Siblings

Happy Birthday

9 November, 2015
Posted in: Siblings

My sister is 40 today. She had a party at the weekend in Cork (when all of my children were clean at the same time) but today is the actual day. When your younger sister turns 40 it doesn’t seem as old as it once was.

I was six when my sister was born and for years, I was just way older than her and had no interest in her concerns. When she was six, I was starting secondary school. When she was twelve, I was in college. She and my brother were great buddies uniting in opposition to my will. I was loftily above their concerns.

When she was very small, she was quite hard to understand and I do remember that my brother and I – who understood her with no difficulty – undertook to translate her utterances to our parents. This was a very frustrating experience for her as we said “No, she doesn’t want any cake, she says we can share it.” Perhaps as a consequence of her siblings being so vile, she became very good at hoarding things. Her sweets lasted longer than ours. She was a great saver. It was a running joke in the family that she still had her communion money – until quite recently, actually. But she was always really generous. She shared her sweets when we had finished ours.

She was very stubborn. Once on a camping trip to France when she was a small girl, she announced that she was going home in response to some spat with my parents. She stalked off furiously. My father looked up from his paper and, pointing in the opposite direction said, “Cork is that way.” She turned on her heel and walked determinedly that way. I am not quite sure how my parents got her to come back. She was also very responsible. She learned to cook early and she is still a really wonderful cook. From a very young age, she was in charge of cooking and shopping when my parents were away. I might have been in college but she was competent (though when the cat had kittens in the hot press while my parents were away, I was still the one who had to deal with it – I didn’t abrogate all responsibility).

Nearly seven years is a big age gap until your 20s but then we started to do things together. We went on holidays. I visited her in Plymouth where she had her first job. I remember having a lovely time. We took a sea tractor and went to Burgh Island for dinner. We had cream teas and we went swimming a lot [she hates going to beaches but she is very obliging].

As the years have gone on, I have appreciated her more and more. I speak to her almost every day. She gives great advice, she is really helpful and kind. My children love her and not just because she is extraordinarily generous to them. She is immensely reliable and obliging.

I know that people who haven’t sisters lead perfectly happy and fulfilled lives (like my firstborn) but I think I am very lucky to have my sister. I love to see her, I love to talk to her and I have great fun with her. We have a lifetime in common and a shared understanding of all kinds of things. She has a unique position in my world and it would be so much poorer without her.

So a very happy birthday to my wonderful sister and may she have many, many more of them.

Confirmed

23 May, 2015
Posted in: Family, Ireland, Middle Child, Princess, Siblings, Twins

The Princess was confirmed yesterday. It all went reasonably well. My aunt, my brother and sister came from Cork. My aunt stayed in the B&B around the corner. It looks lovely from the outside but after she arrived I went to check her bedroom with her and, regrettably, it was vile. Absolutely tiny and utterly unappealing in every way. It was also pretty pricy so that was definitely a minus. However, my aunt nobly assured us that it was fine and said that she slept like a log. My aunt fills me with hope for our old age. She will be 86 next month and she is well in every way. She joined a swimming club recently and told them that she was 75 in case they didn’t want her due to her age and they totally believed her. Utterly reasonably. She is in fantastic shape. She attributes her good health to a lifetime of inertia and overeating so I feel my chances for a healthy old age are good also.

The morning of the ceremony was a bit frantic. I had underestimated how long it would take to ferry two carloads of people to the church. The first carload arrived at 10.40 instead of the required 10.30 and the second carload containing the Princess’s sponsor (my brother), her brothers and her mother arrived well after the 11 scheduled start time. We were nearly later because as my brother and I were talking about the marriage referendum, Daniel was inspired to make his position clear and wrote in large letters in highlighter on his arm, “Vote YES”. While I applauded this at one level (“I thought you would be happy,” said he), it didn’t add to his allure as he headed off to his sister’s confirmation in his short sleeved shirt. Spit and rubbing ameliorated the situation but he looked distinctly orange.

When we arrived, the service had already started and while the boys could sit at the back of the church with other relatives, parents and sponsors were right up the front. Herself was at the lectern about to begin her second reading. Mercifully I didn’t miss her. And she was terrific, I was very proud though somewhat mortified by my late entrance. As Mr. Waffle tactlessly said later to Herself, “I presume you saw your mother coming in, you could hardly have missed her, arriving late and coming up the aisle in her red dress as you were about to do your reading.” Sigh.

Lunch went well and then we deposited various relatives to buses, trains and their homes. Then, I went out to vote with the children in attendance and collapsed. I developed a spectacular migraine and I still feel a little delicate. It is to this, the Confirmation excitement generally and Mr. Waffle’s recent hectic travel schedule that I attribute a severe oversight this morning. We are normally very reliable as a family, if you want reliability, look to the Waffles. As I was driving Danny home from a GAA match in North County Dublin (a massacre, thanks for asking) I noticed a church car park full to overflowing, “There must be a communion on,” I remarked to him. Then it hit me, Herself was supposed to be singing in the school choir for the First Communion that morning. We frantically rang home. Had they by any chance remembered? They had not. Was the Communion service now over? It was. Did she have a solo? Several. Am I looking forward to going into school on Monday morning and grovelling before the choir director? I am not.

Hoist with my own Petard

18 May, 2015
Posted in: Family, Mr. Waffle, Princess, Siblings

Herself is making her confirmation on Friday. It is a busy week.

As I write, Mr. Waffle is off in Helsinki. On Wednesday, he is scheduled to fly to Luxembourg. It appears that the possible Finnish air traffic strike will not now go ahead so he will not need to use his back up plan of taking the ferry to Estonia and flying to Luxembourg from there. On Thursday night, he will fly from Luxembourg to Amsterdam and then into Dublin about 11. If his Thursday work gig runs late, he is booked on to the last flight out of Luxembourg to London and then he will get the red eye from London to Dublin on Friday morning. I am mildly concerned that she will be confirmed in her father’s absence.

Mr. Waffle, having little faith in his spouse, left a highlighted note on the kitchen table this morning that a red confirmation rosette was required and then also texted me to this effect. The boys need new shirts for the event. A colleague said that herself needs a new dress; she is being confirmed in her school uniform (mercifully). On enquiry, she confirmed that other children are getting new clothes to change into. “I don’t care,” said she, “I don’t look good in neon.” What are we to make of this? And then I had to ring the guesthouse for my aunt, book a restaurant for lunch for everyone on Friday and consider where my two siblings will sleep on Thursday night. I also had fend off my sister’s queries as to what I am doing with my daughter’s hair. Apparently “getting her to wash it” is a poor response.

And then as well as all the confirmation organisation, I am doing all the things Mr. Waffle regularly does (bins, washing, GAA preparation, cleaning up after dinner) and the things we do between us (homework checking, sandwich making, chasing to bed) and my own tasks (dinner, scouts, walking the children to school). And work is busy too.

So, this evening when my very undemanding daughter – in the matter of confirmation prep, at least – reminded me that she wanted to go to confession before her Confirmation, my heart sank. I had forgotten at the weekend when confession is very handily available in almost any church you care to think of. The internet tells me that the only real possibility is going to a city centre church between 5 and 5.45 on Wednesday. Alas, fair maiden. With Mr. Waffle away this would mean bringing all three into the centre of the city at rush hour. So I hemmed and hawed and said we’d see but, I feel like the (I am sure apocryphal) mother who said her child couldn’t make the first communion ceremony because there was too much else to do on the day of the communion.

Also, the Princess tells me that she and Michael need cardboard boxes for their art class tomorrow. Because.

Mid-Term

22 February, 2015
Posted in: Cork, Ireland, Middle Child, Princess, Siblings, Twins, Youngest Child

I have just returned from four days in Cork with the children. It was very wet but moderately successful.

On Thursday we went out to Charles Fort; a familiar walk. The children did not look forward to it. In fact, only the day before, they had refused to leave the house with the childminder on the grounds that they would be forced to go to Charles Fort the following day.

Despite the rain, it was reasonably successful. We stopped for lunch in the Bulman and got coveted seats by the fire. From there we had an unimpeded view of the lashing rain and grey sea.

After eating, it had eased to heavy drizzle and we went on. The fort itself was successful.

The boys played with imaginary swords and herself bonded with a small dog. The pair of them went running around the grass together; both delighted.

The walk back to the car was damp but mostly downhill and they got to play with the “caution children” sign.

On Saturday we traipsed in the rain up to Elizabeth Fort. This has been tarted up a bit since I was last there (about age 10 with my mother picking up coal from the coal merchant tucked in under the ramparts; still there, you will be pleased to hear) and there are walks around the ramparts; some statues; a damp man from the city council handing out leaflets and demonstrating commendable enthusiasm; and stocks.

Pushing my luck, I also took them into the Protestant Cathedral as it was on the way. I remembered it as being small on the inside but it’s much bigger than I had thought. Still a lot smaller than you might expect given the size of the outside. They had a child friendly two-page brochure which engendered some mild enthusiasm on the part of herself and Michael but Daniel continued to make a strong case for retreat.

Aside from that, we rarely ventured out. Much of the children’s time was spent working their way through their Uncle’s change mountain and bagging it for him in exchange for a share of the profits. He had more than â‚¬600 which is really quite extraordinary and made a tidy profit for the children who had sought 10% of the total. They were subsequently forced to amend this to a lower percentage but it was still very satisfactory. Arguably not as satisfactory as their encounter with my aunt who gave them a small shopping bag full of change and told them to keep it.

The children also played cards with my family. I am regarded as a guru here in our little family group in Dublin so I think the children were surprised to hear how my play was regarded by my cruel siblings. Herself said, “I’m worse at cards than Mummy and Daddy.” To which her aunt responded bracingly, “Don’t be ridiculous, nobody is that bad.” Indeed.

Finally, my brother has been clearing out the attic (I think, because he wants his head examined) and has found some wonderful family photos including a lovely studio one of my aunt and my father in the mid 30s. He has also found loads of press cuttings. It’s a bit difficult to work out why some of them were kept. “Why,” I said to my brother, “have we kept the Evening Echo from 1986?” and as I flicked through I came across this photo of me at my debs. I must say that I look very cheerful considering that I found that particular rite of passage a rather grim experience.

And finally, my aunt gave me a lovely coffee table which used to belong to her aunt (a glamourous photo of that aunt from 1921 was also found in the attic) and I am very pleased.

Who Knew?

13 February, 2015
Posted in: Ireland, Siblings

My sister was at a 40th birthday party at the weekend in a small town in Co. Limerick (pop. 500). Her friend had invited to the local pub a wide range of people of all ages; friends, neighbours and relatives (a goodly percentage of pop. 500). My sister found herself chatting to an older pleasant, gentleman called Michael. The talk veered to the economy and she was very impressed with his knowledge of the euro crisis, the Greek finance Minister and related matters. Doubtless she thought to herself in her urban way that we are inclined to underestimate the elderly, mountainy men and their grasp of current affairs [this may be projection on my part].

It was only later her boyfriend asked how she had enjoyed her chat with the Minister for Finance. A neighbour of the birthday boy, since you ask.

Weekend Round Up or Next, Conversion of Russia

11 January, 2015
Posted in: Mr. Waffle, Princess, Siblings, Twins

We had a busy weekend. My brother stayed with us Friday and Saturday night. On Saturday morning we went to the Young Scientist exhibition. Within less than two minutes of arriving I had lost Michael and had to make a lost child announcement. It wasn’t bad: the exhibits were interesting; the exhibitors were enthusiastic (we found a neighbour’s child exhibiting, very exciting) and there were quite good shows but the troops started to get hungry and we bailed at lunchtime.

We dropped the Princess in town with her friend and then she went off to her friend’s house and didn’t reappear again until she was dropped off at 8 in the evening – there is definitely something to be said for the mobile phone as regular updates kept us abreast of these developments.

Meanwhile the boys had a friend round in the afternoon who was to stay the night. We said to the child’s parents, “We are going to 11.30 am mass and happy to take him with us or for you to collect him beforehand.” His family are committed atheists, but clearly not committed enough as his mother replied immediately that he could go to mass no problem and they would collect him later in the afternoon.

So this morning I found myself hounding out of bed to go to mass: my two sons, their friend the atheist, my daughter and my brother (who had only returned at 4 in the morning from his night of dissipation). As I shepherded my unwilling flock in the direction of the church, Mr. Waffle commented, “You have become the Irish mammy”.

Mass itself was fine, even my intro which is usually fraught with difficultly. The Princess impressed her uncle with her reading skills. The atheist friend and the boys were positively saintly. After communion, I whispered to Michael to tell his friend it was nearly over as he was unlikely to know how long it would run and I felt he might welcome an update. “Neither do I know how long it will run,” said Michael mournfully.

Mass featured renewing of our baptismal vows and a sprinkling of holy water which is not standard issue. I am pretty sure that there is a device for sprinkling holy water but our priest today chose to use a bunch of (reasonably fresh) flowers for his water sprinkling which I think is unusual. I suppose it was all odd to our atheist friend.

Afterwards I asked him what he thought of it all. “Well,” he said, “it was very boring for me because I am an atheist.” I see.

How was your own weekend?