belgianwaffle

Middle Child

Musical Interlude


Posted in: Middle Child, Princess, Twins

Daniel and herself sing in the church choir and due to the unstinting efforts of their wonderful choir mistress, the choir has improved enormously.

I stay behind after mass to watch rehearsals and, increasingly, it has become a real pleasure. I love the fact that we have a really diverse group with children whose parents are from the Philippines, India, Brazil and China as well as Cork, obviously. And they sound amazing. A couple of weeks ago, we had some new joiners. Their mother is a professional opera singer and she stayed to join part of the rehearsal. It was quite breathtakingly beautiful to listen to her singing with the choir. Somehow rendered even more impressive as her youngest child, a toddler, utterly indifferent to his mother’s soaring voice, tugged determinedly at her skirt throughout in an unavailing effort to get her to leave the church.

Last week, herself sang solo at an enormous venue (1,000 seater- every seat filled with doting relatives on this occasion) as part of a school choirs outing. I firmly believe that the church choir played a huge role in giving her the skill and confidence to do it. I must say, though that while she’s a very confident public performer, she was quite tense in the days leading up to her performance. It all passed off peacefully and even her brothers were impressed.

Mid-term Round-up


Posted in: Middle Child, Mr. Waffle, Princess, Travel, Twins, Youngest Child

This is a bit belated but, you know, better late than never and so on.

Herself went on a school tour. Day 1 saw them assembling at Dublin airport at 4 in the morning; flying to Beauvais with Ryanair at 6; getting on a bus to Flanders and doing a tour of first world war sites ending with the last post at the Menin Gate at 7 that evening. The next day they got on the bus to Paris and then spent that day and the following day exploring all (and I mean all) that the French capital had to offer including Kentucky Fried Chicken. The last day was spent in Eurodisney. I had an animated discussion with her before she left on the importance of bringing a coat to Flanders in February; something she deemed unnecessary. It was, therefore, with some chagrin that I noted from a photo on the school’s twitter account (my source of all information and a fifth columnist as far as my daughter is concerned), that one of the happy group photographed outside the Eiffel tower was not wearing a coat. “It was fine,” said my frozen daughter, “my friend N was able to lend me a coat.” “Clearly she has a better mother,” I said. “It’s not a competition, Mum,” she said. “Everything’s a competition,” I replied. It’s a good job her father’s a hippy who seemed pretty relaxed about the whole coat thing. “She’ll know next time,” he said. I suppose that this approach has its merits.

While herself was off gallivanting, the boys and I went to Cork for a couple of days. We had our statutory trip to Charles Fort (I have a family heritage card and everyone must suffer) and the Bulman which passed off peacefully except for a terrifying half hour in which we thought Michael had lost one of the gloves he has had since we lived in Belgium (the world’s most nostalgic child was not pleased). Happily, it turned up in Dublin.

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Michael, contemplating the prospect of the lost glove:
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During the week Mr. Waffle and I also took the boys out to Dalkey castle (in Dublin). The castle do a really terrific tour with actors. We were the only people there so we got full value although, alas, I feel the boys are getting a bit old for it.

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Though, arguably, you are never too old for stocks.
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We also went to the (still newish) library in Dun Laoghaire – we were going to walk on the pier but it was lashing and this was plan B. The library is a beautiful, very big building with spectacular views over the harbour and loads of comfortable seats. Disappointingly though, it doesn’t seem to have more stock than our local (much less architecturally impressive) library. It has the same volume of books, just much, much more spread out. As Mr. Waffle said, it’s like a very expensive shoe shop. As he trekked around the shelves, Michael suggested that it might have been designed by people who were good at buildings but hadn’t spent all that much time browsing in libraries. It does have a very interesting local studies collection on the top floor and it was also sporting a very poorly advertised, small, though interesting, exhibition on visitors’ views on Ireland over the last couple of hundred years. So, using some of the space usefully, it must be conceded.

Mr. Waffle was home with the boys a bit and took them to IKEA to source a desk and bed for Michael. I emailed Mr. Waffle to ask how he was getting on. He replied:

We’re just finishing our lunch before we plunge into the Mælstrøm (designed to match the Ã…ngst).

In fairness, he’s hilarious.

My Birthday – Extended Disco Remix


Posted in: Family, Ireland, Middle Child, Mr. Waffle, Princess, Twins, Youngest Child

It’s my birthday today. Last weekend my sister took me to London overnight and she flew me business class, oh yes. I realised that it’s been nearly two years since I flew anywhere. I haven’t missed it, I have to tell you although, business class certainly beats steerage. We went out for dinner (my saintly sister-in-law and London guide responded nobly to an email saying, ‘recommend dinner venues and afraid I won’t have time to see you guys’ – she also got me a Persephone book for my birthday) and we talked and talked. We went to the National Gallery which is superb. When I did art history (diploma, spare time, pre-marriage and children), one of my lecturers said that going to the National Gallery in London is like being at an amazing party and each time you go into a new room seeing a raft of familiar friends. This is so true.

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I took the day off work today. I am feeling quite elderly although yesterday I got this comforting text from my friend R:

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[Note smuggled in reference to reading Elena Ferrante in Italian. I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again, my parents paid good money for these pretensions and I am going to use them.]

On the other hand, one of my bookclub members is getting married and when she and her fiancé went to the church to discuss logistics with the sacristan, he said, “You’re the mother of the bride aren’t you?” The worst thing was that he kept apologising for the remainder of the discussion.  On the plus side, she can have as many flowers as she wants. It hadn’t struck me before but, of course, I too am in mother of the bride territory. Slightly horrifying.

I got loads of cards, including two handmade ones from my sons. I was pleased. I got a cheque from my loving parents which is always welcome. The post also brought herself good news on an exam. People texted (sample from my brother: “Hey Anne happy birthday… Hope you have a brilliant day…. Am in France at the moment will call when I get back. Any requests for presents….A Chamonix stick of rock will hardly cut it I suppose”), emailed and called. Mr. Waffle got me more Persephone books and a print out of my blog which I really wanted in case the internet ever died. Are you mocking me?

That, right there, is the reason I haven’t got a PhD:
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Note cunning juxtaposition with New Yorker book of cartoons. Unintentional.

Mr. Waffle and I spent the day together. We went for a walk in the Wicklow Hills which was damp but not unpleasantly so.

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We went out to dinner to a surprise location and we arrived home about 15 minutes ago to find all the children still up so I thought I would update my blog.

Yet another very satisfactory birthday. Every birthday, about now, I realise that Mr. Waffle’s birthday is on March 19 and I have nothing planned. It can cast a pall on the end of any successful day, I can tell you. Poor Mr. Waffle.

Weekend


Posted in: Middle Child, Mr. Waffle, Princess, Twins, Youngest Child

Our weekends are logistically challenging at the moment. Daniel has a match on Saturday mornings, usually in a distant location and Michael has a course in town from 1.15 to 2.45. Herself has a course, on the other side of town from 12.15 to 2.15.

A couple of weekends ago was not untypical. Daniel had a match in Howth which is brutally awkward to get to. Mr. Waffle took Dan and the neighbour’s child out to the GAA club. The pitch is on a high outcrop overlooking the sea which, as Mr. Waffle pointed out must be beautiful on a warm summer’s day but on a sleety, freezing day in February, it was nothing to write home about. Our neighbour’s child is very slender and quite fragile looking (though handy at gaelic games despite appearances to the contrary). He was wearing shorts and a t-shirt when he turned up at our house. “Would he like a tracksuit?” we wondered. No he would not as he had underarmour and he pulled it down to mid-thigh as he spoke. Frankly, we didn’t feel it would cut the mustard. When they got to Howth, the neighbour’s child went in goal. Sadly, our team was being flattened* and he was very busy in goal. So busy in fact that even though he now conceded that he would quite like to put on the tracksuit bottoms, there wasn’t a moment’s quiet form him to do so. Eventually, he got a knock to the head and had to come off which may have been a mercy. Mr. Waffle took the visibly shivering child into the club house and got him into the tracksuit and plied him with hot chocolate and crisps and he seems to have been no worse for the experience.

Meanwhile back in the city, I was looking out glumly at the rain. The Princess was getting the bus into town and wasn’t quite sure where her venue was. I volunteered to go with her leaving Michael home alone. She and I got the bus in together and then I went to get the bus home but due to extensive works on the new city centre tram line was utterly unable to find the bus stop for the return leg for a surprising length of time. I was consequently both late and very damp when I got home to pick up Michael. We rushed into our rain gear and cycled into his course. Then I cycled off to her course and showed her where the bus stop had moved to, put her on the bus, cycled back to Michael’s course, cycled home with him, peeled off my damp clothes and stayed at home for the rest of the day a shadow of my former self.

If I had known in my 20s what was coming, I would have enjoyed those long, relaxed weekend brunches even more.

*Daniel got man of the match as he is a child who does not give up even under the most daunting of circumstances. I was pleased for him, it was all that could be salvaged from a rather grim experience overall.

Parent Teacher Meetings


Posted in: Middle Child, Princess, Twins, Youngest Child

We have been doing the rounds of parent-teacher meetings. This is the boys’ last year in primary school and I am quite sad to end our link to the primary school. Their teacher this year is amazing. They love her. And she seems to really like them as well. She had lovely things to say when we met her and all is definitely well.

Secondary school parent teacher meetings are a different kettle of fish. There are about ten different teachers to see and much queuing up outside classrooms. Due to ASTI’s (teacher union’s) ongoing industrial dispute, I had to take a half day off from work to queue as well – parent-teacher meetings can no longer be scheduled for the evening as part of the work to rule. In fairness to my first born, she is well-loved by teachers and, overwhelmingly, they had good things to say though, due to the queue of other parents outside the door, it was all pretty brief. The focus of all teachers was on how she was likely to do in the Junior Certificate (a State examination at the end of next year which is only relevant as a qualification if you plan to leave school at 16 and, frankly, if you do leave school at that stage, how you did in your Junior Certificate is likely to be the least of your worries). This drives me bananas. Even the really good teachers felt obliged to explain how what they were doing was important for the examination and less inspired ones revealed without a blush that they had the kids memorising essays. I know that this isn’t a new problem, but still Pádraig Pearse must be turning in his grave.