With my mother unwell, I have been up and down to Cork a fair bit on the train. It’s not a bad service but I am quite tired of it. I particularly disliked the weekend where I got back to Dublin on Sunday night and realised that I had to go to Belfast the following morning for work. It did give me the opportunity to verify that it was raining on the whole island of Ireland.
How bright am I to be going to Cork this weekend and up to Armagh on Tuesday?
That is all.
You may not remember this, but when the Queen of England visited Ireland, she went to the market in Cork.
She chatted to one of the fishmongers and he has made it his business to keep this in the forefront of people’s minds, inter alia, by hanging a large picture of himself and herself over his stall (“Rebel county, indeed” as Mr. Waffle remarked sardonically at the time). This drives my brother insane and my sister and I have had hours of harmless entertainment pointing to the marketing abilities of Mr. O’Connell.
Just when we thought it couldn’t get any better, he published a book. This is from the blurb:
In this heart-warming story, Pat O’Connell recalls the historic visit of Queen Elizabeth II to the English Market, which left a lasting impact not only on the market itself but also on his own life.
This is from my brother when he heard the news.
Why are they doing this to me………………I’ve had enough..this guy makes me want to buy frozen fish from an industrial fish farm in the south Pacific, with 3 gizillion food miles, online from a faceless global retailer that pays no tax, headquartered in the Caymen Islands (or maybe Ireland)….
And look, only look, at the cover of today’s Examiner: Pat getting fitted out for his trip to Buckingham Palace.
Hours of harmless entertainment for all the family.
Today is Mr. Waffle’s birthday. It always casts an ominous shadow over mine on the 10th. Almost invariably, he gets me a lovely, thoughtful present. My pleasure is always tempered by the knowledge that I have nothing for him and by the 19th, I will have to rustle up something.
Oh yes, it’s all about me. Anyhow, when he came in from work this evening the children and I sat him down and gave him a glass of wine. The Princess had made madeleines during the afternoon while we were at work and he had them as his birthday cake. She is a virtuous child. Mr. Waffle often asks for these but the children and I prefer our cakes to be iced and to include chocolate. His family are frugal in their habits; a marietta biscuit between five of them is plenty. These are good genes. Michael has them in spades.
I thought that I should note that my husband is a saint. I intended to give lots of examples of his virtue, including, for example, that I still don’t know how to operate the washing machine and yet we have clean clothes. A daily miracle. As it is late, one earlier example of virtue will have to suffice. After dinner, I told him to go and sit down and I would clean up when the dishwasher had finished. I went upstairs to harass the retreat (or “sing a lullaby” as it is known locally) and what unmistakeable sounds did I hear from the kitchen? Yes, indeed, my husband had cast his book aside and was cleaning up after his birthday dinner.
Definitely, the best husband.
We had our annual parent-teacher meetings. Mr. Waffle and I went along and wedged ourselves into tiny primary school size chairs and heard that all is well. Though Michael is inclined to question the utility of much of his repetitive labours such as colouring, writing and sums which could be done much more speedily and effectively on the computer. I got the impression that his teacher did not entirely welcome Michael’s consequent reluctance to engage in these activities. However, some kind of truce appears to have been worked out. I am pleased to reveal that only other day I was summoned to the classroom to admire a project on Ancient Greece which he, his brother and a classmate had worked on. It involved both colouring and writing and they were all justly proud of their labours.
On Friday, the school allowed the children to dress up as a figure from celtic mythology or Irish history. The Princess spent weeks thinking about her costume and putting it together and eventually went as a druidess [is that actually a word?].
However, in her year, the whole dressing up thing seems to have peaked and most of the other children just wore Leprechaun hats and t-shirts saying “Kiss me, I’m Irish” [thank you America, sigh].
There were three other children in her class who had dressed up: a girl as Aoife (the evil step-mother in the Children of Lir), one boy as Michael Collins and one boy as Bobby Sands. There are quite, um, green, elements in the school.
“What did J wear as Bobby Sands?” I asked.
“His swimsuit and a blanket.”
I’m really sorry I missed that.
In other news, even though it is a bank holiday, there is still GAA training. Horrific. We skipped it. We’d already been to the parade; how much should one family have to suffer?
Climbed the Sugar Loaf over the weekend. Obligatory photos:
And a happy St. Patrick’s Day to you too.
Herself: I’m thinking of making unleavened bread.
Me: Are you, where will you get the recipe?
Her: From the Bible.
