belgianwaffle

Work

I Always Wait for the Longest Day and Then Miss It*


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

So yesterday was my first day of not working. The weather was lovely. I was able to sit in the garden. I could chat face to face with Mr. Waffle and the boys from a safe distance. I could take my meals in the garden. I felt much better. My face got slightly sun burnt. Not normally a cause for rejoicing but it was a surprisingly pleasant day. I still, alas, have a cough and a runny nose but everyone else remains infection free. Today is a bit more overcast so I am dividing my time between the garden and the lovely isolation bedroom. I can see this becoming quite tedious. I think I will try another Covid test in the morning in the hope that maybe I am no longer infectious.

The view from my perch yesterday. A massive improvement on the day spent in the bedroom.

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We had a long chat with herself yesterday. Logistics seem broadly sorted for her return from England; she won a mild prize (£50 book token) for an exam – not the end of year ones which she just finished but I have to hope that this is a promising sign; she has exhausting and exhaustive summer plans; and she should be home next weekend. Hurrah.

I ceremonially put on my work out of office and dealt with a few last emails.

My favourite aunt – my father’s sister – is 93 either yesterday or on Wednesday. My grandmother and the hospital disagreed on the date and the matter was never satisfactorily settled. I spoke to her on the phone. She seems perky I am pleased to report.

I got a message from Daniel at 8 this morning telling me he was on the bus to Offaly to spend the day with his friend from there. Rome, Edenderry, he’s covering all the exciting locations this week.

Michael and I are thrown on our own resources. Mr. Waffle was able to spend a good bit of time at home yesterday but today he is more tied up at work. Michael is finding working as my chef close to a full time job and he is not hugely enjoying it. But he is resigned. We played charades for a bit in the back garden – something than allows for distance – but this is all we could come up with.

Still, I am enjoying not being at work. Lots to look forward to, I feel.

*Small prize (honour and glory) if you know where this quote is from. It used to be one of the Princess’s favourite books and she would often quote from it.

The Best Laid Plans


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

Friday was my last day at work for a while. The last couple of weeks have been…intense culminating in a late night session running in to the early hours of Friday morning (3 am since you ask). I spent all day Thursday feeling a bit under the weather and as the evening wore on into Friday morning, I felt worse and worse. At one stage I went around closing all the windows in the room we were working in as I was cold although nobody else was. I’ve been a bit sick on and off over the past couple of weeks but repeated Covid tests were happily negative.

I decided to cycle home rather than get a taxi after the marathon session to 3 am because I didn’t want to abandon my bike. As I cycled home through the summer city night, I felt quite dizzy. Perhaps, I thought, because I was tired. I dragged myself from bed the next morning at 10 having passed a sickly night. I took a last Covid test and, wouldn’t you know it, it was positive. I broke the news to colleagues and I sincerely hope that I haven’t given it to anyone – so far so good but my window closing antics can’t have helped I fear – I got a laugh from one sympathetic message which said: “Conscientious to the end, getting sick in your own time.”

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Yesterday and Friday I was absolutely miserable. Today, I’m ok really, it’s just like a head cold. I do wonder if I could have two things together because I’m surprised that Covid alone would make me so ill given that I have all the vaccinations.

On Friday night I was due to collect Daniel from the airport and hear all about his trip to Rome. Mr. Waffle was at a dinner. Mr. Waffle had a sober dinner and collected Dan later. I still haven’t been able to talk to him in person and I would like to give him a hug, now that he’s home. Preliminary indications are that he had a good time. He brought me Daim bars from the airport and Pecorino cheese from Rome and I have been sustaining myself on these delicacies. And everyone was right, he was able to get himself to and from Rome by plane with no difficulty even though the flights were delayed both ways.

Poor Michael has been entirely neglected by his mother for the past week and I was hoping to see a bit more of him over the weekend but alas, our only engagement is him leaving food parcels and pots of tea outside the bedroom door for me.

Yesterday, for my first day off, I was planning to go to a talk at the Dalkey book festival with a friend. She had booked lunch after, we were both really looking forward to it. Sadly, this is where I spent my Saturday.

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I was due to get the ferry to England on Monday morning, stay with a friend in Shrewsbury and then collect herself and her belongings and come back home. We are considering a range of logistical alternatives and it will all be fine but I have to say, I was really, really looking forward to the trip. Oh well, another time. She was at her ball last night and I have photos which show a lot of imagination in relation to eye make up. Successfully, if you ask me.

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Meanwhile I am confined to my bedroom. Mr. Waffle has brought up the desktop for me to play with, so expect regular blog updates. Though not a lot is happening to me so maybe not. The downstairs bathroom and the temporary shower in the utility room [we got it put in when we were doing the upstairs bathroom and it is so unutterably hideous that I had suppressed its very memory but it’s still there just waiting for its chance to shine] have been assigned for my use. Sometimes it’s hard not to feel judged.

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Oh and today is Father’s Day. You would have to feel for Mr. Waffle given the very limited service that has been available.

Incidentally I am in the throes of discovering that every single chair is uncomfortable and reading in bed doesn’t have as much to recommend it as I had previously thought. My back is killing me.

And a last piece of news from next door. Their misfortunate daughter has Covid again. I think that’s the fourth time. As always, things could most assuredly be worse.

What will I be doing when I’m not working? A catalogue of indulgence


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

I was talking to a friend about my year off, my sabbatical as I think of it and he asked would I be travelling. Not really. Doing a degree? Nope. Writing my novel? Again no. “What are you going to do then?” he asked. “A bit more around the house,” I said. “My husband does a lot of the domestic stuff because he’s around the house more; I’ll learn how to use the washing machine,” I said. “So you’re taking a year off to do more washing,” he said. I think I need to find less snarky friends.

Here are my thoughts on what I will be doing. Almost as an aide memoire to myself. If I get none of these things done, then so be it.

On matters domestic:

More organising, sorting handymen, getting things done around the house that have been put off because we just haven’t had time: sorting the shed; the utility room; getting the house painted; re-doing the floors; taking the children to appointments; more (though not all!) domestic admin including making arrangements for powers of attorney now that the Assisted Decision Making Capacity Act is finally being commenced (so worthy, you cry – we promised to do it when we were making our wills but were waiting for the Act, this is our chance); more gardening; finally getting the brass lacquered, the furniture repaired and the clocks fixed. I will go for those blood tests the GP is so keen on (not because I’m ill but because she wants to do a general check up – good idea, I suppose).

Recently when I was giving Daniel an emergency last minute lift to GAA practice because I had forgotten that he had training and come home late to make dinner and therefore he hadn’t time to cycle, I said, “When I take my break from working I will remember when all your training nights. I will be on top of all the detail.” “Mum,” he said, “are you sure you want to spend all your break acting like a glorified secretary?” Good point. I will need to watch out for that. Maybe I won’t know when he has training after all.

Community stuff:

I’ll keep up the school parents’ council and the church but I might have time to volunteer a bit more for the tasks being doled out rather than cravenly shirking them. I have not spent all this time learning Ukrainian on Duolingo to have it be completely useless although judging by my recent encounter in the lane with our new 9 year old Ukrainian neighbour who until 2 months ago spoke no English, it might be. Maybe I should learn basic Russian as well.

Immediate family:

More time with the boys; a chance to meet them after school; pick them up if it’s raining; hear about how their days are going; help them if they can face it. More days out with my husband. More weekends away with him. Finally learning to cook or to slightly enjoy cooking. Maybe more bread making? Maybe not. More trips to England to visit herself (though her suggestion that I might drive over to England, pick up all her stuff and then drive home alone again while she goes to the end of term ball and on to London found little favour with me when put forward and was subsequently revised).

Cork family:

Helping to sort out my parents house; seeing my elderly aunt; travelling with my sister (she has mentioned Iceland, I said no initially but now I think, why not?); bringing the boys to Cork a bit more; maybe just spend some time thinking about my parents and writing a bit about my mother’s life ( I wrote about my father for his funeral and I want to do something similar for my mother).

For fun:

I think I might try this sea swimming thing – my friend from Clontarf goes every day, is this crazy? June seems like a good time to start that. Gretchen Ruben visits the Met every day. In a small way I might do that myself, go into the National Gallery most days, finally cash in my membership gift card. I’ll possibly rejoin the tennis club. I will continue to lunch. If you are willing to go at odd hours and take your chances you can get really good meals from the TUD catering college (I think it’s now the BA in Culinary Arts). I’m keen to test it out.

I mean it all feels amazingly exciting and delightful. I am so lucky to be able to do this. I think it’s the absence of stress as well. Christmas and summer holidays will be better when there are no calls from work and when the weeks leading up to the break are not absolutely frantically busy.

Yesterday was my last day at work until October 2023. Oh yes. And though I was broken by the run up to it, I am pretty pleased now.

Let the good times roll.

Bicycling Enthusiasm


Posted in: Ireland, Work

I had to go to a work event in Killarney a couple of weeks ago.

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Feeling extremely daring, I packed my bike on the train. I met a retired French man on a bike in the way into the station whose English was poor and who was delighted to find an Irish person who could a) speak French and b) knew the ways of the intercity trains and bike accommodation. I was reduced to pointing to the guard’s van (which is where bikes go) because finding the French words defeated me. He had not had a fantastic time due to rain. Not entirely surprising, I suggest. He was on his way back to France where, he told me wistfully, it was 35 degrees.

I had to change trains en route to Killarney which was a little stressful but alright.

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When I got to Killarney, the hotel was a bit out of town but very well served by cycle lanes and as I cycled along in the mild evening air, I was delighted with myself.

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At the hotel, alas, the only bicycle parking was in a perspex lean to clearly designed to accommodate staff bikes during their shifts and I left mine there overnight in some trepidation but it was still there in the morning. It’s my first time taking my bike on a work trip outside Dublin but I would definitely do it again.

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Where had we left matters?


Posted in: Family, Middle Child, Twins, Work

It was mid-May, I was finishing work mid-June. Good news, I am still finishing June 17. Bad news, this last two weeks before I finish up, they are going to squeeze work out of me until the pips squeak.

My niece turned 14 in mid-May and we all went out to dinner to celebrate. There was an adults’ table and a teenagers’ table which worked well for everyone. My only fear was that one of the boys would tell their cousin what her present was before her parents gave it to her the following day. They booked tickets for her to go to London to see Hamilton. I confided this to the boys in advance but they dutifully kept it secret even when their cousin said, “I don’t know what my parents are getting me, the present isn’t hidden in any of the usual places.” Her father sent round a photo of her opening her present the next morning and getting a big surprise which we all enjoyed. Like my sister-in-law said, “We’re desperately trying to catch up on the things Covid took away from our children.”

We had the Dutch Mama to stay overnight – she was in Dublin for a work trip (and got Covid in the process, alas, we remain – almost miraculously, Covid free) – and she told us how her 15 year old on a trip to a European Youth Parliament with her school mates ended up sleeping in Helsinki airport due to a delayed flight. No teachers, although some of the school mates were 18 so there was that. Honestly, the Dutch are very daring. Anyhow the child was none the worse for her experience and it makes me think that Daniel will be fine on his trip to Rome later this week.

Summer Plans


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

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.