belgianwaffle

Ireland

Tempting


Posted in: Ireland, Mr. Waffle, Twins, Youngest Child

Michael does not like much. The long list of foods he will not touch includes sweets. For special occasions he likes crisps (or cwisps as he refers to them).

This morning I got this email from my husband.

From: Husband
Sent: 24 November 2010 12:37
To: Wife
Subject: Sounds like one for Michael

From the journal:

TAYTO PARK: The world’s first theme park dedicated to the humble crisp, Tayto Park, opens today. Launched on 55 acres of Meath farmland by crisp king Ray Coyle, the park will create 85 jobs and offer children the chance to visit Santa, experience a Native American village or, er, eat Irish crisps.

I thought you would like to know.

Fat


Posted in: Ireland, Reading etc.

Chris Cactus was thinking about fat children on his blog over the summer and contrasting the current crop with his own experience. He got quite a nasty reaction to what seemed to me an uncontroversial post, so I am treading softly here.

Chris’s post started me thinking about the fattest girl in our year in secondary school. One day a group of us were sitting around talking about clothes sizes and she was there. I was fascinated – what would her clothes size be? She was enormous. When she told us her size, it was all I could do not to gasp in amazement. In fact, I was so surprised that I remember to this day what size she said she was. She was a size 12 (that’s 8 in American sizes) and, obviously, in retrospect, not enormous at all. But it makes me realise how skinny we must all have been. It was just normal that teenagers were skinny. That was just the way it was. It wasn’t good or exciting to be skinny, it was normal, ordinary, under-whelming and certainly nothing to be pleased about.

A lot of us cycled to school but certainly not all of us. Cork’s first McDonald’s opened when I was 16 and it was a source of great excitement and interest but I think I only actually crossed the threshold once. I only got sweets and crisps at the weekend, and only then, if we visited my granny who had a stash in the kitchen. Stopping for an ice cream was hugely exciting.

I think that a big part of the problem is that we are so much more affluent in Ireland now than we were in the 70s (although that may be about to change, of course, so watch this space for skinny children) and children expect to get a lot more of everything. Also, I feel that we are not half as good at saying no as our parents were. And our children are getting fatter as a consequence of their expectations and our anxiety to please. What do you think?

Mass Appeal


Posted in: Dublin, Ireland, Middle Child, Twins

In his sermon this morning, the priest told us a story about how he was sitting in the grounds of All Hallows when he was approached by a well dressed woman. She told him with great frankness about her relationship with a married man. And then explained that he was about to be sent abroad by his company. She said that she did not think that she could live without him and asked the priest to pray that he would not be sent abroad after all. Two questions occur. Firstly, why would she think that this was a good line to take with a priest? Secondly, why would the priest think that this was a good story to tell at the children’s mass?

Later there was a collection for the Sick and Indigent Roomkeepers Society. Daniel got a pile of change from his father but kept back 2 coins for himself to buy sweets after mass. I pointed out that the collection was for people who didn’t have enough food or clothes. “Alright,” he said reluctantly, “I’ll put one coin in the collection.” I suppose we have to consider this to be the equivalent of the widow’s mite.

Ireland’s National Sport


Posted in: Ireland, Middle Child, Princess, Twins, Youngest Child

I think I have written before about how surprised I was to come back from 5 years abroad and discover that rugby had become Ireland’s national sport. It suffered from a number of difficulties in the past, namely, the GAA used to frown on “foreign games” and it’s dangerous – particularly for amateurs. On the plus side, it seems to be the only team sport where we do well in international competition. Now the GAA doesn’t care and my sons are coached by Daddies in rugby shirts. It’s still dangerous though.

Regular readers will recall that my children go to an Irish language school. For historical reasons, one might not expect that to be a bastion of rugby. Further, the Princess’s teacher is from Mayo. Insofar as there is national expertise in rugby, its seat is emphatically not in the West of Ireland. This has not deterred this teacher who is an avid rugby fan. During gym, my daughter’s class have been practicising the haka. She has taught her brothers. They look deeply alarming when they do this. We all sat and watched the New Zealand players doing their haka this evening before Ireland proceeded to lose to New Zealand. As I have previously mentioned, the Princess knows all the words to Ireland’s call and sang along with gusto. Where will it all end?

More Customer Service


Posted in: Cork, Ireland, Princess, Work

When I first got my own car, about 15 years ago, I went to my father’s insurance broker for cover. The broker is based in Cork and I live in Dublin and, from time to time, I have considered changing to a Dublin broker but I never got around to it. Today, I called the broker to check something on my renewal quote. Our conversation went like this:

Me: Hello, I’d like to check etc.
Him: That’s Anne, is it? I’ll get your file.

I haven’t spoken to him in a year or more and he still recognised me on the phone straight away. He didn’t need my insurance number, my surname, my date of birth, my phone number or a six digit activation code to find my file. I don’t think that his brokerage will be losing my custom any time soon.

And in completely unrelated news, the Princess lost her front tooth last night (a dramatic event I completely missed since I was out winning the office pub quiz with my crack team). Now she looks like this.

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Reinforcing Stereotypes


Posted in: Ireland, Work

I came into work this morning with a nasty head cold. I whined about my misery to my boss, a sober, pleasant woman of a certain age. “Would you like a hot whiskey?” she asked. “You have whiskey in the office?” I asked. “Of course,” she replied, “for medicinal reasons.”

Would any other office worker who has been offered whiskey by a superior at 9 in the morning please put up his or her hand? Yeah, that’s what I thought.