belgianwaffle

Family

Offline in East Cork


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

Did you miss me? No, don’t tell me, it’s probably better for both of us, if I don’t know. I have been at my friends’ house in East Cork for the week bonding with my children. No television and no computer. It was surprisingly pleasant. And the good news is that I have prepared for you a blow by blow description of our trip. Go on, admit it, you’re delighted.

Saturday

We drove to Cork in the morning. I know I am becoming somewhat tedious on the subject of the new road to Cork but as a child I spent a minimum of 6 hours on the road to Dublin with my parents and now it can easily be done door to door in three hours. So we were able to have lunch in my parents’ house and then spend the afternoon in Garryvoe. Quite amazing.

On the road from Cork to Garryvoe there is a lake with swans. Mr. Waffle said to the children, “Regardez, des cynges!” “What kind of signs?” asked Daniel. I’m not at all sure this French lark is going as well as I hoped it would. “Is signes not the French for signs?” I asked. “No,” he said, “road signs are panneaux.” The French, they torture me because they can.

The children were delighted to see the beach and promptly flung themselves into the water fully dressed. Fortunately, our friends’ house is right beside the beach and we were able to drip home without suffering from hypothermia.

003” Beach

That evening, I taught herself how to make breakfast for her brothers in the hope that this might allow me to stay in bed a little longer. This was only moderately successful as the excitement her task generated meant that she was bouncing around until 11.30 that night and up again at 6.30 asking anxiously whether it was time to make breakfast.

Meanwhile, Daniel had gone into our bedroom to be alone. When we went up to bed we discovered that he had put to good use the key to the door and locked himself in. We began by whispering and ended by shouting and banging the door but he slept on oblivious. The Princess giggled hysterically and her father became rather annoyed and took himself off to Daniel’s bed. Using my Enid Blyton lore I stuck a piece of paper under the door and wiggled the key in the lock with a corkscrew. The key landed with a thud. Unfortunately, even, if it had landed on the paper (which it did not) it was too wide to fit under the door. Fortunately, every room in our friends’ house had a key and all of the locks turned out to be the same so all was well. The next day, we put all the keys on top of the doors.

Sunday

Mr. Waffle got the train back to Dublin at lunch time and after dropping him to the station in Cork, the children and I visited my parents. I visited a cousin in hospital and we then retired to our East Cork fastness and out to the beach. The Princess was, by now, on Harry Potter book 5 and she went to bed with it. I was summoned to her room at 11 to look for Voldemort under the covers. She came to sleep with me.

Monday

I realised that part of the reason I am never normally cross with the children is that Mr. Waffle does it for me.

My plan for the day is that we will go to the beach until 11 and then on to the fleshpots of Leahy’s fun farm. A plan calculated to bring joy to the hearts of small children one would think. But no.

We have a very frustrating morning. It is a beautiful day and I try, unavailingly, to persuade the children to come to the beach. No, no, they want to stay at the house. The Princess has started on HP book 6. At 10.30, they fancy a snack. I lure them outside by promising to buy them ice cream in the shop. I plan to make it a brief stop on the way to the farm. We go to the shop. Do they have to have ice cream? I suppose not. The Princess fills a bag with what I used to call “penny sweets”, I’m not quite sure what they are now, cents sweets? I make her put half of them back. She is unhappy. We buy buckets (for reasons which are unclear we appear to have packed only one leaking bucket from the sample of hundreds available at home) and a spade (one of our three has been carried away by the tide). I end up spending 17 euros on what was a trip out for an ice cream. No one says thank you. I am unhappy. General peevishness.

It is not yet time to go to the fun farm according to my, suddenly dictatorial, timetable. We go to the playground near the beach. The weather is uncharacteristically warm and sunny. I mop up ice cream. I apply sun cream. I discover, to my horror, there is only enough in the bottle to cover two children. I suggest that we go to the shop to buy more. Nobody will come with me. I consider leaving them and nipping across to the shop on my own. I decide that I can’t, the boys are only 4, after all and herself is really too small to mind them. I sit in blazing sunshine and pray for rain. It does not rain. I try to assert myself again and fail. Michael (the un sunblocked child) assures me that he will not burn. This is unconvincing as his skin is lily white and he cannot prevent sunburn by will power alone.

The Princess suggests that we test out the new buckets on the adjoining beach for a moment. Weakly, I agree, “but only for a minute”. Once they get on the beach, the children are delighted. I am very bitter that I did not assert myself earlier in the morning and force them to come out. I sit there feeling v. warm (no sunscreen for me either) and praying for rain. It does not rain. The children are having a fantastic time. I am fretting about sunscreen. They have waded into water to their waists despite my begging them not to and will need to go home and change before we go anywhere. It’s time to go home, I say sternly. They ignore me. I sit there getting crosser and crosser. To add to my chagrin, another mother is skipping in and out of the waves with her small son clearly having a fantastic time as I sit on the rocks glaring at my disobedient offspring like some kind of archetypal malevolent step-mother.

Eventually, I lose my temper and announce enough is enough we are leaving. I march towards the car in a towering fury. No one follows. Michael is not budging, he wants to make a sandcastle in his new bucket. The buckets are those square ones with turrets and he is diligently filling it with wet sand from under the water. He ignores my angrily hissed instruction that it will not come out and keeps filling. I give up and angrily help him fill it to the brim. We turn it over, it does not work, he howls. I march off foaming at the mouth with him trotting behind me in tears. I roar at the other two to follow. Daniel, who despite his own temper is actually made very miserable when either of his parents are cross, starts to cry and say “Sorry, sorry, it’s all my fault, it’s all my fault.” I am impervious and as I march towards the car with my gloomy troops, I begin to enumerate their faults. “I am in charge,” I announce “and, in future, when I say jump, you say how high?” They are unfamiliar with this particular cliché and my temper is not improved by having to explain what it means. The Princess says coldly, “There’s no need to shout.” A triumph of parenting.

Despite this, frankly inauspicious, start to the day, the trip to the fun farm is a huge success. We arrive at 12 and do not leave until 6. Lunch appears something of a low point as the children tuck into chips and nuggets and I have an uninspired toasted special. In fact, had I known at that point how low my standards on the children’s food would slip later in the week, I would have been a great deal more relaxed.

024 Snake

018 Tractor

At the same time as we were there, there was a bunch of children from the Chernobyl children’s project. They are let in free every year, apparently as part of Mr. Leahy’s programme of corporate responsibility (though I really doubt that he would put it in these terms himself – I have met him both times we were there and he looks and acts exactly like a Cork farmer in his 60s). This is part of a project where Irish families take in children from Chernobyl for a fortnight’s holiday every summer. I couldn’t imagine doing this myself but I really admire families who do year after year. Most of the children seemed fine although there were a couple who were clearly mentally handicapped and I think many of the others probably have nasty, less visible, problems.

Tuesday

We went to the Observatory after a slightly annoying tour of Cork suburbs (only 15 minutes from the ringroad said the brochure, it omitted to add if you know where you are going as signs are few and far between). The children were pleased and I found myself pondering our infinitesimal smallness in the face of the cosmos. A success then until Daniel wet his trousers because he was too absorbed in moving species to their correct habitat to go to the toilet. They all sent a message to space. Michael has been driving me demented since asking where exactly his message is now. Messages travel at the speed of light and the interface helpfully indicated that it would take 1.2 seconds to reach the moon, a month to reach Jupiter and so on. Had I known I was going to be cross-questioned on this for days, I would have paid a lot more attention at the time. Anyhow, it’s going to take 122 years before it reaches its ultimate destination so I have been quoting that at him.

I deposited the children at my parents’ house and went into town to buy trousers, underpants and socks for Daniel feeling that he couldn’t stay naked from the waist down. I don’t much like out of town shopping centres and I prefer to shop in the city centre. As I have always lived near town, I usually walk. On this particular day, it was raining and I drove. I now understand why city traders complain about lack of parking. The whole thing was a nightmare. The city fathers in their wisdom had closed Patrick Street north bound, chosen to relay cobbles on the Coal Quay and have not yet repaired the wall near the Mercy hospital where the river overflowed its banks late last year leading to a lengthy diversion. Cork is small but it was nearly three hours after driving in that I staggered back to my parents’ determined never to repeat the experience. The authorities have been plugging the fact that Cork is one of the Lonely Planet’s top 10 places to visit in 2010 but, clearly, the Lonely Planet people left their cars at home.

I’m exhausted and it’s only Tuesday. More tomorrow, if we’re all feeling strong.

In Tents


Posted in: Cork, Family, Ireland, Princess, Siblings, Travel

The Princess and I graced Cork with our presence this weekend. We travelled down on the, very expensive, train and came back by the newly constructed motorway. Well actually, only a stretch of motorway was newly constructed but it completes the Cork to Dublin motorway. The journey, door to door, took us under two and a half hours. When I was young, it used to be easily five hours. As a friend once said to me – whatever they take away from us, they can’t take back our roads.

It’s always nice to go to Cork. I settled into the old familiar routine, leaving the doors open to irritate my father, refusing to let my mother feed sweets to my daughter, stealing my sister’s moisturiser at bed time – do you think she left a tube of leather shoe cream on top of her make-up case on purpose? It’s only harmful, if ingested, but, frankly, it is also sub-optimal when applied to the face.

The Princess and I went to the market to buy dinner and were charged with getting a rack of lamb from Ashley. I was mildly pleased that though I haven’t been there for 20 odd years, he still recognised me and when I consulted with my mother on the telephone, he beckoned me and said “tell her that I have a leg of lamb for €25”. “Are you still in Belgium?” he asked. “No, I’m in Dublin.” He shook his head sadly at the error of my ways. I ran into our fishmonger’s son last time I was back. They had been going for something like 100 years but when Mr. Sheehan retired, none of the children fancied taking it on. There’s a parable there somewhere but I think it needs an Irish Times columnist to develop it fully.

We went into the Crawford for a look at the sculpture and a cup of tea. I made her walk around the plaster cast of the Torso Belvedere but she was much more taken with a 19th century statue of Hibernia. I once attended a lecture on sculpture and the lecturer said two things which have given me much pleasure and I will now share them with lucky old you: 1. sculpture is three dimensional, always walk around a sculpture to appreciate it fully, 2. sculpture is heavy and often, the sculptor will have to put something behind the subject’s legs so that it is not too heavy to stay upright. At its most uninspiring this is a tree stump or column – visible in this statue on Dublin’s main street but it can also lead to more exciting flights of fancy. On this occasion, our reward for circling Hibernia was to find her dog’s tail sticking out the back of her chair.

When we got to the cafe, I felt peckish. There was a full Irish breakfast on the menu. I ate it. I regretted this. No sooner did we get back to my parents’ house than herself announced to everyone that her mother had eaten more than she had ever seen consumed in one sitting and proceded to enumerate the full contents of the Irish breakfast. This led to all manner of anxious questions. “Was I not being fed properly at home?” “Was there something that should be bought in anticipation of my arrival?” So impressed was my child with my enormous intake that she also reported it to her father when she returned to Dublin the following evening. I feel like some kind of circus performer.

On Sunday afternoon, we were scheduled to drive back to Dublin with my sister. The question of my little family inheriting the parents’ tent has been canvassed (ha ha) over the past number of months. On Sunday afternoon, my sister said, “You should take the tent, it’s now or never.” Why did I believe her? Bits of the tent were everywhere – in one wardrobe, on top of another and – insert drumroll – in the attic. As I stood at the top of the attic ladder holding a bunch of poles while my mother’s and my daughter’s anxious faces peered up at me, I knew that I had made a mistake. My sister had disappeared to deal with some particularly intractable problem related to the start-up menu on the parents’ computer. Mercifully, she came and rescued the poles, only slightly hindered by her niece who had lodged herself on the bottom steps of the ladder. As well as the tent, my mother pressed upon me two sleeping bags and two fold up beds. There was a lot more kit that I wouldn’t let her give me. Partly because my sister’s car is a Golf and there is only so much camping equipment you can fit in a small VW. Partly because I worried my husband would kill me. I then realised that I had no idea what the tent looked like up. My mother suggested that we should pitch it in the garden so that I could see. Two principal objections presented themselves: 1. It was raining; 2 I was hoping to get home before nightfall. My father searched his files for instructions and though I saw directions for putting up the trailer tent over his shoulder (sold ca. 1995 – a real pain to put up), but of the instructions for the, I am assured, 6 man tent I took away yesterday, there was no sign. The only information I have is that the two longer poles go into the ground first and after that it is all intuitive. Mr. Waffle and I are going to try pitching it next weekend and I fear that it will not prove intuitive as rain threatens and three small children ask repeatedly “Can I help?” My mother who, in her heart of hearts, cannot believe that I am a grown-up, said to me anxiously “You won’t be foolish enough to put it away wet, will you?”

And in other news, the cat had her adolescent health check. Yes, really. The vet says that the cat needs to go on a diet. She is not going to enjoy that.

Busy, busy, busy


Posted in: Family, Ireland

Saturday

I am godmother to the child of conservative catholic parents. He made his first holy communion on Saturday and we were invited to the house for tea, buns, sandwiches and the use of a bouncy castle. Off we went and very pleasant it was too. Largely because of bouncy castle which allowed the grown-ups to chat peacefully while the children exhausted themselves.

Obviously, as it was the home of very devout catholics, we were the most wishy-washy people there. Aside from the relatives, who, I think, were largely lapsed. Dramatis personae, aside from ourselves and relatives consisted of the local priest (young by priestly standards, mid 30s, I’d say), a friend and her six children and another couple and their child.

The priest and the communicant’s mother had recently been on a pilgrimage to Turin with a group. We relived highlights of this which was absolutely hilarious. The church in Ireland attracts eccentrics and they had their fair share of them on their trip to Turin. In particular, one elderly lady became obsessed with getting two young men whom she knew on the trip. They were in Italy and she felt that they would love to join. The priest told her firmly, no, (as they hadn’t paid) but she managed to smuggle them into her room and persuaded some unfortunate nun to let her double up with her. She then smuggled them in to see the shroud of Turin also. The priest announced that she would be barred from the next pilgrimage. “How?” I asked. “We’ll give her name to the tour operator and ask them to tell her it’s full, if she calls.” The deviousness of the clergy. They’re used to dealing with odd people, I suppose.

Talk turned to the first communion ceremony itself. For historical reasons, first communion in Ireland is a little like weddings in other countries; people who would never go near a church under normal circumstances, take part in this religious ceremony. This means that often parents have only the vaguest idea of what to do during a church ceremony (the expression unchurched, which I only came across for the first time recently, was tossed around like snuff at a wake). According to my informants the parents spoke throughout mass and took calls on their mobile phones. One father assumed that the bringing up of the gifts was the start of the first communion moment and leapt in front of the procession and held it up while he started photographing madly. Amusing all the same.

The woman with six children was home schooling them (yes, really, because Irish schools aren’t catholic enough) and was married to a man working as a eurosceptic in Brussels. Not, prima facie, my cup of tea. We did not touch on politics and this was probably a good thing. But I have to say, she had six lovely, polite, confident children and she herself was charming though pretty tired looking. As you would be, I imagine, if you home-schooled 6 children aged from 12 to 9 months and your husband worked in Brussels, five days a week. I know that there is lots of home schooling in the US but almost nobody home schools in Ireland and I was fascinated by how she was getting on. She said it worked for them but she wasn’t at all pushy about it. I was filled with admiration. Particularly as, while her six, SIX, children were being polite, charming etc. my eldest was lying on the sofa explaining to the first communicant’s grandmother why he was vile (there was an incident on the bouncy castle).

Sunday

Sunday was the nicest day of the year so far and we had a plan. We went to Ireland’s Eye which is an island off the North coast of Dublin.

We had a slightly rocky start as our ferryman was abused by a rival who flounced off with the words: “I wouldn’t travel with him, he has no licence and he’s an alcoholic.” The red face and shaky hands of our captain lent some colour to the latter accusation but he navigated the 300 meter chasm between Ireland’s Eye and the mainland without difficulty. The Princess was entranced. She had never been on a small boat before and hung over the edge peering into the water. The island has a martello tower and she exclaimed, “It’s like Kirrin Island.”

Ireland's Eye 069

Everyone was pretty peckish by the time we got to the island, so we had our picnic. I picked an idyllic spot which turned out to be right in the centre of a circle of nettles and thistles. Alas.

Ireland's Eye 047

However, it did mean that we got to see some seagulls’ eggs. Until the seagulls came back and dived and flapped at us while we ran for safety.

Ireland's Eye 046

Then we went down to the beach and swam and played with buckets and spades while the rich arrived in droves in their yachts.

Ireland's Eye 055

Then, it was time to gather all our gear and get the ferry back.
Ireland's Eye 074

At the end of the pier, the children and I got ice cream while Mr. Waffle went to get the car. Daniel dropped his and the Princess very nobly gave him the end of hers instead. She repented of this kind gesture and began lobbying me for another ice cream. I resisted. She stomped off in a huff. This is something she does when she gets very cross. It was difficult for me to go after her as I had the two ice-cream besmeared boys and mountains of kit. When her father came, I was peeved. I stomped off with him and the boys up to where he had parked the car leaving her hiding behind a sign, reasoning that I could collect her in a moment and haul her off when I had disposed of my encumbrances. When I went back, I knew something was wrong when I saw her with two older Americans whom we had passed earlier. Yes, indeed, she was in floods of tears and thought we had gone without her. I don’t think that I have ever seen the poor mite so happy to see me. The kind Americans were, understandably, relieved and pleased to see me. The whole interlude lasted no longer than five minutes but she was very woebegone. Sometimes I forget how small she is really despite her will of iron. She confided to me that she didn’t trust the Americans and had planned to slip away and go back to the ice cream shop and tell them that she was lost. I was pleased to see her instincts were so sound as I have always told her to go to a shop and explain her predicament, if she is ever lost. On the other hand, I hope she will grow better at guessing which grown-ups are likely to abduct her (something she has been warned of in school, I fear) and which are not for it is hard to imagine a more innocent looking pair than the kindly Americans. All’s well that ends well. Another learning experience for both of us.

Monday

Mr. Waffle and I did not work today and went on one of our occasional walks in the Wicklow hills. Mindful of previous reprimands by readers of this blog, despite the cool and misty weather, I did not wear jeans. I was very grateful as the clouds blew off and it got warm during our walk. I wish I had brought suncream, though, as now my face is like a tomato. Alas.

We went on our longest walk yet. Three hours. Snigger not, hikers. The first half of the circuit was delightful. Warm, but not too hot, downhill to a lake with mountains on either side and not a soul there but ourselves. We saw loads of deer. The undergrowth was full of bluebells. God was in his heaven all was right with the world. We forgot the camera but here are some internet pictures.

The way back was uphill and hot and we got lost and we trekked for miles. To our intense surprise we emerged just by where we had parked the car. We left a small sacrifice to the god of lost hikers and high tailed it to Hunter’s for afternoon tea in the garden before coming home.

Lovely. And I managed to finish the weekend papers too.

Weekend Round-up


Posted in: Family, Mr. Waffle, Princess

On Saturday afternoon we went to the Botanical Gardens. It was full of little first communicants in regalia which filled me with envy. On Saturday night, Mr. Waffle and I went to see Date Night. This, although entertaining, was a very poor choice. It’s about a married couple in mid-life who work full-time, have small children, are well-meaning and are constantly exhausted. Mr. Waffle and I are that couple. We winced as each joke hit home. In an example of life imitating art, after the cinema we went to an edgy new restaurant. Happily, no one tried to shoot us.

The restaurant is run by a man called Conrad Gallagher who is famous/notorious in Ireland. An acquaintance had recounted investigating his new restaurant and I was curious to go myself after hearing her description. She described the service as pert. Before she arrived, they rang several times to remind her that they only took cash – no credit cards. On arrival, the waiter interrupted her to tell her she was wrong about something. My acquaintance, who is formidable, was not pleased. She was also right.

My own experience of the service was similar. When I rang to book for 8.30, I was asked whether I played the lottery. I was baffled. I was told that I had as much chance of winning the lottery as getting at table at 8.30. How about 9.15? Oh how we laughed. 9.15 it was. Which would have been fine, if we had been seated at our table at 9.15 as promised, instead of 9.45. There is no waiting area so we stood just inside the door feeling deeply unwelcome.

Dinner is a tasting menu and you opt for one of 4, I think, set menus. We opted for the €34 a head menu which, I have to say is pretty good value. Courses 1, 4 and 5 worked very well. Dessert was particularly good, I thought. On the minus side the second course of curried crab reminded me of the curry tuna orange paste that is such a staple of the Belgian lunch time sandwich market and the third course asparagus risotto boasted woody asparagus and, bafflingly, a duck confit topping. Not a marriage made in heaven. Still, I think that all would have been well, if the service had not been so unbearably slow. By 11.45 when we finally got the bill, I was practically asleep on the table. My mood was not improved by the waiter saying smarmily to me as he handed over the bill and pointed to my husband “Is he boring you?” Yes, certainly you will endear diners to you by insulting them/their partners. All in all, I’m not sure I will be rushing back.

On Sunday afternoon, we went to the park to celebrate my niece’s 2nd birthday. I was very dubious about this outing as a) it was likely to rain and b) my children were unlikely to eat anything offered in the market. I was wrong on both counts and a very pleasant afternoon was had by all. We were able to let the Princess encounter commerce – she went to buy herself some sweets. I deeply regretted giving her a €20 note (smallest I had) as she arrived back with a €9 box of artisan fudge rather than a 50c bar of chocolate. A learning experience for all of us there. However, she was able to run and play in the playground on the far side of the park on her own which made her seem very big and grown-up and I think she was quite pleased with herself.

When we got home, herself ran upstairs to finish off “The Horse and his Boy” and Mr. Waffle played ball games with the boys in the garden while I made dinner. It was all very suburbia in the 1950s but none the less pleasant for that.

Then, yesterday, disaster, my childminder’s boyfriend can’t find a job and they are moving back to France. Alas.

Small World or I am allowed to be as pretentious as I like here


Posted in: Dublin, Family, Ireland

Sometimes at lunch time I go to the National Gallery. It’s peaceful there. Following my trip to Paris and my new found love for Largillière, I have been working my way around the two (very small) French rooms. I looked at the picture of Richard Wall by Van Loo. It’s a good picture and I spent a while imaging Mr. Wall, who has a face made for meetings, chairing a very dull modern committee without a wig or a skirted coat. He was described as Spanish Ambassador to England and I thought that was a little odd and perhaps it should be the other way around. Wikipedia, as ever, was my friend. Richard Wall was indeed Spanish Ambassador to England although he was more commonly known as Ricardo Wall. But he was of Irish origin, in fact his people came from Kilmallock in Co. Limerick (where, as it happens, my mother grew up and my cousins still live). Wouldn’t it be worth mentioning this in the description and perhaps even moving Ambassador Wall to the fledgling Irish portrait gallery on the ground floor?

Round-up


Posted in: Cork, Dublin, Family, Ireland, Mr. Waffle, Princess, Twins

I took the boys to Cork for the weekend. The train journey was horrific due to overcrowding but fellow passengers were kind and the boys reasonably good so it passed off peacefully enough. The weekend was largely uneventful which in itself is remarkable. The boys were saintly at mass with my parents (front pew – the anguish) and my father gave them a fiver afterwards for good behaviour. Enormous largesse which they promptly disposed of in the scout hall jumble sale across the car park.

In fact the only eventful thing that happened was in the park on Sunday afternoon when a small child (maybe aged 6/7) armed with a water pistol (machine gun sized, pump action – I have to say, letting your child bring such an object to the playground, is a poor decision) started spraying my children from the top of the slide. Reluctantly, I heaved myself up from the seat where I had been happily chatting to my mother and went to intervene. Although the boys were clearly enjoying themselves, I didn’t feel that water down the backs of their coats was going to make them or me happy in the longer term as the weather continues cool (alas). I went to the bottom of the slide and wagged my finger at the young man at the top and said “No matter how much they ask you to spray them with water, don’t do so because I will be displeased.” Suddenly, this woman approached me like a fury from where she had been sitting on the sidelines.

Her (livid): Did you hold your finger up to my son?
Me (surprised): Yes, I did, you see he is spraying my sons with his water cannon…
Her: (still livid) I’ve been watching those boys, they were running around underneath encouraging him to spray them.
Me: (placatingly) I’m sure they were and I’m sorry about that..but I don’t want him to spray them and…
Her: (still absolutely livid): Then keep them away from him and don’t you ever raise your finger at another woman’s child again. And you should chill, it’s only water.

I kept them away and shortly after departed as her son was very keen to play with my boys and his form of playing involved spitting mouthfuls of water all over them (which I admit, they enjoyed) and I was too scared to reprove him or approach his mother.

I was really upset. She was so unpleasant. I didn’t want to go to war over the water pistol and did everything I could to diffuse the situation but to absolutely no avail. On subsequently recounting this to a number of people, they said I was wrong not to approach the mother in the first instance. I didn’t see her but I suppose I didn’t particularly look for her. It didn’t occur to me for a moment that I couldn’t say to this child, stop soaking mine with your water pistol. My tone was jocular (though firm, like supernanny) and the child smiled mischievously at me – he didn’t look at all upset and I didn’t mean him to be upset, just to make less free with the water pistol.

If the boot had been on the other foot, I honestly think I would have rushed to apologise. My sister says that this is because of my constant desire to please. I really don’t think so or, at least, not entirely. My experience is that when there are grown-ups and small children around, the grown-ups are the ones who are rational and reasonable and, if they are reproving my children, then they are most likely to be right. I have never in seven years of intensive playground frequenting in various jurisdictions encountered anything like this woman. She scared the bejaysus out of me. I hate to come over all Daily Mail here but what is the world coming to when, in a playground, with your children, you cannot say to another child “stop that”? Actually, to be honest, I think you probably can. But I won’t be doing that again, I will be frantically looking around for parents and saying really apologetically, “Look, I’m sorry to interrupt you, but your child appears to be [soaking mine/strangling mine/thumping mine] and while I know it’s my child’s fault, I wonder whether you’d mind asking yours to stop before he exhausts his [trigger finger/delicate hands/little fist]?” And they will be apologetic and think I am insane, but at least I won’t be scared rigid.

In other news, the children are off school for the week and today I took them to Glendalough for the day. It was chilly and despite having seen the Secret of Kells as a prelude to exploring one of Ireland’s most famous monastic settlements they remained unmoved. The Princess was, however, in a position to toss words like scriptorium about with authority, if not with accuracy: “It’s the scriptorium.” “You know, I really think it’s a church.” “It’s not.” At the end of the day, both boys when questioned separately identified getting an ice cream cone as the highlight of the trip. In response to the same question, the Princess said that the picnic would have been had it not been so cold and had I remembered to bring the buns. Not a disaster then, but not exactly a success either. Tomorrow we’re staying at home.

Mr. Waffle is supposed to be back from his glamourous foreign location tomorrow night and M, the babysitter, is supposed to come back from France. They may both be foiled by the cloud of volcanic ash which is currently scheduled to sit on Ireland. In which case, the children and I will be spending more time together than we had planned. What do you reckon, Newgrange?