He came – after all these years. As I write one of the Dublin based children is still in bed, so possibly excitement levels are not what they once were. But look, it’s the thought that counts!
I guess it’s a long time since 2006.
Saint Nicolas
Belgium
A Trip to the Ardennes
While I have been away from my desk, I have not been idle. I have been away many times. Are you going to hear about all these trips? Yes, yes you are.
Nearly 20 years ago I worked with a lovely group of people in Brussels and we have stayed in touch intermittently over the years despite the obvious geographical obstacles. We have gone on weekends away a number of times since we stopped working together but not since Covid and this year we decided to go again. I felt mild trepidation as the Brussels gang had stayed in better touch but I bit the bullet. This turned out to be an excellent decision.
Friday – May 2, 2025
Given the preponderance of our number still in Brussels, we went to the Ardennes. I have never been (Mr. Waffle to me: you have, we have been together more than once) that I can recall. It’s the hilly part of Belgium; though the photographs you will enjoy in the course of this post may make you question that assertion.
The advantage of going to somewhere many people are based is that it is pretty seamless. I was picked up at the airport by one friend and her partner (object of much interest to me as although a long standing fixture for her he was new to me and I had the whole trip to the Ardennes to cross-question him; I enjoyed, he bore up). Brussels airport appears to only allow set down not collection so I was instructed to follow the arrows backwards to the set down area. This worked much more efficiently than I had expected. It had a delightfully Belgian surrealist touch which I enjoyed.
When we got down to the village where we were staying it was evening. This was not a problem as fairy hands had made dinner (one of our number was once a chef, should be a pre-requisite for every friend group) and picked up bedlinen (more of which anon) and opened up the house. It was so much fun to catch up with everyone. I was delighted with myself.
The house was really cheap so I wasn’t expecting much but it was absolutely lovely. Slightly “L’empire des lumières” vibes below, appropriately.
Two of the group were staying about 45 minutes walk away and they had to put on head torches at the end of the night and head off into the pitch dark (uber has not made it to the Ardennes, it appears). It seemed a bit unfair that they were the ones who had made dinner but life is a vale of tears etc.
Saturday – May 3, 2025
We went for a walk. Walking is what you do in the Ardennes. The weather forecast was not great. Our prudent Northern Ireland Protestant (you think these things are not sectarian? so wrong) was appalled to find that I had apparently left my coat at the airport; our English friend had forgotten his coat on the train; and our Anglo-Dutch friend had left hers behind. The Pole basically said, “I don’t care about rain so I haven’t got a coat.” “You couldn’t make it up,” said our Northern friend in despair. She and her French partner were fully kitted up. I was glad that they had been largely in charge of importing our food for the weekend. The rest of us were clearly not to be trusted. Might I mention that she also brought tupperware and dishwasher tablets in a tupperware box (if that’s not meeting my stereotype needs, then what is?). All of these items proved extremely useful.
We started out and the weather was grand actually. Our Anglo-Dutch partner in crime had a spare sun hat (normally she is very well organised as you would stereotypically expect, I must point out, but the coat was a lapse) and I slapped it on and off we went.
We walked to the scenic little town of Durbuy. I have never seen so many Dutch tourists in my life. But it was pretty adorable. Would 100% go back.
Our Northern Irish French couple had been there a couple of years ago with her parents. Her partner had inadvertently closed the convertible roof of their car on her father’s hand just as they were setting off from Brussels. Mr. French smoothly turned off the motorway and drove straight to the hospital nearby showing great presence of mind. This was particularly so as Ms. Northern Ireland said she had never before in her life heard her stoic Northern father make a sound like that – a kind of continuous keening moan as described to her riveted audience. It was hardly an auspicious beginning to their weekend away. I can’t help feeling that her father was thinking “This would never have happened, if she’d met a nice man from the local rugby club at home.” Not least because no one in their right mind would own a convertible anywhere on the island of Ireland. However it was a bit of a triumph for Belgium, as the hospital fixed him up in no time; sent him on his way; and he and Mr. French were having a beer at this very spot by late afternoon.
All was well until we were returning to the house when the heavens opened. It was the kind of torrential rain that gets you coming down and then hits you again as it bounces off the pavement. We were in the middle of the country but as extraordinary good luck would have it we were beside the only cafe for miles around. It was more of a truck and some large canopies but any port in a storm. It was kind of alarming when the rain sloshed in sheets to the ground but we remained dry and cozy with the truck owner doling out blankets.
There was talk of sending one of the two people with coats to the house to pick up the car and ferry us back when, miraculously, the rain eased and we scuttled back to the house. Delighted with ourselves.
Dinner that evening was a barbecue. You see our difficulty. The people with the rain gear bore the brunt of the outside work. This prudence lark has its downsides.
Dinner was great and, obviously, pretty dry for me. We had so much fun chatting. I really like this group singly and together which is a great formula for going away. I often think you never know whether you are really friends with people you meet at work until you leave a job and see whether you want to see people again.
I don’t know how this came up in the course of conversation but my Polish friend referred to when Jesus was in the Olive Garden. I was somewhat startled and then said, “Oh you mean the Mountain of Olives – the garden of Gethsemane”. “Isn’t it the same?” he asked. Well, it is and it isn’t.
Sunday – May 4, 2025
Again we enjoyed a very elaborate breakfast – brought to the Ardennes by the kindly Brussels contingent.
We went to have a look at some dolmens. The area abounds in megaliths. Honestly, who knew?
On the way to our megaliths we were serenaded by lorries playing hits – it sounded like from their horns? – some kind of protest perhaps? It was somehow a very Belgian experience.
Two of the group had to leave as work beckoned. Alas. The rest of us went to seek an elaborate lunch in a nice restaurant but were cruelly refused by the owners and ended up having a toasted sandwich in the “Maison des Megaliths” interpretative centre. I mean, ok, I guess. At least we had each other. And the setting was scenic.
We went back to the main house via the smaller place where two of the group were staying. It was in a kind of holiday chalet park; not terrible but not at all as nice as the main house, I fear. The boys in the chalet seemed resigned to their fate which also involved traipsing up to the main house where all the action was. I have to say they were extremely noble.
Monday – May 5, 2025
My Anglo-Dutch friend and I remained in the big house to shut it up. This entire holiday weekend seemed designed to shield me from any hassle and so it was in this regard too as my friend had booked and paid the deposit so she was, understandably, the most concerned about the ludicrous instructions on cleaning and packing up the house. Behold price list for same. We were never going to be bringing the bedding back (which we had already paid to hire) as we were miles from head office and our only car was back in Brussels. I was not feeling the love. Though overall, even allowing for charges, in terms of quality/value ratio it’s one of the best places I’ve ever stayed, I somehow found this pretty off-putting.
As I packed my bag and double checked I had everything, I noticed that there was a zipped compartment I had not opened earlier. Well, well, well, what have we here? An idiot, that’s what.
After we packed we took ourselves off to the train station and the remaining four of us went to Brussels to together. One of the things I had forgotten about Belgium is how excellent the train service is. We were in the middle of nowhere on a bank holiday Monday and it was literally no trouble at all to get a train back to Brussels.
We changed trains in Liège, a city about the size of Cork. Can I tell you that Kent station Cork is very much not like the train station in Liège? I mean, not everything is perfect but still.
When we got to Brussels, I stopped off in the city centre for a couple of hours before going to the airport. I haven’t been to Brussels in ages and I had forgotten how fond of it I am.
Since I was last there, they have pedestrianised Boulevard Anspach and Place De Brouckère which used to be a wide traffic choked road with four lanes of cars. I thought it was amazing and deeply improbable. I am thrilled to see that Dublin city council are using it for inspiration for its work on pedestrianising College Green in the centre of the city (long promised but still not with us). We will see.
Many years ago, when I lived in Brussels in my 20s and my father was still coming to Brussels for work, he would take me to dinner. We would go for a drink in the Metropole hotel on Place De Brouckère (currently shrouded in scaffolding) and dinner in a very down at heel steak chain nearby called the Western Steak which he loved. I was pleased to see that amidst all the new developments, its successor in title survives right beside that legendary establishment “Hector Chicken” formerly Hector Poulet but I guess he’s gone international now.
I am keen to repeat the dose of a weekend away with this gang next year. Let us hope that they are equally enthusiastic.
Did I Not Dance With You in Brabant Once?*
I was at a round table event during the week. I was introduced to the chair and we looked at each other for a bit and I said, “Did I last meet you in an escape room?” I had. He is a buddy of my sister’s partner and we all went to an escape room for his (sister’s partner’s) birthday last year (look, it takes all kinds).
As I looked around the room there was another man who looked familiar. During a break in proceedings I asked him, “Were you by any chance working in [place] in Brussels in November 1998?” He confirmed – looking a bit puzzled, I have to say – that he was. “You were sitting beside me at dinner the night I met my husband,” I said to him. He was surprised. We both knew the birthday girl – a friend in common – but he had no recollection of the dinner. Look, more important to me than to him. We hadn’t met since but I recognised him because he was unchanged. He was a perfectly normal looking 50ish year old but he was a very old looking 30ish year old. He was bald as an egg then and very slender and, obviously, he’s still bald now and also, less obviously, still very slender.
As I was scuttling away after the event , I ran into the next group coming into the venue. One of them looked a bit familiar. I pressed on. She called out to me, “Don’t I know you?” I turned back. She is a friend of a friend who had twins last year. My friend suggested we meet to give her some advice – although as my twins are not 18 my advice was a bit…dated. When I gave out my advice, she was 7 months pregnant but she had had her babies since and was able to show me a photo of them on her phone and very cute they were too – they looked great and she looked great; obviously my advice was excellent.
Even by Irish standards where everybody knows everybody, this was a lot.
*The title for this post was suggested by my first born. It’s from “Love’s Labour’s Lost” apparently.
Pre-Christmas Round Up
Herself is home. Rejoice. Michael has returned from his school trip to Brussels. I think it was a good, if not always enjoyable experience for him.
I have been re-inventing myself. I went for my annual haircut and the hairdresser gave me layers. I now have the exact same haircut I had when I started college in 1986. I went on a very enjoyable shopping trip with herself looking for something for me to wear to our Christmas party. We were unsuccessful but I did get a striped chunky jumper which together with the haircut is giving strong 17 year old me energy. All I need is a pair of Docs.
Herself and myself went to the Messiah in St Patrick’s Cathedral It was nice but, it is long. Also we drove in which was extremely stressful. Christmas traffic is definitely back.
My brother has moved to France for a a couple of months. He is still alive after the drive down to the Alps, so good. He says that I should come skiing. The physio who is treating my wretched knee says that is something to aim for. I was hoping for better, more like “Of course!”
I had afternoon tea in the Westbury Hotel with my Sunday book club which is an experience I would truly recommend. However, I would not recommend it on the day that you yourself are having Christmas drinks in your house from 4.30 to 6.30. I also would not recommend having those drinks on the day of the World Cup final which goes to extra time and penalties. However.
The party – our first post-Covid – was reasonably successful. We had hoped that the young French student (who does conversation with the children) and his friends who live nearby would come and give out drinks and take coats. Sadly, due to the inability of Morocco to defeat France in the World Cup semis, they were not available (if France had not been in the final they would have been, try to keep up). We managed between the five of us but it was a bit stressful. Michael was particularly bitter having essentially spent the afternoon running up and down the stairs with coats. Dan had made a playlist for the party on Spotify which worked really well and we all cleaned like mad in advance and prepped cocktail sausages, mince pies, mulled wine and lots of beer. We encouraged people to bring their children. This worked pretty well when everyone’s children were primary school age but now that most of them are teenagers it’s a bit less successful. I felt particularly sorry for the 13 year old daughter of friends who moped on the sofa throughout. More successful was a friend’s 10 year old who ruled the roost over the assembled smaller children who had been sent to the utility room with the x-box and a large tub of sweets. Positively the best compliment I got all afternoon was from the adorable six year old daughter of a colleague of Mr. Waffle’s who told me that it was the best grown-up party she had ever been to. The children really enjoyed talking to the guests and, in particular, a gentle and charming friend of Mr Waffle’s who they found very entertaining. I am glad we went to the trouble of having it when they could all be there which was not easy. We’ll see if we can improve on the timing for next year.
Last night Mr. Waffle and I went to a carol service in the local church. Somewhat to my surprise, Michael joined us; the other two firmly refused – as Dan said in horror “What now, on a Monday?” I thought it was lovely and the church choir were really good. Mr. Waffle couldn’t get over, however, the amateur strings who joined them and were, um, less than perfect though greeted with great enthusiasm by the punters.
I have bought all the Christmas presents I am going to buy. I still have to buy food for Christmas dinner (and, curve ball, get a new inner tube for the back wheel of my bicycle which punctured on my epic trip to the physio this morning) but I am broadly ready. And yourself?
It Begins
I am returned from visiting herself in England. A triumphant foreign tour due in no small part to the detailed schedule that herself put in place including making bookings and suggesting outings for her guests. A truly successful formula. As my sister said while we were eating in the v nice restaurant herself had booked us in to – “Finally all those notions you gave her are coming in useful.”
I got back late on December 1 and decided to bow to the inevitable and put up some of the Christmas decorations the following day. In a definite #mymiddleclasshell moment, I couldn’t find the Christmas aga covers which I bought last year but, I am sure you will be delighted to hear, Mr. Waffle found them where I had carefully stowed them away for safekeeping. This is actually very unusual for me. I think possibly due to my poor memory/my parents’ predilection for keeping things in random places (you choose), I am actually very organised with stuff and the sellotape, the keys, the measuring tape, the Christmas decorations, whatever you’re having yourself are always in the same location and findable. But even Homer nods.
Speaking of the aga, the combination of the mild winter and this truly terrifying graphic in a leaflet from the Government that came through the door, has meant that we haven’t turned it on yet.
However, I had a triumph with my €60 phone bill which, you may recall, was charged following not using it all on the ferry. I wrote a letter and vodafone refunded. To be fair, I think it is more sharp practice by the ferries than vodafone but I was glad to get the €60 back all the same. The additional money in our pockets and the arrival of the cold weather mean that I plan to fire up the aga this weekend. Anyone who thinks that €60 will go near paying for the aga is very wrong. As a friend of mine says, “You might as well open the oven door and shovel in fivers.” Look, it’s cosy.
Also I have a narky letter with the bank which charged me €60 for three transactions where I tried to pay money out and the recipient couldn’t accept so it bounced back to my account. I mean, firstly, €20 a pop, are you kidding me? Secondly, I already pay pretty hefty annual fees which are to cover all of my transactions. Thirdly, we all hate the banks since they nearly bankrupted the country in 2008. No reply so far, I am even now composing my grumpy follow-up (I at least expected the courtesy of a reply, can I have a copy of your complaints procedure etc? Mr. Waffle said he once sent one of those and was horrified to actually get a copy of the complaints procedure rather than the refund he had been angling for). While we’re on letters, I had a letter in the paper. I’m trying out a pseudonym (my married name which I never use) as I felt the letter was a bit notiony but now I am crushed that no one except Mr. Waffle has noticed my letter and texted me. Mr. Waffle is at an advantage as, obviously, he knows my married name. Also he is used to pseudonyms as his mother used to write to the papers under her maiden name purporting to be from a (completely made up) organisation monitoring local litter levels. This makes her sound crazy and I want to emphasise that this was not the case at all. But still.
In other Christmas prep, I have ordered a turkey. 5 kilos was the smallest available, that’s a kilo of turkey for each family member. An unnerving prospect. We had our Monday night Christmas book club which was absolutely lovely. I think the book club having lasted 20 odd years has survived Covid though it was touch and go there for a while. On December 6, Saint Nicolas, providing the kind of customer service the banks would do well to emulate, turned up for the boys 14 years after they left Belgium.
I spent today in town Christmas shopping. I am exhausted. My break from work means I am stepping up in the challenging Christmas shopping arena (previously Mr. Waffle’s domain). I am not hugely enjoying it, I will say that.
And tomorrow is December 8, the Feast of the Immaculate Conception and the traditional start of the Christmas shopping season in this jurisdiction. I will be celebrating it by ordering the remainder of my shopping online.
Also, you will be pleased to hear that my knee is recovering. Is your own Christmas prep up and running?
Summer Plans
A couple of years ago, an Italian friend of Mr. Waffle’s asked whether we would be interested in doing an exchange with her nephew in Rome and one of our sons in Dublin. Covid put paid to the original plan but now it is back and Daniel is going to Rome for a week and we’ll have an Italian teenager here.
I was a bit worried about Daniel flying on his own. I anxiously asked him whether he thought he would be ok and he pointed out to me that he had already flown to Paris on his own a number of years ago which, I confess, I had forgotten. He flew as an unaccompanied minor though so was thoughtfully shuttled about by a bored airline employee. Mr. Waffle is adamant that the humiliation of flying aged 16 as an unaccompanied minor (they have to wear a special label around their necks; they are herded together and most of them are under 12) would be the death of Daniel and that he will be perfectly fine on his own. He suggested that if I am concerned I could adopt his own mother’s technique of approaching someone I like the look of in the check-in queue and asking him or her to keep an eye on my child. More mortifying surely? Your views would be welcome on this issue which is the subject of animated domestic discussion. I am forced to point out that Daniel himself thinks he would be fine.
Daniel doesn’t speak any Italian but he is game for the trip to Rome and I do hope he will enjoy it. I lived in Rome for a while in my early 20s and absolutely loved it. I really feel for my children who have had so many of the normal teenage fun things denied to them but have had all of the angst and then some. Michael has astounded me by announcing that he wants to go on a school trip to Brussels to visit the European institutions. Under normal circumstances, he is not one for travel but the lure of a trip to the European institutions was too much for him to resist. I am not even joking.
Last night we told herself that the day she returns from England and Italian teenager will be arriving to stay with us. She is already a bit tetchy in the run up to her exams and I wouldn’t say this piece of information improved her mood. “I wouldn’t have come home at all had I known that there were to be Italian teenage boys or indeed teenage boys of any nationality in the house,” she announced imperiously. As her own brothers who live here are teenage boys that was always a pretty lofty aspiration, nonetheless, my hopes that she might entertain the Italian teenager (who will be 18 in August so possibly a bit old for Dan) were definitely delivered a blow. She’s hoping to go to Paris for a bit of the summer and if she does I fully plan to visit. Let us hope this will be welcome news in due course.
I have had to delay my year of rest and relaxation by a week or so due to an upcoming work crisis which my boss begged me to stay for. I am not immune to flattery (on the contrary) but given that I am counting the days extra time – and stressful extra time at that – seems a bit tedious. I will now be finishing on June 17 and I cannot wait. On the 20th I am off to England to collect herself staying with friends in England en route. I am thrilled.