belgianwaffle

Middle Child

Update


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

Hello, cruel world. A fortnight into the new job and I am absolutely flattened. I have gone from knowing everyone and everything to knowing no one and nothing. It’s very tiring. And I lost all my swipe cards on Friday night, so I may not even be able to get to my desk tomorrow. Quite the achievement.

So what news, I hear you ask. Well, the boys and I went to Cork. We went to Charles Fort and the Bulman for lunch. It didn’t rain on us. I call that a success. Then we saw a seal near the slip way beside the car park. Very exciting.

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Nevertheless, probably the highlight was passing a shop selling holy statutes. Daniel looked dubiously at Padre Pio and asked, “Is that Obi Wan Kenobi?”

While the boys and I were in Cork, herself was in Rome for the week. Actually, Rome, Pompeii, Sorrento, Montecassino and Naples. Notwithstanding the exhausting programme, she had a wonderful time. She liked the Trevi fountain and the Map Room in the Vatican Museums the best.

Early on in proceedings, I got this email.

From: Herself
To: Me

Have successfully ordered McDonald’s in Italian. Forgot to ask for ketchup and was thrown by the choice between mela and kiwi but all in all quite successful.

mela

Clearly, the trip was not entirely about expanding culinary horizons.

The boys and Mr. Waffle featured briefly on Irish language television talking about house swapping. I was at work and the Princess was at school but the boys were off being minded by their father so they got to star. Actually every word they spoke was edited out so they were a bit crushed. Former colleagues of mine (husband and wife team) saw it and when they saw the photo albums (to show the TV people the houses we had stayed in), carefully labelled they said in unison “That is so typical of Anne.” My filing fame has spread and in the most positive way, I’m sure.

Last Monday night was a bit hideous. Daniel had GAA, Michael had scouts and herself was in a massive Dublin archdiocese concert. They were bringing 600 secondary school students together every night last week to sing a range of hymns. 2,000 years of liturgical music and the focus was very strongly on those pieces composed for saxophone and guitar. Sigh. Some of the pieces were composed for the event. I particularly enjoyed the combination of jazzy upbeat music and the very old testament type lyrics “If the just strike me down, it’s done out of kindness” and “Let all that stray from what is good, be thrown a rock of judgement”. I did not get any dinner but I did have a large packet of maltesers at the concert.

On Friday night, Daniel and herself had speaking parts at some ecumenical event. The service was “prepared by the Christian women of Cuba” and it was held at the local Protestant church. Michael refused point blank to attend saying that he was not going to Mass on Friday and Sunday. The booklet giving the details of readings etc. also featured a couple of prayers like our prayers of the faithful. This one caught my eye:

” We recognize that we did not lift up our voices sufficiently to denounce an injustice like the economic blockade that affected the Cuban people for more than 50 years. We recognize our responsibility in allowing walls to be built up which destroy community.”

In the end Michael had to go as I couldn’t and Mr. Waffle brought them all. Daniel and the Princess carried out their roles with aplomb but attendance was poor. Elderly local Protestants and Catholics turned out but not many of them. Mr. Waffle feels that the women of Cuba may have been expecting a different kind of congregation when they decided to put the butterfly hymn on the programme. Apparently, you haven’t lived until you have heard a group of elderly people singing: “If I were a wiggly worm I’d thank you Lord that I could squirm/ If I were a fuzzy, wuzzy bear /I’d thank you Lord for my fuzzy, wuzzy hair”.

Daniel got to deliver the immortal line: “We will now collect our butterflies and bring them to the Scared Prayer Space”.

I was, alas, not in attendance at the Cuban prayer gig, because on Tuesday morning, my poor father fell and broke his hip. My parents are now the proud possessors of four plastic hips. I went down to Cork to see him on Friday night. He was remarkably cheerful given that a) he had a newly inserted plastic hip b) he is nearly 91 c) he spent about 24 hours on a trolley in A&E, and d) he has acquired the winter vomiting bug while in the hospital. My sister and I left him with the paper which he read and my sister tells me he has started to eat again today. He is remarkably resilient.

Final news items. We had parent-teacher meetings for all three children. They are all fine. All of the secondary school teachers told us that herself makes regular announcements over the school intercom. They were more impressed by this achievement than any other as far as I can see. All to the good, I suppose. Also, unrelated, she has won a 1916 poetry competition.

That is all.

Updated to add: I forgot – the dishwasher is broken. A new pump is said to be coming but in the interim we are washing the dishes by hand.  The novelty has worn off.

That really is all.

The Great Filing Catastrophe of 2016 and Other News


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

Mr. Waffle and I are tidy. I am the queen of filing and he is the king. People gasp in amazement when they see my tidy office. All of our domestic administration is carefully filed away and (somewhat) regularly sorted through to throw out papers that we no longer need to keep (although, to my knowledge, Mr. Waffle’s bank statements from when we lived in Belgium are still filed in the attic, a fact of which I deeply disapprove – you may recall that we last lived in Belgium in 2008). All this to say that, you know, we are not the kind of people who can’t find guarantees or passports or papers when we need to. You know how this is going to end, I assume. Stay with me anyhow, why don’t you?

Herself is going to Rome horribly early tomorrow morning for a mid-term school trip. She has been counting the days since September when she first heard about it. The programme is daunting. They are going for five days and will visit Rome (Vatican museums, the Forum, Pantheon, Spanish Steps, Trevi Fountain and anything else they feel up to – one of the teachers seriously suggested to me that they might go bowling one evening, insert your own sardonic comment here), Pompeii, Naples, Sorrento and the Amalfi coast.

She spent the weekend packing. After dinner this evening I went to get her passport out of the drawer and it was there. Of course it was there. I went to get her European health card from the shoebox where we keep these things. Daniel’s was there. Michael’s was there. I emptied out all of the non-EU currency, the Belgian bus tickets, the Paris metro tickets and the foreign stamps which also live in the shoebox but there was no sign of the Princess’s health insurance card. We searched in all the likely places: the desk drawers, the health insurance folder, the folder for herself, all the other folders just in case. It was unfindable. She had had to bring it into school twice so that they could verify that she had it. In light of this I felt that the authorities were likely to check in the cold, pre-dawn Dublin airport whether she had brought it with her. We kept searching. It turned up sticking out of the Lonely Planet guide to Paris on the book shelf. I am not the better of it.

It was also Valentine’s day and my husband got me lovely flowers and a card. I got him some stroopwafels and only because yesterday morning, herself said to me, “I hope you know that Daddy is getting you something for Valentine’s Day.” He took the boys to a reading in the National Library while I scuttled around hoping to find something he might like. I am not sure that he was absolutely thrilled with the packet of biscuits, now. Sometimes I feel that Mr. Waffle gets a poor deal. Guess who is getting up at 4 in the morning to drive our precious first-born to the airport? Not me, I fear.

Have a photo of the boys checking out the National Library reading room:
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Earlier today we climbed Bray Head. This was inspired by Michael who needed to do it for some scouting badge. He was pleased to be going. The others, possibly less so. However, we met the cousins and they were all happy to see each other and ran up cheerfully despite the biting wind. A further aim of the trip was to ensure that herself and Mr. Waffle were tired enough to go to sleep early. Any benefits in this regard were entirely offset by the health insurance card trauma.

Still, nice views from the top:
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New phone


Posted in: Middle Child, Twins, Youngest Child

I have got a new phone. Rejoice with me as the new battery lasts more than five minutes and I will no longer have to go everywhere with the charger in my handbag.

I gave the boys my old one to share. It is an iphone 4S with a broken screen and a very short battery life. Despite its obvious drawbacks and the fact that they have to share it, they were touchingly pleased. They have been downloading apps to beat the band. The current favourite seems to feature platypuses. I suppose we will have to reach an agreement about how much screen time is allowed before their little backs seize up as they hunch over the tiny screen.

Modern Mores


Posted in: Middle Child, Twins, Youngest Child

Michael is a scout and his uncle got him a penknife for his birthday. Or a pocket knife as he calls it because, apparently, we are all Americans now.

His uncle, observing the success of Michael’s penknife got one for Daniel for Christmas. He too was very pleased notwithstanding having given himself a nasty nick when he first used it.

The other morning, just as he was about to trip into school, Daniel mentioned that he had brought in his penknife to show to his classmates. I felt best not. “Don’t you trust me?” he asked mournfully as I put it into my bag. “It’s not you, it’s all the other children,” I reassured him.

Am I being an overprotective hovering parent or am I cutting down on knife crime in schools? Who knows? At least nobody will lose an eye, I suppose.

The Glamorous Home Life of the Working Parent


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

I arrived home from work the other night to be greeted by an urgent demand from Michael. Somehow, a DVD and a book had fallen behind the radiator and could not be got out. Before sitting down, before removing my coat, I began work on this important quest. I discovered that the bottom of the radiator was flush with the skirting board and there was no way to get them out from the bottom. Daniel, enterprisingly, got me a stick which had previously been used for flag waving. I poked unavailingly at the DVD and the book. Michael got tense. It was a library book. But of course. I got hotter and sweatier toiling in my coat over the boiling radiator.

The front door banged, Mr. Waffle had come in from work. “Come and help me,” I called. “Never mind your coat,” I added. I explained the problem but he had to establish the parameters of the issue himself (I find that this is always the case for both me and Mr. Waffle, there is no learning from experience in DIY type problems in our house, we both want to try and fail in the same way ourselves). Daniel produced another stick. Slowly, carefully Mr. Waffle and I poked the book with a stick from each end and dragged it to the top of the radiator. Just as we almost got there, it slipped free and fell down to the bottom again. Slowly, painstakingly we tried again, both pushing inwards and upwards with our sticks over the toasty radiator while wearing our coats and being egged on by the boys. About half way up, Mr. Waffle’s stick lost its grip on the book but maintained its vigourous upward trajectory and hit me smartly on the eyeball. Very painful, I can tell you.

At that point, we took a break, took off our coats and had a cup of tea. You will be pleased to hear that later in the evening both items were rescued. My eyeball is fine too. Thanks for asking.

Surprisingly Successful


Posted in: Dublin, Ireland, Middle Child, Twins, Youngest Child

We went in to see the Science Gallery exhibition a while ago and it was closed unexpectedly. Alas. I had paid for 90 minutes parking and it was lashing rain. I cast around for some alternative suitable cultural institution nearby with a cafe and a bathroom. We stood gloomily in the rain and I suggested that we could go through Trinity to the National Gallery.

It wasn’t that near and, I couldn’t help thinking, as we trudged through the rain, they weren’t going to like it much either when we got there. Much of the gallery is closed for extensive building work but the Turner exhibition was out for January and many of the gallery’s most famous paintings are crammed into a couple of exhibition rooms. I brought the children in for what I promised was a very quick look before getting a cup of tea. But the boys, in particular, were so interested, looking at the paintings and reading the captions and asking about them, that we stayed for ages.

It’s been years since I’ve brought them to an art gallery and perhaps I have left it too long. Or perhaps all the years when they were dragged unwillingly at a young age have prepared them to be engaged viewers at ten. Or perhaps, it was still lashing outside and we had nowhere else to go. Still I was very heartened and I see a whole new world opening up.