belgianwaffle

Ireland

Bank Holiday Weekend


Posted in: Family, Ireland

According to RTE, the bank holiday weekend is sponsored by Liberty insurance. Humph. Anyhow, it’s certainly not sponsored by Anglo-Irish Bank whose unfinished headquarters looms over the docklands. As Mr. Waffle said, enough irony for a double Alanis Morisette album.

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We were down in the docklands yesterday for organised fun and it was, as ever, disastrous. Queue to get on to small boat; fork out for overpriced random treats; walk for miles. I don’t know why we do this to ourselves. Here are some photos which in no way reflect the actual level of fun had at the event.

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Today we fulfilled a long held ambition of mine and went on a day trip to Northern Ireland. It was, as Daniel said, almost successful. The weather was beautiful. The walk through the woods near Rostrevor was lovely.

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But herself was wearing fur lined boots and she was very toasty. She told us about it a great deal. Michael had fashioned a wand for himself which he lost and no other twig in the forest was a substitute. We went back to the viewing point to get it. It is now beside his bed. In case Voldemort attacks during the night.

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On the plus side, the views were beautiful and we did reach the big stone (Cloch Mór) which Fionn mac Cumhaill was supposed to have thrown at a marauding Scottish giant. Tempers were a bit frayed, though, by the time we had our picnic at 2. However, I finally got to use the fancy picnic basket that we got as a wedding present nearly 12 years ago, so another tick for my life list.

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After the picnic, we went into Rostrevor; it was pretty but very quiet. We visited a graveyard where there was a 15th century church ruin and tried and failed to find Giant Murphy’s grave. The children refused to leave the car so Mr. Waffle and I wandered round in sunshine peacefully reading 19th century gravestones.

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Then we went to look for a nice cafe in Warrenpoint. I was led astray by the internet which plugged a place called Sweet Pea very hard. It’s in the car park of a large garden centre rather than looking out over the beauty of Carlingford Lough so, poor choice. On the plus side the internet said it was “waaay overpriced” but to our Dublin sensibilities £1.50 for a cup of tea was excellent value.

The children quite enjoyed crossing the border and using sterling, seeing different signposts and red letterboxes and telephone boxes. However, when we crossed back into Co. Louth and I said that we had left Northern Ireland, Michael rolled down his window and said, “Ah, Irish air”. He has much to learn about the complexities of Irish identity.

Addendum: I should have said, a part of Michael remains forever in Northern Ireland as he finally lost that tooth that has been hanging by a thread for months. Despite our best efforts to find it, it remains hidden in the long grass in Rostrevor.

Rainforest


Posted in: Dublin, Ireland

It’s been rainy and it’s been hot (by Irish standards). This was the view out the back window earlier this evening.

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Laying the Ghost of Carlingford


Posted in: Family, Ireland

Very attentive readers will remember that I took the family to Carlingford some time ago and the memory of the hideousness of that trip has stayed with the children, in particular.

For Mr. Waffle’s birthday, he and I decided to go off together for the day without the children and he suggested that we might go to Carlingford. We did and it was absolutely lovely.

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Inspired by this, I decided to take the children there again. Knowing that Carlingford was a toxic brand in our household, I advertised it as a trip to see the mountains that inspired C.S. Lewis when he was writing the Narnia stories (quite true). As we approached Carlingford, the Mourne mountains dominated and I pointed to “the twin peaks of Archenland!”. Michael said coldly, “I think I’ve been here before and I didn’t like it.” Ah, magical. The car park was beside a playground and they all ran for it. It was my turn to be cold. I turned to Mr. Waffle and said, “I didn’t drive for an hour and a half to spend the afternoon in a playground beside the car park.”

We pushed on and walked up the side of Slieve Foy for a bit and back down. Herself was heroic, inventing some elaborate game which her brothers really enjoyed during our gentle walk (about an hour – the sun shone). The boys grudgingly agreed that it was not too bad.

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And we had chips in the pub afterwards. What’s not to love?

Archive


Posted in: Cork, Family, Ireland

Before she broke her hip, my mother was going through old letters. She rang me and asked whether I wanted to keep my letters to her. “Nope,” I said, “I didn’t even know you still had them, throw them out.”

I’ve been spending a lot of time in my parents’ house since then and I found the big black bag of letters in the dining room waiting to be sent for recycling. I started to leaf through them. The first thing that astonished me was that there were so many of them. I wrote a lot of letters from airports. And then from when I lived in Brussels and before that in Rome. I seemed to spend every spare minute I had writing letters [and I know that I wrote to friends as well – I was clearly a writing machine]. They had, I regret to say, no great literary merit but thematically they seemed to cover: looking for jobs; asking for money and thanking my parents for money already received. I was certainly reminded of the extent to which my loving parents had bankrolled my early years in the work place. No wonder they were so relieved when I finally managed to get properly paid employment as opposed to my time doing traineeships and internships.

I let the letters go into the bin. I suppose they stopped when email got going, sometime between 1995 and 1998. Imagine, I am from the last generation of people who routinely put pen to paper to share news. Who would have thought?

The Church Garden Party


Posted in: Dublin, Family, Ireland

This event is likely to send me to an early grave. I was trapped into joining the organising committee and I am just not cut out for this kind of thing. It’s like a continuation of work by other means. At the lengthy meetings we usually fail to reach conclusions and all of the real work seems to be done elsewhere [how much have I enjoyed dropping in requests for funding, cakes and spot prizes to struggling local businesses?]. The parish priest keeps coming in and being anxious about insurance. We can’t have a stage, lest someone should fall. We will have to know the provenance of all cakes for insurance reasons. I can’t for the life of me see why. He says we can take names and phone numbers of the little old ladies who make cakes and if anyone gets ill we can show we made reasonable efforts. The parish priest and I had words on this point. I was tempted to say that this will make us “data controllers” but wiser counsels prevailed. He also insisted that no unaccompanied children under 18 should be allowed to attend. How we are supposed to police this is beyond me.

Worst of all though, I had to make an announcement at mass about the forthcoming excitement. This did not seem particularly challenging. Doesn’t my 10 year old daughter go on to the altar every Sunday and read a prayer of the faithful? Am I not used to making presentations at work? All I had to do was read out the printed text in front of me. I am good at reading. I bounded up on to the altar and surveyed the church. Do you know what, those Victoian gothic churches are built on massive lines. It was the largest space I had ever addressed. And although congregations are falling I thought, as I surveyed the large numbers looking up at me, they could do with falling a bit further. I started to read. I was quavery and short of breath. It was terrifying. I returned to my pew, absolutely mortified. Herself hissed at me, “You were terrible!” Worse, the little old lady beside me said, “You did fine.” After mass, I said to Mr. Waffle, “Tell me honestly, how bad was it?” “Well,” he said, “remember everyone has forgotten about it now except you.” Pause. “It was just the way you sounded like you were going to cry and that the announcement was really sad when you were talking about a party; that was a bit unfortunate.” Oh the mortification. And, of course, I have to go back and see the same people every Sunday forever. Oh horrors. I think I will cry now.

Home Sweet Home


Posted in: Dublin, Family, Ireland

We have been in the new house for ages now. It still seems extraordinary that it belongs to us. It is so lovely. The Princess and I went back to inspect the old house, the other day and she shed a few tears. It is hard to move and it still feels a little bit strange.

But I hope that we will all settle in well in our new house. The neighbours have been in with wine, champagne and scented candles and have children of appropriate ages who are company for our lot. The mirror has been hung up over the fireplace. The cat is settled. She has managed to lose her collar and magnetic yoke to open the cat flap. We have taped over the magnetic bits of the cat flap so that she can come in anyhow. A strange cat has taken advantage of these new arrangements and wandered up to the landing to have a look around. Michael spotted the strange cat and shouted loudly, and unhelpfully, “Cat!” Nevertheless, cat collar difficulties aside, all seems very promising.