Me: I see there’s a reference to you in that new book by [mildly famous person].
Friend M: I am so mortified.
Me: I didn’t even know you knew her, how do you know her?
Friend M: Through Anna.*
Me: Who’s Anna now?
Friend M: She’s the woman who was married to J before Mr. Waffle’s friend C.
Me (to my mother who was listening): Oh you know C, Mum, she’s the younger daughter of Mrs. H who taught me in Senior Infants.
*Names changed to protect the innocent.
We have been in Cork for the past couple of days with my family. My brother is cleaning out the attic. He found Monopoly, Cluedo and Guess Who. All of the pieces were there (miraculously). The children loved the games. One morning I found them playing Monopoly in preference to watching cartoons on the television. It was a bit stressful though as the Princess wiped the floor with her brothers. And it’s such a long game. Daniel wept for about an hour and a half as he was slowly bankrupted by herself. Echoing around the house were cries of “please, don’t make me sell my houses” followed by “please don’t make me mortgage my properties” followed by “please don’t make me sell my properties back to the bank” and then “please don’t buy my properties from the bank” and finally, “I hate you”. Kind of like the Celtic Tiger aftermath, I suppose.
Meanwhile, the grown-ups stayed up late playing cards. Despite my efforts to palm him off on someone else, I ended up playing with my husband. Regular readers will recall that my husband is a genius; but he is no good at cards. As my aunt said kindly, “It’s hard for people who didn’t grow up playing cards”. She didn’t partner him though. By common consent (with only one dissenting voice), I am the worst card player in my family so it was doubly unfair (arguably, at least I used this argument) and we were doomed, doomed. Mr. Waffle asked whether next time he can just hand over his money at the start and get it over with.
The Princess also asked to learn to knit over Christmas and my mother bought her wool and needles. I knitted a few rows myself and was amazed how it came back to me. I think I was ten the last time I lifted a knitting needle.
We left herself in Cork to bond with my family and brought Cluedo and Guess Who back to Dublin. We have our own version of monopoly which I bought in a flea market in Belgium. It has all the pieces but on inspecting it this evening, the boys were puzzled by the 10,000 franc note and the French names. But they are game. Unfortunately.
We enjoyed three evenings of undisturbed rest in Cork. My brother and sister have moved home temporarily and the house is full – my brother wasn’t clearing out the attic for the good of his health – so while there was room to squeeze in the children, there really wasn’t room for us as well. So, nobly, we stayed in the hotel around the corner. Next time, my sister says that we can have her bed and she’ll sleep in the hotel.
A colleague was telling me about a little boy in his children’s Irish language school who refused to speak Irish. He was hauled into the head’s office for a chat. “Why aren’t you speaking Irish?” she asked him. “Well, a mhúinteoir,” said the 5 year old, “say what you like, it’s a Béarla world out there.”
He’ll go far.
I was in Cork visiting my parents last week and my mother bought me some spiced beef in the Market. This is a Cork speciality which is only available at Christmas. I brought it lovingly back to Dublin to cook. The whole house smelt of Christmas spices while it bubbled away reminding me of Christmases past. It tastes fantastic also.
There is only one problem, it sits in your fridge looking like a rhinoceros turd:
Now, I’d like to take this opportunity to wish you all a very happy Christmas.
A new priest turned up to say mass this morning. “Good morning,” he boomed cheerfully into the microphone, “I am Fr. Pat from America.” We all sat up and had a good look at Fr. Pat. He’s the new head of All Hallows and he was reaching out to us. I think it’s fair to say that we were all a bit tense about the reaching out. The majority of the congregation is well over 60 and the remainder of us are timid, nervous creatures (apparently only 14% of Dubliners are weekly mass goers so my whipping out the children on a Sunday morning must add significantly to the total).
During the sermon he made us all repeat several times “dignity, passion, believe”. We didn’t evince enough enthusiasm for him and I was irresistibly reminded of the pantomime which we graced with our presence last weekend as he tried to whip up his lacklustre congregation.
In his sermon, he talked about how he had been at a conference and the organisers had asked how would they introduce him. “Now,” he said, “I have lots of formal official titles, but that was a moment for me, I said, ‘Just introduce me as child of God.'” I know he meant to be humble and I shouldn’t mock but I found myself thinking, “Wasn’t that really just being a bit awkward for everyone concerned?” I mean, we’re all children of God and it would be handy to know what particular attributes this child of God might have before he addressed the audience.
We had to do the “passion, dignity believe” thing again at the end of mass and we were urged to communicate these words to those around us during the week. I’m not getting any pictures here.
The older I get, the more conservative I get; doubtless I’ll be looking for the Latin mass back soon. As for Fr. Pat, I’d say he has his work cut out for him. I represent the liberal face of the Church in Ireland.