in Ballsbridge. When we arrived it was heaving. Afternoon tea was pleasant but prices began from an eye-watering €38. And there was no shortage of takers.

Gasp, frankly.

Questionable Wisdom

19 December, 2014
Posted in: Dublin, Ireland, Princess

They had a Christmas quiz, in English, in the Princess’s class. One of the questions was, “What did the wise men bring to the baby Jesus?” Mostly, the answers the teams came up with were the standard ones: gold, frankincense and myrrh. One table, however, came up with “gold frankincense and fingers”. If you speak Irish no further clues are available as to why they reached the unlikely conclusion that the baby Jesus received a gift of fingers.

If you do not, you should know that the Irish for gold, frankincense and myrrh is ór, frankincense agus myrhh [our celtic ancestors, I suppose, not having much experience of or need for the last items, there are no particular Irish words for them]. The Irish word for finger is méar. Do you see where we are coming from here?

Christmas Disasters

18 December, 2014
Posted in: Family, Princess

The other day the Princess and I were working on the composition of a poem about the Titanic [do they learn anything in school but information about the Titanic? All three of my children have far more information about it than might be thought necessary for a generalist] when an unpleasant smell assaulted my nostrils and I was off to the kitchen like a coursing hare leaving the Titanic to fend for itself (insert your own joke here).

Not only had the pot in which I was gently steaming my plum pudding boiled dry but the metal steamer on which the pudding bowl was sitting had lost a leg and the plastic at the bottom of the bowl had melted through the holes in the steamer rendering pot, steamer and pudding a lost cause.

I made cranberry and orange sauce and gave my sister a jar to take back to Cork. She packed it carefully with a camel coloured coat. Do I need to say that the jar lost its lid? I think not.

On the plus side, the teacher was taken with the Princess’s poem on the Titanic and stuck it up on the wall of the classroom.

Share your own mild Christmas disasters. Please.

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