Mr. Waffle

Mr. Waffle says it’s dodo not do do, so now you know, just in case it ever arises. Dodo in French is one of those false friends.

He further points out that her first sentence was a French one.  She said “Meunier tu dors“. In fact she says “Meunier tu dors” a lot. This is the first line of a French song her papa sings to her. It means “Miller, you sleep”. It goes on to describe the terrible consequences to his windmill.  I’m guessing here, but I suspect that she doesn’t know precisely what it means, so I’m not sure that counts. I therefore submit that the jury is still out on the first sentence.

I’m going to tell you something I have been keeping from you. Mr. Waffle spent his very early years in Canada. French Canada.  And then when he came home, he went to the French school and he stayed there when his parents went to South America (except he went to the Venezuelan French school, if you see what I mean – as he tells it, it was all kind of similar, lots of stuff about “our ancestors the Gauls”). And so now, he speaks perfect French. And this is very handy. And we do live in a francophone country.  And it seems a shame to waste all this knowledge. So, to cut a long story short, before the Princess was born, I persuaded him that he should speak French to her. He was reluctant, but I was a pregnant juggernaut.

This has led to a number of difficulties which I had not anticipated. Firstly, Mr. Waffle spends a lot of time worrying over “bringing up your child to be bilingual” websites and secondly, whenever we meet Irish friends (from whom my loving spouse has spent a lifetime concealing his perfect French, for reasons I can’t entirely fathom, something to do with not showing off, I think) my husband communicates with his daughter in grunts.

A third difficulty has just emerged. The Princess is starting to talk. Before our holidays, she had a range of English words but due to intense hot housing from her father over the summer holidays, there’s no doubt that la francophonie is pulling ahead. You may think French is hard but there are a lot of easy words like “l’eau” for water and “la” for there and “dodo” for sleep (important note here, in case you might be hoping to use this expression in France – now that you regard this website as an authority on the French language – grown-ups say dormir but do do is permissible for the under 3s). And “oui” for yes.  Despite my promotion of the English alternatives, she is very taken with the French. Our conversations go like this:

Princess, pointing at fountain: L’eau, l’eau

Me: Yes, water.

P, in tones of impatience: L’eau, l’eau, l’eau.

Me: I see the water.

P, with pathetic sigh: L’eau.

Or another favourite:

Me: Would you like to go for a nap?

P – Blank expression.

Me: Nappedy wappedy (stop sniggering at the back).

P – Continues blank.

Me: Lie face on hand and make snoring noise.

P, in tones of delight: Ah, dodo, oui.

We had dreadful trouble with luggage this holiday.  Especially the buggy.  Considering that every time we took it to the steps of the plane every time, it was impressive that it was lost returning from Ireland to Brussels and then once recovered, lost again on the way from Rome to Palermo.  I must say, this cast a pall over the first couple of days in Sicily.  Lugging around a 10 kilo baby will tire you out.  Also, due to my superior Italian skills, I spent a lot of time on to lost luggage in Palermo airport.  This also cast a damper. After 3 days there was great news, the buggy had been found.  Mr. Waffle and his papa drove into Palermo (an hour and a half from our guesthouse) and tried to pick it up.  In this they were somewhat hampered by Italian bureaucracy. As they kicked their heels in the baggage hall waiting for someone to come and deal with them, Mr. Waffle senior saw a familiar purple and pink elephant.  Yes, it was Dumbo, attached to the buggy, you understand. Showing the kind of enterprise which has made him a captain of industry, he tucked it under his arm and walked out, dragging his son behind him.  The whole rescue was achieved without filling in a single piece of paper.  This was perhaps why Mr. Waffle was nervous when we checked back in for Palermo Rome and they said suspiciously “Hmm, I seem to recognise your name, did you lose some luggage?”. I’d say that the amount of paperwork associated with the buggy heist has made our name mud around the greater Palermo area.

For greater economy, we were flying point to point airlines and we had two hours in Rome to rescue our luggage from our Palermo flight and get it checked in for the Brussels flight.  In retrospect, this was too short.  Our Palermo flight was delayed by an hour and it took a good 35 minutes for the luggage to arrive off the plane.  We were busy formulating emergency overnight in Rome strategies, when Mr. Waffle decided that the Princess and I should go ahead and stall the Brussels flight.  Again, in retrospect, this was not a great idea.  We scooted off to the international terminal, a brisk 20 minute walk just in time to see 2 besuited Virgin officials leaving their post chatting amicably.  Frantically, I cut in front of two innocent souls at the top of the adjoining queue and panted “is the Bxls flight closed?”  “No, madam, you can check-in here”.  Fantastic. Now all I had to do was wait for Mr. Waffle and the luggage.  “Madam, you need to check in immediately”. “Um, yes, just need to make a quick phone call”.  Zoom off to sound of despairing sigh behind me.  Arrive at phone booth to find that it will not take 2 euro coins.  Reckon that this is the minimum I will need as Mr. Waffle has Belgian mobile. Curse at great length. Princess looks shocked. Appalled Italian lady presses 20 cents on me in the hope it will help. Go back and stand in front of check in lady. “My husband is just coming with the luggage.”. “I’m sorry madam, but we can’t wait any longer, you’ll have to check in now”.  Princess begins to wail in sympathy. Forgetting that I am in English speaking land say “Not now darling, Mummy is very tense”.  Mummy is not made any less tense by smirks of surrounding English speakers and reluctantly hands over passport and tickets and then – insert Chariots of Fire music – Mr. Waffle comes running around the corner, dripping sweat and carting our luggage.  Hurrah.  Nice check-in lady says we will have to run.  We do and arrive in good time to queue with other punters. And miraculously, all our luggage makes it to Brussels too.

Wedding Guests

At a wedding, you often get friends of the happy couple’s parents and so it was here.  I remarked to a nice Canadian lady, a friend of the Waffle seniors’ for many years that Mr. Waffle looked very handsome in his best man gear. Inocuous comment, you might feel.  She considered the remark carefully and said “You know, he is, he used to be very geeky, but he’s grown out of it”. As a friend of Mr. Waffle’s said later when I related this to him “I would never have said that – I might have said that he was good at maths or excelled in classics…” Clearly, the Canadians believe in telling it like it is.