belgianwaffle

Archives for October 2019

Where to Begin?


Posted in: Boys, Daniel, Ireland, Michael

It’s been a busy time. The boys turned 14 on September 27. That’s a lot of candles.

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Birthday posts will follow describing them at 14. Something for you to look forward to. We took them and five of their friends to Kildare (for which we had to hire a spare car, I couldn’t quite face the bus with seven teenagers) to play a game where they run around and pretend to shoot each other.

When we got to Kildare, all of them went into what was basically an enormous shed. There were lots of men of all ages sitting inside, dressed in military clothing. I thought they looked a bit daft but, I suppose if they’re enjoying themselves, what harm? And all to the good for the boys’ friend’s uncles who run the place.

We were encouraged to leave and go to Kildare village (outlet shopping about which I have mixed views) but when we got there, it was absolutely heaving so we went to the Japanese Gardens and National Stud instead. I had previously believed these to be two different attractions but in fact the man who left the Stud to a grateful nation also had an interest in gardening and brought in a man from Japan to lay out the garden. Surprising.

So it was, as Johnson said about the Giant’s Causeway apparently, worth seeing but not worth going to see. I mean it was a nice way for us to while away an afternoon but I’m not sure I would have been delighted to have driven down from Dublin specially. The stud features a (very mildly) interesting museum including Arkle’s skeleton:

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Somewhat surprising. We got to wander around and look at the horses. Most expensive was Invincible Spirit. It costs €120,000 to have your mare covered by him and he looked suitably pleased with himself hanging around the fence with his coat on:

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It was more fun going around and looking at the younger horses who came up and had a good look at us, let us give them a rub and then kicked up their heels and galloped around the field.

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The Japanese Gardens were also appealing in a not-extensive kind of way.

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Then we just had time for a nice cup of tea before going back to rescue the boys. The place was full of young families and I felt a bit old and more than a bit smug as I strolled around unencumbered by prams or tantrums.

The boys had had a great time shooting at each other and they were sweaty but cheerful as we drove them back to Dublin. A great success all round. I have to tell you, I am loving the teenage years.

The Perils of New Technology


Posted in: Boys, Daniel, Family, Ireland, Michael, Princess

Between her very demanding social life and the number of essays a cruel and unyielding school system makes her produce every weekend these days, herself hasn’t been on very many weekend outings with us of late. I think she regards this as the silver lining to the essay cloud.

A couple of Sundays ago, the boys, Mr. Waffle and I climbed the Sugar Loaf (the boys were up and down in about 45 minutes and I panted up and down gracelessly in about an hour and a half, alas – you may insert your own ‘unfit parent’ quip here). Herself was at home. We enjoyed the view and then headed back to the car to get the obligatory cup of tea.

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On our way back in to Enniskerry, I noticed I still had the Princess’s spotify app on my phone (briefly installed in a moment of crisis). “Let’s put on the family playlist,” I said gleefully. No sooner did I have it on than my phone started ringing but due to the mountains, reception was poor. It was some time before herself got through to convey this somewhat irate message, “Spotify plays on all devices simultaneously and I am going to take that app off your phone when you get home!” Apparently she was blamelessly doing her essays when a variety of family favourites started blaring out from her phone. Not delighted.

Big in Japan


Posted in: Siblings

My brother went to Japan for the rugby world cup. He seems to be really enjoying himself notwithstanding Ireland’s less than stellar performance. He’s filling me with envy with his pictures of Mount Fuji, his tales of cycling along the world’s ninth longest suspension bridge (weirdly specific); and, most surprisingly of all his visits to Japanese gardens. Who would have thought?

More Middle Aged Thrills


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

Mr. Waffle and I took ourselves to an auction room to look for an oval kitchen table. We were not successful in finding that but we had a great time poking around and saw six very nice chairs. “Will we bid for them?” he asked. I decided not, we needed time to get used to the brave new world of auction furniture purchasing (I haven’t been to an auction since I was a small girl and went with my mother and sat perfectly still as she assured me that if I moved, I might buy something accidentally). Though I did discover on discussing with my bookclub members that many, many of them are keen auction goers. Who knew?

Anyhow, Mr. Waffle was fired up and registered himself to watch the auction online and looked at what all the items made (close to the lower end of the reserve, excitingly) and also, inadvertently, bought the six chairs; he was really only experimenting with the interface. But happily they were great value (€200 for six mahogany chairs, where would you be going etc.) and I am delighted with them though still a bit surprised to be plus six chairs which is actually quite a lot of chairs.

Unrelated to the above but very much one of the perils of middle age, I have been made treasurer of the parents’ council having refused to do chair and secretary, my back was against the wall. I am in the horrors. Mr. Waffle points out that at one stage I managed quite a large budget at work but I was forced to point out that an accountant managed the budget while I made lofty strategic decisions which at no point required me to actually do any accounting. I doubt whether that will wash with the parents’ council.

Miscellaneous Cultural Adventures


Posted in: Cork, Dublin, Ireland, Reading etc.

We went out on the town on Culture Night. It was only somewhat successful. We visited the Mansion House and the Royal Irish Academy which were both fine in their way – beautiful buildings with interesting contents – but as we’ve been to both of them before, we were resolutely underwhelmed. I dare say there are fresh things to see on every visit but we did not appreciate them as we ought.

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Probably a highlight of the evening was meeting a misfortunate teacher from the children’s school who was out with her fiancé and not entirely delighted to meet students and their parents in the wild. She left after a quick hello hauling her young man behind her at speed. Who would be a teacher?

It was also the theatre festival and the Dublin fringe festival. We went to see the comedian Alison Spittle in the Fringe. I was unamused but the venue was Dublin Castle chapel royal which was nice to be inside, so there was that.

We went with my in-laws and their friends from London to one of the worst plays I have seen in years. It was called “The Bluffer’s Guide to Suburbia” and the premise was musician who fails in London moves back to Dublin suburbia. Promising I felt. It resolutely failed to live up to the promise of the billing and although I fell asleep half way through and was spared some of the worst, I was quite mortified to have brought everyone there. The English visitors were very nice about it (there was no question but that it was dreadful

The following evening we had tickets for a play called “The Alternative”. The theatre festival is a cruel mistress. We were bringing the children and I was afraid. The premise of the play was that Ireland had never split from the UK and we were now having a present day independence referendum like the one they had in Scotland a couple of years ago. It was so good. We all loved it. It was clever and funny and inventive. The best thing I have seen in years. The children noticed the new deputy principal in the audience but we not to frighten another member of staff at a cultural event and nodded from a distance rather than approaching more closely.

In the visual arts, I forked out €15 to see the Sorolla exhibition in the National Gallery. I had never heard of him before; he’s a Spanish impressionist. I mean, fine, but I was not overly impressed, some nice interesting paintings but overall, I didn’t feel excited or delighted to have visited. In contrast the free Bauhaus exhibition in the print gallery upstairs is outstanding and well worth your time. I was also pretty impressed by the finalists in the National portrait competition which are on temporary exhibition at the moment. The Crawford in Cork is showing an exhibition about children called “Seen not Heard” around the theme of childhood and that’s pretty good. A smaller exhibition upstairs of the works that the Gibson bequest committee bought during the Emergency (known as World War II elsewhere) I found less impressive. One or two things I quite liked but overall, not the finest moment in Cork art collecting.

Herself meanwhile had been invited by a friend to hear Oscar Wilde’s grandson reading his poetry at the Abbey but had to turn down the invitation as she had too much homework. Alas.

Anniversary


Posted in: Mr. Waffle

Today is the first anniversary of my father-in-law’s death. Mr. Waffle’s uncle and aunt booked some tables in my father-in-law’s favourite local pub and the extended family went out to dinner which he would really have liked.

Usually people have a mass, but I don’t think he would have enjoyed that half as much, as I said to herself, “He wasn’t particularly religious.” And as she pointed out to me, “Only in Ireland can someone who was a weekly mass goer be described as not having been particularly religious.”

Anyway, it was nice to think of him and to see everyone and to tell stories about what he was like.