belgianwaffle

Travel

Washout


Posted in: Cork, Family, Ireland, Princess, Siblings, Travel

Sunday, July 15

We arrived in Cork to lashing rain. I forced my family and my brother and sister down to the park to see the World Street Performing championships. It was damp. I was wearing sandals and only successfully got the mud out of my feet by mid-week. The children whined. It was an inauspicious beginning. I was, however, proved right because, although the street performers did not hold the children’s attention there were ancillary excitements.
Like this:
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And a zip line over the pond:

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Say what you like about the rain, it makes for short queues. Also, the sun shone, very briefly. After our mud stop in Cork we said goodbye to the grandparents and drove to Garryvoe in East Cork. My saintly friends M and R have a house there and we have stayed there many times. It’s a lovely house, very close to the beach and a relatively easy drive into Cork city. Even though the weather was not terrific, the children were very pleased to see the beach.

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It was only when we got to Garryvoe that we discovered that the purchase of an e-reader for her had made little difference to the Princess’s packing habits:

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Endless Summer


Posted in: Ireland, Mr. Waffle, Travel, Twins, Youngest Child

As you read this, if all goes according to plan, I will be on the ferry to France with my loving family.

A full debrief will follow after our return in mid-August. In the interim, I plan to schedule posts on our holiday in Garryvoe last week. With photos. Go on, you can’t wait. More tomorrow.

In other news today is the 11th anniversary of the day the wonderful Mr. Waffle and I got married. We will be celebrating with our family in the self-catering cafeteria on board the ferry before retiring to separate cabins with a child and a half each in tow. When I said, hopefully, to the children that the 28th was Mummy and Daddy’s wedding anniversary and that they should be nice to us, Michael replied, “Do I have to?” I sometimes think that family life isn’t for romantics.

London


Posted in: Travel

So, then my trip. I haven’t been on a plane in about two years. Imagine. There was a time when I used to fly weekly for work and think nothing of jetting off for a weekend but now I almost never travel for work and haven’t flown for holidays since we’ve moved home from Brussels. I haven’t missed it.

I took myself off to the airport in very good time for my midday flight and it all passed off uneventfully. The plane was, as predicted entirely full of Leinster rugby fans. Travel by train and tube to my city centre hotel was lengthy but straightforward. But yet, on arrival, I was absolutely exhausted. And I had not even travelled with a child. Partly, I think I was so tired because everything was just a bit different from when I had done it last and the novelty made it tiring and partly because it IS tiring and you don’t notice it so much when you have to do it regularly.

Our hotel was free thanks to my sister’s travel points (hurrah for her) and we were upgraded (hurrah again). Once recovered from my journey, I went to the National Portrait Gallery which was having an evening thing. Then on Sunday, we both went to the National Gallery. My friend Michael says that going around the National Gallery is like constantly running into old friends – my goodness, are you here too? And I have to say, both the Portrait Gallery and particularly the National Gallery have the absolutely superb collections. I had never been to the Portrait Gallery before. As Irish history and English history is very closely entwined before 1922, the Gallery is full of people who had a very significant effect on Irish history also. But Ireland gets scant reference – at least it features in the description of Cromwell who plays a very large role in every Irish history book.

We met my sister’s friend and my sister-in-law the author (have you bought her book yet? Have only been paid cup of tea for this endorsement) and her boyfriend who is from London. We met then in Fortnum and Mason and he had never been there before. “Well,” we said to the Londoner, “what do you think?” He looked around him at the ridiculously expensive stock and said in slightly disapproving tones, “Pretty much as I imagined.”

After some thought, we decided that we would go to see “The Mousetrap”. This was a mistake, I fear. Longevity is the only thing that is keeping it on the stage. I was, however, smug as I guessed who the murderer was before the interval.

As far as I could see, London’s attention was equally divided between the Queen’s jubilee (who knew?) and the forthcoming Olympics (yes, we all knew that). And it was much fuller than I remember from previous visits. The homogenisation of shops in Ireland and the UK meant that there wasn’t much point in going shopping as all the shops were the same (insert your own text here about globalisation, demise of independent retailers etc.)

The best thing about the weekend was having a chance to talk to my sister which is surprisingly difficult most of the time. She’s busy. I’m busy. I hope to make a weekend away with her an annual event, if my loving family can face it. My domestic credit is currently close to zero as while I was away, Mr. Waffle nobly spent the weekend ferrying children to various events (including an early morning GAA match in Meath which nearly sent him to an early grave) and keeping them from murdering each other. All this takes its toll. He’s almost recovered now but, somehow, I see this weekend being a busy one for me.

Hook, Line and Sinker


Posted in: Siblings, Travel

Last weekend, I went to London. I planned it a long time ago with my sister. We booked the tickets at the end of April. I then had this supremely irritating conversation with my brother.

Him: Mum says you paid a fortune for your tickets to London.
Me: Yes, I was really surprised how dear they were. I had no idea what the going rate was but I really didn’t expect to pay more than about €200.
Him: How much did you pay?
Me: Nearer 400.
Him: WHAT? When are you going?
Me: The weekend of the 19 and 20 May.
Him: That’s the Heineken cup final weekend!
Me: What?
Him: Leinster are playing Ulster in the rugby final.
Me: Oh right.
Him: HOW could you not know that?
Me: Some of us go our entire lives without knowing rugby fixtures.
Him: It seems a waste not to go to Twickenham since you’ll be there anyhow.
Me: But yet I am not tempted.
Him: But when you saw it was dear, why didn’t you check other weekends to see if they would be cheaper.
Me: But we’d agreed this weekend.
Him: But why didn’t you check?
Me: Look, it’s booked now, why are you torturing me this way?
Him: I’m trying to teach you how to fish.

Nice, Polite Boys


Posted in: Cork, Ireland, Mr. Waffle, Travel

I was in Cork alone (!) recently. As I sat in to my seat on the train back to Dublin with my newspaper in my sweaty little paw, I was distressed to see that every other seat in the carriage was reserved for school boys. As it happened, 13 year old school boys from my husband’s old school. I felt that my quiet reading would be disturbed.

But I had nothing to fear. Mr. Waffle had always assured me that his old school was full of nerds but I didn’t really believe him until the moment I saw the young men pull out their chess boards and timers and start playing while singing Ave Maria. Unless Ave Maria is sitting high in the charts at the moment, I find this detail particularly baffling.

Do you know the way to San Jose?


Posted in: Siblings, Travel

My brother is still travelling around the Americas. He sends funny emails. They deserve a wider audience. Also, I’ve got nothing.

Hi folks,
Greetings from Costa Rica…the name of the place means rich coast in case ye were wondering. Having an amazing time landed in San Jose on Oct 31…the town I stayed in first is right beside the airport it’s called Alajuela and is the second city. From Alajuela I met a few people that had a car and we went to the Poas volcano….to see the raw ferocity of nature, unfortunately we could only hear it as the crater of the volcano was covered by dense cloud, in fact the visibility was so bad that I could barely see the picture of the volcano on the board beside the view point.

Next was into San Jose….I have a strange ambition in life to ask stupid questions (an ambition oddly unfulfilled by years of obsessive curiosity) like going into Tiffany’s in New York and asking for breakfast or asking someone how long the Camptown race track is or asking someone does it rain in southern California (although the latter was answered emphatically yes by mother nature during my visit there). So in the taxi to San Jose I was presented with the ideal opportunity to ask the driver ‘do you know the way to San Jose’ …….hoping for a fitting acknowledgement of my great wit instead I got a confused look and a reply ‘of course I know the way to San Jose I’m a local taxi driver’ I said you know the song attempting to back track…..negative…tried to change the subject for a way out but the increasingly uncomfortable situation ended up with me having to produce a rendition of the song which was even worse than the original if you can imagine that. The driver couldn’t produce a false laugh to conclude the episode ……finally I escaped the Irish way by talking about the weather.

Next stop was Montezuma on the Pacific coast….planned only to stay 2 days but ended up there a week, it was that kind of place. I took Spanish lessons for the week and made impressive progress albeit from a low base, so much so that I was able to spot the error in the name of the hotel where I stayed next, Casa tranquilo was the name, I questioned the owner why it wasn’t Casa Tranquila as casa was a feminine noun, it turns out I was right but that the incorrect name would be more catchy for the Gringo tourists. I also went surfing with somewhat less success, did manage to get standing on the board just about but with about as much control as a trainee teacher in a northside school.

I stayed in a really cool place in Montezuma called Luna llena (full moon). It was in the middle of the jungle which was amazing except for the time I woke up in the middle of the night to see a giant cockroach buzzing around, I’m afraid to say I left myself down badly; I was completely unable to retain my strong silent type composure, I eventually managed to kill the bug after a terrifying struggle. The mozzies also seemed to see my legs as an all you can eat buffet. Otherwise everything was brilliant met great people and had an absolute blast. The other big thing there was yoga, in new age speak the whole idea is to become one with el cuerpo and connect with the source, I’m afraid during my attempt at yoga the source remained distant, I listened to my body as instructed but my body answered back what the hell are you doing you muppet, I’m definitely in need of more enlightenment.

Next was inland to Monteverde which is a cloud forest, the big thing here is spotting wildlife in the forest. Day 1, got up at 5am for a bird watching trip, (you are thinking there is something drastically wrong here 5am me and bird watching could never inhabit the same sentence unless as a set up for a punch line or something, but no this is a statement of fact, I really did do this). We got to see some cool stuff including the Toucan from the Guinness commercial, I didn’t get any cool photos, spectacular wildlife shots are typically not captured by a sleep deprived, unskilled photographer with a severely mistreated compact camera. Also did a night hike and got to see a tarantula which was very impressive. At the moment I am in a place which is known for it’s active volcano…going to see the lava fields today, my knowledge of thermal landscapes has not been developed since Inter Cert Geography so there’s going to be some scope to learn something new I’d say……will report back.