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And We Like Sheep

25 November, 2019 2 Comments
Posted in: Dublin, Family, Ireland, Reading etc.

Mr. Waffle and I went to Handel’s Messiah in the local church last night. It was completely sold out – the organ restoration fund thanks you – and all very nice but it is long. A good 3 hours including the interval. It took a lot out of me but at least I had thought to bring a cushion and I imagine I was quite a bit more comfortable than the local bigwigs who graced the performance with their presence but had not had the forethought to bring their own cushions.

Today is my beloved grandmother’s birthday. She was born in 1897 and died in 1984. I always think of her in November.

That’s all I’ve got for today. More tomorrow when I am feeling stronger.

Cork

11 November, 2019 3 Comments
Posted in: Cork, Family, Ireland, Princess, Siblings

I was in Cork at the weekend with herself. Nothing really happened but here we are in November and I have committed to posting every day. It’s only the 11th and I’m exhausted already.

I took herself to the cemetery to see my mother’s grave and almost missed it because the enormous overgrown hydrangea bush nearby, which is a handy marker, had been chopped down by somebody in an excess of enthusiasm. We went at dusk and it was quite beautiful. I couldn’t help feeling that had she known, my mother would have been delighted to be interred in such an interesting cemetery.

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My father and my aunt were pretty remarkably perky. I made herself consult with my father for his live take on the rise of fascism for her history essay but as he was only 15 in 1940, it was a bit underwhelming – he just summarised what we knew already – but he did comment that his views were formed in part by the papers his aunts and uncles took: the Daily Mail and, oh God, the Express. I can only rejoice, I suppose, that he himself is a Daily Telegraph reader.

We went out on Friday night for my sister’s birthday which was a bit disastrous as both she and my brother were quite ill and herself was exhausted. We ate our way around Cork over the weekend. After our ill-fated dinner on Friday night, herself and myself had a satisfactory breakfast in the Crawford, then picked up lunch ingredients in the Market and in the evening she had chips and Tanora from Jackie Lennox’s; the following morning we had breakfast in the Nano Nagle cafe (aside, is it too early for the return of Hanora as a girl’s name?). All in all a culinary tour de force.

How was your own weekend? Much food?

The Death of Olga Bracely

9 November, 2019 3 Comments
Posted in: Cork, Family, Ireland

A couple of years ago, I rescued a ceramic hen from Cork . She was a feature of my childhood when she would be brought out on special occasions to sit on boiled eggs. My father slightly resisted her departure to Dublin but the house in Cork is so full of stuff that he yielded and let her off to the bright lights of Dublin.

When I got her to Dublin, my family felt she needed a name, so she was called Olga Bracely after the character from the Mapp and Lucia books although in character she was much more a Mrs. Mapp type than an Olga Bracely as the latter, despite her great name, is in fact a lovely individual whereas my hen clearly had a very difficult personality.

Until this week, she sat on the shelf above the sink superciliously surveying her domain. Sadly, though, the other evening I stuck something up on the shelf leading to a domino effect which broke a picture frame and knocked Olga Bracely to the ground where she was smashed to smithereens, only her head and tail remaining intact. They are currently sitting forlornly on the shelf but they may have to go. Alas. Call me craven but I just don’t think I’ll mention it my father.

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Olga Bracely in her prime

The Only Throw Away Generation

6 November, 2019 3 Comments
Posted in: Cork, Family, Ireland

I have covered before how I am essentially regarded as some kind of weird changeling in my family as I am pretty tidy and my parents and siblings are less so. A key component of being tidy is getting rid of things – throwing them out, giving them away, eating them, if necessary. Apparently my father’s mother was pretty tidy and it is a source of lasting bitterness that she gave away some of his toys before he was quite ready to say goodbye (he is 94, I think we can call it lasting at this stage). In Cork, when something can’t be found, even something no sane person would ever throw out, the question is always, “Did Anne throw it out?” like, for example, “Anne, did you throw out a cheque for €500?” This is an example drawn from life.

My mother used to stymie my attempts to get rid of things and chastise me with the words, “I’m not part of the throw-away generation.” She would then carefully preserve whatever item I had been about to toss carelessly into the bin – a useful box, an exhausted tea towel which could be repurposed for shoe shining, a random screw – and put it away somewhere. She was a big fan of “a place for everything and everything in its place” in theory although the practice was slightly more haphazard.

And now, I find that my children are stopping me from throwing things out. Reduce, reuse, recycle is a household mantra. However worthy, it is quite tiring. Now, when I go to throw things in the bin, my hand is stayed by anxious teenagers who want to know whether it is going in the right bin and indeed whether we can reuse it. Also, Michael, the world’s most sentimental child, has retained all his childhood toys many of which have not been used in years. But given my grandmother’s example, I know that I can never get rid of them.

I suppose it’s only a question of time before I turn into my parents and start stockpiling things in the attic. I was in Cork recently and my father said to me, “Do you remember the stairs to the attic in [the house we moved out of when you were 12]?” I did. “Do you remember the sisal matting that was on the stairs?” More surprisingly, I did. “Well,” said he, “it is stored under the eaves in the attic. ” In response to my raised eyebrow, he added “Perfectly good carpet, it might be useful again someday.” The bane of my life, the potential usefulness of manifestly unuseful objects; proof – it has been sitting up there for nearly forty years. “Anyhow,” I wanted to say to you that your mother and I wrapped many valuables in it when we moved. ” He reminisced, “I think that the solid silver salver that Uncle Jack got when he retired (about 1950 I would guess) is in there.” I took myself to the attic. I found rolled up carpet under the eaves, having fought my way through an extraordinary array of material, and unrolled it gingerly (on top of a hideous coffee table that I recognised from my youth which was a present from my granny but which my mother, I have to say understandably, never liked) in the feeble light of the bare bulb dangling from the ceiling. Nothing. Then I looked left and right and saw that the whole space under the eaves was filled up with rolled up carpets. I know when I am beaten. Uncle Jack’s silver salver and any other treasures will have to wait for the next generation to unearth.

“Life is made up of meetings and partings; that is the way of it”*

31 October, 2019 Leave a Comment
Posted in: Family, Ireland

The weekend before last, Mr. Waffle’s side of the family went away to Wicklow overnight; it was partly because his father’s anniversary was coming up and partly because his sister and her husband and daughter were going back to live in London after a year living in Ireland.

We stayed in Ballyknocken where we have been before. There were 12 of us in total and we had dinner and breakfast (a triumph) and a walk around Mount Usher gardens. There was some talk about October which I generally regard as a gloomy month but is apparently very popular with others. Who knew? It’s so wet and miserable and getting darker but they were all “oh no crisp autumn days” etc. I blame the Americans.

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Notwithstanding some debate on October and its merits, it was all very pleasant. It made me a bit sad though because I couldn’t help remembering the last time we were there when Mr. Waffle’s parents had been with us and in much better nick although going downhill. I was also sad because his sister and her family were going back to London and this was a farewell weekend for them. It has been lovely having them in Dublin for the past year – they went back to London last weekend. Their daughter was 2 in June and she has, just about, got used to us and is willing to wander around the house without a parent to chaperone her and I feel all that work will be wasted and we will have to start from scratch next time we see her. I am hoping to Skype her with the cat to keep us fresh in her mind; the cat is very much her favourite member of this family. Ironically, the cat is the only member of the family who is not a big fan of hers. Isn’t it always the way?

My sister-in-law is keen to book something for us all in Kerry next summer and London isn’t so far, I suppose, so could be worse.

*From that classic “A Muppet Christmas Carol” not actually said by Dickens. His loss.

Funeral Season

30 October, 2019 Leave a Comment
Posted in: Cork, Family, Ireland, Siblings

My father’s first cousin died a couple of weeks ago. She was always very beautiful and quite exotic boasting a tan when everyone else in Ireland was ghostly white. She married a rich man and they seemed to lead extraordinarily glamorous lives even though they lived in Kerry which does not lend itself to glamour. My brother and sister dutifully went to the funeral and met lots of my father’s cousins and reminisced and brought back useful quantities of family gossip. It wasn’t a shock (in fact about a year ago, I had firmly and definitively told my aunt that this woman was dead despite her distinct – and, as it turns out, correct – doubts on that point, so, you know, definitely not a shock) but I do feel that I am certainly edging closer to the front of the church.

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