belgianwaffle

Ireland

My Teenage Years


Posted in: Cork, Ireland

Kara suggested that I might fill in some NaBloPoMo posts with stories from my teenage years. I am not sure that I can give a story a day because that would just be too traumatic but I will give one story.

When I was about 17, I went down town with my mother and there was a tall handsome Pres boy collecting money for SHARE. “Hello William,” said she. “Anne,” said my mother, “you remember William, you used to play together all the time, you were great friends when you were children.” And I did remember William, last seen when I was eight. But I had not been aware that he was handsome then. Remember, gentle reader, I attended a single sex school and my exposure to young men consisted almost (although not entirely) of exposure to my younger brother’s friends. I blushed to the roots of my hair (and I was a brilliant blusher) and was unable to say a word. I muttered something. I died.

About ten years later who did I run into in Dublin, only William. By then I had been through college and my relationship with men was entirely different. I was filled with confidence. What a co-incidence: what was he doing? Was he working in Dublin? How was his mother (great friend of my mother’s and source of our limited acquaintance)? “Gosh, I haven’t seen you in years,” I said. “Yes,” he said, with deplorable, though accurate, recall, “not since that time when I was collecting for SHARE on Patrick St and I met you with your mother and you went bright red and couldn’t say anything.” I died.

The motto of this story is that, contrary to what your mother says, not all of these things are forgotten and actually, people do notice.

To Hell or to Connaught


Posted in: Ireland, Middle Child, Twins

Daniel: Is that a prison?
Me: No, actually, it’s a former mental hospital.
Daniel: It looks like a prison.
Me: It does a bit. When it was built, people with mental illnesses were treated a bit like prisoners and locked up in really unpleasant places. In fact, in Ireland, we have a very bad history of locking people up in mental asylums just because they were a bit strange or difficult. I read somewhere that in the 1950s there were more mental patients per head of population than anywhere else in the world.
Daniel: That Oliver Cromwell was really terrible, wasn’t he?

Bookish


Posted in: Dublin, Family, Ireland

Yesterday we cycled up to the library en famille. Some of us went on the pavement but that’s ok because the stretch between the top of our road and our local library must be one of the busiest roads in the country. When we came home, this was the happy scene:

image

Have I mentioned how much I wish that our budget would stretch to either changing the previous owner’s sofa or her curtains [Mr. Waffle describes the combined effect as “do not adjust your set”].

Then today we went to the launch of “The Hatching” at the Dublin Book Festival and it was terrific. The author [a ghost-writer for 12 year old Annie Graves] gave a couple of great readings and the children were spellbound. We then went to the book clinic where the book doctor diagnosed your reading needs and gave you a prescription for books you might like. The Princess particularly enjoyed this as, having read everything, she put them to the pins of their collars. She was interviewed by the man doing a documentary on the festival and she enjoyed that too.

image

I was particularly impressed by the man who worked with Michael and seemed very familiar with the work of Dav Pilkey and other authors Michael particularly enjoys. Have you not heard of “Captain Underpants”? You haven’t lived. Daniel did not go to the book doctor as he was curled up on a beanbag reading and preferred to stay where he was.

image

And then we went for pizza.

image

Cellar Infill Works


Posted in: Dublin, Ireland

They’re building a new tram line in Dublin. As part of the works, they’re backfilling old Georgian cellars.

It’s a little odd to think of these old vaulted cellars under the road for centuries. They are all that remain of once grand houses long since pulled down and replaced by unlovely corporation flats. Many of the flats themselves are now boarded up and abandoned.

The Irish Georgian Society is displeased.

I can’t help but remember when Mr Waffle and I were dumbfounded many years ago in Canada by a chance to inspect grain silo number no.2 which was preserved as part of Montreal’s industrial heritage. Mr. Waffle feels that this is better than a cellar but I am unconvinced.

So is this
a) wanton destruction of Dublin’s Georgian heritage or
b) necessary for progress after all they are only cellars for God’s sake.

Your views in the comments, please. Ah go on.

Swimming against the Tide


Posted in: Ireland, Reading etc.

In today’s paper there was an obituary of a Fianna Fáil politician. He was one of the Ansbacher account holders. He was described as “a devout Catholic, non-smoker and non-drinker”. I am not quite sure how he squared his banking arrangements with a devout catholic conscience; anyhow, these words do make him sound joyless and judgemental and I feel that they were intended to do so. It certainly painted a mental picture for me and it was not a particularly positive one.

It then occurred to me that the words might also be applied to me. Given that the criteria for devout catholic have relaxed quite a bit since I was younger and weekly mass-goer seems to be sufficient to make the grade, I am in there. I have never been a smoker. And I don’t like the taste of alcohol, so I tend not to drink. I will often take a glass of wine, if people are insistent (and, in Ireland, they often are) but I’ll just have a sip and in my experience, people don’t notice you’re not drinking, if you have a full glass of something in front of you. My only hope of salvation is, clearly, to continue to pretend to drink.

Did you know that you were reading the blog of a devout Catholic, non-smoker and non-drinker? Also, a pedant which is why I wonder, catholic, c or C? Advice in the comments please.

Tayto Park


Posted in: Family, Ireland

We went to Tayto Park on Sunday with the cousins. It’s an attraction park built on the enduring appeal of the crisp and the place of the potato in the Irish psyche.

Untitled

When we arrived, it was lashing. We stopped in a petrol station on the way and I said to the woman behind the counter that we were going to Tayto Park. She put her hand up to her mouth and said “Oh my God.” It was that kind of rain.

As we ran from the car to the entrance in the wettest kind of rain the Princess skipped sideways encouraging us on shoutinge:

‘Charge, Chester, charge!/on, Stanley, on!’/Were the last words of Marmion.

It was very appropriate and all that but did give me a slight shock. “Are you quoting from Marmion?” “Yes, obviously.” Obviously. I have subsequently discovered that she regularly uses many of the lines from Scott’s epic poem:

Heap on more wood! the wind is chill;/But let it whistle as it will

Something she says often and a line that I really like myself especially at this time of year. I had thought vaguely that it was Frost.

And then she knows these couplets about young Lochinvar:

O young Lochinvar is come out of the west,
Through all the wide Border his steed was the best;

For a laggard in love, and a dastard in war,
Was to wed the fair Ellen of brave Lochinvar.

And it turns out that this line she is fond of is from Marmion as well:

And darest thou then/To beard the lion in his den

“Are you doing Marmion in school,” I asked (improbable, you will concede). “No, I just know it, I don’t know how, just from reading, I suppose.” She continues to surprise.

After the first half hour, miraculously, the weather improved and Tayto Park’s various attractions were sampled, including a terrifying zip wire that only herself went on. I had to go with the boys around a sky walk which did not look terrifying but really was. The boys and I went on level 1 but herself went on level 2 and pronounced it unscary. Isn’t it well for her?

Untitled

There was a haunted house which the children bailed out of in room 1 but I went around because I couldn’t bear not to get value for our money. I scare easily but it was kind of scary. The best moment was when I was alone some way behind three adults screaming loudly. One of the actors from the house was behind them, dressed as Dracula. I tapped him on the shoulder and he jumped a mile.

Overall, I must say, it was very successful; the children enjoyed it very much and it wasn’t too hideous for the adults. The knowledge that in fine weather you may have to queue an hour and a half for the rides we were able to saunter up to was pleasing even though the danger of damp was a constant. Still and all, a win over all.

Untitled

And, oh yes, there was face painting:

image