belgianwaffle

Post Script


Posted in: Family, Ireland, Princess

I began my working life in 1991. That is a long time ago.

One day, I remember a male colleague asking whether I had a stamp. People used to borrow stamps, it was a thing. I did not. He was disappointed. He went off to look elsewhere. “Married women always have stamps,” he said firmly as he set off on his quest.

I am not sure whether he succeeded in finding a stamp but I remember the line. And now that I am a married woman I do, in fact, always have stamps. I can’t remember the last time someone asked to borrow a stamp though.

When I was in my 20s I wrote many, many letters but now my only correspondents are my daughter in England and my friend in America. I think they both regard letter writing as a quirky – though not unwelcome – habit on my part.

I was slightly horrified to find, after she died, that my mother had preserved all my letters to her. You might think I would welcome an insight into my thoughts in my 20s but this is not the case. I did enjoy some of the letters between her and her mother which also came my way as well as a couple of letters my grandmother had written home from America while she lived there.

I do miss letters.

Home Again, Home Again


Posted in: Cork, Ireland, Siblings, Travel

And I’m back from the fleshpots of Cork.

I had an exciting day. I went to the Glucksman for my breakfast (a gallery cafe – not bad but not at all as good as the old Crawford Gallery cafe for which I will probably grieve forever). They only had seats outside where I went with some trepidation but despite slight drizzle towards the end of breakfast, it was actually fine even though there were no outdoor heaters.

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Thrillingly, the Christmas craft fair was on in the Glucksman. I mean, I love any old craft fair but this one is really good. All the people manning the stalls had made the stuff themselves, which I really enjoy. I bought a Christmas decoration from a potter and a tea towel from a lovely man who draws lighthouses. We had a little chat, he’s originally from Antwerp. Not so many lighthouses in that neck of the woods. Honestly, I could have stayed for hours but I did not because I was already running late for my next event.

My sister had a spare ticket to an interview with some director from Cork I’d never heard of and I agreed to go with her. It was in the Triskel, Cork’s premier arts venue once a church and, still boasting the slightly uncomfortable benches which are part of any church experience. There were about 50 people there.

The director appeared, a guy called John Crowley. He was really interesting, a genuinely fascinating man; he was about the same age as me and a year behind me in college (I learn from Wikipedia but this is not quite how it describes his college career) and a stalwart of the Dramat but I can’t say I remember any productions in which he was involved. He talked about the films he had made (loads) and then I realised he was the director of Brooklyn and the Goldfinch (as he said, “one of those much more successful than the other, kind of you not to mention it”) and Life After Life and the second season of True Detective and tons and tons of stuff. He was super-understated and just very pleasant as well as knowledgeable. It was a revelation, he has a new film out which screened as part of the Cork film festival (We Live in Time) which I will definitely be going to see when it comes out. It struck me that if he were from Dublin I would definitely have read about him in the Irish Times and indeed this event but the Irish Times does have a tendency to gloss over people who don’t live in or come from Dublin. Is it any wonder Cork people are, I don’t want to say bitter, but bitter adjacent.

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And one final, thing as Columbo would say, a very famous chipper in Cork called Jackie Lennox’s closed down. It was such big news that it was even covered in the Irish Times. My brother queued for about three hours for fish and chips on its last day of operation.

Anyhow, when I was visiting my parents’ cemetery on Tory Top road (Cork word for a pine cone, unknown anywhere else), I passed the establishment in the photograph below. It has (you will have to take my word for it) the same lettering as the closed down chipper. It has obviously been here for some time. What is going on? A real mystery.

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Proustian


Posted in: Cork, Ireland, Siblings

I’m in Cork for the weekend for my sister’s birthday. I haven’t been down since the summer. I went to inspect my parents’ gravestone; newly inscribed. It was a bit damp and gloomy, perfect cemetery weather.

And I inspected the work my sister has done in her attic. It’s all thrills.

I went for a walk around the Honan Chapel and thought about how my family history intersected with this Celtic revival church.

Because I don’t live here or even visit very often now, Cork has become a place of memory and reminders of the past for me. I’m not sure how I feel about that.

The Boat to England


Posted in: Mr. Waffle, Princess, Travel

Mr. Waffle and I drove herself to England at the start of October. Having finished a degree in foreign parts you would think she might come home but no, she is doing a master’s as well. The whole thing was rendered a great deal more stressful than it might have been by having the car booked in for a service the day before departure. It was going to be ready, then it wasn’t, then they were waiting for a part. It was a roller coaster during which we looked up hire cars (not actually very easy to find car hire people who will let you take the car out of the jurisdiction) and investigated how to change the ferry booking. There was a great deal of trauma which is frankly being skimmed over in this paragraph.

This was the first time Mr. Waffle had done this trip and he kept commenting on how onerous it was. “It’s even worse when you have to do all the driving yourself,” I kept saying grumpily.

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Season of Mists etc.


Posted in: Dublin, Ireland

We had another bumper apple harvest this year. Falling fruit came and stripped the trees and took away 75kgs. But still, I have made enough apple jelly to sink a battle ship. I have also made apple sauce and apple tart.

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And I still have loads in the shed. And I put a box at the gate in which the children going to the school at the bottom of the road showed a rather tepid interest. They were free but they were apples. There are still loads of windfalls rolling around the back garden as well waiting to be swept up when I am feeling strong.

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This is on top of my jam production from earlier in the summer. Sadly the rhubarb and ginger was not a success. The rhubarb came from my mother’s friend’s garden in the suburbs and by the time I got my mitts on it, it was a bit past its best. I never really thought that I would be a jam and jelly maker but circumstances alter cases I guess.

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The Month of the Dead


Posted in: Family, Mr. Waffle

November is the month of the dead for Catholics and we say masses for dead people and think about them. I am not normally a big fan of Michael Harding who has a quirky column in the Irish Times but he had a lovely column the other day about visiting the cemetery which I would link to, if their paywall policy was not weaponised. I’m going to Cork at the weekend, and this article has reminded me that it might be a good opportunity to visit the cemetery where my aunt and my parents, and indeed my Cork great-grandparents and almost all their children are buried (my grandmother and grandfather were buried elsewhere with his people).

I often think of my beloved Limerick grandmother in November. Her birthday was November 25th and I can still remember how excited I felt whenever she came to visit. Limerick was a lot further away in those days and when she travelled to our house in Cork she came for long visits of (is it possible?) up to a month at a time. I loved it when she stayed. She was just a delight. I may have mentioned that the children pointed out to me that I am so old that not only do I know someone who was born in the 1800s but I am old enough to miss someone born in the 1800s. This has given me pause for thought.

My mother-in-law’s first anniversary is coming up. My father-in-law and my own parents are long gone. I mean, am I next for take off? Let’s not be morbid here, but this quote really spoke to me:

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Always lots of funerals available in Ireland. Someone emailed me about a former colleague’s father (“I knew you’d want to know” – did you? did you really?). I decided to ignore it until I got a further email from someone else about the same man so I reached into my pile of sympathy cards and wrote a nice note. I personalised it, talked about how hard it was so soon after his wife’s mother’s death; how difficult it must be for the children. I addressed it. I came very close to posting it when I suddenly realised that I was thinking of a completely different person with the same slightly unusual first name. It took a lot out of me.

I sent a whatsapp message to another former colleague who is now distinguishing himself elsewhere. It’s a bit weird on whatsapp because you see a profile picture in a personal context and if you only know someone from work, it can be a surprise. He had a profile picture of himself and his mother to whom I knew he was very close. In between congratulating him on the new role, I commented on the lovely profile picture. I think you know where this is going. She had died since I saw him last over the summer. Apparently this is a thing, if someone’s parent dies they use pictures of the parent and themselves as the whatsapp profile photo. I only tell you this so that you don’t have to suffer similar embarrassment to me.

So you know my view on the unnecessary funeral information. However, my friend in America’s father has been ill for the past 6 months but managing ok. She was over and back a fair bit and I asked her to let me know, if anything happened. Then she texted me one Sunday to say her father had died the previous Wednesday. I instantly began calculating when the funeral would be. Provided it wasn’t the next Wednesday, I felt I could move things and make it (it was in Cork). Then she added that the funeral had been the day before. I was gutted. Saturday is a very convenient day for a funeral in Cork and she is one of my oldest friends. I frequently stayed in her parents’ house in west Cork during the summers. I would have wanted to know. But what was I to do? Upbraid her for not telling me earlier? She didn’t want to inconvenience me but I really wanted to be inconvenienced. I had actually considered putting an alert on rip.ie (a thing!) but it just seemed too weird. I was sure that news would reach me through the inevitable grapevine but it did not. Alas. And now I have a card to write to her and another for her mother and I am finding it quite hard. Yes, it is all about me. Your point? I remember many years ago when I started my blog my friend mocking the “About” bit saying, it’s all about you.

And finally in funeral news, Mr. Waffle’s friend’s father died. They live right at the bottom of Wicklow. A good two hours drive away. Mr. Waffle couldn’t go to the funeral on Tuesday due to a work commitment so he went to the removal on Monday night (my friend says no one in England knows what a removal is – can this be true? – it’s a service the evening before the funeral). I knew all this. But yet, I promised my friend around the corner a lift to bookclub 10kms away and when I came out of the house at 7, I was surprised to find the car wasn’t there. We may be looking at compartmentalisation. Which, by the way, is a good way to deal with thoughts of the inevitable.