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Archives for April 2019

Tourism

27 April, 2019
Posted in: Family, Travel

Tuesday, April 16

Regular readers will recall that herself spent three months in Tours before Christmas. Many months ago, we booked to spend a week in Tours at Easter. Serious first world problem alert – but to be honest, it was probably a bit close to our week skiing and it felt like we had only unpacked and we were packing up to head off again. Due to various commitments on my part this is the first weekend I’ve spent at home since early March (I’d say you’re delighted I’m spending it updating the old blog, go on, you know you are) and I would say I possibly over-scheduled myself.

Anyhow, we packed like pros and took ourselves off to the airport in very good time due to Mr. Waffle’s extreme punctuality. We were all a bit ratty as we found ourselves in the airport with two and a half hours to spare but never mind it’s better than being late, I suppose.

As we went through security, I tossed my jacket on top of the tray which my firstborn had selected for her gear and she looked at me in horror. “Have you not seen the instructions? When I went through Charles de Gaulle last, the security man said to me ‘Parfait, c’est juste comme il faut’ and he was pretty irate as well because the people from Honduras who went through before me were not on top of the security arrangements. You are ruining my reputation Madame ‘manteau sur sac’.” Was it for this etc?

The flight was uneventful and we got the train from Charles de Gaulle direct to Tours which was a fantastic service. Our Airbnb hosts met us at the station. When we stay places in France we often end up in places that are slightly bohemian and Michael looked around the Airbnb and said, “Why do we always stay in the same place in France?” I knew what he meant. I suppose it’s a combination of wanting the children to have a bedroom each and not wanting to spend the earth.

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Relying on herself for suggestions, we had dinner in a Brasserie in Tours and a nighttime wander. It’s a really attractive small city.

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Herself having a better time than her expression might make you think; Michael getting good value from the skiing gloves.

Wednesday, April 17

There was a small market in the local park and I spent the morning poking around there and the local Intermarché. Don’t judge. We got the bus into town and went to Place Plumereau which is the centre of the old town where our hosts had warned us not to buy food due to the extortionate prices but we were tourists so we said to hell with it. The weather was beautiful. There seemed to be lots of French people, perhaps tourists, but very few non francophone tourists and there was little danger of people speaking English to us which is unusual in France these days, I find.

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We dutifully checked out the cathedral which had particularly impressive 13th century stained glass but the children were resolutely unimpressed.

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We then took ourselves home for dinner. After dinner I was sitting near the open door reading when something caught my eye. Was that a sparrow or some other bird hopping near the pot plant across the room? It was not, it was a rat. In what was, arguably, not my finest hour, I ran squealing from the room and up the stairs where I locked myself in my bedroom. Shortly afterwards, I heard noises from the living room where I had inadvertently locked in the children and Mr. Waffle with the rat. I let herself out. “How is it down there?” I asked as we cowered on the bed. “Well,” she said, “when you screamed ‘rat, rat’ the boys and I jumped up on chairs in the kitchen like in ‘Dead Poets Society’ and Daddy started thwacking the rat with the brush trying to get it out the door and it was jumping and squealing.” Not great then.

In time we all made our way back down to the open plan kitchen/living room to be greeted by a pretty annoyed Mr. Waffle who pointed out that I was useless and a bad example to the children to boot. While accepting this completely, I wanted to know where the rat was. “It was a mouse,” said Mr. Waffle and, addressing herself, “sorry miss, it ran into your bedroom but, in a house with two cats, it’s bound to be gone shortly one way or the other.” Herself, unwilling to face ratty alone, swapped bedrooms with Mr. Waffle and me and all night I heard the rat/mouse scrabbling in the walls which was, frankly, not restful.

Thursday, April 18

We decided to leave ratland behind and hire a car to visit Chenonceau a beautiful chateau in the Loire valley which I had visited with my family some 35 years before and where herself assured us there was an excellent restaurant. It was not to be. There was not a car to be hired anywhere in the Touraine. Top tip, if you’re going to Tours for Easter, book your hire car in advance.

So after a vain morning calling increasingly distant car hire locations we went back into Tours and visited the Musée des Beaux Arts which was appealing in a small regional museum kind of way but stiflingly warm.

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Then we went for a walk around the streets of the old town and I tried to buy a Lapsang equivalent in a tea shop and they had hardly any left so gave me what they had for free which filled me with, possibly excessive, joy. However, overall there was a certain amount of wilting in the heat and we took ourselves willingly back to the house for dinner and I laid myself down on my bed with a migraine like a 19th century damsel.

Herself bravely decided to go back to her own room for the night.

Friday, April 19

Herself confirmed, gloomily, that she had heard the pitter patter of little paws in the night. Her father stood by his position that it was a mouse.

Herself and myself went to the pharmacist in the square to buy suncream. He looked at us in utter bafflement, “But it’s April.” He had no suncream. We left and he came running after us with two tiny little samples, “Pour vous dépanner pour aujourd’hui.” Unpopular opinion, as the kids say, French people are really nice.

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This top from ‘Jennyfer’ would argue that they are not entirely unaware of their reputation, however.

I went to the Tabac to pick up the paper and had a proud moment speaking to the man behind the counter who asked incredulously whether I was really Irish. Hard to know whether this is an indictment of the language skills of Irish people in general or praise of my abilities in particular. Let’s go with the latter.

We went for lunch with the host family where herself had stayed for 3 months. They were really lovely. They lived in the sunny northern suburbs whereas we were in the distant urban southern suburbs so it was a bit of a trek to get there. But worth the effort and they gave us a lift home. I had been slightly in the horrors that the boys would refuse to eat anything but they were really good and made an effort to try lots of things and actually ate a reasonable amount. It’s like the end of an era but in a really good way.

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When we got home, we turned to the train timetable to see about getting the train to Chenonceau the next day being unwilling to renounce our dream of seeing at least one castle while in the Loire valley. I said bracingly to the troops, “There’s a train at 9.10 and then the train back is at 4.36, we can spend the day there.” I met with outright mutiny with Mr. Waffle leading the charge. There was a general feeling that a whole sweltering day in the castle might not be for us and, added, Mr. Waffle, “Suppose that the restaurant can’t take us, we’ll be trapped with no hope of lunch.”

Saturday, 20 April

There was a larger market in our little square which I inspected in some detail and picked up ingredients for a picnic. We went to one of the islands on the Seine (Île Simon). We carried our picnic in a tasteful and authentic wicker basket taken from the French people’s house. Let the record show that these are awkward and heavy to carry. I’ve gone right off the idea of acquiring one. The island, however, was a delight. The children paddled in the Loire and wandered around happily. We sat in the shade of the trees and listened to the bagpipe music coming from the bandstand (yes, really, why? couldn’t say).

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With our considerably lighter (though still not a negligible weight) basket we wandered into Place Plumereau and had a drink and then saw the Basilica of Saint Martin (quite the famous Catholic saint) and went to the Monoprix. I love the Monoprix. Sad, but there it is. Herself peeled off and went to the contemporary art museum but none of the rest of us could quite face it.

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When we got home, we had lasagna for dinner and Michael startled me by eating absolutely loads of it, where will this end? Daniel also startled all of us by hurtling out of the bathroom at high speed shouting, “There’s a rat in there!” “A mouse,” said Mr. Waffle adding gloomily, “those cats are absolutely useless.” We tried to get the rodent out to the garden using a chicane but it wisely retreated to its lair in the walls.

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Herself disseminated a quiz to us all called rat or mouse: Michael got 8/12, Daniel and I got 9/12 and herself got 10/12 but Mr. Waffle got 11/12. Maybe it was a mouse after all.

Easter Sunday, 21 April

I had announced early in our stay that we would be going to mass in the cathedral on Easter Sunday. The children were resigned. In the morning we left at 10.45 and I thought we were in good time as mass started at 11.30. It did not, it started at 11 and we were 15 minutes late. I was very annoyed. The church was absolutely packed and we had to stand in a side aisle. All of the children said they had never seen a fuller church in their lives. As mass went on, and on, I began to regret less and less that we had been 15 minutes late. It was nearly 1 when we emerged blinking in the sunlight.

We went to a nasty Italian restaurant for lunch (it looked fine, but it really was not). Then herself went off to meet her friends from Tours and Mr. Waffle and the boys and I visited the Natural History museum; small but alright. Then we went to an escape room. This was a huge success. We all really enjoyed it. Although the boys were very keen, I was pretty dubious in advance but it was great and really well organised. The boys are very keen to try something similar in Dublin. We will see.

We then met herself in the Brasserie near our tram stop and had a last drink. No sooner had we got on the tram than I realised that I had yet again been outfoxed by the arcane and complex ticketing system. “I’ll have to get off and buy a ticket, you stay on,” I said. Happily a bus arrived shortly afterwards which saw me home a good 20 minutes before the others, I was smug.

After the children went to bed, Mr. Waffle and I stayed up reading for a while. He went to feed the cats and I heard him say, “Feck it!” with feeling. There, dead, stretched out by the cat bowl was the body of the offending rodent. I took a picture. Everyone I have shown it to says it’s a rat. Feel free to weigh in.

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Monday, April 22

It’s basically deathly quiet in Tours on Easter Monday. Even the local boulangeries were closed. We were forced to eat croissants from the Intermarché*. We spent the morning tidying up and then our hosts gave us a lift to Tours airport which is tiny and no place to spend ages waiting for a delayed Ryanair flight but theoretically very handy.

We were delighted to be home even though some of us had to clear up dried up cat vomit from the stairs.

Would we go back? Yes, definitely. Would we stay in the same Airbnb? Probably not.

*Sometimes I think I might be beyond parody. Would you tell me if this were the case?

Wedding!

14 April, 2019
Posted in: Boys, Daniel, Ireland, Michael, Princess, Travel

So, my oldest friend, M, got married yesterday. Our parents were friends and she is a year older than me so I have known her since I was born – 50 years ago as regular readers will be aware.

I haven’t been to a wedding in a while – I’m waiting for my friends’ children to start getting married – and I did enjoy it. I described M’s father’s funeral last year. It was sad that he wasn’t there as he would have hugely enjoyed it all and made a great speech to boot.

The wedding was in Bantry House which was lovely but absolutely freezing – consider yourself warned. I spent much of the evening crouched by various fires. When it came to dinner in the huge dining room (possibly originally a ball room) one of the other guests who was sitting near me had both a shawl and a poncho and lent me the latter: she was a Bulgarian and many years of living in Ireland appears to have given her little confidence in Irish people’s ability to heat their houses. This was fortunate for me.

The wedding brought a range of visitors from far flung places including Argentina, Canada, Vietnam and Brazil. The bride’s cousins had come from England. I hadn’t met them since we were all little girls and I confided to these grown up, sophisticated English women that I had regarded them with great bitterness when I was a child as, for weeks before they came to visit M spoke of little else and I was terrified of being usurped. They were a bit nonplussed for a moment and then started to apologise. Honestly, English people can be truly charming.

Notwithstanding its freezing nature, I loved, loved, loved the venue. I’m not sure why but I’ve never been to Bantry before. Bantry House is a delight and as wedding guests we were free to wander around and inspect a number of the rooms which I enjoyed hugely. I am very keen to go back and stay in the B&B they run and have a tour of the house (will definitely bring my hot water bottle though).

The bride and groom were visibly delighted which made everyone cheerful. They picked their own readings for the ceremony, made their own vows had a friend officiate and another friend sang. I knew I would cry and came prepared with tissues.

Speech of the night came from the groom’s 17 year old son who was funny and touching. After dinner there was a great magician. Not words I ever thought I would utter but he was really entertaining.

The music was calculated to appeal to the mature audience. You have not lived until you have seen a 78 year old lady dancing very handily to “Love Cats” by the Cure (the bride’s aunt, since you ask – looks amazing and very on top of who everyone was “Oh,” she said to me, “I remember you, you used to come and play with M.” True.)

What was really nice as well was that Mr. Waffle and I had a weekend away – just the pair of us – for the first time in ages. On Saturday morning we wandered around Bantry delighted with ourselves and bought various crafty things including a large basket for turf which we carried back to the hotel between us looking as cool as you might imagine.

Herself was 16 on Friday (hold your breath for a long post on that milestone) and I felt a bit of a heel abandoning her but she wanted to stay in Dublin and Mr. Waffle’s wonderful sister had her to stay and showed her a good time. The boys stayed in Cork. My brother and sister looked after them and they seem to have had a great time also. A win all round, I hope.

Today was a bit of a long day. We left Bantry about 11, picked up the boys from Cork, stopped in Cashel for lunch about 2 (I was still full after a large breakfast and ordered the warm salad with bacon and black pudding – a plate heaped with lardons and almost a whole black pudding dowsed in salad dressing arrived, after some digging I found a solitary lettuce leaf cringing miserably at the bottom of the bowl – when they say bacon and black pudding in Tipperary, they mean it) and got home at about 4.30. Herself had been dropped home shortly beforehand by her loving aunt which was great. The cat had been sick on our bed and the rug which was less great.

How was your own weekend?

Not Dead Yet

10 April, 2019
Posted in: Mr. Waffle, Princess

Me: What’s that you’re singing?

Her: Jonas Brothers.

Me: Quizzical raised eyebrow.

Her: I know, weird right, they’re back together.

Mr. Waffle: Imagine, if you will, that your parents have never heard of the Jonas brothers.

Her: Really? But they were popular when you guys were alive.

Eldest Child

9 April, 2019
Posted in: Princess

Herself is very responsible. She was feeling a bit unwell the other day and she said, “I can’t be sick, I have so much to do.” I did sympathise.

She is the queen of committees and organising. She had to manage a cake sale after mass one Sunday. Her teacher and some fellow students were there. Her teacher asked her whether she would make an announcement that there was a cake sale after mass. “Does the priest know?” she asked. “No you just go up and tell him,” said the teacher. “During mass?” she asked shocked to the core of her being. “Yes,” said the teacher, “he won’t mind.” “He very much will,” said herself. She found some priestly acolyte and told her tale of woe and saw him telling the priest during the reading while the priest gave her the evil eye. “I’m going to go up at the end after communion” she told the teacher. It soon became abundantly clear that the teacher was a bit unsure as to where the end was as every time the congregation stood up, he would hiss to her, “Go up now, it’s ending now.” If you’ve ever been to mass, you know that standing up and sitting down again is part of the thrill. Eventually she said, “A mháistir, have you actually ever been to mass before? Leave it with me, my mother makes me go every Sunday, I know when it’s over.” She did.

She organised for a group of students and teachers from her school to go on the climate change march last month, much to the chagrin of her brother Michael, it has to be said, who would have preferred to be at basketball practice and peeled off as early as possible.

So on this evening she was sick, I knew she would have lots on and I asked what she had to do. “Well, I have to email my work experience to let them know that I won’t be in on Monday because I’m going to that school trust conference I helped organise; I have to prepare a presentation on climate change to give at the conference and it has to not overlap with R’s which will be difficult because when I thought she was doing the only presentation, I gave her all my material; I have to ring the principal of my primary school and agree to a date to go in and talk to the students about this charity we’re fundraising for; I have to do an essay on the hijab in French and an essay on the Rwandan genocide in Irish which is difficult because we watched a film in English and it’s always harder to write about something in Irish when you’ve learnt about it in English; I have an essay on American exceptionalism for my law and politics course; and I have to finalise my entry for the translation competition.”

“Goodness,” I said, “maybe you could drop the translation competition.” “Nope,” she said, “it’s a cash prize and I need the money.”

I told Mr. Waffle about her list of tasks. He said, “Does it strike you that our 15 year old daughter has a curiously adult to do list?” Certainly quite exhausting in any event. You will be pleased to hear that she was much better in the morning which, frankly, was just as well.


Ta da!

8 April, 2019
Posted in: Reading etc.

Admire the swish new interface of this blog, if you will.

This man has redone it for me so that it looks new and beautiful. I can recommend his services.

I trust my ongoing problems with Twitter links, elongated pictures and RSS feeds are now resolved. If not, let me know and I will talk further to my helpful tech support.

Gemütlichkeit – Part 2

6 April, 2019
Posted in: Family, Travel

Day 4 – Wednesday, March 20

The weather improved. It was a beautiful day.

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Emboldened by this Mr. Waffle and I decided to explore the resort a bit further; a decision we frankly regretted as we were exhausted by the end of the morning; had missed our regularly scheduled cup of tea; and inadvertently done a couple of red runs (not for us the daring of my nephew who completed a black run very handily as my brother-in-law showed us on his phone, it only occurred to me some time later that my brother-in-law, by far the best skier in the group, must have followed his son down at a fair old clip while filming. Frankly, the horror).

All three of the children meanwhile had a very successful morning at ski school and Dan’s knee was entirely recovered. My own knee was starting to act up a bit on foot of the unaccustomed exercise regime it was enjoying.

We had an expensive and slightly unsatisfactory lunch involving venison burgers.

The boys went back to the hotel but Mr. Waffle, herself and myself disported ourselves further. One advantage of our over-exertions in the morning was that we had discovered routes to a couple of other runs that were suitable for everyone. Herself was keen to try one which she thought she might go out on at night (that did not work out for a variety of reasons but none of them were to do with her enthusiasm levels which remained very high.)

After an afternoon of achievement we stopped for a well deserved cup of tea in the Austria Inn. The staff were a bit surly and when I asked whether we could order from them, one of them eyed me dubiously and said, “It would be easier if you ordered from the bar.” “Clearly for him yes but not for me,” I thought bitterly as I clumped out from the bar with tray of drinks.

As we sat enjoying our drinks, I saw a woman of slightly similar dimensions to my own edging her way precariously and quite gingerly to the ski lift as though she had never been on skis before. I noticed she had the same skis as me, “I bet those are the skis they rent out to mediocre fat lady skiers,” I said gloomily.

We finished up to be on time for the last lift back to our side of the mountain. “Where are my skis?” I said, looking anxiously at the carousel where we had left them. “There,” said Mr. Waffle. “They’re not my skis,” I said. “They must be, they’re the only set left.” I took them down and noticed they were stuck in the snow one ski up and one ski down. I looked again. I tried them on. The bindings fitted; they were similar in colour; they had the ski hire place name on them, but yet. Anyhow, there was no other way home, so off we trotted. On the lift I looked at them more closely and said, “I think fat lady took my skis.” The others laughed at me. But yet. When we got back to the ski locker, I checked photos from earlier in the week. Were they my skis, gentle reader? They were not.

Much grief and heartache ensued. It turned out that fat lady’s skis were ex-hire skis from the year before and I had to turn them in to the ski shop to hand over to the police. I then had to pay the ski shop €270. As herself said sympathetically, “It’s like having to buy skis without getting any skis.” Sigh.

Mr. Waffle and I trudged back to the Austria Inn to see whether my skis had been mysteriously returned but no.

The children meanwhile were having a great time. Before dinner, Daniel and Michael went swimming with their cousin J while all the girl cousins (nearly 16, nearly 11, nearly 2) hung out together. My children were unfeasibly excited by the discovery that they could charge drinks to their rooms. Late in the holiday was a good time for them to discover this.

Day 5 – Thursday, March 21

After sending off the children to ski school we went off to the police station to declare the lost skis. The policeman felt our claim was a lot of paperwork – what if the skis turned up (spoiler, they didn’t) – but we needed it for insurance so we insisted. “I bet this never happens!” I said in my best Leaving Cert German. “Every day of the week,” he said dourly. I had my PSC card with me which is not perhaps the most loved Irish piece of documentation and so far has only been useful to me for picking up parcels from the post office, but the Austrian policeman unbent visibly when he saw it and picked it up with a fond smile. Papers, what’s not to love?

We ran into my sister-in-law and baby S in a ski buggy which they got from the hotel and I had my most successful interaction ever with S by hiding behind a large glove puppet. It may not be a sustainable long term strategy for building our relationship.

We met the children after ski school and went up the cable car and had lunch at the top. We got some great photos with the Hollybough. I’m hopeful we’ll make the cut this Christmas. Just saying.

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Then we all skied back to the hotel together. We met with middling success. The top was a bit on the steep side and the descent was slow and careful but it picked up after a bit.

Michael and I went back to the hotel to recover after the arduous descent. Then I went out for a bit to a nice tame run with herself (who became unstoppable over the course of the week) and my sister-in-law.

Then back to the pool and dinner. The children played a complex card game which Michael had brought out to Austria from home. My niece G was so enthusiastic that I heard her ask Michael whether they could play again at breakfast. This, this is the core objective of family holidays; for your children to get a chance to play elaborate games with cousins who are, crucially, faster on the uptake and more enthusiastic than parents.

Day 6 – Friday, March 22

The boys got the bus to ski school but the Princess was keen to ski across and I accompanied her. Mr. Waffle joined me shortly afterwards and the pair of us did a bit of skiing near the children’s ski school and did a couple of new runs which was very pleasant. Then we had a nice cup of tea up the mountain and headed home to meet the children from ski school.

I got a text message from herself “I’m going to ski home from the top of the cable car lift, don’t panic.” I would have but I hardly had a chance as she arrived two minutes after the bus disgorging her brothers arrived.

We went for lunch across the road from the hotel in a related establishment where we should have gone sooner as it was handy and pleasant. In the afternoon the whole group, except for my sister-in-law who was confined to barracks minding little S, went and did some easy runs together. My brother-in-law took my nephew off to tackle a black run and while he was gone the two girls were keen to go on what they assured me was a straightforward red. As a grown-up I felt honour bound to go and check it out with them which, in retrospect, was a pity as only one person fell over on that run and it wasn’t either of them. Still the snow was soft and slushy and the only injury was to my dignity. My brother was skiing in France at the same time and he sent the photo below to cheer me. It was effective. I have to say, I would love if he could come with us next time we go because even though he drives me crazy, he’s great fun on holidays and he’d be able to keep up with the children who are going to be far better than Mr. Waffle and me very soon.

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So, on to our last dinner. I was sad. More particularly so when I discovered that we had lingered so long over dessert that the cheese buffet which I had loved every other evening had been put away. Oh the cheese buffet.

Last Day – Saturday, 23 March

Departure day. We were up at 7 which wasn’t too awful. We had one last lovely breakfast in the hotel and then an hour and a bit to Salzburg and then we shunted ourselves on to different flights along with hundreds of other Irish people (the airport was full of Irish people many of whom knew each other including a friend of my brother-in-law who had fallen two days before and was operated on the day before and was sitting on a wheelchair waiting to be wheeled on to a Ryanair flight. Grim.)

So would I do it again? Like a shot; it was great. Are my knees convinced this is wise? Not entirely. Will I be saving up to pay for it? All year.


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