Travel

More on our Broadband

15 March, 2015
Posted in: Ireland, Mr. Waffle, Travel

Because, unlike eircom, you care.

I was in Scotland last week for work (rainy, but interesting, thanks for asking) and I got this pathetic message from Mr. Waffle on March 11.

Hi,

Hope your night out went OK. Just to say that UPC seems to have withdrawn service – neither TV nor Internet work. Still no news from Eircom…

Since then, the eircom technician has come. Pause to appreciate that. True, Mr. Waffle had to work from home for a third day but the technician came on Friday 13th. Unfortunately, he is only phase one of operations and another person has to come now. Date unclear as they cannot yet give us an appointment, but I am willing to bet you that it will not be before the national holiday on March 17.

In the absence of TV and internet, the children have been thrown upon a combination of their own resources and the DS for entertainment. None of us is sure how long this will be sustainable.

I am writing this from the broadband heaven that is my parents’ house in Cork. I am not sure what appetite I will have to blog from the 3G on my phone when I return to Dublin, so there may be a hiatus here. Or, at least, pretty short posts. I know, it’s a worry, you’re on the edge of your seat out there.

Cultural Differences

21 December, 2014
Posted in: Siblings, Travel

One of my sister’s best friends has married a Swede and moved to Sweden. One evening she found herself explaining the concept of the draught excluder to a group of his friends. They were absolutely baffled by the idea. After a long silence one of them asked, “Why don’t you build proper houses?”

Alas.

Literary Holidays

19 November, 2014
Posted in: Princess, Travel

You will recall that we had a very successful house swap last summer (successful for us anyhow, I’m hoping it was successful for the French people also). We are now on this house swap website and people keep offering us their houses. So far we keep saying no as it’s a bit early for us to know what our plans are. Sample conversation.

Mr. Waffle: We don’t want to go to Brighton, do we?
Me: No, I don’t think so.
Herself: Oh Brighton, I must go to Brighton, I shall die, if I don’t go to Brighton.

No more Pride and Prejudice for her.

Tiny First World Problems

13 November, 2014
Posted in: Cork, Dublin, Ireland, Reading etc., Travel

Tiny Problem 1

I went out for dinner with an old school friend last night. This was the culmination of many months of planning. Over the months I had booked the restaurant three times and cancelled twice. The day before yesterday, the restaurant people left me a voicemail asking whether I was still coming [you can see why they might be concerned]. I rang them back and explained that I was. Then, yesterday morning my friend texted and said that she wanted to go somewhere local and later. So, I rang the restaurant at 4 and cancelled again. At 5.40 my friend telephoned and said, “Actually, I’m making much better time than I expected, have you cancelled the restaurant?” “I have,” I said arcticly. “Why don’t you ring them, they may not have given the table away yet.” I bit my tongue and I rang. “We can’t give you a table in the restaurant but we can give you a table in the gastobar.” [Far from gastrobars we were reared etc.] “Fine,” I said. In the pair of us went. “Oh,” said my friend, “it’s such a pity we’re not in the restaurant, it’s far nicer.” I glared at her and she added hastily, “And it’s all my fault, of course.”

TP 2

Mr. Waffle took the children to school today as I was going to a conference in the opposite direction. They trooped out at 8.30 and I didn’t need to leave until 9. For the first time, I contemplated breakfast alone at home. I tidied up the breakfast things and put on the kettle. Just as the kettle boiled, I heard a cheery voice say, “Hello, hello!” as the cleaner let herself in the front door.

TP 3

I cycled to the conference in driving rain. As I was locking my bike it tipped over neatly sending the contents of the basket into an enormous puddle and emptying out my handbag entirely. I fished out flattened, floating scraps of paper and electronic devices as best I might but not before leaping backwards to avoid the falling bike and landing in the puddle up to my knees.

TP 4

The base of my thumb was a little sore and reading Dooce’s blog, I thought I might have injured myself from constant candy crushing. Dooce obviously acquired her injury while earning a living so that made it more glamourous. So this morning I took candy crush off my phone to save my thumb. This evening I got the train to Cork. When I went into the newsagent at the station, they were sold out of the Irish Times so I was left to entertain myself as best I might with no candy crush, no wifi and a very dull work related book which I have been carrying around in my handbag fooling myself that I will read. It was also, obviously, still damp after its morning dip.

Please tell me your stupid problems so I don’t feel utterly shallow or, at least, not utterly alone in my shallowness. And there is some fundamental problem with the syntax of that last sentence and I am too tired to fix it. Is that TP 5? I think it might be.

Single Parenting

3 October, 2014
Posted in: Family, Mr. Waffle, Travel, Work

Last week I went to Florence for work (not at all the kind of place I normally go to for work). Saturday was the boys’ birthday. This meant that on Friday afternoon, I was in my conference in the Palazzo Vecchio admiring the beautiful ceiling in the Sala dei Cinquecento and on Saturday, I was in an indoor play centre with a dozen small children who were playing quasar with great enthusiasm. The play centre was horribly loud and deeply unpleasant (though, happily, loved by the children). It featured a pizza joint called Dante’s. Please insert your own joke here bearing in mind the Florentine angle. I’ve given you a lot to work with.

Florence was very beautiful though neck deep in tourists. The Florentines must be sick of us. I spent a month in Florence in 1988 but retained almost no memory of my time there. I certainly don’t remember it being so lovely. Nor do I remember the Florentines all pronouncing their Cs as Hs which they famously do. My favourite example of this was my taxi driver answering his phone saying, “Hlaudio, home stai?” In the late 80s and early 90s I spent a lot of time in Italy and one thing that has really changed (aside from the fact that I am now signora to everyone) is the number of people on bicycles. Florence is full of people sailing around on their bicycles and weaving through pedestrians while looking very elegant. There was no evidence of lycra but plenty of normal cycling to get from a to b. I was very taken with it.

Have some photos.

While I was off gallivanting, Mr. Waffle kept the home fires burning. Then, this week, Mr. Waffle was in Helsinki (the Waffles, we cover the continent – I might point out that my brother in law and his wife were in the South of France at the weekend and my sister-in-law and her husband were in South Carolina for the week – the extended family has essentially caused many of the polar ice cap issues).

This week was a bit tough on the boys. We visited a possible secondary school for Herself on Wednesday night and they tagged along and read their books, then on Thursday night they tagged along to choir with her. They were mildly bitter but broadly very patient and well behaved. I am kind of flattened from the sandwich making and logistics. Also, humiliatingly, on Wednesday night I got scared by a Skulduggery Pleasant short story and had to spend an hour reading Georgette Heyer before I could finally go to sleep alone in the dark about 1.30 am. Look, don’t mock the afflicted. All in all, I am very relieved to have my loving husband restored to me.

Single parents are amazing.

Holiday Continued

29 September, 2014
Posted in: Family, Ireland, Travel

Let me take you back to August. So we got off the ferry, back in Ireland and we were going directly to Kerry without passing through Dublin for fear of mutiny by the troops if we got home and then turned around the next day and drove straight to Kerry.

We had an unscheduled stop in Dungarvan when we got a flat tyre. As it could have happened while racing for the ferry in France in torrential rain the previous day, we felt that a flat tyre in Dungarvan had much to recommend it. After lunch we pushed on to Cork where we stayed overnight with my loving family.

For complex reasons we had a spare Cork parking disk which we didn’t need and as Mr. Waffle was going into the house he saw these French people with a FinistÃ¨re registered car trying to work out the parking regime in Cork. Feeling warmly towards the people of FinistÃ¨re he went up to them and in impeccable French offered them the parking disk. Were they surprised by a) his French or b) his kindness to strangers? Did they engage in general conversation which allowed him to remark we had just returned from our holiday in FinistÃ¨re? Didn’t I tell you they were French? I do love the sang froid of the French.

17 August

Our first full day in Kerry was a Sunday so began with a trip to mass which the troops greeted with their customary enthusiasm. We were staying in Dingle in ludicrously enormous holiday houses outside the town. The cousins, grandparents and aunts and uncles were staying across the road from us and there was a swing and a green area between the houses which the children played in happily.

We went to the beach in the afternoon but didn’t swim as the place was alive with jellyfish. Global warming apparently. The children were delighted to play in the sand with their cousins so all was well.

That night the parents of the children went out together. My sister-in-law and her husband from exotic London took all the children to the fair. Madness, but we were very grateful, as were the children.

18 August

We had a mild climb up Clogher Head and looked at the beautiful view. For his own obscure reasons, an Italian man was sitting at the top playing a flute so that was nice, if a little odd.

We had a lovely lunch in Ballydavid; a further swim with a jellyfish and a visit to Dingle’s excellent library. For the price of â‚¬2, you can get a temporary membership and borrow from your holiday address. Is that not wonderful?

19 August

My sister-in-law took her husband to the airport. This was not entirely without difficulty as, despite being over 30 and having lived in London for 13 years and looked after herself perfectly well, she is a youngest child and is therefore assumed by her parents to be incapable of the mildest adventure. I was startled when my mother-in-law asked me whether I thought my sister-in-law would be alright on the shortish drive to the regional airport. I felt she would. Apparently an offer by her mother to sit in the back seat to ensure that she was safe had been vigorously rebuffed by my sister-in-law. Youngest children also have their crosses to bear.

The Princess, her young cousins and her uncle and aunt climbed Mount Brandon. The boys, Mr Waffle and I baled out somewhat less than half way up. There were still great views.

Including, impressively, of my brother-in-law running up the mountain ahead of us.

Back at ground level we forced the boys to speak Irish in a local shop. It passed off peacefully.

20 August

We had a lovely dinner out leaving the children to the tender mercies of a teenage babysitter. She seemed fine on our return despite minding five young children. This was the last night for both sisters-in-law before they went off to London, so nearly at the end, alas.

21 August

The girls went for a trip to the acquarium with their London aunt before she left for the bright lights. A certain gloom overtook the party on the departure of the aunts. We all went on a very damp cliff walk.

There is nothing like Kerry in the rain. The children were cheered by a further trip to the funfair with a view later.

22 August

This was our last full day in Kerry and the weather was amazing. We spent all day at the beach in Ballydavid and had a beautiful lunch in the nearby pub. It was a lovely, lovely day and, handily enough, obliterated the rain soaked memory of the day before.

23 August

The end of the holidays; a long drive and finally we were home.

Last picture of Kerry from the road home:

So, excellent, I have finished my account of the summer holidays before the beginning of October, do you enjoy the immediacy of this blog?