Family

Scramble

4 November, 2014
Posted in: Dublin, Family, Ireland

Due to the works to which, apparently, the whole of Dublin city centre is subject indefinitely, the children’s school has no water tomorrow and will have to close.
Time this information was conveyed to the school: 2.00 pm
Time that Mr. Waffle and I learnt this information: 6.30 pm
Number of meetings Mr. Waffle and I have tomorrow morning: 1 each
Number of days which the children had off last week: 5 (mid-term)
Sentiments of children: Overwhelming delight
Sentiments of parents: Distinctly less delight

Any domestic crises yourselves?

Learning by Example

3 November, 2014
Posted in: Cork, Family, Ireland, Princess

I do not like to keep things in the attic. My parents’ attic is full of stuff. Mr. Waffle’s parents’ attic is full of stuff. He said that when he was growing up, broken things were put in the attic to “self-heal”. I know what he means. I have never been in the attic of my house and, as far as I know, it is entirely empty. And I’d like it to stay that way.

I love things to be tidy. Colleagues have been known to recoil when entering my office. It’s tidy. My family are not tidy. If you don’t give things away, you cannot be tidy. I am like a changeling. I have been trying, with absolutely no success, to make the Princess tidy. She suffers from the twin issues of loving stuff and believing that it is not a problem, if you let stuff lie where it falls. She and I fundamentally differ in this regard.

For some time she has been waging a campaign to get into my parents’ attic. I have been a regular visitor as I have been looking for the leg of a table, the top of which is at the back of my parents’ wardrobe and the whole of which I am hoping to get to my house in due course. You would think that a large Victorian table leg would be easy to find, but you would be utterly wrong. I looked – several times; my sister looked; even my brother looked. To no avail.

On this last adventure, the Princess finally got her heart’s desire and came up to the attic with me. Her objective was to retrieve my Great Uncle Dan’s gas mask [given out during the war and definitely in the attic – but where?]. I didn’t hold out high hopes as, if a whole table leg could disappear, then finding a gas mask was a practically insuperable problem. We did not find the gas mask. We did, however, find the table leg under the eaves on the left. Rejoice. Here’s a picture of the table leg [currently residing in the utility room until the top can be brought up from Cork].

I stood there in the attic looking at the mountains of stuff and I said to my daughter, severely “Look around you; this is what happens, if you never throw anything out.” Then, I realised that her eyes were shining and the attic was possibly the most magical place she had ever been. She brought back to Dublin: an old dial phone, a mug with a rose, two boxes and a china bowl with a hole in the bottom. She is desperate to get back up. I may not quite have conveyed to her the message I was hoping to get across.

Cork News

2 November, 2014
Posted in: Cork, Family, Ireland

Last weekend I went to Cork with the children. We left at 11 on Saturday morning with a view to arriving about 2 for a late lunch. We all had a bite to eat before we left but we were going to be hungry when we arrived. My saintly sister said that she would have lunch ready for us.

Regrettably, the Jack Lynch tunnel which guards the entrance to Cork from Dublin* was operating a contra-flow system due to works. Apparently the bank holiday weekend was the best time to do this. It took us two hours to cover 6kms and we arrived into my parents’ house at 4 starving and cranky.

My father, rather tactlessly, said, “Oh yes, I knew about that, it was in the Examiner.” “You didn’t think I might be interested?” I asked bitterly. Of course, this was the kind of news item that was never going to be covered in the Dublin Intelligencer. Anyhow, we recovered. I was amused to receive a, somewhat contrite, letter from him during the week with a cutting. The Dublin Intelligencer continues to be above matters in the second city so no news likely from there.

*Obviously, very easy to seal off when the revolution begins.

Healthy Halloween!

1 November, 2014
Posted in: Family

For dinner last night I had:
1 packet of Monster Munch
1 packet of chickatees
1 packet of crisps
3 fangtastics
1 miniature packet of love hearts
1 bite of wagon wheel [turns out they are revolting, who knew?]

We have three large shopping bags full of loot in the utility room.

For costumes, we had Wally:

and a bat:

and an elusive third child.

What excitements did you have?

Single Parenting

3 October, 2014
Posted in: Family, Mr. Waffle, Travel, Work

Last week I went to Florence for work (not at all the kind of place I normally go to for work). Saturday was the boys’ birthday. This meant that on Friday afternoon, I was in my conference in the Palazzo Vecchio admiring the beautiful ceiling in the Sala dei Cinquecento and on Saturday, I was in an indoor play centre with a dozen small children who were playing quasar with great enthusiasm. The play centre was horribly loud and deeply unpleasant (though, happily, loved by the children). It featured a pizza joint called Dante’s. Please insert your own joke here bearing in mind the Florentine angle. I’ve given you a lot to work with.

Florence was very beautiful though neck deep in tourists. The Florentines must be sick of us. I spent a month in Florence in 1988 but retained almost no memory of my time there. I certainly don’t remember it being so lovely. Nor do I remember the Florentines all pronouncing their Cs as Hs which they famously do. My favourite example of this was my taxi driver answering his phone saying, “Hlaudio, home stai?” In the late 80s and early 90s I spent a lot of time in Italy and one thing that has really changed (aside from the fact that I am now signora to everyone) is the number of people on bicycles. Florence is full of people sailing around on their bicycles and weaving through pedestrians while looking very elegant. There was no evidence of lycra but plenty of normal cycling to get from a to b. I was very taken with it.

Have some photos.

While I was off gallivanting, Mr. Waffle kept the home fires burning. Then, this week, Mr. Waffle was in Helsinki (the Waffles, we cover the continent – I might point out that my brother in law and his wife were in the South of France at the weekend and my sister-in-law and her husband were in South Carolina for the week – the extended family has essentially caused many of the polar ice cap issues).

This week was a bit tough on the boys. We visited a possible secondary school for Herself on Wednesday night and they tagged along and read their books, then on Thursday night they tagged along to choir with her. They were mildly bitter but broadly very patient and well behaved. I am kind of flattened from the sandwich making and logistics. Also, humiliatingly, on Wednesday night I got scared by a Skulduggery Pleasant short story and had to spend an hour reading Georgette Heyer before I could finally go to sleep alone in the dark about 1.30 am. Look, don’t mock the afflicted. All in all, I am very relieved to have my loving husband restored to me.

Single parents are amazing.

Holiday Continued

29 September, 2014
Posted in: Family, Ireland, Travel

Let me take you back to August. So we got off the ferry, back in Ireland and we were going directly to Kerry without passing through Dublin for fear of mutiny by the troops if we got home and then turned around the next day and drove straight to Kerry.

We had an unscheduled stop in Dungarvan when we got a flat tyre. As it could have happened while racing for the ferry in France in torrential rain the previous day, we felt that a flat tyre in Dungarvan had much to recommend it. After lunch we pushed on to Cork where we stayed overnight with my loving family.

For complex reasons we had a spare Cork parking disk which we didn’t need and as Mr. Waffle was going into the house he saw these French people with a FinistÃ¨re registered car trying to work out the parking regime in Cork. Feeling warmly towards the people of FinistÃ¨re he went up to them and in impeccable French offered them the parking disk. Were they surprised by a) his French or b) his kindness to strangers? Did they engage in general conversation which allowed him to remark we had just returned from our holiday in FinistÃ¨re? Didn’t I tell you they were French? I do love the sang froid of the French.

17 August

Our first full day in Kerry was a Sunday so began with a trip to mass which the troops greeted with their customary enthusiasm. We were staying in Dingle in ludicrously enormous holiday houses outside the town. The cousins, grandparents and aunts and uncles were staying across the road from us and there was a swing and a green area between the houses which the children played in happily.

We went to the beach in the afternoon but didn’t swim as the place was alive with jellyfish. Global warming apparently. The children were delighted to play in the sand with their cousins so all was well.

That night the parents of the children went out together. My sister-in-law and her husband from exotic London took all the children to the fair. Madness, but we were very grateful, as were the children.

18 August

We had a mild climb up Clogher Head and looked at the beautiful view. For his own obscure reasons, an Italian man was sitting at the top playing a flute so that was nice, if a little odd.

We had a lovely lunch in Ballydavid; a further swim with a jellyfish and a visit to Dingle’s excellent library. For the price of â‚¬2, you can get a temporary membership and borrow from your holiday address. Is that not wonderful?

19 August

My sister-in-law took her husband to the airport. This was not entirely without difficulty as, despite being over 30 and having lived in London for 13 years and looked after herself perfectly well, she is a youngest child and is therefore assumed by her parents to be incapable of the mildest adventure. I was startled when my mother-in-law asked me whether I thought my sister-in-law would be alright on the shortish drive to the regional airport. I felt she would. Apparently an offer by her mother to sit in the back seat to ensure that she was safe had been vigorously rebuffed by my sister-in-law. Youngest children also have their crosses to bear.

The Princess, her young cousins and her uncle and aunt climbed Mount Brandon. The boys, Mr Waffle and I baled out somewhat less than half way up. There were still great views.

Including, impressively, of my brother-in-law running up the mountain ahead of us.

Back at ground level we forced the boys to speak Irish in a local shop. It passed off peacefully.

20 August

We had a lovely dinner out leaving the children to the tender mercies of a teenage babysitter. She seemed fine on our return despite minding five young children. This was the last night for both sisters-in-law before they went off to London, so nearly at the end, alas.

21 August

The girls went for a trip to the acquarium with their London aunt before she left for the bright lights. A certain gloom overtook the party on the departure of the aunts. We all went on a very damp cliff walk.

There is nothing like Kerry in the rain. The children were cheered by a further trip to the funfair with a view later.

22 August

This was our last full day in Kerry and the weather was amazing. We spent all day at the beach in Ballydavid and had a beautiful lunch in the nearby pub. It was a lovely, lovely day and, handily enough, obliterated the rain soaked memory of the day before.

23 August

The end of the holidays; a long drive and finally we were home.

Last picture of Kerry from the road home:

So, excellent, I have finished my account of the summer holidays before the beginning of October, do you enjoy the immediacy of this blog?