belgianwaffle

Ireland

Snow in the Mountains


Posted in: Ireland, Mr. Waffle

Mr. Waffle and I went to Glendalough on our own last week. It hasn’t been very cold this year and I was thrilled to find that when we went up into Wicklow, there was snow in the mountains.

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And when we got up above the lakes in Glendalough, there was snow.

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Down at ground level, there was no snow but the monastic village looked beautiful under clear blue skies.

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I cannot believe our luck because there has hardly been a day this winter when it has not lashed rain. Clearly, we have used up our good luck quotient for 2016/the year of the monkey in one fell swoop.

Birthdays


Posted in: Cork, Family, Ireland

My mother’s birthday was on February 1. I went down to Cork the weekend before for a birthday lunch which passed off peacefully and which I hope she enjoyed.

Preparations were rendered somewhat stressful by my brother’s decision to re-organise the bottom of the [very large Victorian] bookcase where a lifetime’s supply of ware had nestled peacefully for decades. All that he had deemed worthy of salvation had been returned in ordered piles to the bottom of the bookcase but the dining room table was piled high with items about which he had his doubts. My parents, I discovered, are the owners of the largest collection of toast racks alive in captivity. I may well be responsible for their above average holding of Kwak glasses.

In advance of lunch I found homes for many of the items – intended as temporary but likely to become permanent, I fear – the trolley and the sideboard are now more heavily laden than previously. On the plus side, the dining room table was clear. With the blessing of everyone in Cork, I liberated a toast rack and a jam pot which made it safely back to Dublin. “Ah,” said Mr. Waffle, “the 50s are back.”

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I have discovered that if you want your toast to stay warm, a toast rack is utterly useless. However, if your daughter has cold toast for her daily sandwich (don’t ask me), it is ideal for ensuring that the toast cools speedily so that you can minimise the danger of condensation in the sandwich bag. Don’t mock the afflicted.

The other birthday is my brother’s which was on February 5 and for which, as yet, he has got no present from his loving, elder sister. I’m sure it will be even better for the wait. I wonder would he like a packet of stroopwafels.

The Great Filing Catastrophe of 2016 and Other News


Posted in: Dublin, Ireland, Middle Child, Mr. Waffle, Princess, Twins, Youngest Child

Mr. Waffle and I are tidy. I am the queen of filing and he is the king. People gasp in amazement when they see my tidy office. All of our domestic administration is carefully filed away and (somewhat) regularly sorted through to throw out papers that we no longer need to keep (although, to my knowledge, Mr. Waffle’s bank statements from when we lived in Belgium are still filed in the attic, a fact of which I deeply disapprove – you may recall that we last lived in Belgium in 2008). All this to say that, you know, we are not the kind of people who can’t find guarantees or passports or papers when we need to. You know how this is going to end, I assume. Stay with me anyhow, why don’t you?

Herself is going to Rome horribly early tomorrow morning for a mid-term school trip. She has been counting the days since September when she first heard about it. The programme is daunting. They are going for five days and will visit Rome (Vatican museums, the Forum, Pantheon, Spanish Steps, Trevi Fountain and anything else they feel up to – one of the teachers seriously suggested to me that they might go bowling one evening, insert your own sardonic comment here), Pompeii, Naples, Sorrento and the Amalfi coast.

She spent the weekend packing. After dinner this evening I went to get her passport out of the drawer and it was there. Of course it was there. I went to get her European health card from the shoebox where we keep these things. Daniel’s was there. Michael’s was there. I emptied out all of the non-EU currency, the Belgian bus tickets, the Paris metro tickets and the foreign stamps which also live in the shoebox but there was no sign of the Princess’s health insurance card. We searched in all the likely places: the desk drawers, the health insurance folder, the folder for herself, all the other folders just in case. It was unfindable. She had had to bring it into school twice so that they could verify that she had it. In light of this I felt that the authorities were likely to check in the cold, pre-dawn Dublin airport whether she had brought it with her. We kept searching. It turned up sticking out of the Lonely Planet guide to Paris on the book shelf. I am not the better of it.

It was also Valentine’s day and my husband got me lovely flowers and a card. I got him some stroopwafels and only because yesterday morning, herself said to me, “I hope you know that Daddy is getting you something for Valentine’s Day.” He took the boys to a reading in the National Library while I scuttled around hoping to find something he might like. I am not sure that he was absolutely thrilled with the packet of biscuits, now. Sometimes I feel that Mr. Waffle gets a poor deal. Guess who is getting up at 4 in the morning to drive our precious first-born to the airport? Not me, I fear.

Have a photo of the boys checking out the National Library reading room:
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Earlier today we climbed Bray Head. This was inspired by Michael who needed to do it for some scouting badge. He was pleased to be going. The others, possibly less so. However, we met the cousins and they were all happy to see each other and ran up cheerfully despite the biting wind. A further aim of the trip was to ensure that herself and Mr. Waffle were tired enough to go to sleep early. Any benefits in this regard were entirely offset by the health insurance card trauma.

Still, nice views from the top:
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Rug – Further Developments


Posted in: Dublin, Ireland, Siblings

So, I went to Cork at the end of January and collected the rug. It was packed into an impressively small parcel:

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I was able to transport it to Dublin by train with the aid of my sister’s suitcase:

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I have to say that it looks pretty impressive now that it is installed:

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The children and the cat absolutely and unreservedly love it and spend a lot of time digging their toes/claws into it.

I love it too. However, it brings to crisis point our need for new curtains, sofa and armchairs. When we moved into the house in 2013, we kept the faded pink regency stripe curtains and the orange chintz furniture as a stop gap measure. Already the existing colour combination was exciting but the addition of the rug has tipped us over the edge. You may not have fully appreciated this from the last photo. Have a look at this photo which still doesn’t do justice to the real thing:

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It’s even more thrilling when the curtains are closed. I think the sofa will have to be first to go – at least the curtains aren’t uncomfortable.

More home decorating news as we get it.

Green Shoots, Baby, We’re Back etc.


Posted in: Dublin, Ireland

Recently, Mr. Waffle and I went for dinner in our local gastro pub [insert obligatory ‘it’s far from gastro pubs we were reared’ comment here]. The main course was €29.90 and I thought to myself, that is quite pricy, is it not?

A couple of weeks ago at work, I felt a little sorry for myself and decided to go to somewhere nice for lunch – not super nice Michelin starred, white tablecloth now but nice and newly opened. I arrived at 12.45 on a rainy Wednesday in January looking for a table for one only to be told that they were fully booked, sorry.

Where will it all end?

Culture


Posted in: Dublin, Family, Ireland, Mr. Waffle, Twins, Youngest Child

A couple of weeks ago, Mr. Waffle and I took the children to see “Trauma” in the science gallery. It was, well, traumatic. Not unexpected you might argue. After the strain of the exhibition, I felt we ought to do something further of a cultural nature. It would be hard to overstate Michael’s bitterness on hearing this news.

Since we were in Trinity anyway and, one of the major advantages of a degree from Trinity is that it gets you in free to the Book of Kells, I suggested that we might go there and get some use out of Mr. Waffle’s degree. We passed the playing pitches on the way and I found myself, somewhat to my surprise, standing beside a man yelling “Come on Trinity” at a rugby game. How little we know our spouses. Happily Michael’s weary insistence that we might as well get it over with propelled us onwards.

The library is lovely, actually. I note that we went there this time last year so it seems to occur to me as a good outing in January. As ever, I sold it to the boys as being the model for the Jedi library which may be true. They were cynical and bitter, “You say that every time.”

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We didn’t stay long and it is genuinely interesting. Afterwards, as we emerged into the drizzle, having contemplated one of Ireland’s great treasures Michael said grudgingly, “I suppose it wasn’t too bad.” I think I will take that as a win.