Travel

Saturday, March 29

A lengthy, yet largely uneventful, train ride took us to the Alps. The children were a bit hyper but the nice Flemish man opposite said that they were lovely, normal children and I instantly recanted every bad thought I have ever had about the Flemish. The mother of a small baby looked at us viciously when Daniel pointed to a cow and said “moo” in a voice that woud raise the dead and woke her baby but otherwise all was well. The boys slept on the way up to Val Thorens on the bus and we arrived in time for the children to do some mild sledding in the afternoon sunshine.

Sunday, March 30

At 5.40 (summer time) I was lying awake in my bed trying to work out how we would get the children to creche/ski lessons at 9.00 and ourselves to our own lessons (uphill) at 9.15. This is what it is like to be my husband. I did not enjoy it. We left the house at 8.30 and made our way gingerly down the spiral staircase (why?) from the locker room clutching three sets of skis, two sets of poles, assorted material for the creche (change of clothes, outdoor gear, suncream, goggles etc. etc.) and two children. We left the Princess to walk down herself. This turned out to be a mistake as, wearing ski boots for the first time she fell down on her head. On the plus side, this gave her a chance to test the efficacy of her new helmet (very good but does not protect legs or cheeks).

We saw off our various offspring and took ourselves to our lesson in unpleasantly snowy conditions. Most of the lifts were closed. Pablo took us flying down a number of red slopes in poor visibility and I thought “I do not like this one little bit”. The Princess, when collected, reported that she had spent the morning skiing on one ski and that she had lost her group and started to cry. They all called out “We’re beside you”, so I guess she didn’t get separated very far. The boys, unfortunately, saw through the creche for what it was and were outraged at its appearance in the Alps. Nobody would nap. I went out with the boys to play. They were cold and cranky and had taken agin snow. I brought them home and took the Princess out. I fell over in the ice outside our building. This was the highlight of her day. She had never seen anything funnier. I had hurt my knee. She would have sympathised only she couldn’t stop laughing. Then she made me slide down the hill on her sled with her.

I spent the night in mild pain (my knee) and bitterness (the exhorbitant cost of it all, the fact that it was going to be miserable).

Monday, March 31

I spent the morning limping around the resort. I went to inspect the Princess’s lesson. Her instructor, Jean Clement ,informed me that her goggles were useless “c’est pour la piscine ca!” and, after some vain discussion (never argue with a French ski instructor) I limped off to get her goggles (22 euros) and handed them over. I watched her bending over to eat snow and skiing on one leg for a while and limped on. After much anguish at the potential cost, I decided to go to see the doctor in the resort. This, you will be pleased to hear, represented excellent value. For 30 euros I got a cheery prognosis and a prescription for a knee support and pain relief (he was a bit dubious about the dafalgan I had in my bag – doubtless they use it in Belgium – yes, they do, will I ever forget my outrage when I discovered that what I had been given after delivering my baby was not super de duper prescription stuff but a mild analgesic delivered over the counter – I digress). He confidently predicted that I would be back skiing by Wednesday and pointed out that the weather that day was not nice for skiing. I pointed out that, unlike him, I was not spending a season in Val Thorens. I tried to convey this to the creche people also when they looked astounded and disapproving when I asked whether they had let the boys play in the snow, but they were more supercilious than the doctor so I left it.

That afternoon we took the children to an indoor bouncy castle extravaganza. They loved it. I limped off to get my knee support (which I am wearing even now). I intend to wear it every skiing holiday for the rest of my life as it cost me 96 euros. Ouch. It’s great though.

There were hardly any other Irish people at the resort, oddly, though the Princess did have some one from Miami in her class (why?) and she is keen to visit. We said we’ll see. The place was, however, teeming with young Dutch and English people. True to form, the Dutch had all brought their own food from the Netherlands which they were cheerfully loading in to the lift in crates. When I went to the supermarket later, I saw their point.

In the supermarket, I saw that the English young man in front of me with the slipping down trousers and visible underwear had a basket containing only a bottle of bacardi, a packet of pringles and a frozen pizza, I uttered a silent but, alas, as it later transpired, unanswered, prayer that he might not be in our building. Our building was full of young people going at the apres ski hammer and tongs. Mr. Waffle particularly enjoyed being serenaded by English rugby songs at 4 in the morning. Personally, my favourite was the young man banging on the door two floors below at 3 am screaming “Robbie, wake up, I can’t believe he can’t hear me, wake up!”. After about 20 minutes of this, while Robbie slept on unaffected, my whole family was awake. I ventured outside to explain to Robbie’s friend that Robbie had either passed out or was, incredible as this might seem at this ungodly hour, still out. Fortunately, Robbie’s friend had left by then so I was not forced to take him on in my pyjamas.

Tuesday, April 1

Mr. Waffle and I had a delightful morning skiing gently together in glorious sunshine having abandoned any hope of ever getting to our lessons in time. Perked up by this, I met the Princess for lunch while Mr. Waffle took the boys home to nap. This was moderately successful except for the part where she sat under the table and, from this vantage point, threw snow balls at select other punters (all handsome and indulgent young men, I see trouble ahead).

When, eventually, we had finished lunch, I took her up to see her do her thing on the beginners’ slope but she refused to go down alone and I had to carry her between my knees which, mercifully, turned out to be a lot easier than you might expect. However, the skiing held no real attraction for her as there was a giant inflatable chicken nearby. We had to take off our skis and trudge up to inspect it. We then stayed there for some considerable time and the Princess circled the chicken while eating snow. I wouldn’t call it a phenomenally successful session.
Later, we got our her sled and went down to the supermarket. Her iron will supported her while travelling her approved route which involved toiling up a blue slope in the hot sun. Unfortunately, it let her down as we went around the supermarket and she was a disgrace and her post-shopping present was not therefore forthcoming and she sat down and refused to budge and I waited and read my book and still she wouldn’t budge. I found myself using my mother’s old phrases “what kind of mother would I be, if I let you behave badly and didn’t tell you what was right?” and “who is going to tell you how to behave unless your mother does?”. To the latter she said crossly, and unanswerably, “our childminder”. Mr. Waffle and the boys had to come and rescue us, I was very glad that we were going out later and, if you find yourself looking for somewhere to eat in Val Thorens, may I heartily recommend L’epicurien? I was glad dinner was nice as babysitting weighed in at a hefty 20 euros an hour.

Wednesday, April 2

Mornings continue fraught. Daniel wept convulsively as we dropped the boys at the creche; Michael was cheery. The weather was miserable and we skied round blinking in the snow. Not our best moment. Mr. Waffle took the Princess off for lunch and I put the boys to bed and read my book. Inadvertently, Mr. Waffle took the Princess to ski down her first blue run; I don’t think either of them enjoyed it much. On the plus side, they spent a happy hour going up and down the cable car. More bouncy castles later in the afternoon. Sigh.
Thursday, April 3

Another beautiful day for Mr. Waffle and me above the clouds. The Princess was cranky and the boys howled at the creche, so I think that the rest of the family may not have had quite such a wonderful morning. The Princess announced that Jean Clement had made her continue to do an exercise until she did not fall over. She did not like that. French kiddie ski instructors are ruthless, not soft and cuddly. To compensate, we went to visit the bouncy castles in the afternoon, the girl behind the desk observed sagely that we should have bought a pass.

Friday, April 4

I asked Jean Clement how the Princess was getting on. “Impeccable” pause “mais elle fait ce qu’elle veut, eh?” I can only imagine what the clash of the Titans was like. Nevertheless, at the end of the morning she was awarded her Ourson badge (only a Flocon and 3 etoiles to go before she can do anything). Notwithstanding this when I took her up on a chair lift (probably the highlight of her week) and encouraged her to ski down a very gentle slope she refused to budge and I had to carry her the whole way down. I think we need a little more work here.
In the morning, however, her father and I enjoyed a lovely morning’s skiing which, in my experience, always happens on the last day. The weather was beautiful, we went down a number of red slopes (but no blacks at all) with cavalier ease – please let me be smug, I have spent my fair share of time on my bottom waving my skis in the air. The only thing that happened to mar our enjoyment was sharing a cable car with a remarkably irritating English teenager who spoke as follows:

Annoying Girl: No offence but they’re holding us up.

Inarticulate side kick: Mmm.

AG: No offence but we haven’t fallen at all, except that one time getting off the lift when we fell on that man and that was his fault really.

ISK: Silence.

AG: No offence but we need to be skiing harder and faster.

ISK (admiringly): You only skied the hardest black in the whole resort yesterday.

AG: I know and, no offence but that woman in the group really annoyed me.

ISK: Silence.

AG: I mean, she was annoyed when I knocked her over yesterday, she said I could have broken her leg and, no offence but, she was skiing again today, so I couldn’t have, could I?

What was particularly galling was that somehow or other our friend had managed to get her skis wedged in the door of the lift when getting in which did not give us a very good impression of her prowess, this poor impression was reinforced when we actually saw her on them.

“I think,” said Mr. Waffle “that that was a Sloane Ranger.”

“Really, but she didn’t sound at all like our English friends in Brussels and I thought they were all middle class”

“No, but, I think you really need to have more money than anyone we know to have children who mangle their vowels in that very peculiar manner”.

That afternoon, partly to avoid the girl on the bouncy castle desk, we went to the pool which was surprisingly pleasant, despite our children’s insistence on donning every flotation device in the pool.

Saturday, April 5

Up at 7.30, out at 10.30 after cleaning up, bus at 11. Both boys sick on the bus and bottle of milk spilt. We arrived in Moutiers at 12.00 and wandered around the quaint streets of the old town until 16.23. Actually, it was quite nice but we were in no mood to appreciate it with three tired cranky children and two cranky parents (including one with a spanking new migraine, yay) all finding it a little toasty in their ski gear on a sunny April day in the valley. Furthermore we spent most of our time combing the town for nappies as we had reprehensibly and entirely inexplicably run out and so had Val Thorens. We found some, you will be pleased to hear.

The train journey was long. We shared a carriage with some nice Belgians but none of our six children slept which was a source of some regret to the four adults. The train was delayed and got in at 11. By then Michael was asleep but herself and Daniel were still gamely awake. We queued for taxis in the biting cold and finally got home about 11.30 and bundled our protesting children into bed and collapsed ourselves.

Would I do it again? Yes. Would I make any changes? Many. Was it fun? Much more so than you might think from the description above.

On the morning we were leaving Vermont, the children were, alas, up at 5.30. When we got to Burlington airport our flight was delayed for a few hours due to fog in NY but after an anxious half hour and some bitterness about the New Yorkers with only one child and no connecting flight who had somehow managed to get themselves on to an earlier flight because it is sooo tiring travelling with children, all was well.

We saw the nicer part of JFK this time and checked out the train between terminals which was by far the most exciting part of the journey. When we got on the plane, I went ahead with the children and Mr. Waffle followed with the gear. I installed a child per seat, I turned around to see where Mr. Waffle was and when I looked back Michael was gone. Much panic but he eventually turned up in the back of the plane surrounded by well wishers and laughing delightedly. I have to say that Aer Lingus were fantastic. So fantastic that we even wrote a letter to them telling them how wonderful their cabin crew were – we were impressed by their stamina, particularly the guy who was trying to persuade his colleagues to go to Dublin when they got in at 5am local time. The journey was mercifully dull though the Princess stayed awake throughout sustained by the force of her iron will.

Everything was fine until we got to Dublin airport which, even at 5.00 on a Sunday morning, contrived to have long, long queues for passports. Sigh. We arrived out to the grandparents at 6.00 and there they were up and ready to meet us, hurrah fresh troops.

You will be delighted to hear that after going to bed at 7.00, we were all up again at 2.00 to inspect the “Festival of World Cultures in Dun Laoghaire where the middle classes were at play in their Crocs and Ugg boots (toasty).

I was also able to come in on this touching scene between Daniel and his grandmother:

Daniel shrugs his shoulders gallicly.
Grandmother (holding up doll): Where’s the dolly’s mouth?
Daniel points it out.
Grandmother: Where’s grandma’s mouth?
Daniel points it out.
Grandmother: Where’s Michael’s mouth?
Daniel shrugs his shoulders gallicly again.
Grandmother (to me): But he does know where it is, why doesn’t he point out his own mouth?
Me: You know this is Daniel not Michael.
Poor boys, it’s rough being a twin, we all mix them up though they are not particularly alike, I suppose it has its compensations.

In a piece of quite spectacularly poor planning, I had to be back in Brussels for a work thing on Monday, so at 5.00 on Monday morning I again found myself in Dublin airport. At 4.00 on Monday morning I woke up thinking, do I have money for the taxi, I have no dollars left, hang on this isn’t Vermont, but wait, it isn’t Brussels either, where am I, why do I need euros?

I flew back to Dublin on Wednesday night having left poor Mr. Waffle to deal with the worst of the jet lag. We all spent Thursday in Dublin and had a look at the new Children’s Museum which was fine though could perhaps do with some highchairs for the café, just a thought. On Friday evening all five of us flew back to Brussels and I’ve been writing this ever since.

The End.

Monday, August 20

We went to the Shelburne Museum – these Webbs, they were big people locally. I love the Shelburne Museum and this was my third visit. According to our guide book, it’s about to be overtaken in popularity as Vermont’s biggest tourist attraction by the Ben & Jerry’s factory. If this happens it will be a shame and a sin. The Shelburne Museum is fabulous and fabulously odd. It consists of a range of houses from all over America and from different periods reconstructed on a large leafy site. They contain all sorts of odd things from people dressed up in 19^th century gear to an excellent collection of impressionist paintings. My favourite building is the lighthouse which was transferred from the lake to the grounds with, I would imagine, quite considerable effort. When it was sold off by the government or Commissioners for Lights or whatever, someone bought it for 5 dollars and very shortly thereafter, sold it on to Ms. Webb for a whopping profit; she forked out 1,300 dollars. The most spectacular thing must be the large steamboat sitting proudly on a large grassy expanse. However, by far the most popular thing with the children was the carousel on which they could have as many turns as they wished. The Princess also suffers slightly from what Mr. Waffle refers to wrongly and unfairly as my “weakness for chintz” meaning that she likes looking around other people’s houses but Mr. Waffle and the boys tired of this activity far too quickly for our liking. Even I find it a bit difficult to work up wild enthusiasm for somewhere just because it’s been around since 1804. Lots of places have been around since 1804. I was quite impressed that it had been moved from New York though (the Princess looked around anxiously and asked whether I thought it was about to move again). Everyone, however, was fascinated by the blacksmith as he worked on making a wrought iron letter for the Princess. Surprisingly, the children were also fascinated by the “settler” who talked about how people managed in the 1700s. Let me tell you one thing, making shirts out of flax is no picnic.

That afternoon we went to the big cheap supermarket out of town and the children had trolleys like little cars; I thought that the boys might expire from happiness. Why can’t we have that here?

Monday was the first day we fully appreciated just how hard our hosts have to work. They put in long days. Their childminder comes to the house at 7. They leave about 7.30. The childminder takes the children to the creche and then brings them home again in the evening just after our friends get in from work. She stays and gives the children dinner which is marvellous. They are blessed with their childminder who is a pleasant, kind, patient woman whom the children adore and whom our Princess wanted to move in with. It’s just as well they have her because each of them is on call one night a month and on back up call another night and they both work one weekend a month. It’s a lot, particularly for demanding jobs where you spend a lot of time on your feet – I suspect hospital doctors are the professionals who use computers least. At one point P asked me, if I would be able to find the on button on their laptop and Mr. Waffle was able to say confidently “she’s worked in offices all her life, I’d say she’ll be alright”. I digress. As well as long hours they have two small children. Their little boy is two and a half and their little girl just over one. I think it’s pretty hard to have it all. And they are so good with those children. P, in particular, maybe just because he’s an American, seems to have endless energy and goodwill (high five again and again and again, no problem). I think J, Mr. Waffle and I are similar in that we, obviously, love our own kids and are prepared to be interested in those of our friends but we’re not natural children people. P is. The children adored him, particularly the boys and Michael went flying out to meet him when he came home from work somewhat to the chagrin of P’s own unfortunate little boy who was exhausted from sharing with all these visitors.

I was struck too by how hard J&P work on politeness with their children. It’s not that I don’t want my children to be polite, of course I do, but they were insisting that when their little boy said sorry, please or thank you, he made eye contact and that he answered all questions clearly and politely. I think that they were setting standards that the Princess even now, alas, fails to meet. I was struck by their success. Maybe this is why the Americans are such polite grown ups. I am tackling the Princess with new vigour.

Tuesday, August 21

We went back to the Shelburne Museum. Our ticket was for two days and I needed more chintz. It was as well that I had a successful morning to sustain me because that afternoon we had a disastrous walk into town. The Princess was tired and crabby and for quite a while she lay down while we discussed strategies to get her moving.

Her father carried her for much of the journey and relations reached a low when in protest at some indignity, she bit him on the shoulder. She’s never done that before and I don’t think she’ll be doing it again either. I gave him a little break from the children and sent him to the supermarket while the Princess, the boys and I went for a walk on Church Street. Inevitably, the Princess had to go to the toilet. Furthermore she would only walk, if I used a form of words known only to her and since I was pushing the boys in the buggy, it was pretty essential that she walked. “Please, please, pretty please walk”.
“NO!”
“I’m begging you here.”
“NO, say what you said before!”
“What? What?”
“YOU KNOW”
“I DON’T”
“OK, say ‘it’s a miracle, she’s walking’”.

By the time we got back to the house, I was exhausted and refused to budge so I was able to enjoy the wholly suburban experience of cooking dinner while trying to stop the dog attacking the man who came to mow the grass. Dinner itself passed off peacefully though there was some excitement beforehand when my sous-chef (Mr. Waffle) was flummoxed by the complexity of American equipment and using only his skill and judgement managed to wedge the plug in the sink where it stayed until the heart surgeon later extracted it with a pliers. She doesn’t call her work plumbing for nothing.

Throwing ourselves into the American experience we spent an hour watching the Red Sox with P. Baseball may be like rounders but there seems to be a lot more science involved. I was pleased to note that he was wearing his People’s Republic of Cork t-shirt, the obligatory fashion item for all foreign men who marry women from Cork. But that does remind me of our other American holiday theme song – “Take me out to the ball game”. Does anyone know what Cracker Jack is?

Wednesday, August 22

We went out to hire bicycles. All three of our children threw themselves on the ground and screamed when they realised that nobody was allowed to rent the little pink bicycle with trainer wheels, it wasn’t for rent. It was almost funny. It was certainly very loud. We set ourselves up with two bicycles and little trailers and cycled out around the lake. It was pleasant but a bit chilly. When we stopped for our picnic, Michael snuggled up to me and said pathetically “coat, coat” as we ate ham sandwiches dolefully in a gale force wind. We wrapped the children up in the towels we had brought in case we felt like a dip in the lake (ha!) and put them in their trailers and cycled back, the only mild excitement being when Mr. Waffle’s trailer went adrift leaving poor Daniel sitting gloomily in his trailer on the cycle path. Not maybe an outrageous success.

However, that evening we went out to dinner in the Shelburne Inn with J&P and that was great. J and I went a bit early and had drinks in the library, a chat, a roaring fire and a view over the lake while the men wrestled with the children and joined us later. Dinner was delicious and it was just really nice to have a chance to go out all together. One of the best things about Vermont was the four grown-ups sitting down together every night for dinner and eating and talking all evening. J said that she felt that with all of the pressures of work and children, her social life had been squeezed and I know what she means. It was nice not to have anything to do other than sit and chat, no thinking, I’d better pay some bills or sort out some paperwork or anything.

Thursday, August 23

We went to Ben & Jerry’s ice cream factory. What can I say? They do their best but it’s boring, it’s a factory. I have to say that the fact that our daughter tripped on the concrete path (not their fault, I fully concede) and got the most enormous egg shaped bruise on her forehead when she bounced audibly, did not make me warm to the experience either.

In the afternoon my daughter and I went to town and as well as extra luggage (ouch, the credit card bill), I got a chance to gloat yet again over the purchases I had made in Hatley’s for the children (cute pyjamas, lovely coat) and Danforth pewter (measuring spoons, a Christmas tree ornament, if you laugh at me, I will never love you again, J has already) earlier.

The Princess and I had a heart to heart about life and how no one can ever really have everything he or she wants. I asked “can grown-ups do everything they want?” She thought about this for a while and then said “No, because you want to read your dull books but you can’t because the kiddies are jumping and shouting in your ear and want your attention.” She may be cranky, but she has insight.

That night J was on call. We overheard her talking on the phone. “He is scheduled for emergency open heart surgery at 8.30 in the morning, WHY did he think it would be a good idea to have a shower now?” Much dark muttering followed.

Friday, August 24

We went to the ECHO centre. I see that Senator Leahy has his name in the title. He may not perhaps have Mayor Daley’s presence but you can see that he’s working hard on it. I didn’t have high hopes for the ECHO centre which was a small enough premises describing itself as a “lake aquarium and science centre”. I was completely wrong. Though, mostly, the exhibits were neither high tech nor expensive, it was another example of how something simple done well can work marvellously. The staff made a big difference. There was someone feeding turtles and talking about them, there was a man with a projector in a room with a couple of paper dinosaurs making shapes on a wall, there was a woman encouraging children to touch star fish and sea urchins. All hugely enthusiastic and engaging for the children and grown-ups. There was a water feature pretty like what we had seen in the Children’s Museum in Chicago but this time there were little stools so that I didn’t have to lift the boys up to play with the boats on the ‘river’. There was a fairly high tech dinosaur moving about downstairs but my children got just as much fun out of finding plastic dinosaur bones in a pretend dig site. They got to pretend to be on television. There was a room for small children to wander about in with a miniature boat and a fish tank with a glass circle in the middle that a child shaped head could fit through. Clever. And they stayed there for ages while we chatted able to keep an eye on them in the enclosure. Excellent.

And then, at lunch time, Mr. Waffle minded the children to allow me to have a long lunch with J. After lunch we went back to the pool for one last afternoon before preparing for our long trip back.

I was sad to say goodbye to J and P and their children but I have determined that we will come back in 4 or 5 years to go on a skiing holiday and wouldn’t that be lovely?

I loved America and we had a fantastic holiday. I feel oh so smug for deciding to go. It’s our first holiday with all three children without any parents to help out and it was fine. Even better we had a great time. Even the poor Princess whom jet lag hit hardest. Where will we strike next? Over the Summer I heard that my oldest friend has just been appointed ambassador to an exotic Asian country. Mr. Waffle’s first words on hearing the news were “We’re NOT going to visit” but yet..

Yes, I know this is ridiculously long, look it’s for me and my mother, not for you, you can skip over it.

Thursday, August 16

On Thursday, we bade a tearful farewell to Chicago (well, I was tearful, the others seemed to bear up fine) and had a relatively pain free journey to New York and a dull wait in JFK before catching our 50 minute flight to Burlington, Vermont. We went to Vermont to see my school friend J and her American (exotic!) husband P and their two children. P was waiting to meet us at the airport and this announced the beginning of the Rolls Royce service that they put on for the duration of our stay.

I have been in Burlington three times now which makes it the place in America I have visited most. I love it. A friend of mine has a theory that when people go on holidays they like places to be like home. Certainly Burlington is a lot like Cork only smaller and American. After Chicago, Vermont seemed very rural and pleasantly so. Our friends live in a lovely big house (very big when you consider that nine of us fitted there comfortably) within easy walking distance of the town centre. I fell in love with their house and I covet it. It was built in the 1920s and it has colonial ambitions including a sweeping staircase over three floors (even the staircase to the basement was mildly sweeping). They have more space than they really know what to do with. As well as our bedroom, we had a guest sitting room; a lovely sunny room overlooking the garden. And there is a huge attic bedroom upstairs that they haven’t bothered to do anything with as they don’t need it. Their four sofas are almost unnoticeable in this enormous house and they need lots more furniture. They have beautiful wooden floors everywhere and the bathrooms all have the gorgeous original tiling. It is a wonderful place to live and it was pretty good to visit too.

On arrival, we gave J the full page article about her first cousin the Pulitzer prize winner which we had carefully saved from the Irish Times earlier in the month. “You think I haven’t been sent this already?” she asked in astonishment. J comes from an extraordinarily talented family. Her mother is one of six, five sisters and a brother and they all were very clever and sporty and have very clever and interesting children. Frankly, I think the Pulitzer prize winner should abandon the journalism and write a bit about her own family. I always felt that J becoming a consultant heart surgeon in her early 30s was an amazing achievement but with the maths geniuses and the millionaire businesswoman and so on among the crop of cousins, it’s hard work to come out on top. Though if the Pulitzer prize winner becomes secretary of state eventually she will definitely win the cousin one upmanship game. J was driving down to NY at the end of the month to watch the tennis with her mother and various aunts arriving from Ireland and they were all going to stay with her aunt (the prize winner’s mother) and J was determinedly reading herself up on all relevant issues to keep her end up over dinner conversations.

Friday August 17

Once our children had finished torturing our hosts’ young children and tossing their toys around the house (it’s hard to mess up a big house we discovered) we walked into town a 15 minute journey unless you are accompanied by a grumpy four year old who can make it last 50 minutes. The weather was lovely, unseasonably cool but not overcast. I love the clapboard houses in Burlington and the views over the lake as you walk in. We passed the house where Calvin Coolidge married his wife (is Calvin Coolidge Vermont’s only president? No Dorothy Parker type quips please). When we finally got into town we sat in the first café we came to and the Princess demanded snails. How we laughed; you can’t get snails in America! Which just shows what we know because there were snails on the menu there and in another local establishment as well. The Princess chewed smugly through six.

Then, on the pedestrian main street, we picked up an Obama 08 bumper sticker from a crowded table. I told the faithful I would put it on our car but now Mr. Waffle says I can only put it on with blu-tack as they reduce cars’ resale value. Still, he gave them 5 dollars which will doubtless see Obama elected. A sole Republican sat alone and unloved trying to get signatures for Mr. Giuliani. It was obviously not the day that all the rural Republican Vermonters hit town and the tattooed, hippie townsfolk didn’t seem to think much of Mr. Republican. We went on to the local supermarket which was very right on and had loads of lovely local produce and where I was made to feel very guilty of taking a plastic bag instead of a paper one. Shades of home. It was great. Mind you, J&P do a lot of their shopping there and I can see why they may be the only people on the planet who have a larger weekly shopping bill than we do. All that delicious, local, organic food isn’t cheap.

We spent the afternoon back at the house playing with the family dog. I had been a little worried about Drexel who has been J’s dog for years and years. He is a large black mongrel who used to be very jumpy. My children are scared of dogs. I needn’t have worried, age has calmed him and the children loved him and he is now used to the kind of abuse that small children like to inflict on dogs. It makes me more determined than ever that we must get a pet. It was wonderful to see the Princess overcoming her fear of dogs and throwing balls and rolling in the grass with this dog who was somewhat larger than she was. The boys were somewhat less brave, Daniel working himself up to patting Drexel occasionally but Michael always losing his nerve at the last moment. But the great thing was that they were transfixed by him. They would stand on the porch looking at him in awe, too fascinated to walk away but too scared to go any closer. Meanwhile, I lay in the hammock. Every morning their first words were Drex, Drex, doggy. Fantastic.

Saturday, August 18

Alas, J was on call for the weekend but P was not so we were all able to go to Shelburne Farms with the children. This was an excellent expedition. I was struck by how successfully elements which I have come across many, many times before were combined. Mind you, the farm buildings are quite spectacular. As we all drove out there in the hay wagon, the Princess thought it was a fairy castle. It was “created in 1886 by William Seward and Lila Vanderbilt Webb as a model agricultural estate” and guess where the money for that venture came from. It was essentially a petting farm but it was really well done. There were beautiful, friendly American teenagers everywhere to introduce you to the animals and show you how and where to pat them and tell you about them and their habits. There were little tractors to ride around in for the youngest children. The animals were all clearly well cared for and seemed happy with the attention. The children could look for eggs in the hen coop. The Princess with her new found courage around animals milked a very patient cow. And then we all had a picnic lunch at the little tables outside. It was perfect in every way for small children and pretty good fun for the adults too.

In the afternoon, the Princess and I skipped into town on our own and the Princess climbed every rock on Church Street (these are put there to torture the parents of small children). We were working our way up to the Ben and Jerry’s outlet at the top of Church Street where we were encouraged to support Ben & Jerry’s and buy local. Not a slogan that they can use in Singapore, I suspect. However, the Princess was distracted by a crepe seller and would not be persuaded away from her chocolate crepe; still that was buying local too, I suppose and we did meet some other locals. One of them was an all-American man with his wife and three daughters. We got chatting and it turned out that he was French but his family had moved to Tennessee when he was 12. Very odd. He attempted to speak to the Princess in French but she was having none of it; she turned against French in America, see, the problems of la francophonie are, in fact, all caused by American imperialism.

We went home by taxi because I couldn’t quite face carrying the Princess all the way back. The taxi driver picked up another fare as well, a couple of Quebecois down for a bit of shopping. I was surprised how poor their English was and how readily they lapsed into French with us. As the Princess maintained a mutinous murmur of “no French”, “no French” for the duration of the trip home, they must have felt that all their linguistic issues had been brought South of the border. The taxi driver was somewhat confused by the linguistic regime and the Princess’s imperious instruction that he bring her to North State Street between Ohio and Grand.

That night, Mr. Waffle and I went out to dinner and our kind hosts babysat and town was full of Quebecois. We went to a bistro. What with the Belgian style cooking and décor and everyone speaking French, it was like a home from home. Our waitress explained that there were a lot of Canadians because the Canadian dollar is strong. Nope, the American dollar is weak, admit it. Though, mind you, my credit card bill is still hefty. Alas.

Sunday, August 19

The next day we actually made it to Ben & Jerry’s and then let all five children disport themselves in the fountain at the top of Church Street. After this excitement, the afternoon spent by the side of the country club pool could only be a disappointment. Our friends are members of two (!) country clubs, one for tennis and one for golf. If only they weren’t both doctors working weekends and 12 hour days, they might get to use them. We decided that we would make it our mission to help them get value for their membership – though J was able to join us for the afternoon as, very considerately, no one had a heart attack. There was a great kiddie pool and all of the children loved it. I did have some concerns about the lifeguard who was watching out for our well being. She was one of the seemingly inexhaustible supply of pretty American teenagers available. Unfortunately, she did have a broken foot which made me feel that she might not be able to limp down from her post in time to save any of us from drowning.

Since J&P were going to give us their enormous car for the week – apparently, they don’t use it much because it’s environmentally unfriendly and they like to walk to work (I think it might be a bad buy) – it was decided that I would test drive it home. That was alarming. It was huge and automatic. For the first time in our entire acquaintance J manifested a twinge of irritation. “You’re going too fast and you’re too close to the cars on this side”. That was after I had forgotten that automatic cars only need one foot to stop and the screeching to a halt and tossing around all the children in the back was probably unnecessary. Certainly 7 people looked at me balefully from their various seats in the car and 5 of them started to whimper. But, you’ll be pleased to hear, I mastered it – well, we’re all still alive, aren’t we?