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Youngest Child

Two Worlds Collide


Posted in: Middle Child, Twins, Youngest Child

We are going to an adventure centre for the boys’ upcoming birthday. As part of this a waiver is needed from the invitees’ parents. I drafted up a comprehensive letter with details of pick-up and departure times; waiver information; addresses; website address for the centre etc. The boys gave it out to their friends.

“Do you think that the wording of the letter might have been a bit overly lawyerly and formal?” asked Michael that evening. “I don’t think so,” I replied firmly. “Why do you ask?” “It’s just that my friend R tried to eat his invitation.”

Latch Key Children


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

I haven’t been entirely delighted with how much time the children have been at home alone this summer, particularly Michael. Today was a bit of a low point.

We live in a trendy, urban up and coming area, if you’re an estate agent. A bit too edgy maybe, if you’re not. For example, I was not totally delighted to discover that my daughter knew how to recognise people doing a drug deal before she finished primary school. Our leafy road is lovely though: the houses are great; we know most of our neighbours many of whom have been there a long time; it’s close to town and it’s quiet without much through traffic.

I came home from work this evening and the two boys were home alone as expected. Mr. Waffle was at a work thing and herself was at her residential camp. Daniel had come in about half an hour before me. Michael was still in his pyjamas although he had showered. I’m trying to spin this as a win. I asked for news from their days. They had a talent contest at Daniel’s camp; it was a bit dull. Michael had risen at lunch time, showered and, undoubtedly, spent the rest of the day glued to his phone although this was not how he put it to me.

After a while Daniel said, “Oh yeah, I forgot to say, there was a man sleeping on the doorstep when I got home.”

“Sorry? At the gate or on the doorstep?” I asked.

“On the doorstep,” he said.

“What did you do?” I asked.

“Well,” he said, “I hung around for a while not sure what to do and then [the very nice, quite senior in the FCA man] from across the road came and helped me in.”

“Michael, did you know there was someone sleeping on the doorstep?” I asked.

“Not until Daniel came in,” he said. The advantage of remaining in pyjamas all day.

I took myself off across the road to thank my neighbour but he was out and I spoke to his wife. He hadn’t mentioned his good Samaritan act to her. I can’t help wondering what was the story with the person, quite possibly, passed out on our doorstep. It’s hardly a welcome development, I think we can agree.

It turns out, even my bleeding heart liberalism has a limit. My very conservative father who has been waiting for this development for some time will be pleased to hear it.

Summer Activities


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

I have a school friend who ended up living in a coastal town in North County Dublin. A fellow exile we meet about four times a year for dinner and exchange of news and views. We always meet in town but it was summertime and I said that I would drive out to Skerries and go for dinner there. It was a Wednesday, which is daring and I felt like I was on holidays as we went for a walk on the beach and then out for dinner in a lovely new restaurant in the town which I can truly recommend if you find yourself in that part of the world.

Michael has been doing a tennis course for the past fortnight with mild reluctance but a certain degree of resignation. This has spurred us all to take a greater interest and for the past fortnight, most evenings we’ve gone up to the local courts to play doubles (herself is off at camp so not available). It’s good fun and somewhat justifies under the stairs which has an extraordinary quantity of sporting equipment for a not very sporty family.

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I brought my mother’s spare golf clubs to Dublin after she died. My brother took out the putter on the grounds that it was a special putter made for her in some golf club in Limerick and we might lose it. We managed to make good the deficit by taking a putter from my father-in-law’s old clubs and also the husband of one of my mother’s old friends. His son lives up the road from us and his wife and son came and dropped us down a spare putter and we sent them off with a pot of jam. After all the effort, I felt we ought to use them, so Michael and I went out to a small local pitch and putt course. As you know, I am a big fan of the bike but, let me tell you, that there is no easy way to carry golf clubs on a bike, even if it’s only a pair of putters and a couple of nine irons. Anyhow we made it. The club was deserted and initially we were refused admittance on the grounds that it was members only. I offered to pay green fees and my knowledge of this technical terms softened their hearts towards me. “Did we have our own clubs?” Oh yes indeed, though I forgot to bring tees, like a fool. However, they made good this deficit.

I went to the first hole to tee off. I used to play a bit in my teens but I would say it’s 35 years since I raised a club. I had a practice shot. The three elderly gentlemen came out from the shed to have a look at me play. I was a bit unnerved. However, all those hours spent practicing in front of the bored and indifferent club pro with other teenagers came back to me and I was pleased and surprised to see the ball loft up into the air and land squarely on the green. The men said, “Good shot,” and shuffled off about their business.

Michael teed up and sent the ball scudding along the fairway (such as it was) but, as he pointed out, he was nearly as close to the hole as me and it was his first time ever playing. Pitch and putt is not challenging. And that’s the way we like it. Later one of the elderly gentlemen asked me if I’d like to play on their team. I have arrived, I never want to go back to proper golf. When I offered to pay green fees at the end, the elderly gentlemen waved me aside and told me that it was on the house. Very pleasing.

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Michael decides to play the ball where it lies.

We were cycling along beside the canal last Saturday as part of our summer of sport extravaganza, threading our way through crowds of GAA fans heading to Croke Park. I ran into my cousin with her husband and three little boys marching determinedly towards the stadium. She is from Limerick and has Meath children but they were all dutifully dressed up in their Limerick kit. So far their loyalties are relatively undivided as it’s going to be a while before Meath challenge anyone in the hurling. Alas, Kilkenny defeated Limerick by a point so not a great day out for them in the end I imagine.

We had a barbecue at the cousins’ house. It lashed rain and we all huddled indoors while my brother-in-law cooked burgers outside sheltered from the elements by his aunt who held a large golf umbrella over his head. The boys went down to the tennis club and got soaked to the skin. A successful outing which my brother-in-law is minded to repeat the August bank holiday weekend.

How’s your own summer going?

Summer Activities


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

School is well over at this stage. The end of year activities were suitably frantic. Michael got a prize for best all-round student in his class and he was pleased. The school reports were fine.

The summer is the usual hodge podge of cobbled together activities. Herself and Daniel had many things organised (Zambia, France, a three week course on law and politics and robotics respectively) and the couple of weeks they have nothing on, I am more than happy for them to hang around the house. While Dan was in Paris, Michael did a drama camp which, frankly, he did not love. Daniel and Michael did a couple of things together – the sports course with French exchange N and a week in Cork with my brother.

I sent the boys to Cork to bond with their Cork relatives. My brother insisted that they bring their bikes and, despite some reservations on my part, I duly complied. My sister collected them from the station and as she cycled into town she chatted to Michael. She said, “It was his voice but your words.” Apparently he admired the segregated cycling infrastructure.

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My brother who is the stubbornest person I know, took them on a 15 km cycle to Cobh. They were multi modal and in the course of their travels around Cork they also got the ferry and the train. They seemed to like it. I was impressed despite myself.

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They also visited my mother and I was so glad that she got to see them one last time.

Next week, all three children are at home with no plans which I think will probably be ok but from the week after, Michael will be at home alone as the other two are at their camp and his parents are at work. An attempt to sign him up for a sailing course with his cousins has been resisted with extreme vigour. What on earth will he do?

Damned with Faint Praise


Posted in: Twins, Youngest Child

One of the boys’ set textbooks for school is an Irish language novel called “Dúnmharú ar an Dart”. We were talking about it at dinner one evening and Michael volunteered, “It’s actually a really good book, even though it’s in Irish.” The author would be gratified to know, I am sure.

Busy Times


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

Herself got back from Zambia on Friday none the worse for wear for her adventure. I think she had a good time. It’s nice to have her back. She brought us, inter alia, Zambian peanut butter made to order in a market in the middle of nowhere. Who knew fresh peanut butter tasted better? I did worry a little that the food hygiene might not be what one would hope as I contemplated the battered label free plastic jar it came in, but I’ve been eating it since Friday and have, thus far, experienced no ill effects.

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I went down to Cork on Saturday. My friend M’s aunt had just died. M has buried another aunt and her father over the past 18 months. As her friend L said, “Thank heavens she had a wedding in the middle of it.”

The removal was in Turner’s Cross church on Saturday. A famous work of art deco wonder which I had never been inside before. It’s worth a visit. Circumstances were a bit gloomy, obviously, and I noticed that the undertaker was the same man who had done my mother’s funeral the week before. My friend M was tired and sad having buried the last member of her father’s family (they were curiously unproductive – she is the only child of the four siblings). A woman who looked strangely familiar turned up in the church. She was a friend of mine from college with whom I had completely lost touch: her father is in the same nursing home as M’s aunt had been. “I didn’t recognise you,” she said, “though M hasn’t changed at all!” How to take this? We’ve agreed to meet next time I’m down all the same.

I went back to the house of a cousin of the deceased after the mass. There was a really lovely afternoon tea and I found our hosts delightful. They were from near where my granny lived and where I went to secondary school and I felt I was revisiting the haunts of my youth. On hearing that I had a child who was a vegetarian, my hostess pressed a nut loaf recipe upon me. I was touched. I have yet to make it. We talked a bit about the dead lady and her family. Apparently her mother was always known as Bunny. Why? I discovered later that she, Bunny, had been a friend of my grandmother. I suppose everyone knew everyone in the Cork of the day. My friend M mentioned in passing that her father who was called Chris and was known as Chris to everyone was always called Ivor by his mother. Does this strike anyone else as a bit…surprising? Apparently she liked the name.

Full of tea and cake, I went home to go out for dinner for my aunt’s 90th birthday. It was moderately successful but the venue was a bit noisy and my father, who was with us, is a bit deaf and also quite softly spoken so that was unsatisfactory. Overall though, it was a reasonably good outing and my aunt was pleased which was, after all, the objective.

On Sunday, I went down to Sunday’s Well Tennis Club to see my friend J who was home from America with her four children and putting them through the Munster open. I met my cousin who sang at my mother’s funeral in the car park. I also met J’s parents and husband. That’s a lot of sympathising on the death of your mother. I had a grand old chat with J’s mother who I used to see a lot of in my teens – less so now, of course – she used to organise children’s tennis in the club and now she’s organising the children’s children which she quite enjoys. She comes from a famously sporty family herself: tennis, hockey, squash, you name it. She told me one of her sisters played squash for Ireland and I think they all played at provincial level in their respective sports. She has given up playing tennis in favour of organising but she is still golfing away. It is so pleasing to me to see older people in great nick. It gives me hope for us all. Her family is very Cork and one of her nieces is quite well-known in America and occasionally comes back to Ireland when there is invariably an article in the Irish Times pointing out that she went to school in Dublin. This fills me with rage as that family are so Cork notwithstanding that one of the sisters may have moved to Dublin and after to America. As the French probably wouldn’t say, “Plus Cork, tu meurs”.

My friend J and her husband, who you might expect to have their hands full with four children, two dogs and two full-time jobs as doctors, have fostered another child. I am full of admiration but for the first time since I met her (in middle school as she explained to her American children), I thought she looked a bit tired. I was sad myself and we talked about my mother whom she knew well. We also spent some time talking about retirement and the cost of putting four children through college in America. I suppose this is middle age. As I was sitting outside the tennis club watching the children play tennis (sponsored by Davy’s – notions), I saw a McWilliam’s sail bag at my feet embroidered with the owner’s name and school (Scoil Mhuire) and I thought to myself, “This is it, the ur Cork.”

I tore myself away from my friend and went up to visit my sister. We shared out my mother’s jewellery: she loved her rings but although they looked great on her and really remind us both of her, we’re not quite sure what to do with them. Herself tried them on when I got back to Dublin and she loved them so, perhaps, when she’s a bit older, they’ll go to her. I got my own grandmother’s engagement ring which I was very fond of until it was stolen in Brussels, alas.

I took Monday and Tuesday off work to do some revision for this wretched exam I have on Thursday. I realised recently that I have never failed an exam in my life but I think this might be the one. I missed a lot of the lectures due to other commitments and the subject is a bit technical. Yesterday, I got relatively little done. I dropped Mr. Waffle to the airport to go to Luxembourg. I schlepped back out to the airport to pick up Daniel and his French exchange who were coming back from Paris. Dan had a great time in Paris, heatwave notwithstanding – he and the French exchange, N, get on pretty well which helps – N is the son of a friend of mine from years ago in Brussels – we’ve already exchanged daughters so we thought we’d move on to sons. The two boys travelled together as unaccompanied minors; they managed fine as did Daniel when he went on his own on the way out to Paris, aren’t they competent all the same?

So yesterday evening I took Daniel and N to see a league of Ireland football match. It was an…authentic experience. They both seemed to feel it compared poorly to the quarter finals of the Women’s World Cup which they had seen in Parc des Princes in Paris the previous week. Look, we do what we can here. I then stayed up until 2 in the morning discovering at some length how spectacularly unprepared I am for Thursday’s exam. I went in to the kitchen to check the back door was locked and remembered that I had left oven cleaner on the inside of the oven and the bottle was stringent in its instruction that the spray should not be left on overnight (doubtless terrible for the environment) so I found myself cleaning the oven at 2 in the morning which, in its own way was quite depressing.

This morning was dreadful as I tried to get the three boys up and out to their sports camp: packed lunches, kit which I was assured was packed but was not entirely, Daniel losing his public transport card despite showing me it the previous evening (reconsidering my competent assessment above). We got there in the end and I said confidently, “You guys can make your own way home.” Turns out they were a bit vague. I gave them some further sketchy directions and slithered off home to further contemplate material for this wretched examination. I spent a number of hours hunched over my books and then met herself for lunch after her trip to the hairdressers (she has dyed her hair platinum, photo to follow, hold on to your hats out there) and then back home for more studying until the boys came home (competency marks up again, they made it).

Why you ask, am I blogging and not revising? I just cannot face it any more. Is this a good sign? I fear not. On the plus side, I’m off out to the airport now to collect my loving husband and he is on sandwiches tomorrow.