belgianwaffle

Ireland

Long Dark Night of the Europhile Soul


Posted in: Ireland, Mr. Waffle, Reading etc., Work

Only read this, if you have the faintest idea about the Lisbon Treaty. Really, it’s better for both of us this way.

In Brussels, they think all Irish people are like de Valera who, I believe, said that he only needed to look into his heart to know what the people of Ireland were thinking. At coffee breaks at every recent event, people here would break the ice by asking me what I thought that the outcome of the Irish referendum on the Treaty would be. I would look into my heart and confidently predict a victory for the yes side by a narrow margin. It turns out that I am not de Valera.

Ireland joined the EU* in 1973 and my father started coming to Brussels for expert meetings shortly thereafter. From about 1980, every family holiday would be preceeded by a trip to Brussels. We would camp in Heverlee outside Brussels and drop him in every day for his meeting, my mother gaily navigating the Brussels ring with the three children squabbling in the back. Once his meetings were over, we would pack up the tent and head off to France which was generally sunnier and more congenial, though I still have fond memories of the lego and table tennis in Ter Munck. I suspect he was the only committee member staying in a tent. We used to go and join him for lunch in the Rotonde occasionally. This was the restaurant in the basement of the Berlaymont which is now, alas, defunct. The glamour, the excitement: self-service food, pillars, tap water.

My father became good friends with many members of his committee and they stayed in contact over the years. I even did a language exchange with a daughter of one of the committee members (unsuccessful, her English was much better than my German). My father was still coming to meetings when I started working in Brussels in 1993 and, when he came over, he would meet me for a drink in the Metropole and slip me some very welcome cash.

When I was a student, I was funded under the Erasmus programme to study for a semester in Italy. Almost all of my professional life has, in one way or another, been related to EU affairs. I suppose that I could hardly be called a neutral observer. I love the EU. I suspect that I am a bit of a minority but there it is.

When Irish women were barred from working after marriage in the civil service (and in the banks, just because they wanted to join in) who made them stop? Well, yes, it was the EU. When the Irish Government on accession sought a derogation from this draconian provision and the wretched equal pay legislation which was going to bring the country to its knees who said you must be bloody joking? Well, yes, it was the EU.

When the Irish economy was going down the toilet in 1987 and unemployment was spiralling out of control and the IMF was on the doorstep, who do you think gave us a great deal of money to spend on turning the country round? Well, yes, it was the EU.

When Northern Ireland was a basket case who pumped money into co-operation programmes through the PEACE programme? Well, yes, it was the EU.

When the divided continent of Europe was reunited, when we realised that, actually, having half of the continent behind an iron curtain was like having lost a limb, who gave assistance in money and governance to those countries so that now they are starting to do better and better? Well, yes, it was the EU.

And how come we can work anywhere in Europe and we have a single market? How come Europe can punch its weight in the WTO negotiations? Well, yes, that’s the EU too.

I believe in the EU as a potent force for good for Europeans. I believe it brings us together and helps us to learn about each other. I believe that Ireland is much closer to Berlin than to Boston.

So, the Lisbon Treaty. Well, it wasn’t a particularly clear or lovable treaty. Jon Worth has a copy of the Jason O’Mahony summary on his blog and for my money, that’s probably the best explanation of the contents. Not that anyone cares now.

The purpose of the Treaty was to finally put a close to the institutional (and very dull) angst which the EU has been going through since some time before its expansion to 27 member states. That was broadly it. It was also supposed to answer the Kissinger question, “Who do I call, if I want to speak to Europe?” Frankly, I’m not sure it provided an answer to that. Was it ideal? No, it was a compromise between 27 sovereign states. Was it the best agreement that we were ever likely to get on this subject? Oh yes, I would think so.

Why did Ireland vote no? Looking into my heart has proved ineffective in finding an answer to Irish questions, but let me share my suspicions with you.

Firstly, I suspect the press. The Irish Times which, as you know, has a place close to my heart, had an editorial on Lisbon last weekend entitled “Are we out of our collective minds?” Now, while I agreed wholeheartedly with every word written, I couldn’t help but feel that the tone was a teensy bit unhelpful. I can’t help wondering whether this was also the tone of the political parties, almost all of whom strongly advocated a yes vote. Then, the British media which is almost uniformly eurosceptic is widely available in Ireland and, in some cases, produces Irish editions (Irish Sun anyone?). I have no idea what these papers’ stance was on the referendum but you know what? I can make a good guess. I believe British coverage of EU issues is hugely biased and I don’t believe that this is a fault of the Irish press (I can tell because Irish coverage of EU matters is invariably crushingly dull). I really suspect the British media of stirring up the sovreignity issue which is not something that I have been aware of as a particular concern in the past.

Secondly, people didn’t know what the Treaty was about. I saw the text of the referendum question. Dear God in heaven, that was complex. But, you know what? There was a lot of information out there. I’m not saying it was a particularly straightforward message to understand but certainly a lot of time and effort was spent trying to explain it all. If you wanted to know, you could have found out. But people couldn’t be bothered, they didn’t care enough, they wanted to give the government a bloody nose.

Thirdly, there was the ludicrous scaremongering the European super-state, abortion, prostitution, army, locking up your three year olds bringing in the death penalty end of things. The problem for the yes campaign seems to have been that they spent so much time refuting the more outlandish claims of the no campaign that they had very little time to explain the (oh so dull) merits of voting yes.

So, I reckon, that’s it. Oh yeah, of course, fourthly the farmers were pretty annoyed about Mandelson’s position on the WTO negotiations, that probably didn’t help much either. Particularly since farmers always vote.

I’m gutted. I was really looking forward to the end of the institutional debate (yeah, yeah, I should get out more) and the EU getting to grips with the substantive issues which people actually understand. I believe that a stronger EU is vital for Ireland, vital to ensure that we maintain our position in this globalised world. And I trust the EU to deliver that, it’s not a bunch of faceless bureaucrats, well, yes it is, but they’ve done a fantastic job, the EU has achieved so much but it needs to do even more. And, wretchedly, it’s our fault that we’re going to have a weak, inward-looking, demoralised EU for the foreseeable future. More soul-searching, more “we must communicate with the citizen” (I mean nothing wrong with that per se, just that the citizen doesn’t seem to care), less actually doing things. Mr. Waffle points out that nobody has died and they will hammer out a solution based on the European model: peace through boredom. This is strangely uncomforting.

Any europhiles out there feeling sunny? Please tell me the upside.

*Yes, yes, I know the EEC as it then was.

Virtuous in-laws


Posted in: Family, Ireland

Due to careless parenting and poor planning we are only now searching for childcare for the boys in Dublin in September. After phoning about we identified some creches which might be suitable. Mr. Waffle’s parents kindly agreed to go and inspect them as we won’t be back in Dublin until late Summer. This blog post is how I reward them, truly, I am an unworthy daughter-in-law.

As guidance, we gave them the following:

“Kind of things to look for:

Carer to child ratio

Are the carers nice? Are they sitting on the floor with the children?

Do the children seem happy?

Is there an outdoor play area?

Is there plenty of room indoors?

Assume no TV – if TV, particularly on display will be horrified.

Is it clean?

Our current creche does not meet all of these criteria but, you know, we’re shooting for the stars here.”

I had assumed, in a very sexist way, that my mother-in-law would do the inspecting but in fact she and my father-in-law went together. My father-in-law has not been a captain of industry for many years (now retired) without knowing that you must be able to measure performance. When reporting back to us the other evening (orally, written report follows below) he said that he had two satisfactory responses to the question of how to ensure the children were happy. We were quite startled but he was obviously keen to hold these people to SMART targets on behalf of his little grandsons. And I have proof. Highlights from the report follow:

Creche

(Member of the Advisory body for the sector?) eg NCNA? –yes.

How long established? This crèche seems to be up and running for at least 6/7 years. It has an overall capacity of about 45+ children, and is certainly looking to replace kids who will leave the Montessori group this summer.

We spoke with the manager … a young [exotic nationality] lady who has risen up through the ranks since joining in 2001.

The happiness factor: When asked to comment on how the crèche delivers on this key ingredient for the children the manager was adamant that staff quality and commitment is the number 1 factor. The kids we saw certainly seemed to bear this out as we saw them interact in play with their teachers, moving from room to room with supervision…

Staff/children ratios: this varies in a regulated fashion across babies (about 1:3), toddlers (1:5/6) up to Montessori (around 1:10). Staff seemed very conscious of these ratios from all angles (financial, delivering proper care and of course the regulatory dimension (see “other comments” below)

Carers: with one exception, the staff come from outside Ireland (e.g. the Montessori teacher is Czech). We were assured that they all had child-care qualifications from their home countries, which are recognised here.

Outdoor/Indoor facilities: the crèche is in a modern block [lots more useful and informative details but maybe not so fascinating for you gentle reader]. The street outside seems fine with no obvious druggies, winos, weirdos about, unless you count [prominent Irish person] who lives a block away.

TV/other : they do use kiddy DVDs but sparingly. such a use would be on wind-down day (Friday) in the afternoon, when the kids have had a long week at the crèche and can benefit from a little (1 hour limit) audio-visual entertainment

Feeding arrangements (parent-supplied, in-house, catering?): inhouse cooking-we have copy of a typical week’s lunch menu and it covers main meals such as chicken (several guises) tuna, spag bol, etc. the manager [who you will recall is from a far-off land] defined this as “typical Irish food”. Feeding times are beakfast, morning snack, lunch, afternoon snack.

Standard routines for toddlers?

Very much Montessori driven, with skills and general learning in the am, and more group play happenings when the children are a little more tired in the afternoon.

Cleanliness/tidiness : Fine :we looked across rooms, loos, changing areas, external play area, etc

Other comments / miscellaneous musings:

  • Manager seemed cheerful, capable, hands-on and committed to her work
  • D&M would start on September 1 as toddlers and progress within weeks (after their birthdays) to the Montessori section, in line with Dept of Ed guidelines (sound of hollow laughter off)
  • The crèche looks for kids of this level to be toilet-trained, but will help with this if they are not

See, captains of industry are thorough. Do you like all the additional pertinent questions they thought of? Admit it, you would love to have my parents-in-law inspect your child’s creche. I can see a really lucrative sideline developing for them in this field.

Surely not cupboard love


Posted in: Ireland, Princess, Travel, Work

The Princess was in Ireland with her father last week. When she left on Monday morning, she was sad to leave me. By the time she arrived in her grandparents’ house at lunch time, she was so excited to be there that she couldn’t spare the time to speak to me on the phone. This continued for the duration of her stay. I was amazed on Thursday, when she came back, how delighted we were to see each other. Really thrilled, big hugs, much affection.

This week, I am away for work and she has consented to speak to me on the telephone which is a great relief. This morning she said “Mummy, I’m looking forward to seeing you tonight” and I was was very touched (our girl can be a tough cookie). The first thing she asked, though, when she got on the phone, was “have you got my crunchie?”

Update – She is consistent too.  The first thing she said when I arrived in the door last night was “have you got my crunchie?”  “That’s no way to greet your mother or indeed anyone,” I replied.  She paused smiled broadly, gave me a big hug and whispered in my ear “have you got my crunchie, please, Mummy”.

Weekend


Posted in: Family, Ireland, Princess

On Saturday we went to Planckendael again – it’s like a safari park but less glamourous.  I have had it with Planckendael.  The Princess said that she would rather go to the supermarket and conducted herself accordingly throughout the trip.  We paid 50 euros to get in (and the boys were free) and they spent their time looking at frogs in the river and playing in the elaborate playgrounds. “Will we go and see the giraffes?”  “No!”  The Princess mortified me by going into meltdown at the entrance to the cafeteria where she wanted to stay watching television.  She lay on the ground, blocking the door and screeching.  This loud screaming in public is a very recent development and I am desperate to stop it.  We then climbed up a rope yoke which the Princess loved but the boys were scared and had to be carried.  It is hard to walk up a rope surrounded by netting carrying a small boy.  We got down eventually, the Princess did not get down.  There were words.  We lost her at one point and I was terrified.  There were further words.  We instructed her that, in future, if she ever got lost and could not find someone who worked in the establishment, she was to ask a Mummy to help her.  Yes, yes, picture the scene, there you are having a nice time with your family in Flemish and a weeping lost little girl attaches herself to your group – fabulous eh?

On Sunday, we had our upstairs neighbours and some friends around for coffee.  Our upstairs neighbours are lovely Italians.  There are only two of them and every time I go into their flat which is the same dimensions as ours but oh so different, I am convulsed with envy.  They have white furniture (no children, obviously).  She is finishing a PhD in art history and has acquired all kinds of lovely furniture at auctions and flea markets over the years.  It looks lovely in our 19th century building, unlike, say, my self constructed coffee table from Habitat.  Anyhow, over coffee yesterday the talk was all of our return to Dublin (with the occasional digression into how the recent NATO war training exercise went, from my friend C – she who combines defence work and orchestra management in her portfolio of activity – good news, we won).  They were all curious about what our house in Dublin is like and I, with my fondness for histrionics, put my head in my hands and said “hideous, absolutely hideous”.  I had, alas, completely forgotten that the Princess was there and she looked up at me, shocked and tearful and said “But Mummy, you said that our house was lovely.”  Much furious and, I fear, ineffective backpedalling followed.  I could kick myself.

The house isn’t really hideous, it’s just small and in need of some work.  I was talking to the heart surgeon about it last night and she put her finger on the problem: just as all our friends are settling in the houses they are going to be living in for the rest of their lives, we are moving backwards.  That is exactly the problem.  All our friends are moving in to nice big houses and we are going back to a starter home.  It’s not hideous, it’s relatively hideous.  I hope that in 3 or 4 years we’ll be able to move somewhere nicer but, for the moment, we will have to make the best of it.

Meanwhile, the heart surgeon is back at work after a mere three months (she does live in America so this is extraordinary luxury by their standards) and working weekends and nights and so on (as is her doctor husband) with a 3 year old, a two year old and a three month old.  She is expressing four times a day.  She’s also decided to renovate her kitchen.  I can’t quite imagine how tired she must be.  She told me, in tones of great glee, that, as she had a couple of tough procedures today, her husband was going to mind the baby last night and she was decamping to the third floor for a full night’s sleep.

I’ve been keeping a secret


Posted in: Belgium, Family, Ireland, Mr. Waffle, Princess

No, for the umpteenth time, I am not pregnant.

The Christmas before last I said to my husband that we had to decide whether we were going to move back to Ireland or stay in Belgium because, if we were going to stay in Belgium, we had to buy a house. A three bedroomed, second floor flat is not ideal for bringing up three small children. We decided that we would move to Dublin in September 2008. Now, obviously, it didn’t make much sense to tell anyone about this decision in December 2006, so I have been not telling employers, employees and children for a long time. It’s exhausting.

Last week, Mr. Waffle told his employers. On Friday we told the Princess that we are moving back (some of you may consider that this is a radical solution to our difficulties with L). On Monday we told our childminder and our babysitter. And today I formally told my employer and colleagues and now I am telling you.

Mr. Waffle and the Princess are in Dublin this week. In an excess of efficiency they have visited her new school (an Irish language school – please don’t ask). After hearing her father and the headmaster converse in Irish for ten minutes, she ran from the room telling her grandmother that this was “pointless and useless”. I can tell it’s going to go well. What do you think? She’s also got her school uniform, this is more pleasing. It has a tie. There will be photos.
I am very sad to be leaving this great job and my lovely colleagues. I am very sad to be leaving Belgium and my friends here. On balance though, I think we are doing the right thing. We are very fortunate in both having lovely families with whom we get on very well. We want to see more of them and so do our children. I want my children to be Irish not Belgian (though I see that the Princess is testing this enthusiasm by already adopting the nastiest of Dublin accents, she said to me on the phone this afternoon “Oi don’t want to talk to you, Oi don’t loike the phone”). One of the best things about going back was how our friends in Dubin reacted; they all seem to be genuinely delighted. Despite all its shortcomings (and oh they are many), I do like Dublin and I know I will enjoy living there.

For obvious reasons, the move has been very much in my mind since Christmas but I didn’t want to blog about it ar eagla na heagla (see how I’m taking to this Irish thing?) but I have been taking notes and now I’m putting them here. Because I can.

8 January

Ask my mother what she did with all our furniture when we moved from a large detatched Georgian House to a much smaller semi-detatched Edwardian one. Answer: Moved it all and got rid of none. My mother points out that result has been 20 odd years tripping over pieces of furniture and an attic which strikes terror into her heart. On the plus side, she says I can now have the Nelson sideboard, if I want it. Point out that I have more than enough furniture of my own for my tiny house.

9 January

Prepare first spreadsheet.

January 10

Asked the garage whether they would sell us a car with the steering wheel on the wrong side. They were reluctant. They said that it would be expensive and we would have to wait a year. In inimitable Belgian fashion, 6 (yes 6) people behind the reception desk ignored me for some considerable time but finally, to their evident regret, had to relent and pay me some attention.

January 11

Consider for the umpteenth time the amount of our stuff. My mother often says to my sister (to the latter’s intense irritation): Helen, you have too much of this world’s goods. She’s not the only one. Wonder what size is the attic in our house in Dublin. Curse myself for never even having looked in the attic when we bought the house. My sister says to me, “Mummy is delighted that you are coming home”. I am touched until she adds, “she says that maybe finally you will take all of your stuff out of her house”. My father-in-law is also anxious that we should remove all our stuff from his garage (barbecue and large outdoor heater – a wedding gift from the time when they were a sign that you were trendy rather than a sign that you are an eco-terrorist). My mother-in-law has, however, volunteered to mind our antique sewing machine until we have a house large enough to accommodate it. I suspect that my father-in-law is unaware of her kind offer.

14 January

After much humming and hawing decide to travel to Ireland for interview I am most unlikely to get on the basis that, if I did get it and the job came up in September my family would be able to eat every day rather than just every second day. This problem would mostly affect me and Mr. Waffle as the children prefer not to eat anyway.

18 January

Mr. Waffle hands in notice to the creche. The boys will be finishing there at the end of July. I will be a little sad to end our relations with our excellent creche.

21 January

Flight is delayed and arrive, Cinderella like, at friends’ house in Dublin at midnight. My friends are up awaiting my arrival with tea sympathy and advice. I love their house. It is a home from home as I used to live there. In fact, due to the many parties my husband and I held there, many people still think it is ours. Alas, it is not. I have stayed in the spare room many times and always enjoyed an excellent night’s sleep. On this occasion, I do not. Some vagary of their security system means that the overhead light flashes on every two hours and wakes me in considerable alarm. It is distressingly like being with small children.

Interview is, as expected entirely brutal. At the end, I ask about how many people they expect to appoint and they tell me that they give comprehensive feedback. I say I will look forward to that to general laughter from the board. I’d like to think that they were laughing with me but, I doubt it. [Didn’t get the job].

23 January

Princess and I go round to Glam Potter’s house and I reveal to her sum total of our likely income in Ireland for first two years. She is appalled. How will you survive? I am not comforted.

17 March

Having refused to think about or organise anything for the move in two months in the hope that, oh I don’t know, it would organise itself, I am jolted into action by a series of questions from my mother and brother who are visiting over the weekend. The heart surgeon rings from America and asks a series of hard questions as well. I am now worrying actively.

The Dutch Mama asked whom I had told about my plans to return. I explained that we was waiting until the end of April to tell our children, our employers and our employees about our plans and that I was slightly dreading this event. I was comforted her reply:

Dreading?

Sure it will be brilliant.

Employer: I’M LEAVING! (implicit, for something better, didn’t I always say you don’t pay me enough)

Employees: I’M LEAVING! (implicit, for something better, look at what an exciting international life I have)

Children: Guess what? Brilliant news. Mammy has got a great new job in Ireland, and we’re going to live in a house with a garden, and you can have a swing of your very own, and we’ll be able to see granny every single weekend. Won’t it be just great! And we’ll come back on lots of visits too. And we can invite your friends to come and play on your swing. And we’ve found you a lovely school.(I’d leave out the gaelscoil detail for now if I were you).

Life will be way easier for you in Ireland, and lots of fun.

25 April

Mr. Waffle has told work he’s leaving. I’ve told my boss informally and will hand in my notice next week. Tonight we decided to tell herself. At first, she was very excited but then as the implications sank in, she became distinctly apprehensive. “Why can’t we move to a house with a garden in Brussels; Brussels is my home”. This is true, she has never lived anywhere else and we have never given her any reason to believe that we would move somewhere else. That was, perhaps, foolish in retrospect. “Where will I go to school?” “In Dublin.” “What language will they speak in school?” If I had realised that I was going to be asked this quite so early in proceedings, I would have prepared a different answer from “Irish”*. She started to cry. She was scared, she wouldn’t understand and all her friends were here. This was the first time I really, really realised that we are definitely going and I felt like crying myself. I love Brussels. However, we perked her up as best we could and stressed the advantages which are many – well, otherwise, why wouldn’t we stay here? I am afraid for her. Mr. Waffle says, I can’t have it both ways, saying that she’ll be uprooted from all her friends one minute and agonising that she has no friends the next. Actually, he’s wrong, I can.

* There is a reason why we are sending her to an Irish language school and it’s largely and embarrassingly to do with the fact that Ireland isn’t quite the classless society it once was.

How different, how very different from the home life of our own dear Queen


Posted in: Belgium, Ireland, Princess

I was born in Cork and grew up there. I went to school with Cork children. My mother was considered mildly exotic because she came from Limerick (adjoining county about 40 miles away). We had a girl in our class in primary school whose mother came from Dubin and this was considered so exotic that there was an article about her mother in the Evening Echo. As I remember it, the headline was something like “Dublin Woman moves to Cork”; it’s not as though her mother was famous or had done anything very thrilling once she got to Cork. I suppose I’m saying that Cork in the 70s and 80s was a pretty homogenous place.

Obviously, going to school in Belgium, the Princess was never going to be in a class full of her compatriots but what amazes me is the range of nationalities in her class alone: Poles, Belgians, Pakistanis, North Africans, South Americans and one Irish girl. This morning she explained to me that she had a cooked lunch in school yesterday (itself a matter calling for some investigation as she had left the house with a sandwich, but we will leave that to one side) but not the same as the “musulmans” because they don’t eat meat. I explained to her that the English word was Muslims and they do eat meat but it has to be prepared in a particular way. It is amazing to me that she knows more about other religions and other cultures at four than I did at fourteen. I can’t help feeling that there is quite a lot to be said for globalisation all the same.