belgianwaffle

Archives for November 2025

Back in the Saddle


Posted in: Dublin, Ireland

Is it November? It is.

Am I going to post every day? Yes, I am.

Is NaBloPoMo still a thing? Who can say – but it will be here.

While gearing yourself up for a month of fascinating content, do please admire my festive Halloween decor.

By night:

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By day:

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And will we have a close up of the autumn wreath that I made myself using a hanger, ribbons, leaves and cuttings from the garden? Yes, yes, I think we will. To be honest, it made for a stressful week as it had to be regularly refreshed with leaves from the garden as the old ones wilted or blew away but I felt very crafty, as is seasonally appropriate.

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I had cute little pumpkin nightlights and my entire decorative gourd collection on the mantelpiece last night and I was extremely pleased. Sadly it did not photograph well due to glare from 12 nightlights (judge away) so you will just have to imagine gourd perfection. May I yet again refer you to this article which is now an essential element of the season and describes my sentiments admirably.

The Month of the Dead: Life is not Ended but Changed


Posted in: Cork, Family, Ireland

The priest appeared on the altar today resplendent in gold. “What feast is it?” I wondered to myself. All souls, of course. We prayed for all the dead relatives of whom, at my age, I now have more than enough. And I thought about our gardener when I was a child, Michael Lyons, who didn’t have any family of his own (in retrospect, surely he must have had but he was unmarried and lived in quite spartan conditions in a small cottage with a Jack Russell) and was one of the kindest people I have ever known, very gentle and infinitely patient with young children running in the vegetable garden. As Terry Pratchett once put it succinctly doubtless inspired by others “Do you not know that a man is not dead as long as his name is still spoken?” This is a lovely piece from the Irish Times on that very subject by the theatre director Garry Hynes which I first read when it was published in 2017 and which has really stayed with me.

I’m Hilarious


Posted in: Middle Child, Mr. Waffle, Reading etc., Twins, Youngest Child

The weather has been really mild this winter (oh dear). I came home slightly sweaty after a winter cycle into town which surely shouldn’t be a thing. I commented that all of the shops now have their Christmas stuff out and it feels like Christmas stuff can be flogged at any time of year. “In fact,” I said struck by a stroke of genius, “it’s always Christmas and never winter.” Literally no one in my family found this as brilliant as I did. I offer it therefore to this audience which I can only hope is more discerning.

Sigh


Posted in: Work

I have had a tedious evening of work calls. I have a trying day before me tomorrow (not unrelated to my evening of calls) and as I sit down to watch the bake off final, I realised that I had forgotten NaBloPoMo. This is all I’ve got this evening, I’m afraid, and even this is only because day 4 seemed a bit early to throw in the towel on the daily blogging.

I’m Hilarious (Part 2)


Posted in: Middle Child, Twins

Our theoretical physics student: I have to do an assignment on classical field theory.

Me (hilariously): Oh I prefer the modern stuff.

Mr. Waffle (unwisely): What’s that?

TP student: Basically, electro and magneto statics and dynamics*

Me: Actually, I liked it better before it went electric.

Thank you and good night.

*Or words to that effect – electric definitely came in there somewhere.

Scandi*


Posted in: Mr. Waffle

I got one of those cute Icelandic type jumpers and I love it. On the minus side, Mr. Waffle has started calling me Anna Danielsdottir (picture below) in a sing-song voice when I wear it.

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In other news, as long as work continues to be hideous, these posts will continue to be brief. I do hope next week will be better.

*If Iceland is not Scandinavia (and I sense that it is not), feel free to correct me in the comments. It’s been that kind of day.