Me (perusing entire supplement to the Irish Times on the joy of skiing) : Michael would you like to go skiing again?
Him (who last went skiing when he was 3 and retains no very firm memories): Yes, I think I would.
Me: Maybe we’ll go then, not next year but perhaps the year after.
Him: Remember the bust is coming.
Who has spent a lifetime absorbing the lessons of the 2008 crash and its aftermath, then?
So, today, I cycled home from work in the rain. I got home about 7 to my latch key children and decided not to take Daniel to GAA training as Mr. Waffle would have done, had he been here (he is, sadly, away for work). I then gave the boys pizza for dinner (yes, they had pizza for dinner last night as well for their birthday party; our house is a temple to healthy eating at the moment). I burnt Michael’s because I am truly on top of my game. Herself and myself had Thai take-out. €36 for two on a school-night Monday. I can feel you judging me. I’m judging me.
I signed homework notebooks for the boys. Michael forgot to bring in his art materials today and Daniel forgot his home economics ingredients (“Did you not get to make anything then?” I asked. “Yes, I got ingredients from the cupboard and made scones, they’re in the bottom of my schoolbag,” he said. For all I know, they’re there still becoming ever more appealing as they are crushed by the weight of school books). Daniel also forgot to do his history homework and spent much of the evening frantically writing his history essay now due tomorrow on pain of death. This despite the fact that last night they faithfully promised me that they had in their school bags everything they needed for today. Signed a form allowing herself to go on a school retreat. Revised Michael’s months of the year in German for a test on Thursday. Refused to help herself with prep for her German test on the grounds that at this point I am more likely to put her off than assist. As she corrected my dates in German for Michael’s benefit, she was forced to concede that I was correct.
While the children cleared up after dinner (more a throwing out of cartons than a real clean up), I went to do some work on the computer. Herself went back upstairs to do more homework after cleaning up and, once the boys had packed their bags for tomorrow (Did I double check? I did not. Is this wise? I think we all know the answer to that.), the boys and I watched an episode of the “Big Bang Theory” and then they went to bed. I turned back to my labours for the office (big all day meeting tomorrow) and at 9.45 herself sidled in. “The blueberries didn’t come with the shopping and I need them for home economics tomorrow.” Was there any point between last Thursday when the shopping came and 9.45 the night before they were needed when this might have been mentioned? “I don’t need them until after 11.30,” said she. Usually her father can be relied on to perform these awkward errands but he is away and I am not at liberty to leave my meeting in the morning for blueberry hunting. This is why I found myself in Tesco at 9.55 this evening looking for blueberries, insert your own joke about late stage capitalism and the Americanisation of everything here (it’s far from blueberries we were reared etc.).
OK, I have updated my blog and finished my work for this evening; I’m going to bed now to reread Harry Potter and nobody can stop me. Judge away, it’s all I’m fit for.
Updated to add: The cat can stop me. She’s supposed to be put in the utility room for the night, otherwise she travels around the house mewing in people’s ears. Mr. Waffle normally stows her away. He did not stow her away tonight. Possibly my husband should go away more often so that I can fully appreciate all the things he does around the house. Mental note: why is laundry basket overflowing?
My parents were 50 years married on September 27. My father is 92 and mentally very well; he is exactly the same man I have always known, he hasn’t grown old and vague, he hasn’t failed to keep up with things, he still reads two papers cover to cover every day. He is certainly physically more frail but he is, in his conversation, in his views, in his pretty encyclopaediac knowledge of everything from literature to engineering, entirely the same man I have always know. Sadly, the same is not true of my mother who has been ill for a number of years with Parkinson’s disease and related dementia. Although she has good days and bad days, it is getting steadily worse. A friend of mine says that it is like seeing someone get further and further away which I think is a pretty good description. So we didn’t really do anything to celebrate my parents’ 50th wedding anniversary. I sent my father a card. It’s hard for all of us, for my father, of course, and for my brother and sister in Cork who between them visit my mother every day and, whisk her home at the weekend, if she shows any sign of being well which, increasingly, she does not.
My parents had a very happy marriage. I only saw my mother annoyed with my father twice, once when he trimmed her hair (with great reluctance on his part, rightly it turned out) and she had to go to the hairdresser and basically get it all chopped off to fix his work and once when she had finished packing for the family camping holiday in France and he wanted to get his wash bag from the bottom of the boot and she had to unpack loads of stuff. I don’t ever remember him being annoyed with her. My mother’s best friend from college, a lovely woman with whom I am still very friendly, said that my parents had the best marriage of anyone she ever knew. They were certainly very happy. Each of them thought the other was amazing. They were both right.
My mother was 31 when she got married and in 1967 that was very old and, I think, my grandparents had given up hope that their career woman daughter would ever marry anyone. My father was 42 and his family had definitely written off his chances (a guy I knew in college said that it was assumed in Cork that my father had abandoned his confirmed bachelorhood because my mother was heiress to a huge fortune; sadly, I can confirm, there was no fortune). My parents met in March, got engaged in June and were married in September. My father broke the news to my long-suffering grandmother as he was dropping her into the Imperial on the South Mall for her regular Saturday afternoon tea with my aunt Cecilia. As she stepped out of the car he said, “And by the way, I’m getting married.” He then took off on a four week sailing holiday leaving my grandmother who had never even met my mother to cope with this information as best she might.
I wish my mother were well and I miss her every single day but I know I am very lucky to have grown up in a family where my parents were so happy together so swings and roundabouts, I suppose.
When my father was a medical student in Cork in the 1940s he saw the first antibiotics brought to Cork and he was suitably impressed by their miraculous qualities. He didn’t stop giving the odd lecture to students himself until he was 75 and by then he was able to tell his students that he had seen the whole arc of antibiotics from their first use to the emergence of antibiotic-resistant super bugs. To be frank, things haven’t improved in the 17 years since. In 2008, my uncle died of MRSA acquired when in hospital for another (successful) procedure. My father kept our family religiously away from antibiotics and no matter how ill we were, we never had them. I used to bitterly watch my classmates popping them like smarties. It looks like our sacrifice may have, however, been insufficient and the days of antibiotics are numbered. Isn’t that a rather depressing thought? Is everything going backwards at the moment?
Now that I have embraced middle age I listen a lot to radio 4. The fact that I tend to do it on headphones from a podcast does not, sadly make me down with the young people when what I am listening to is Desert Island Discs.
Anyhow, a couple of weeks ago, they had on the Scottish composer James McMillan. Unlike almost every other Irish person you will ever meet, I am not particularly interested in music. It is a shameful thing and one that causes me some difficulty when I try to select my own desert island discs, but there it is. The only composers I really know are the ones who are regularly answers on University Challenge – you start to recognise the style and Benjamin Britten is usually a pretty safe bet for one of the answers, as they are quite patriotic. Normally when I listen to Desert Island Discs, I am fascinated by the people but rather bored by the music which, happily “for copyright reasons” is shorter on the podcast but, for some reason, this time, I loved the music. McMillan chose a piece by Thomas Tallis (occasional UC answer and, also, the name of one of the cats living upstairs in Brussels, the other one was Byrd, of course he was – so not a completely unknown quantity) which was arranged for 40 (!) voice parts, it was so beautiful that it made me cry (low enough bar actually, I cry easily, but still). And then McMillan turned out to be a devout Catholic and quite sane which, sadly, seems to be an increasingly rare combination. It was a really beautiful programme.
For his last disc, McMillan chose a contemporary composer. I was pretty sure that I knew no contemporary composers so I was ready to fast forward. As he described how this composer’s music divided people and that he once had a French orchestra in revolt when he tried to get them to play it, I was pretty sure that I was likely to be on the side of the French orchestra. His choice turned out to be an Irish composer called Gerard Barry. Ladies and gentlemen, where is that composer from? Yes, he is from Cork. Who about 20 years ago shared a house with his partner? Yes, me, that’s who. I have to say we have lost touch over the years and it is a long time since I have met the eminent composer and longer still since I have had dinner in his house. Still, though, what are the odds? I suppose quite short, given that he is from Cork. I have to say, I listened to the piece and notwithstanding my tenuous link to greatness, I probably would side with the French orchestra.
This week nearly killed me. We did a lot of stuff and I’m not counting school/the day job. It will have to stop or we will all keel over.
Monday
GAA for Dan; cubs for Michael (he is going to both cubs and scouts during transition to scouts); and bookclub for me.
Tuesday
Herself attended a “Zeminar” in the RDS. Neither myself nor Mr. Waffle could take her due to work commitments so she had to go herself on the bus which we weren’t crazy about but she managed fine. She visited stands from three Irish political parties at the conference. For Irish people, see whether you can guess which they are:
Party 1: Extremely earnest young man explained all their policies in excruciating detail.
Party 2: “You have no information about your policies up,” she said to them, “all you have is stuff about Game of Thrones”. “Ah,” they say, “you don’t want to be putting people off with the old policies.” “But,” she protested, “you are a political party, people expect you to have policies.”
Party 3: “We can help you to get ahead. We can introduce you to the Taoiseach.”
When she came home she went to the school open night so that she could impress possible incoming students and their parents with her prowess with a bunsen burner.
Michael went to scouts.
Mr. Waffle went to football.
I got sodden cycling in to work and resolved to get new rain gear at the weekend.
Wednesday
Herself was back at the Zeminar and afterwards she went to Bray on the Dart to see a play in a friend’s school. Daniel had training after school and I had to drive to Bray (very far away, people) to collect herself at 9.30
Thursday
Herself had games club followed by a debating tournament after school and had to be collected at 8 (bitter defeat, thanks for asking). Daniel and Michael had their booster vaccinations and sore arms. On the plus side this meant Daniel didn’t go to scheduled GAA training.
Friday
The boys had games club. All three children were supposed to have French but T, our faithful tutor, was sick. Poor T, but it was a relief to have something cancelled. Mr. Waffle and I went out to see Class in the New Theatre as part of the Theatre festival (herself babysat, part of a quid pro-quo for the 90 minute drive I had to bring her safely home on Wednesday night). I thought it was only alright but I was a definite minority. It’s about working class parents meeting a middle class teacher as part of a parent-teacher meeting. Class in two ways, you see.
Saturday
Daniel had a GAA match in the morning. I had a migraine. Unsurprising, frankly. Michael had drama in the afternoon. I dropped him in and bought myself a new waterproof coat while he was being dramatic. By early evening I had recovered sufficiently from my migraine to play “Capture the Flag” in a local park. I wanted to know how it worked before having 8 boys round for Daniel and Michael’s birthday and learning on the hoof (no date set, thanks for asking).
Sunday
Mr. Waffle and Michael went to mass at 10 and hockey at 11. I marched the other pair up the road, running late for 11 o’clock mass. We were half way up the road when herself said, “What time is it?” “It’s already 11, we’re going to be late” I said trotting along. “But mass doesn’t start until half past.” Good point. They had choir and she did the second reading. It was a reading from St. Paul. Even after 2,000 years, his personality still comes across very clearly. Favourite line which I think will become a running joke in this family: “There is nothing I cannot master with the help of the One who gives me strength. All the same, it was good of you to share with me in my hardships.” [Emphasis added]. The first holy communion class were there for the prayers of the faithful and so, the prayer for the dead, always a bit of a tricky one, was doomed. The child did not realise that she had to pause to allow the priest to list the names of the dead and so she ploughed on with her prayer and he ploughed on with his list until he realised there could be only one winner and let her continue. He read the list afterwards but he was clearly ground down by going mano a mano with the 8 year old at the lectern and when it came to a complex name he said, “It’s Ãine NÃ..M..no I can’t pronounce it, it’s something like that.” He’s not a native English speaker and it was all too much for him.
Mr. Waffle’s parents, who are very prompt, came for lunch and were sitting in their car outside the door when Mr. Waffle and Michael came back from hockey and the rest of us came back from mass. After they went home, I took the boys to see “We come from Far Far Away” which was a play for children about refugees. It was quite good actually but the boys were a bit too old for it and didn’t really enjoy it. Also, we had to sit cross legged in a yurt for the duration which is not very comfortable it you are a grown up. Or maybe that’s just me.
After this we went to Milano’s in Temple Bar for dinner as, for a birthday treat, their father had bought them tickets for the live show of “Impractical Jokers“; they are very fond of the deeply unsuitable TV show. We managed to lose the tickets between dinner and the car and had to tramp around looking for them (in vain) and then go home and reprint them which made punctual Mr. Waffle extremely tense. They arrived at 8.05 for an 8 pm start and, in fact, the warm up act still had ages to go. It was even more deeply unsuitable than the TV show but the boys loved it.
Meanwhile herself and myself were at home. A couple of her friends came round and I was able to give all of them the happy, happy news that the Department of Education had decided to close every school in the country due to the oncoming hurricane. Not a standard Irish weather feature. Then, with growing horror the realisation dawned on me that there might be an impact for grown-ups also and that my office might have to close for the day. I spent the remainder of Sunday evening consulting with colleagues, looking at weather warnings and reading runes while we collectively tried to decide whether the office should close or not tomorrow and how best to get the word out to everyone. You will, I am sure be rivetted to hear that the office is, in fact, closed tomorrow or, at this stage (it is late) today. Mr. Waffle has have brought in the bins and I have parked the car as far away from trees as possible on our tree-lined street. I have my new, guaranteed waterproof coat. My work for the week is done.* How was your own week?
*Actually, it was Open House this weekend and we usually go to see something but this year we didn’t; I’m not even sure I’m sorry.