belgianwaffle

Laying the Ghost of Carlingford


Posted in: Family, Ireland

Very attentive readers will remember that I took the family to Carlingford some time ago and the memory of the hideousness of that trip has stayed with the children, in particular.

For Mr. Waffle’s birthday, he and I decided to go off together for the day without the children and he suggested that we might go to Carlingford. We did and it was absolutely lovely.

2013-03-19 024

2013-03-19 021

Inspired by this, I decided to take the children there again. Knowing that Carlingford was a toxic brand in our household, I advertised it as a trip to see the mountains that inspired C.S. Lewis when he was writing the Narnia stories (quite true). As we approached Carlingford, the Mourne mountains dominated and I pointed to “the twin peaks of Archenland!”. Michael said coldly, “I think I’ve been here before and I didn’t like it.” Ah, magical. The car park was beside a playground and they all ran for it. It was my turn to be cold. I turned to Mr. Waffle and said, “I didn’t drive for an hour and a half to spend the afternoon in a playground beside the car park.”

We pushed on and walked up the side of Slieve Foy for a bit and back down. Herself was heroic, inventing some elaborate game which her brothers really enjoyed during our gentle walk (about an hour – the sun shone). The boys grudgingly agreed that it was not too bad.

2013-04-20 010

And we had chips in the pub afterwards. What’s not to love?

For the Record


Posted in: Twins, Youngest Child

Michael lost a front tooth on April 23. The second is very wobbly. He is odds on to have no top front teeth for his first communion on May 25.

2013-04-25 005

Archive


Posted in: Cork, Family, Ireland

Before she broke her hip, my mother was going through old letters. She rang me and asked whether I wanted to keep my letters to her. “Nope,” I said, “I didn’t even know you still had them, throw them out.”

I’ve been spending a lot of time in my parents’ house since then and I found the big black bag of letters in the dining room waiting to be sent for recycling. I started to leaf through them. The first thing that astonished me was that there were so many of them. I wrote a lot of letters from airports. And then from when I lived in Brussels and before that in Rome. I seemed to spend every spare minute I had writing letters [and I know that I wrote to friends as well – I was clearly a writing machine]. They had, I regret to say, no great literary merit but thematically they seemed to cover: looking for jobs; asking for money and thanking my parents for money already received. I was certainly reminded of the extent to which my loving parents had bankrolled my early years in the work place. No wonder they were so relieved when I finally managed to get properly paid employment as opposed to my time doing traineeships and internships.

I let the letters go into the bin. I suppose they stopped when email got going, sometime between 1995 and 1998. Imagine, I am from the last generation of people who routinely put pen to paper to share news. Who would have thought?

Not Topical


Posted in: Reading etc.

A colleague was telling me the other day how she got stuck in New York with the ash cloud a couple of years ago. As she arrived into her hotel there, she asked whether they had WiFi and all the other things she might need. “Ma’am,” said the receptionist, “there’s a man running Norway from the top floor.” It appears that the Norwegian prime minister and his officials were stranded there also. That is all.

Reading


Posted in: Reading etc.

“An Infamous Army” by Georgette Heyer

I don’t know why I read this, I know when Georgette Heyer does history it’s dire. This was dire but if you want a blow by blow account of the Battle of Waterloo and a very annoying heroine, this is the book for you.

“Letters to a Young Mathematician” by Ian Stewart

This was foisted on me by a colleague who loves maths and I found it very interesting although the tone is a bit patronising (but the maths examples baffling in places) – it’s written as career advice to a young mathematician so, to be fair, I’m not exactly the target audience. I was particularly pleased to have an explanation of axioms, never having been satisfied with the one my maths teacher gave me at 15: “It’s something that is so obvious it has to be true”. This is both insulting and unhelpful and I’ve been resentful ever since. Until now, anyhow, thank you, Mr. Stewart, for helping me to let go.

“Isn’t It Well For Ye?: The Book of Irish Mammies” by Colm O’Regan

Somebody was bound to give me this at some point. It’s mildly funny. I can sort of identify with the Irish Mammy but at least I’ve never taken the Sunday Independent.

“Six at the Table” by Sheila Maher

I really enjoyed this. It is an account of a girl growing up in Dublin in the 70s told through her love of food. Although each individual chapter is slight the cumulative effect is quite appealing. Herself read it also and enjoyed it. I recommended it to my book club but too many of them knew the author or her husband [welcome to Ireland, we’re a small country] and couldn’t face it. One of the chapters had been read out on Sunday Miscellany on the radio and two of our number had heard it and pronounced it dull. I argued hard that it did the book an injustice to take a chapter alone but in vain. If you grew up in Ireland in the 1970s you might like this. Go on, give it a go.

“The Hundred-Year-Old Man who Climbed out of the Window and Disappeared” by Jonas Jonasson

This is Forrest Gump for Swedes. The hero experienced all the great events of the 20th century and met all the most important people. It’s all written in a rather whimsical tone. I loathed it but I am in a minority.

“Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother” by Amy Chua

This is about a very ambitious mother and her very bright daughters and the contrast between the Western and Chinese ways of doing things. I found it very entertaining. As did the Princess and Mr. Waffle. Recommended all round.

“Rebecca” by Daphne Du Maurier

I’m almost positive I have read this before. I don’t remember being so very annoyed by the narrator in the past though. Nor do I remember thinking that Maxim was a bit of a creep and that, all in all, Rebecca may have been the best of the bunch. Mrs. Danvers was a looper alright though. That remained consistent. Still, despite all the caveats, a great story. The best part for me are the beautiful descriptions of the house and surrounding countryside which, if I had read it before, made no impression on me then.

“Life after Life” by Kate Atkinson

I have read all of Kate Atkinson’s books and I think that she is a terrific writer. That said, this got off to a slow start. It’s about getting a chance to live your life again and again and doing things differently to make it better next time. It’s a clever premise and it’s very well done. While this is still a very good book, it’s my least favourite of her books after “Not the End of the World” [short stories] and “Emotionally Weird”.

“Ghosts and Gadgets” by Marcus Sedgwick

This is part of my ongoing efforts to find out what my children are reading. This is about the Otherhand Family who live in Castle Otherhand and are very odd. I found it spectacularly dull but it appeals to the children in my life. I quite liked the illustrations but that was by far the best thing about it for my money.

The Church Garden Party


Posted in: Dublin, Family, Ireland

This event is likely to send me to an early grave. I was trapped into joining the organising committee and I am just not cut out for this kind of thing. It’s like a continuation of work by other means. At the lengthy meetings we usually fail to reach conclusions and all of the real work seems to be done elsewhere [how much have I enjoyed dropping in requests for funding, cakes and spot prizes to struggling local businesses?]. The parish priest keeps coming in and being anxious about insurance. We can’t have a stage, lest someone should fall. We will have to know the provenance of all cakes for insurance reasons. I can’t for the life of me see why. He says we can take names and phone numbers of the little old ladies who make cakes and if anyone gets ill we can show we made reasonable efforts. The parish priest and I had words on this point. I was tempted to say that this will make us “data controllers” but wiser counsels prevailed. He also insisted that no unaccompanied children under 18 should be allowed to attend. How we are supposed to police this is beyond me.

Worst of all though, I had to make an announcement at mass about the forthcoming excitement. This did not seem particularly challenging. Doesn’t my 10 year old daughter go on to the altar every Sunday and read a prayer of the faithful? Am I not used to making presentations at work? All I had to do was read out the printed text in front of me. I am good at reading. I bounded up on to the altar and surveyed the church. Do you know what, those Victoian gothic churches are built on massive lines. It was the largest space I had ever addressed. And although congregations are falling I thought, as I surveyed the large numbers looking up at me, they could do with falling a bit further. I started to read. I was quavery and short of breath. It was terrifying. I returned to my pew, absolutely mortified. Herself hissed at me, “You were terrible!” Worse, the little old lady beside me said, “You did fine.” After mass, I said to Mr. Waffle, “Tell me honestly, how bad was it?” “Well,” he said, “remember everyone has forgotten about it now except you.” Pause. “It was just the way you sounded like you were going to cry and that the announcement was really sad when you were talking about a party; that was a bit unfortunate.” Oh the mortification. And, of course, I have to go back and see the same people every Sunday forever. Oh horrors. I think I will cry now.