belgianwaffle

Ireland

Dressing up


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

Me (to the boys): This is your sister’s school and you two will be starting there in a while.
Daniel: Will we wear a uniform?
Me: Yes, you will.
Daniel: Like our sister’s uniform?
Me: Yes indeed.
Michael: Hurrah, I will wear a skirt!

When we got home, I changed into jeans, runners and a fleece, and trotted out to cut the grass. “You look cool”, said my daughter. I fear that prolonged exposure to Irish fashions has not improved anyone’s dress sense. And we were already coming from a low base. Sigh.

Finally, I have got all my hair cut off. A nice Lithuanian lady gave Daniel and me the same style. It cost us 28 euros in total. Pleasingly economical. I am quite happy but the complete absence of comment other than from my children and that, frankly negative, is a little disturbing. Kissing Michael goodnight he said, “I don’t want you to kiss me, you look like a boy, you’re not like my Mummy”. When I went to collect them from Montessori school, the teacher took one look at me and said, “Ah, that is why the boys came into school and told me that their Mummy is a boy, now.” Sigh.

Things that happen to you when you are over 40


Posted in: Dublin, Ireland, Reading etc.

I have spent the last number of evenings alphabetising our book collection. This is disturbingly entertaining. I may be going insane. In a dull meeting today, I found my mind wandering longingly to the four shelves that then remained to be tackled.

I have a burst blood vessel in my eyeball. It is not an attractive look.

Ireland won the rugby Grand Slam. Alarmingly, I remember when we won the Triple Crown in 1982. Last Sunday afternoon we saw the bus bearing the victorious players and pieces of plate go by while we were stopped at traffic lights. If the children become international rugby stars, we will remind them of this moment – my brother is working hard on their skills, only this evening he had them all practising doing a scrum together.

I am cycling to work and finding that the world of cycling in Dublin is very macho. It’s all men in lycra with high visibility vests and sporting helmets. I miss Brussels where there was a gender mix in the cycling population and all the competitive macho cycling took place deep in Flanders.

I discover that my writing style has started to resemble that of a a TV critic, desperately trying to knit together disparate elements under an unlikely unifying theme.

I feel it should be noted


Posted in: Ireland

That for the second time since the Princess was born, Mr. Waffle and I went away alone together at the weekend. We were separated from our progeny for just under 24 hours while my sister and Mr. Waffle’s parents did Trojan babysitting work. It’s not a very interesting post this but I felt it should be recorded for posterity.

We stayed in a (small) country house type place and all of the guests assembled in the drawing room before dinner. Among them were two older Americans and they were charming, interesting and delightful people and, I thought, really, if people are ambassadors for their country, then these people surely must do it better than anyone. I also thought, my God Americans are very well preserved. They looked fantastic and were well into their 70s. Apparently they still like to ski too.

Other guests were less thrilling. In large part this was because there had been a rugby match earlier in the day and they discussed it throw by throw and scrum by scrum. When I left the country five years ago, rugby was a minority interest. This is, alas, no longer the case. It seems to have come with the boom. Perhaps, if I am lucky, the recession might diminish the national interest in rugby as well as the national income.

Analysing the Downturn


Posted in: Ireland, Princess, Youngest Child

This morning, the Princess and Michael were lying together chatting in their parents’ bed and, coming up the stairs, I heard the Princess say to Michael:

You see, Ireland is in crisis Michael. People are losing their jobs and they are standing in large queues to complain about it. There are no jobs because the banks took all the money. In fact, Mummy got the last job in Ireland.

That last bit is probably true.

Industrial Action


Posted in: Ireland, Princess

The Princess will be six on April 12. She has been preparing thoroughly for this event. Using her new found reading and writing skills she has been drawing up guest lists and food lists and sundry other lists for the big day.

She is particularly concerned about presents. She does not want any more dolls. She has enough dolls and she wants exciting toys like her brothers get.

The other evening I arrived home from work to find her marching up and down with a home-made placard saying “NO MOR BARBEES”.

Those of you who were kind enough to offer advice will (mostly) be pleased to hear that her parents have decided no more ballet. It looks like, following the work to rule, management has caved on one item, at least.