Family

47

12 March, 2016
Posted in: Family, Hodge, Middle Child, Mr. Waffle, Princess, Twins, Youngest Child

I was 47 on Thursday. It was a bit unsatisfactory. For a range of reasons. Firstly, I was at work, having decided that it would be inappropriate to take a day’s holiday too early in the new job. I think that was a mistake. Secondly, I had arranged to meet someone for lunch when, really, I would have preferred to go somewhere nice on my own and then a couple of other people came and even though all of these people were very nice, I ended up being the conversational glue holding everyone together and that is tiring.

Thirdly, when I came home that evening, I turned around and headed out the door with Daniel who was singing at the school first confession that evening. We were there about 7. The priest was late. We only finally emerged about 9. Daniel got to sing a verse of one of the hymns with a smaller group and it all went well, so he was pleased. I had hoped to have a celebratory birthday take-away (the excitement!). But, fourthly, by the time I got home after 9 it was really too late. Then, fifthly, I trudged disconsolately to the fridge to get a birthday dinner of cheese and crackers only to find that the cat had got into the fridge and food was scattered everywhere and she was wolfing down some chicken scraps. Under the pile of chicken, inevitably really, was the cheese which I had been hoping to eat.

All in all, sub-optimal. On Friday, Mr. Waffle proposed that we go out for a nice dinner on Saturday to make up for the debacle of my birthday. Babysitter and restaurant were booked. Poor Mr. Waffle, this morning he had to do some urgent work thing and around lunch time he started to feel ill. He retired to bed. About 4 we cancelled dinner and babysitter and, as I type, he is still in bed having eaten nothing since lunch time. Oh woe.

Inauspicious, I feel. However, if you sent a card or an email, please know that this year of all years, it was welcome. Also, herself bought me Toffifees which was pleasing. Daniel and Michael made me a card. Daniel tried to give me â‚¬50 of his money and Mr. Waffle bought me this picture. So not all bad either.

Updated to add: I forgot to mention my birthday message from vodafone –

Please note you have reached 100% of your monthly data and will not be able to use data until your next allowance begins on 15-03-2016. To purchase our best value data freetext INFO to 50226 or for more details visit www.vodafone.ie/datacharges. To continue using data for the remainder of your billing period, freetext NO DATA BAR to 50226.

I moved on to a new tariff last month and the man said I had more data than I would ever need. I see.

Updated to add: My father said to me when I told him of my various woes “forsan et haec olim meminisse iuvabit”. I had to look it up (having only done Latin for a couple of years and never having liked it much). Possibly, it means, one day you will look back on this and laugh. Thanks Virgil, not yet though.

Update

6 March, 2016
Posted in: Cork, Family, Ireland, Middle Child, Mr. Waffle, Princess, Travel, Twins, Youngest Child

Hello, cruel world. A fortnight into the new job and I am absolutely flattened. I have gone from knowing everyone and everything to knowing no one and nothing. It’s very tiring. And I lost all my swipe cards on Friday night, so I may not even be able to get to my desk tomorrow. Quite the achievement.

So what news, I hear you ask. Well, the boys and I went to Cork. We went to Charles Fort and the Bulman for lunch. It didn’t rain on us. I call that a success. Then we saw a seal near the slip way beside the car park. Very exciting.

Nevertheless, probably the highlight was passing a shop selling holy statutes. Daniel looked dubiously at Padre Pio and asked, “Is that Obi Wan Kenobi?”

While the boys and I were in Cork, herself was in Rome for the week. Actually, Rome, Pompeii, Sorrento, Montecassino and Naples. Notwithstanding the exhausting programme, she had a wonderful time. She liked the Trevi fountain and the Map Room in the Vatican Museums the best.

Early on in proceedings, I got this email.

From: Herself
To: Me

Have successfully ordered McDonald’s in Italian. Forgot to ask for ketchup and was thrown by the choice between mela and kiwi but all in all quite successful.

Clearly, the trip was not entirely about expanding culinary horizons.

The boys and Mr. Waffle featured briefly on Irish language television talking about house swapping. I was at work and the Princess was at school but the boys were off being minded by their father so they got to star. Actually every word they spoke was edited out so they were a bit crushed. Former colleagues of mine (husband and wife team) saw it and when they saw the photo albums (to show the TV people the houses we had stayed in), carefully labelled they said in unison “That is so typical of Anne.” My filing fame has spread and in the most positive way, I’m sure.

Last Monday night was a bit hideous. Daniel had GAA, Michael had scouts and herself was in a massive Dublin archdiocese concert. They were bringing 600 secondary school students together every night last week to sing a range of hymns. 2,000 years of liturgical music and the focus was very strongly on those pieces composed for saxophone and guitar. Sigh. Some of the pieces were composed for the event. I particularly enjoyed the combination of jazzy upbeat music and the very old testament type lyrics “If the just strike me down, it’s done out of kindness” and “Let all that stray from what is good, be thrown a rock of judgement”. I did not get any dinner but I did have a large packet of maltesers at the concert.

On Friday night, Daniel and herself had speaking parts at some ecumenical event. The service was “prepared by the Christian women of Cuba” and it was held at the local Protestant church. Michael refused point blank to attend saying that he was not going to Mass on Friday and Sunday. The booklet giving the details of readings etc. also featured a couple of prayers like our prayers of the faithful. This one caught my eye:

” We recognize that we did not lift up our voices sufficiently to denounce an injustice like the economic blockade that affected the Cuban people for more than 50 years. We recognize our responsibility in allowing walls to be built up which destroy community.”

In the end Michael had to go as I couldn’t and Mr. Waffle brought them all. Daniel and the Princess carried out their roles with aplomb but attendance was poor. Elderly local Protestants and Catholics turned out but not many of them. Mr. Waffle feels that the women of Cuba may have been expecting a different kind of congregation when they decided to put the butterfly hymn on the programme. Apparently, you haven’t lived until you have heard a group of elderly people singing: “If I were a wiggly worm I’d thank you Lord that I could squirm/ If I were a fuzzy, wuzzy bear /I’d thank you Lord for my fuzzy, wuzzy hair”.

Daniel got to deliver the immortal line: “We will now collect our butterflies and bring them to the Scared Prayer Space”.

I was, alas, not in attendance at the Cuban prayer gig, because on Tuesday morning, my poor father fell and broke his hip. My parents are now the proud possessors of four plastic hips. I went down to Cork to see him on Friday night. He was remarkably cheerful given that a) he had a newly inserted plastic hip b) he is nearly 91 c) he spent about 24 hours on a trolley in A&E, and d) he has acquired the winter vomiting bug while in the hospital. My sister and I left him with the paper which he read and my sister tells me he has started to eat again today. He is remarkably resilient.

Final news items. We had parent-teacher meetings for all three children. They are all fine. All of the secondary school teachers told us that herself makes regular announcements over the school intercom. They were more impressed by this achievement than any other as far as I can see. All to the good, I suppose. Also, unrelated, she has won a 1916 poetry competition.

That is all.

Updated to add: I forgot – the dishwasher is broken. A new pump is said to be coming but in the interim we are washing the dishes by hand. The novelty has worn off.

That really is all.

Birthdays

15 February, 2016
Posted in: Cork, Family, Ireland

My mother’s birthday was on February 1. I went down to Cork the weekend before for a birthday lunch which passed off peacefully and which I hope she enjoyed.

Preparations were rendered somewhat stressful by my brother’s decision to re-organise the bottom of the [very large Victorian] bookcase where a lifetime’s supply of ware had nestled peacefully for decades. All that he had deemed worthy of salvation had been returned in ordered piles to the bottom of the bookcase but the dining room table was piled high with items about which he had his doubts. My parents, I discovered, are the owners of the largest collection of toast racks alive in captivity. I may well be responsible for their above average holding of Kwak glasses.

In advance of lunch I found homes for many of the items – intended as temporary but likely to become permanent, I fear – the trolley and the sideboard are now more heavily laden than previously. On the plus side, the dining room table was clear. With the blessing of everyone in Cork, I liberated a toast rack and a jam pot which made it safely back to Dublin. “Ah,” said Mr. Waffle, “the 50s are back.”

I have discovered that if you want your toast to stay warm, a toast rack is utterly useless. However, if your daughter has cold toast for her daily sandwich (don’t ask me), it is ideal for ensuring that the toast cools speedily so that you can minimise the danger of condensation in the sandwich bag. Don’t mock the afflicted.

The other birthday is my brother’s which was on February 5 and for which, as yet, he has got no present from his loving, elder sister. I’m sure it will be even better for the wait. I wonder would he like a packet of stroopwafels.

Culture

8 February, 2016
Posted in: Dublin, Family, Ireland, Mr. Waffle, Twins, Youngest Child

A couple of weeks ago, Mr. Waffle and I took the children to see “Trauma” in the science gallery. It was, well, traumatic. Not unexpected you might argue. After the strain of the exhibition, I felt we ought to do something further of a cultural nature. It would be hard to overstate Michael’s bitterness on hearing this news.

Since we were in Trinity anyway and, one of the major advantages of a degree from Trinity is that it gets you in free to the Book of Kells, I suggested that we might go there and get some use out of Mr. Waffle’s degree. We passed the playing pitches on the way and I found myself, somewhat to my surprise, standing beside a man yelling “Come on Trinity” at a rugby game. How little we know our spouses. Happily Michael’s weary insistence that we might as well get it over with propelled us onwards.

The library is lovely, actually. I note that we went there this time last year so it seems to occur to me as a good outing in January. As ever, I sold it to the boys as being the model for the Jedi library which may be true. They were cynical and bitter, “You say that every time.”

We didn’t stay long and it is genuinely interesting. Afterwards, as we emerged into the drizzle, having contemplated one of Ireland’s great treasures Michael said grudgingly, “I suppose it wasn’t too bad.” I think I will take that as a win.

Review of 2015

28 January, 2016
Posted in: Family, Ireland, Travel

January isn’t over yet, I can still review.

Let’s have the first line from the first post of every month and a photo and the odd comment from me in italics, something I last did with 2012 but I feel a revival is timely.

January

My mother always says that the people you end up being friends with are the parents of your childrenâ€™s friends.

Picture is the Long Room Library in Trinity which we visited in January.

February

About this time last year I took Michael to Cork.

It was also pretty cold in February.

March

I was late leaving work this evening which often happens because I am busy and constitutionally ill-adapted to being on time.

Carlingford again in the picture.

April

Mr. Waffle is a shadow of his former self.

Herself turned 12 and went to Hogwarts for her birthday. It was a success.

May

I went to see the Anu production about Gallipoli with herself in Collins Barracks.

The Princess was confirmed. I went to Antrim with some friends and have been desperate to get back there with my little family ever since. It’s beautiful. The picture is taken near the Giant’s Causeway.

June

Can you think of anything that involves feta, watermelon, ham and chorizo?

I got a new bike! Herself finished primary school. It was all go.

July

I seized the day.

The photo was taken on one of our many trips to Charles Fort. Uniquely, on this trip, the sun shone.Â We also went to Kerry in July.Â Mostly, the sun did not shine there.

August

On Wednesday evening I went for a walk in Dalkey at the southern end of Dublin Bay.

The picture is from Ireland’s Eye near Howth at the opposite end of the bay. At the end of August, herself started secondary school. Very exciting if a bit startling.

September

We left the house in good time.

I posted on our August holiday in France in September. The picture is from Caen. The boys turned ten this month – officially into double digits.

October

We come back from holidays in late August and it is heritage week, then there is the fringe theatre festival, then the theatre festival, then culture night, then open house, now thereâ€™s the Dublin festival of history and something called gallery weekend as well and by mid-October we are so exhausted that we can face no cultural events for the following twelve months.

November

Another Nablopomo is upon us. I will be posting every day in November. This post would be longer except I am unwell and going to bed early.

My sister turned 40 and we all went to the party.

December

Last night the Princess asked me whether I was a Jo and Laurie person or an Amy and Laurie person.

I didn’t post a single picture in December which seems a mistake but here’s one taken in December anyhow.

Resolutions for 2016

27 January, 2016
Posted in: Family, Ireland

Last year I resolved that we would a have a dinner party every month. This was a spectacularly poor resolution which was only intermittently successful and nearly sent us to an early grave. We made a list of all the people we wanted to have over but far fewer of them than expected made it off the list.

This year, I have two more modest and, I hope, achievable resolutions. The first is to try to meet again people I have lost contact with – I have already had a notable success in January finally managing to meet an old friend with whom I soldiered in the salt mines as an apprentice solicitor more than 20 years ago. She lives in a distant southern suburb of Dublin and mostly doesn’t work outside home. But I went as far south as I could and she came north and we managed to meet for an early lunch in the city centre before she had to go and collect her youngest from pre-school. I was pleased. She is from Cork and it was nice to compare notes with another exile married to a Dubliner. Her marriage is further mixed in that she is Protestant and he is Catholic and both of them seem to care (which in my experience is rather unusual). She tells me that they alternate between Catholic mass one Sunday and Protestant service the next. This is an arrangement which I imagine is not entirely satisfactory to either and somewhat confusing for the children but marriage is all about compromise and I suppose it is all part of life’s rich tapestry. Anyhow, I digress. 2016 will be the year for digging up long lost friends and I already have January sorted.

My second resolution is to try to spend more time alone. I am mostly with people: working, lunching, bonding with my loving family. But I love to be alone. I am aiming for half an hour a day, we’ll see how that goes.

I am not fooling myself that my third resolution will be easy but I want to try to do something about the piano this year. Wish me luck.