belgianwaffle

Family

Christmas belongs to the Germans


Posted in: Belgium, Family, Reading etc.

Everything that we associate with Christmas was, essentially, imported by Queen Victoria from her German relatives and exported from there to a waiting world. I was forcibly reminded of this today when I went to the Saxony-Anhalt Christmas market in Brussels. It was absolutely beautiful. They had lovely things for the children, singers in odd costumes who sang to them, not a single tacky stall and the most wonderful wooden toys and decorations. It was without doubt the most perfect Christmas market I have ever been to. It helped that the whole thing seemed to be fairly uncommercial. They were selling things but in a very relaxed way. We were all enchanted. There is absolutely no way I am taking my children to meet Santa after they have seen his workshop at head height in the Saxony Anhalt Christmas market.

I think we can take it that the festivities have begun.

NaBloPoMo – OK, W tomorrow, no really.

Interesting


Posted in: Family, Reading etc.

My sister-in-law drew my attention to this sentence from a review in the Irish Times by Mary Russell:

“When I removed my IUD – a state-of-the-art contraceptive device which served me faithfully – I sprayed it gold and wore it as an earring: an icon in its own right.”

She tells me that she and Ms. Russell did a bit of the camino together. I just thought you should know.
NaBloPoMo – U is for Updike. Which is a pity because I don’t like Updike. I cannot empathise with Rabbit. So there.

However, I now realise that I skipped John McGahern, so I will slot him in here. In my early 20s I read a lot of John McGahern and really enjoyed books like “The Dark” and “The Barracks”. Let’s remember that I was in my early 20s, shall we? I found “Amongst Women” very depressing but rather brilliant. His last novel “That They May Face the Rising Sun” is just weird. It’s a year in Leitrim (distant part of Ireland where almost no one lives). It is immensely evocative and at the end of it, you do really feel as though you’ve spent a year in Leitrim- particularly, if you take as long as I did to read it. My problem with this is I didn’t particularly want to spend a year in Leitrim. There is no plot to speak of. It was published about ten years after his previous novel. My friend C says that it was not that it took him a long time to write it but that he was holding off publishing until all the locals described in the book had died and would therefore be unable to sue him for publishing their stories (or local gossip, if you prefer). For me that rings true. The people in this book (other than the English blow-ins) seem like real people and the I bet all the stories are real.

And, imagine, I forgot Tolkien as well. I read my mother’s version of “The Lord of the Rings” in three volumes when I was 12 or 13. I had read “The Hobbit” earlier and I think it’s possible that my mother had even read it aloud to us when we were smaller. I was absolutely entranced by “The Lord of the Rings”. The year I read “The Lord of the Rings”, my family drove to the North of Italy on holidays and my mother bitterly regretted introducing me to the tome. “Look up, Anne” she would say “it’s the Place de la Concorde; fountains to wash away the blood”. My mother has a taste for the dramatic. I would briefly glance up from Frodo’s trek and then get back to reading. “Anne, please look up, it’s the Alps”. Another brief glance before getting back to business. I reread them all when the films came out and book 2 is a complete dud. Otherwise still a good read, particularly, if you are fond of elves. You may already be familiar with this anecdote in relation to same, but I have included a link, just in case because I am a good and kind person.

Hostess with the leastest


Posted in: Family, Reading etc.

Mr. Waffle’s sister is here for a couple of days. She arrived on Thursday night and, once she got in, I set her cleaning and getting things ready for my bookclub. Then I sent her out to dinner with her brother and welcomed my friends but not before I discovered that my confident assertion that we “have loads of wine” was completely incorrect. G, says that she thought the half bottles of red for cooking were delightful. Also, this is the first time this has ever happened to us but we had exactly one half roll of toilet paper to see us to the weekly shop on Saturday. We have lots of wipes and tissues but it wasn’t really the same, I’m sure you’ll agree.

As I type she is watching dominoes being tipped on telly. And I see from the all knowing wikipedia that it’s a particularly disappointing domino day. Still, the tragedy makes strangely compelling watching and it must make a pleasant change from all that party going in London on a Saturday night.

Oh yeah, I forgot, she got us all tickets to go to Rufus Wainwright last night.  Make that leastest and ungrateful too.  I haven’t been to a (non-classical) concert since I saw Ben Folds in Dublin in 2002 when I was pregnant with the Princess.  All I can say is that things have changed a lot since then. He started on time, there was no support act, we sat in numbered rows and everyone else there was older than me.  Rufus is perfectly pleasant but it was fortunate that we met some friends of ours who are real fans; otherwise my sister-in-law would have been unable to analyse the set and Rufus’s performance in quite the detail she would have liked.  Rufus seems like a pleasant young man and very early in the evening he spoke extensively about playing Cork to the great delight of the (surprisingly) many Cork people in the audience.  What’s not to like?
Want to come and visit?

NaBloPoMo – Q is only for Joe Queenan who’s alright but I wouldn’t get carried away.

Reformed Character


Posted in: Family, Reading etc.

A quiet Sunday, here on the ranch. We went to the revamped Dinosaur Hall in the natural history museum this morning and the children were fascinated by a 3D dinosaur in a cage effect. They were also terrified, particularly when it banged its head on the glass and cracked it (immediately restored by the wonders of technology). Jurassic Park, how are you?

This afternoon we walked, very, very slowly to the park and when we got there it started to pour down; a particularly icy shower too.

This is what happens to your blog when you write every day.

In other news, we recorded, for posterity, the Princess singing a song my brother taught her.

Finally, thank you all very much for the glasses advice. Most helpful.

NaBloPoMo – K is for Keyes, Keillor, Kellaway, Kingsolver and Klein

I like Marian Keyes. Irish romantic fiction (no sniggering at the back, please). I have bought all of her books. They are readable and funny. Unfortunately, she suffers from the same problem as Maeve Binchy, her 20 year olds are not 20 they are the same age as she is. That was less of a problem when she was in her 30s but she’s well into her 40s now and her younger characters aren’t cutting the mustard for me (am I or am I not the queen of cliche?). I think she should bite the bullet and have her main characters all be in their 40s. To hell with the 20 somethings. If you want to give her a go, I recommend “Watermelon” as your best bet. It may interest you to know that my husband’s family lived second next door to the Keyeses when he was growing up (fame!) and he says that the kitchen described in “Watermelon” as “the kitchen that time forgot” is very familiar to him.

It was Garrison Keillor who first alerted me to the fact that a whole swathe of North America is actually Scandinavian. I love the gentle humour of his books and their timeless quality. I suppose they might be a bit annoying, if you are actually from the prairie.

Lucy Kellaway writes the “Martin Lukes” column in the Financial Times and for, at least, the last seven years, my loving husband and I have dutifully shared his highs and lows. Of course we bought the book when it came out. It’s hard for “Who Moved my BlackBerry?” to have the hilarious immediacy of the column, but it’s not bad. If you care, Martin has just been made chief exec of A-B Global and his new wife is expecting triplets. For a taste of marvellous Martin, try this.

I enjoyed “The Poisonwood Bible” very much as did Oprah’s book club. I also liked “The Bean Trees” but I am slightly reluctant to attempt Ms. Kingsolver’s latest offering which has been so positively reviewed. I mean, really, is it likely to endorse my choice of fishfingers as a foodstuff suitable for my children?

I wouldn’t say that I am a Naomi Klein fan but I did enjoy “No Logo” and it briefly made me stop in my consumerist tracks.

Bereft


Posted in: Family, Princess, Reading etc., Twins

The grandparents put in a week of hard graft in Brussels and went home this morning. There were tears (on the Brussels side, the Dublin side remained strangely stoic) as they hopped out of boot camp. It was mid-term and my noble parents-in-law put in a lot of hours with the children while we trooped off to our offices. They also seem to have done all of the cooking.

The grandparents pointed out that Michael and Daniel spent much of their time hitting each other, something we hadn’t noticed so much ourselves. They often do so more in a spirit of enquiry than anger (will this dinky hurt, if I bang my brother’s head with it?) and kiss and make up quite readily before setting off again entirely unabashed. I am not entirely sure to what extent they realise that they are two different people. Michael invariably identifies himself as Daniel in the mirror. The other night when we asked them to say goodnight to each other, they thought it was the most hilarious suggestion they had ever heard.

Back to the grandparents: the Princess’s grandmother spent much of her time here teaching her granddaughter the words to an Andrew Lloyd Webber musical number (not all of the words but she told the Princess the remaining verses could be found on the internet). The wisdom of this I leave for her to decide, but you may inspect the results for yourself here and here. I am the backing singer (I am a less apt pupil than my daughter, you will note).
NaBloPoMo – It turns out that most authors’ surnames begin with C. Below is a selection of my favourites.

C is for Chesterton, Cheek, Christie, Colfer, Coupland and Coe

Chesterton, Gilbert Keith to his friends. Author of the Father Brown short stories, all of which are bound in a large, faded, red volume in my parents’ house and which I have read more times than I can remember. I love Father Brown and even though I know the twist in every single story, I don’t care. Chesterton does suffer a little from the zeal of the convert but as a poor catholic I like that, I always feel a little holier after reading Father Brown. The stories remind me of home and I love them for that too. Funnily enough, I haven’t been tempted to branch out and try further Chesterton. I once read a book of essays called “Tremendous Trifles” and I didn’t enjoy it much even though there was an excellent essay on the joys of lying in bed in the morning. Perhaps I will reconsider when I am feeling strong.

Mavis Cheek writes good feminist fiction. A bit like Fay Weldon only funnier and, I would say, better written. I think I have them all.

Agatha Christie was one of the first “grown-up” authors I read and I have a great affection for her. Sometimes it wavers when I reread. When I had a cold recently, I went to bed early with “The Labours of Hercules” and it was quite shocking. Mind you, it did yield this description of herself by Mrs. Christie on the back cover: “As for my tastes, I enjoy my food, hate the taste of any kind of alcohol, have tried and tried to like smoking, but can’t manage it. I adore flowers, am crazy about the sea, love the theatre but am bored to death by the talkies (and am very stupid at following them), loathe wireless and all loud noises, dislike living in cities. I do a lot of travelling, mostly in the Near East, and have a great love of the desert.” So there.

I have been reading children’s fiction for a long time. I read the first Harry Potter at a time when it was neither profitable nor popular. Eoin Colfer is a hugely successful Irish children’s author. His hero is Artemis Fowl an adolescent genius who discovers that there is a fairyland. It sounds dreadful but it’s hilarious action packed stuff and, if you can’t quite face it yourself, I highly recommend it for your children.

Douglas Coupland has been writing about my generation for a long time. I bought my copy of “Generation X” in 1992 and I have bought almost everything he has written since. He is a bit hit and miss. “Shampoo planet” was awful; “Microserfs” left me cold; “Girlfriend in a Coma” and “Eleanor Rigby” were interesting; “All Families are Psychotic” was probably my favourite but it was very odd indeed. “J-pod” awaits my attention.

Jonathan Coe is the author of the truly excellent “House of Sleep”, “What a Carve-up” and “The Rotters’ Club”. Less successful, if you ask me, is “The Closed Circle”. I have just finished “The Rain Before it Falls” and I am not entirely convinced. Hmm.

Any suggestions?

Three generations of annoyingly precocious children


Posted in: Family, Princess

The Princess irritates her teacher by answering before other children (as well she might, since they have to struggle with limited French in a way that she does not). I well remember when I was in fourth class (10) annoying my teacher by lecturing her on Samuel Johnson (who wouldn’t be annoyed?). I got a letter from my father the other day (letters from my father are always a thrill and it remains a matter of deep irritation that my sister gets more of them than I do – she points out that she writes more too) recounting something similar happening to him when he was young in the 1930s:

“I recalled when I was in St. Joseph’s (a fairly tough National school which drew a lot of its clientele from the Marsh – that is, from the flat of the city, places like Sheare’s street, Liberty street, the Main street, and so on). This area had mostly been depopulated by giving the people better housing in the suburbs – Ballyphehane, Gurranebraher, and so on, so that you would not be able to form a very good idea of the way it was when I was a child.

I was a goody-two-shoes sitting in the front of the class, when the Presentation brother in charge, a brother Alphonsus, set the class a problem in mathematics. I was then a precocious little b*st*rd who had also (like you) learned to read very early, and I tended to be a teacher’s pet, I think. At all events, I solved the problem easily and quickly (I am not so sure I could do it now) and called out the answer within a very short time.

At that time each teacher had a cane – a stick about a metre long and 1 or 2 centimetres thick – and the good brother called me to the front of the class, and gave me a good blow of the cane on my outstretched hand. This was then roughly the equivalent of what you told me about M. The zeitgeist today would find this sort of discipline offensive, but it was the norm then, although I think the brother over-reacted: he might have been hoping for a few minutes relaxation while the class struggled with the problem. This sort of discipline even had a theoretical pedagological justification. The unruly student was beaten, and when suffering the pain of the punishment he would be more amenable to words of advice and reproof about his behaviour. I am not necessarily defending this, but I didn’t offend in this way again”.

Quite.