The Princess’s first communion approaches. Today, her grandfather realised that it is also the day of the Heineken Cup final. Torn between two lovers etc.
Herself has made a calendar on which she is crossing out the days up to the 21st, noting significant events. I asked her had she included space for prayer and spiritual preparation. “If múinteoir asks me, I will provide for that,” she said coldly. She still doesn’t quite see what her father and I find so hilarious about this.
On Saturday we went for an outing to the site of the Battle of the Boyne. Despite Mr. Waffle’s dubiety this proved a very successful expedition with an interesting exhibition, many cannons and some lovely parkland. And, as Michael pointed out to me, in great excitement, a map. The exhibition was very carefully done to reflect what is usually tactfully referred to as “both traditions”. It was underlined that Irishmen fought on both sides. There was no triumphalism and only sign of the unfortunate outcome for Irish catholics was a copy of this act without a great deal of further comment:
The children were delighted by the interactive displays and the adults were interested. The occasion was only marred by an all too accurate description of the failed charge of the Jacobite cavalry. This led to the Princess moaning for the rest of the afternoon: “They killed the horses, they killed the innocent horses.” Pointing out that, as the battle took place some 320 years ago, the horses were long dead was of no comfort to herself. Even a picnic in the park in glorious sunshine was only a slight distraction from the nastiness of battle and the infinitely superior regime pertaining for horses in Narnia.
After lunch we took ourselves off to the ruins of the Cistercian Abbey at Mellifont. The visitor centre was closed and I feared that we might not be able to get to the site itself but it was open and we saw it at its best. There were few other visitors and the weather was beautiful. The children occupied themselves filling their hats with gravel and we were able to lie on the grass admiring the surroundings and imagining the cloisters.
At about 5 in the afternoon when we returned home, I had to go into town to pick up some things. Town was hot and heaving with people, most of them sweaty, red-faced, disgruntled children in buggies. I finished my errands in ten minutes and flew home borne up on the wings of smugness as I reflected on our glorious day in the country. I am sure that this is very bad but I’m past caring.
I visited Cork alone at the weekend to celebrate my father’s birthday. It was during the time without the children that I had the chance to speak uninterrupted to my loving family and learnt the following mildly surprising things:
1. I asked my mother who gave us our breakfast and got us up when we were small as I couldn’t remember. Apparently, C, who minded us did and then our loving father drove us to school. “Didn’t you see us off?” I asked her in indignation. “From bed,” said she.
2. Before he was married, my father used to go out fishing in Cork harbour on Thursday nights. One night they caught plaice and my father put it in the hospital fridge (where he was working) with a view to giving it to my grandmother on Friday morning (fish on Fridays, you will recall). Apparently plaice survives for quite a while out of water. Some poor nurse came to the fridge in the middle of the night, poked the bag in which the plaice was sitting and it moved and she brought the house down.
3. My sister, despite being very interested in food and fond of cooking, and despite the fact that my mother loves the market and goes there a couple of days a week, would rather shop in Tesco than the market. The shame.
I said it was random, I didn’t say it was interesting.
Princess: Am I related to anyone famous?
Me: Well, your nana’s first cousin’s first cousin is a moderately famous television presenter (in Ireland).
Her: Never heard of him.
Me: And also, technically, he’s not actually related to us.
The telephone rings. It is the parents-in-law to tell us that Mr. Waffle’s sister has just secured a two book deal. Rejoice! The Princess will be related to someone famous.
I took the children to Cork from Friday to Monday. All in all it passed off pretty peacefully. The children were pacified by watching 5 hours of television a day and eating all the junk food they could get their hands on. We picked up the Princess’s baptismal certificate in the church where she was baptised in Cork so that she can now make her communion – though I fear she is turning against organised religion.
Anecdotes for your delectation:
The Princess found one of my old dolls. She fashioned an outfit for it including a sash. I peered at the sash expecting to see “Rose of Tralee” or “Miss World” but in fact it said, “Votes for Women”. A proud moment owing something to the intervention of Mrs. Banks.
On Sunday, I decided I would take the children for a walk in Farran Woods just outside the city. I spent 30 minutes, putting on the children’s shoes, coats and gloves and prising them away from the television. My mother accompanied us. We got hopelessly lost. “How can you not find the way to somewhere you drove to every Sunday for 20 years?” I asked my mother in exasperation as the troops battered each other in the back seat. “How can you not find the way to somewhere you were driven to every Sunday for 20 years?” she replied tartly. After a long hour and a half we arrived. It was 4 in the afternoon, cold and about to get dark. The signs were not propitious. Nevertheless, we began our walk. After 5 minutes, the children announced en masse “I want to do a wee.” I let them off into the bushes on their own which turned out to be a spectacular error of judgement. One of them (name concealed to protect the guilty) emerged soaked to skin with every piece of clothing from the waist down wringing wet. It was quite a spectacular accomplishment and one which was quite difficult to achieve, I would have thought.* There was nothing for it but to pack everyone back into the car and go home. On the plus side, the return journey only took half an hour.
I had planned to return to Dublin early on Monday afternoon. Unfortunately, no sooner had I pulled out of my parents’ driveway than the car started flashing a red warning light at me. I drove back, redeposited the children in front of the television and rang my husband, some 250kms away, who couldn’t talk. As I pointed out to him, I could have been on the side of the motorway in desperation. As he pointed out to me, he could hear my family in the background so he knew, I wasn’t. So, my mother supervised the children; I perused the car manual (unhelpfully, only available in French); my sister inquired of the internet what the problem might be and my poor father, recovering from routine surgery (but still, you know, surgery) emerged from his armchair where he had been quietly reading the paper and hovered over the bonnet. “Ring Canty’s” he suggested. May I take this opportunity to endorse Mr. Canty’s operation should you ever find yourself in need of a garage in Cork. I rang the garage and described my problem. “Throw in a pint of water,” said the mechanic. “Where?” I asked. “There are only three places you could put it: where the oil goes, where the brake fluid goes and where the coolant goes.” “How do I know which is which,” I asked anxiously. He laughed and said, “Whatever you do, don’t put it where the oil or the brake fluid go and drop down to us and we’ll take a look at it.” My father indicated the correct spot and I drove to the garage with my poor sister as moral support. The warning light disappeared. The nice mechanic checked it over and said it was fine while opining that Peugeots are dreadful cars for mechanics. “We have a rule here that we never take more than 2 French cars in a day, as it could tip us over the edge.” If you care, he said that the best cars to fix are Toyotas. And he didn’t charge me. But it all took two hours which made for a late arrival home. Poor Mr. Waffle was working away on the home front and for reasons which I still don’t fully understand had not one but two dinners prepared for us. I think I might try it again when we have all recovered from the excitement.
* Please note example of elegant variation as despised by Fowler and other great stylists.
Last night, the Princess had a friend to stay. All the children went to bed at 9 o’clock. At 10.00 we trapped the boys in our bed and they finally went to sleep. At about 10.30 a very loud alarm in a local municipal facility went off. Phone calls to authorities led to the information that nobody could turn it off. The Princess and her friend came downstairs to complain about the noise. We said that they could sleep in our bed (at the back of the house). We transferred the sleeping boys back to their own beds from ours and in hopped the girls. At 11.30 we decanted the girls and were finally able to get into our own bed. We were delighted. True, four other people had already slept in it that evening, but parents have low standards.
Oh yeah, while we were waiting to get to bed, appropriately enough, we watched the DVD box set of “Outnumbered” which is distressingly accurate.