belgianwaffle

Ireland

In the spirit of the new economic circumstances – tourism at home


Posted in: Dublin, Ireland

Recently I took a day off and the Princess and I explored the delights of Dublin.

I took her for a bun (queen of tarts), then to Marsh’s library (where she was allowed to write with a quill and elderly Protestant ladies smiled at her with unmerited indulgence), then to St. Patrick’s Cathedral where she chanced her arm, then to Hodges Figgis on Dawson Street where I brought her two books and then to Milano’s for lunch. I am the best mother in the world. While I am writing of the joys Dublin has to offer residents and tourists, can I mention that we went on the Viking Splash again recently and it was very successful. The best bit is roaring at innocent passers-by. I am not making this up.

Temple Bar is Dublin’s “cultural quarter” (insert hollow laugh and any number of pubs here) and is almost entirely filled with tourists. Irish people do not go to Temple Bar except as a short cut to elsewhere. However, we were lured into Temple Bar recently for a free outdoor circus. As it was bucketing rain, we also took in Temple Bar’s “The Ark“, a cultural centre for children which, if you ask me, is a bit dull. As well as not going to Temple Bar, Irish people do not wear raincoats either (bear with me, I have a point). They are a sign of weakness. On looking out at the weather, the normal Irish reaction is either “it’s definitely clearing” or “it will hold off”. Regular readers (she said hopefully) and relatives will be aware that my husband was born in Canada and this can out in his use of rain gear. We were wandering around Temple Bar in the rain looking for the outdoor circus (found, incidentally, and, because it was in Dublin, pictured in the Irish Times subsequently) and the children and Mr. Waffle were all bundled up in their rain gear. As a proper Irish person, I was soaking in my non-waterproof summer coat. A Polish woman with leaflets approached us encouraging us to go for the early bird special in La Caverna. As she wasn’t a native English speaker, she couldn’t tell we were Irish by our accents. It is odd to be treated as a tourist at home but clearly, her instincts were spot on, wandering Temple Bar in rain coats, we could only be tourists.

Not so homogenous as all that


Posted in: Cork, Ireland

By default, I tend to think of Ireland as a country with a very homogenous population until the recent wave of immigration. A recent conversation with my parents made me rethink a little.

They were talking about Hadji Bey’s Turkish delight (a Cork speciality) and it occurred to me that it was unlikely to have been the brainchild of an Irish native. They moved on to talking about a family (from Iran) with whom my father’s family had been friendly. They spoke about the “old lady” who spoke broken English and the children who became fully integrated (always a particular challenge in Cork).

Then there were all the Lithuanians in Cork (which my husband says boasts some of the most unusual surnames in Ireland). They were going to America but stopped off in Cork for reasons which are unclear to me and probably to them too. And then there were the Dutch butter merchants from the 18th century. And come to think of it, my mother is probably a Palatine (her grandmother’s maiden name was very germanic and a bit odd). There were Hungarian refugees in my mother’s class in school and one of them subsequently had a very handsome son who was a couple of years ahead of my brother in school. There were Vards the furriers who were very exotic, probably Jewish, I reckon (my mother remembers one of them in college arguing strongly against going to fight the communists in Hungary – he felt there was no point and thus the Hungarian uprising of ’56 was denied the assistance of a bunch of UCC students).

Perhaps, immigration is not the recent phenomenon we’ve been led to believe.

Outings


Posted in: Dublin, Family, Ireland

Often our excursions with the children are unsuccessful (see, for example, our trip to Leinster House recently) but last week we went to the Dead Zoo at large and it was excellent. The Natural History Museum has been shut for a number of years following the spectacular collapse of its staircase (nobody injured but a number of attendants and tourists were shocked). It’s a great museum. It has cabinets filled with excitingly posed stuffed animals; things in bottles; insects on pins. It’s all very 19th century. Pending its re-opening (works clearly approved before the economy fell over a cliff), a part of the collection is being housed in another museum. We went to visit. It was wholly successful. The factors were as follows:

1. What we wanted to see was right inside the door. How many times have I been to places where the children have used up all their energies on the wrong thing and I have had to drag them away from the amphora at the entrance to see the enchanting puppet show. They have then spent the remainder of the time whinging that they want to go back to playing hide and seek with the amphora.

2. The (large) space was enclosed with only one exit.

3. The attendants were pleasant, chatty, helpful and tolerant of running children.

4. The exhibition was fantastic. Nothing like an enormous crystallised slug with spikes to appeal to the under 7s.

On a very wet Sunday, in a brief interval between showers we took ourselves to Play Day in Merrion Square. It was billed as a chance for children to play with normal, cheap, easily available things. The children absolutely loved it. The rain continued with enthusiasm all afternoon. They couldn’t have cared less. There were army tents filled with clothes for dressing up, puppet theatres, tea sets, drums made from saucepans and chopsticks to bang them. There was a large piece of cloth which the children could run under (remember running under sheets when they were being folded – like that only on a grander scale); there were bubble blowers the size of sieves (apparently glycerine in the water makes for superior bubbles); there were footballs and large inflatable yokes you could roll down the hill on; there was plasticene (made gooier and better by the driving rain), there was a cornflour/water/food colouring mix which had a bizarre and deeply satisfying consistency; there were pillow fights; there was a microphone where Michael sang several verses of “London Bridge is falling down” with great confidence and verve. There were no sweets on sale anywhere but they were giving out free fruit. I found it an enormous relief not to have to spend my afternoon fending off requests for ice cream, sweets and crisps. I spoke to one of the organisers and he told me that the previous year, it had been standing room only. The advantage of the rain was, I suppose, that our children had unimpeded access to the blue goo.

Oh dear


Posted in: Dublin, Family, Ireland

I was talking to my mother-in-law about the school play. She said that afterwards as she was waiting outside she saw some of the other parents and she thought to herself “I’d be quite scared of you, if I hadn’t seen you inside.” It’s probably the tattoos that are unnerving her.

A year at school


Posted in: Dublin, Ireland, Princess

The Princess finished up in senior infants (or high babies as we used to call it, or naionan shoisear as it is known as Gaeilge – spelling may not be 100% correct there) today.

We got her report card and it confirmed what we knew already: our child is a genius (I am keen to benchmark her against her class mates though, I feel that it’s just possible they may all be geniuses) but kind of lazy. She mostly got 6* out of a possible 6 except in handwriting (3 and lucky to see it) and in one area where she got 1 and an exclamation mark. Punctuality. She had 44 late days; I am appalled. How is this possible? Who knew that they were counting? Mr. Waffle is surprised it isn’t more. Next year we will turn over a new leaf. Especially now that I know that there are consequences.

I take my hat off to the Irish education system. They got a child who couldn’t read, write or speak Irish and one academic year later here she is speaking fluent Irish, reading everything and writing, well, writing dammit. We’ll see how they do with the boys next year.

Lightheaded


Posted in: Ireland

I felt very peculiar at work on Friday. I continued to feel somewhat peculiar at home on Saturday. Not sick but odd. Lightheaded perhaps a little faint. As though I had drunk slightly too much champagne but without the reassuring feeling that this was rather pleasant.

At first I thought it was exhaustion (I stay up late of my volition and am dragged out of bed early by the demands of life) but I never felt at all like this when the children were babies and I was definitely a great deal tireder then. I live in fear that diabetes will strike. I had gestational diabetes when I was pregnant with the boys and the doctor explained to me in far too much detail (using graphs and spending a good hour with me) why I was in danger of developing type II. I am, however, not thirsty, so this is a good sign. Also I never felt like this when I had diabetes. I have always had slightly low blood pressure and I do see stars when I get up too quickly but, again, I have never experienced anything like this before. Could it be my blood pressure getting lower? I then wondered whether I was developing some bizarre inner ear disorder. I searched the internet and, actually, of all possible afflictions, lightheadness seems to be the one that the internet regards as safest. Unless it’s internal hemorrhaging and I think we can rule that out now several days later as I am not dead.

Now it is over. But it was very odd and deeply unsettling. Has anyone else ever had anything similar?