belgianwaffle

Ireland

Gender Equality


Posted in: Belgium, Ireland, Reading etc.

From a national organ of record

“When it comes to fellow citizens, Ireland falls into the conservative category. A massive 81% of people think it’s more important a boy is university educated than a girl. But the Irish also feel that women have an equal right to a job” The Examiner, 20 July 2005.
Well, that’s all right then. Those women probably don’t need jobs either, sure all they do is go off and have babies. Speaking of which, my maternity leave starts tomorrow.

And a happy Belgian national day to you.

StarCorneron 21 July 2005 at 20:30Happy Belgian national Day to you too!! Maybe the Irish think women just want inferior jobs – a wee bit like the golf club I heard about, they don’t let women in until after 3.30 at the weekends cos they should be busy doing the washing and housework till then!! *Tsk!*
Bobbleon 21 July 2005 at 22:02Happy Belgiumness to you dearie x
jackdaltonon 21 July 2005 at 23:42That’s just a load of old bollox — the Examiner’s idea of a survey is to ring a few grannies in East Cork. Don’t take it personally ‘waf. You can hold onto that old UCC parchment for another while. mind you, when McDowell is TeaShock, then you may have to return same…. but that’s a day or two away yet.
😉
suson 22 July 2005 at 11:30Hope your first day of maternity leave is going swimmingly.
belgianwaffleon 23 July 2005 at 12:51Olivia, no, no, no, it means loads of blogging! Ah, Starcorner, you’re so right. I should have thourght.
Thanks Bob.
JD, I am torn between a desire to agree with you and a desire to defend the Examiner’s honour, very trying.
Well, today is technically my first day and very pleasant it is too. Thank you very much.

Malingering and packing


Posted in: Ireland, Mr. Waffle, Princess, Travel

This morning my baby was in poor form. She had a cough. She pointed pitifully at the bathroom and said “malade”.  She wouldn’t eat her breakfast. She lay feebly in my lap muttering “sucky thumb”.  Alas, today was a busy day for the parent Waffles as it was our last day at work before heading off to Dublin. What to do?  We were saved by our cleaning lady who also babysits for us who arrived to clean and then agreed to childmind. Mercifully she was free for the afternoon as well. The Princess was delighted.  So delighted, in fact, that she hopped off my lap, where she had been reclining dolefully and into the arms of our babysitter.  I explained that I had to go to work.  She was blithely indifferent and waved me off with a “bye-bye Mummy, nice day” while hurrying to show our babysitter her latest acquisition – a book on a flying bunny.  When I got home she was jumping up and down on the spare bed. Well, at least she isn’t sick, I suppose.

I am blogging and I should be packing.  Packing for a Summer holiday in Ireland is such a challenge.  The weather forecast is rotten but
you never know, it might just, surprisingly, be fine.  Have packed shorts and woolly jumpers but feel that I will need more than this to
survive. Just said to Mr. Waffle “Do you think I need a coat?”  He replied, with feeling “You are visiting Ireland in July.  Are you mad?  Of course, you need a coat.” Maybe I’ve been away too long.

Comments
poggle

on 06 July 2005 at 10:35

Coat, bikini, fleece, brolly – and don’t forget the sherpas.

Locotes

on 06 July 2005 at 17:37

Just to confirm, weather’s been pathetic over the last week or so. Welcome home!!

jackdalton

on 06 July 2005 at 19:50

This coming week will be better. I’ll organise that.
And anyway, it never rains in The Stephens Green Centre or Liffey Valley, or Dundrom, or the ILAC…. 🙂

sus

on 11 July 2005 at 12:15

Well, I heard they had a heatwave yesterday…better bring the bikini too.

belgianwaffle

on 14 July 2005 at 20:45

Bobble, it was hot. Yes, Pog, reallly it was. Locotes, unbelievable eh? JD, warm, warm, warm. Sus,your source was correct. According to the national organ of record (the evening herald) Kilkenny was hotter than Rome, Madrid or Athens on Monday. Extraordinary.

poggle

on 15 July 2005 at 10:04

Kilkenny? I’ve been there, you know. Lovely castle. And I didn’t misbehave with a blue-eyed Celt at all. Not me, guv, no guv.

jackdalton

on 15 July 2005 at 17:03

Everyone’s been to Kilkenny at some point. Either physically or mataphysically.

belgianwaffle

on 16 July 2005 at 07:26

Pog, how intriguing. Was it very warm? Right as always, JD.

poggle

on 18 July 2005 at 10:57

Well …erm …. oh – you mean the weather? It wasn’t bad at all Waffley – and it was only March.
The Celt was very warm. Very warm indeed. Ahem.

belgianwaffle

on 18 July 2005 at 19:16

Pog, you lead such an exciting life…

poggle

on 20 July 2005 at 10:29

Yes … well …. just occasionally.
Ahem.

Cure for morning sickness


Posted in: Dublin, Ireland, Reading etc.

As you will know, if you have been reading this blog since its humble beginnings (yes, mother, this means you), I am a big fan of fluid pudding.  Before I knew what a blog was, I was pregnant and sick and trawling the internet for fellow sufferers.  And fluid pudding was pregnant too and she had her baby just after I had mine.  And she wrote one of the funniest descriptions of giving birth that I have ever read.  And generally she perked me up.  And now she’s pregnant again, which is all to the good obviously. But she is sick, sick, sick.  And when I was pregnant, I was really miserable and sick also.  So I sympathise. It is in this mood that I encourage you to email sympathy to the fluid one and also that I offer the following: in her misery, fluid’s only comfort has been fantasising about Ben Folds (see Ben Folds Kisses the Orb) for details.  Now, I can give you six degrees of separation from Ben Folds.  Ben Folds is a big buddy of Neil Hannon from the Divine Comedy.  I know this because I went to see a concert they did together and they were all pally on stage and talking about being great buddies.  Since Mr. Hannon was very much the worse for wear, he did a lot of talking about this – you know how when you’re drunk you really want to tell the world what a great person your friend is, well, he did that in spades.  Neil Hannon lives around the corner from my friends M & R (whom I may christen Gaza and Bosnia, for reasons which will become apparent in due course). Really, just around the corner about 10 doors down.  I know this to be true because it was in the Irish Times when he paid an obscene amount of money for it.   As it happens, M will be visiting us next week.  And M knows no shame, so I will give him a description of Mr. Hannon and ask him to become his friend.  It will be no problem for him.  He is good at dealing with neighbours.  Once that link is established it will be easy to get in touch with Mr. Folds and beg him to send you a get well card to the fluid one. I may have a little more difficulty with the intimate venue and the kissing. Leave it with me.

Comments
belgianwaffleon 16 October 2004 at 13:08

We aim to please. Hope you’re feeling a bit perkier.

“Home thoughts from abroad”


Posted in: Dublin, Ireland

We get Le Soir at the weekend.  This weekend the colour supplement had an article about how cool Dublin is.  It was slightly bizarre to see what the Belgians make of Dublin.  On the whole, it wasn’t what you would call entirely accurate.  Bono was described as a sort of patron saint of the city which, I suspect, locals would find particularly irritating.  Certainly, I did, but then, I’m from Cork, so I can’t speak for them.  Most of the article was about Temple Bar and how hip it is.  Well, yes, in a sort of full of pubs and stag parties kind of way.  Mostly locals wouldn’t be seen dead there.  However, some merited praise of the Powerscourt Centre as a shopping location of interest.  Didn’t mention at all some of the best things about Dublin like the boardwalk on the Liffey or, star sight (though a trifle inaccessible) the Casino Marino.  Latter not very hip I suppose, but strolling on the former, definitely is.  Lots of quotes from author Marian Keyes who was Mr. Waffle’s next door neighbour when he was growing up, so felt very well-connected ourselves.

Party on


Posted in: Dublin, Ireland

We had a party on Saturday night for friends in Dublin. This was kindly co-hosted by Richard who agreed to let us use his house for our nefarious purposes. When I started writing this blog I was going to keep it deathly secret and build up a following by stealth on the internet but, frankly, two weeks in and with no one reading it, I felt that the party was the ideal opportunity to do some publicity. I told my friends, they were…interested. Sort of. My friend Cathy (I’m tired of thinking up imaginary names, it’s very tiring – I asked her siblings for suggestions for a code name but I just feel that their suggestions wouldn’t go down terribly well) rolled her eyes to heaven and said “My God, you’re already terminally indiscreet, are you sure you need a wider audience?” Yes, of course I do. However, I see that none of them has seen fit to comment on my blog. Very distressing. I am driven to the conclusion that they have not read it. I am quietly confident, nevertheless that a couple of days at home in the bosom of their families will force them to look for unusual avenues of entertainment and they will peruse this with, um, interest.

Party was slightly odd as Mr. Waffle was ill and we had to leave early so waved goodbye to our friends and left poor Richard holding the fort. I apologised profusely for abandoning him. “Not at all” he said affably “your friends are lovely people, whoever they are”. I understand that there were a number of exciting rows later in the evening. I particularly regret missing the row on benchmarking as the combatants were quite evenly matched…I understand it was a clash of the public and private sector titans. Richard said he was picking up glasses in the hope that the rowing parties would leave but they just dug their heels in and started to enjoy themselves while he gave up hope of ever getting to bed. A successful evening all round then.

In other news, I have done a lot of visiting since we returned. My friends are buying up the nicest houses in Dublin. I’m torn between envy and excitement. Largely envy.

Tomorrow will see our arrival in the real capital. I understand the local populace is waiting agog for the first viewing of princess waffle in some months.

The Republic


Posted in: Cork, Ireland

Illness continues to stalk our household. Most trying. However, you will be delighted to hear that we are recovering and hope to be healthy for our trip home on Friday.

Somebody asked me where in Ireland I was from. I am from Cork. We are an independent and proud people brutally subjugated by the nasty east coast Dubliners. My loving spouse comes from Dublin so our Christmas holidays will be scrupulously divided between the two locations. Well, reasonably scrupulously. More of this later.

I think perhaps the following story would help to explain the Cork spirit. I met my husband in Brussels and, despite the fact that he was from Dublin, I liked him straight away. I rang my mother and said to her “I’ve met a great guy”. My mother, like many another Irish mother was concerned that, as I lived in Brussels, I might meet a local and settle down far from the ancestral home so she said “Not a foreigner?” “No” I said.? “Ah”, she said in tones of great relief “he’s from Cork”.

Our holidays are not as fairly divided between Cork and Dublin as they might be. A friend of mine from school (the “heart surgeon”) is getting married. As a 34 year old mother of one, I thought that my bridesmaid days were over, but apparently not. I am supporting actress in the wedding which is taking place in Cork on January 1 so we are staying in Cork a little longer than we might otherwise have done.? My friend has selected really lovely dresses for her bridesmaids but there is one tiny snag. Cork is chilly in Winter and wearing a strapless dress on January 1 is definitely going to take from my enjoyment of the occasion.? Particularly since there will be a photo session on the beach.

Finally, have been surfing around and have to plug this site which tells of the adventures in Brazil of a friend of ours from Brussels.? Makes me feel most uninteresting which is quite distressing but is very funny and worthwhile.