Mr Waffle did not have to work this weekend. I rejoiced. He suggested that we go to Emo Court today (part of our programme of gentle outings about an hour from Dublin).
We drove about an hour from Dublin. Were we delighted to find that Emo Court was closed for renovations? I can’t say that we were, but, look, we went for a walk around the lake and had a cup of tea in the Dower House. It could have been worse.
Saturday was a busy day.
We went to mass with the in-laws for my mother in law’s anniversary. The church was near the in-laws’ house and they had kindly asked us for a bite to eat after the mass.
When we accepted we hadn’t quite realised that Mr. Waffle’s brother would be in the pub (channelling his late father who always enjoyed both a celebration and running, he headed off to the pub shortly after mass for the annual drinks of the mountain running association), his niece at a party and that his sister-in-law,fresh from a work trip to Canada, would be cooking dinner for all of us and none of her own family. Never mind, we brought flowers. Did we leave the flowers behind us at home? Yes, yes we did. And (oh happy day) they are going to have us for Christmas as well.
Michael drove us home perfectly competently. I do hope he passes his driving test in January.
Anyway, I came home, went to bed and woke up in the middle of night with the realisation that I had forgotten to update the blog. I will backdate this. I am not even sorry as the young people say.
Over the summer we had a glut of lemons so I made lemonade. In fact, I made a batch and I had loads of squeezed lemon juice left over which I put in the fridge to deploy later in a second batch.
When I went to make the second batch, there was the lemon juice gone, as they say. I began to make inquiries and it transpired that Mr. Waffle believing it to be lemonade had drunk it neat with Viking valour. It was a bit bitter he conceded but he did it. He didn’t want to complain about the lemonade quality. Oderint dum metuant as my father used to say.
Saturday
Mr. Waffle and I went out for breakfast together and then he went into the office and worked all day. Sigh. I did various underwhelming things: I went to the dry cleaner, the library, the cobbler and the greengrocer. I attempted to get through some part of the mountain of newsprint which I brought into the house.
Sunday
I went to mass and we had a reading that I always enjoy. I’m really not seeing that turn the other cheek spin which emanates from the New Testament.
Since Mr. Waffle was not working for the afternoon we had a mild outing to the Botanic Gardens. It lashed rain.
We ran from greenhouse to greenhouse and looked at the plants.
I imagine Wittgenstein had a similarly gloomy experience in November 1948.
There was an AI exhibition in the space upstairs from the cafe which was mildly interesting. I mean, I’ve had worse outings but I’ve had better also.
And then home to the fire to make a determined effort to finish off the papers. And how was your own weekend?
I think I have said before that I’m finding it a bit logistically challenging to be the parent of three adults.
While I was really glad to have them all on the summer holidays with us this year; the organisation of this was complex.
For day to day matters, herself is in England so this is not really an issue. For her Dublin based sibings, however, logistics are a daily pain. When I was in college, my memory is that my mother cooked dinner every evening (always my mother, sign of the times) and if I was in, I had dinner and if not, I skipped it. But it just seems wasteful to cook for four when only two of us are going to be there. Whatsapp is full of “Who is home for dinner tonight?” messages.
Often the house is empty when I leave for work and when I come home which is not entirely unwelcome but just different. We’re a bit more atomised, I guess.
As you know, Mr. Waffle is Lord of Laundry but one morning he had to go to a meeting and asked me to put out the clothes. I went out to the back garden. Mr. Waffle was gone to his meeting, Daniel was already in a lecture and I was unsure of Michael’s whereabouts. I became surer when I tried to get back into the house after completing my labour of love and found the back door dutifully locked by Michael before he had left for college. Fortunately I had my phone and I rang him, “Where are you?”. “On the bus,” said he. He had to get off the bus, come home and let me in again. He was very apologetic but as he pointed out, he knew his father had gone out and who would have thought that I would be out putting out the washing? I can’t feel this would ever have happened back when they were all at school. Sometimes it’s more like four adults living together. Other times definitely not, I suppose.
Unrelated: I saw a giant chameleon on the street.
When the children were small, the parish priest asked me to be on the baptism preparation group. I was extremely reluctant (do you think I’m a fool?) but agreed in the end and 15 years later here I am with my children all grown up and still on the baptism preparation group. One of the other members is a grandmother so I am basically doomed to stay there for all time.
It’s quite straightforward there’s a rota and we are sent out in pairs (biblical). We meet in one of the rooms behind the church. The parents who are getting their children baptised that month come in and we go through the service and also talk about the practicalities (when to arrive on the day of the baptism, who does readings etc.) and make sure they have their paperwork (church bureaucracy is surprisingly efficient). We also do some very light proselyting (you might think that this would be unnecessary with people who are bringing their children for baptism but you might be surprised) and try not to scare them.
I had baptism group last night and we had 6 families with first babies for baptism. Mostly people don’t tend to bring the babies but one couple did and she was adorable. They were all lovely and agreeable and the whole thing was grand and as speedy as we could make it.
The speediness was necessary as Mr. Waffle and I were going to the cinema (booked when I had forgotten that I was on the rota for the baptism prep for November and did not know that he would spend the day driving to and from Limerick for a funeral). We saw Anora which has got rave reviews. It’s about an escort who has a relationship with a young rich Russian guy. The first part is very graphic (thank God I hadn’t gone with the children) and I found myself frequently wondering what you have to do to get an 18s cert in this country (it was 16s). Then the middle part when the Armenian henchmen become involved is played for laughs (and is very funny). When the Russian’s parents (who are excellent) fly in on their private jet towards the end it’s still funny but it’s also a bit sad.
Overall, it just seemed sad to me and I could have done without a lot of the graphic detail; I found it a bit exploitative and did not love it. I thought that the cast were outstanding though. In fairness, it was laugh out loud funny in parts and it definitely did not drag. There was lots of Russian which I enjoyed (coming as it did with subtitles). Many, perhaps most, of the actors were Russian and I wonder how this works with the sanctions on Russia at the moment. It’s set in 2019; is that supposed to be a solution to this particular problem?