belgianwaffle

Work

Summer Plans


Posted in: Belgium, Boys, Daniel, Michael, Mr. Waffle, Princess, Travel, Work

A couple of years ago, an Italian friend of Mr. Waffle’s asked whether we would be interested in doing an exchange with her nephew in Rome and one of our sons in Dublin. Covid put paid to the original plan but now it is back and Daniel is going to Rome for a week and we’ll have an Italian teenager here.

I was a bit worried about Daniel flying on his own. I anxiously asked him whether he thought he would be ok and he pointed out to me that he had already flown to Paris on his own a number of years ago which, I confess, I had forgotten. He flew as an unaccompanied minor though so was thoughtfully shuttled about by a bored airline employee. Mr. Waffle is adamant that the humiliation of flying aged 16 as an unaccompanied minor (they have to wear a special label around their necks; they are herded together and most of them are under 12) would be the death of Daniel and that he will be perfectly fine on his own. He suggested that if I am concerned I could adopt his own mother’s technique of approaching someone I like the look of in the check-in queue and asking him or her to keep an eye on my child. More mortifying surely? Your views would be welcome on this issue which is the subject of animated domestic discussion. I am forced to point out that Daniel himself thinks he would be fine.

Daniel doesn’t speak any Italian but he is game for the trip to Rome and I do hope he will enjoy it. I lived in Rome for a while in my early 20s and absolutely loved it. I really feel for my children who have had so many of the normal teenage fun things denied to them but have had all of the angst and then some. Michael has astounded me by announcing that he wants to go on a school trip to Brussels to visit the European institutions. Under normal circumstances, he is not one for travel but the lure of a trip to the European institutions was too much for him to resist. I am not even joking.

Last night we told herself that the day she returns from England and Italian teenager will be arriving to stay with us. She is already a bit tetchy in the run up to her exams and I wouldn’t say this piece of information improved her mood. “I wouldn’t have come home at all had I known that there were to be Italian teenage boys or indeed teenage boys of any nationality in the house,” she announced imperiously. As her own brothers who live here are teenage boys that was always a pretty lofty aspiration, nonetheless, my hopes that she might entertain the Italian teenager (who will be 18 in August so possibly a bit old for Dan) were definitely delivered a blow. She’s hoping to go to Paris for a bit of the summer and if she does I fully plan to visit. Let us hope this will be welcome news in due course.

I have had to delay my year of rest and relaxation by a week or so due to an upcoming work crisis which my boss begged me to stay for. I am not immune to flattery (on the contrary) but given that I am counting the days extra time – and stressful extra time at that – seems a bit tedious. I will now be finishing on June 17 and I cannot wait. On the 20th I am off to England to collect herself staying with friends in England en route. I am thrilled.

Beyond Outraged


Posted in: Work

I sat down beside a colleague in reception the other day. He was waiting for someone and I stopped to chat to him before nipping out to get a sandwich.

Him: I’ve only just heard your news.

Me: About my year out of the workforce?

Him: Yes, good for you but why now?

Me [I have to get some kind of pat answer for this]: Well, no one reason in particular, lots of different reasons. [I start to list them]. And finally, I was going to retire at 60 [depressing that I should now have reached the stage of mentioning retirement but so it is] and I thought I could take this year now or later and I thought, I’d rather put in the year at 61 than now.

Him [getting the wrong end of the stick]: Are you really 60?

I have no words lads.

Scary


Posted in: Princess, Work

I got a third pair of glasses at the weekend. I now have one pair for the car, one for the television and one pair to carry around in my handbag in case I get jumped by an unexpected powerpoint presentation.

Herself when asked for an opinion said, “Scary”. Hard to argue with that. I see big lenses are back. I can’t say I love the result on my small face. Oh well. Everyone will be too intent on following the presentations to notice.

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The Thrills of the Return to the Office


Posted in: Work

People are more or less back to the office. Not everyone all the time, but almost everyone some of the time. It’s a bit weird after two years largely alone on the fourth floor to now have a full complement of people outside my door.

I wandered out on to the floor and as I did so, the scent of Davidoff Cool Water assailed my nostrils. It brought me back in an instant to the time in the mid-90s that I spent in Bosnia – Davidoff was popular and I had a large bottle at my disposal while I was there. I was doing election monitoring just after the war. I was in Banja Luka which is an old spa town and a very Austro-Hungarian empire town. I didn’t know what to expect really when I was going but I certainly didn’t think that I would regret not bringing my tennis racquet. It turned out that there was a country club type place with, inter alia, tennis courts and all of the international election monitors spent a lot of our free time there. In the days before the internet, our ignorance was legendary and our ability to advance plan much less developed. I just didn’t expect that war torn Bosnia would be a normal place as well, if you see what I mean. I might tell you all I can remember another time but it all flooded vividly back to me as I stood on the floor sniffing.

I turned to my colleague, “Davidoff, Cool Water?” I said. “No Clinique Happy,” said he.

Oh How We Laughed


Posted in: Work

I had a difficult meeting before Easter where my colleagues and I had to hold the line against quite the onslaught from another organisation. One of the people on the other side of the virtual table was a former colleague from a third organisation (stay with me here, Ireland is small). It was all very civil but distinctly trying. I heard my phone bleep in the middle of the meeting but ignored it as I continued to batten down the metaphorical hatches.

When I got off, I checked my message. It was from my former colleague and it said, “You’re like the Spartans at Thermopylae, Anne”. Roll on my sabbatical.

On the Socials


Posted in: Mr. Waffle, Princess, Work

We had an in person away day at work last week. I was genuinely looking forward to it (sadly) and it was really great to see people in person again. But you know, ultimately, an away day is as you would imagine. We had a guest speaker. She spoke about trying to manage our tech habits and inspired by her, I have deleted Instagram from my phone. It was a slight wrench but I had found myself sitting scrolling at midnight when I ought to be tucked up in bed reading my book and keeping my husband awake with the bedside light. I gave up Twitter in April 2019 and although I do still slightly miss it from time to time, I am very pleased that I did. I find Instagram less interesting than Twitter so hope that I will miss it even less. Although I did like those filters.

Instead, I now seem to be addicted to Duolingo which at least has the merit of being educational. I am learning Ukrainian. I would say that the Cyrillic alphabet is tricky. Mr. Waffle said, “It’s based on the Greek alphabet – remember Cyril and Methodius – which I learnt in a week when I was 12, how hard can it be?” Frankly, this attitude is unhelpful. I spent some time in Bosnia in the mid-90s and in my head I still pronounce the Bosnian word for restaurant as Pectopah so you can see my difficulty.

Separately, herself introduced me to BeReal which I mentioned a couple of weeks ago. I am quite enjoying it despite the fact that I know no one on there but herself (I feel like I am definitely ahead of the middle aged curve on this one). Sadly most of my pictures feature me in my concrete bunker (or, as it is described elsewhere, my award winning office – architect led design, what is it with architects and concrete?). I am very excited by the prospect of my sabbatical and a whole range of different settings opening up to me.