Mr. Waffle does the laundry. He says if it were up to me, we would never have a clean stitch. I vigorously deny this. I was wearing clean clothes when I met him, wasn’t I?
Four weeks after we moved into the new house, I went to put on the washing machine and remarked, slightly shamefacedly, to herself that this was the first time I’d used it and I wasn’t quite sure how it worked. “Think of it as a small victory for feminism,” she said.
I went into town with herself and we had a look at the National Gallery and then we got back into the car and drove to the Queen of Tarts. Just as we were settling down, my work mobile started to ring. I looked at it balefully. Unknown number. I answered coldly. The caller asked my name. I told him, with increasing coldness. “It’s just that I’ve found your purse on the road and your card is in it.” The saintly finder dropped it into the local Garda station and I was able to go and pick it up (everything still there) even before I had realised it was lost. It is quite true what my mother says, “People are mostly very nice.”
My children hate throwing things out. An empty cereal box can be re-purposed. The plastic wrapping on a magazine can be used to choke a sibling. They watch me like hawks to make sure that I don’t illicitly dispose of things.
Daniel said to me the other night, “You’re not a real Irish Mammy.” As I mentioned before, I received “The Book of Irish Mammies” for my birthday and the children are measuring me against it and, regrettably, generally finding it a very good fit, so I was rather pleased when he said this but a bit surprised too. “Why not?” I asked. “Because you are always throwing things out.”
All I can say is, if I’m always throwing things out, why do we have so much stuff?
When I was in college my then boyfriend’s brother [try to keep up] had a lovely girlfriend. She was a delightful person. Everybody loved her. My own mother was a good friend of lovely gf’s mother and she loved her too. My sister was in lovely gf’s sister’s class in school and she loved her. I didn’t dislike lovely gf,- how could I, she was lovely? – but I did mildly resent the way she was utterly perfect. She got her boyfriend’s parents [also my boyfriend’s parents, if you see what I mean] an orange tree for Christmas. Who buys presents for a boyfriend’s parents? Not me, alas.
As I went in and out of the hospital over the weekend visiting my poor mother, a big shiny board with names engraved in golden letters caught my eye. It was a list of interns of the year and alongside it winners of a medal for youthful brilliance. Who was on the list of interns of the year? Lovely gf, that’s who. Who was the only intern featured on the list who also won the gold medal for being brilliant at medicine and lovely [possibly not actual title]? Oh yes indeed, the lovely gf. I’m not jealous, no really, I’m not. It’s just that she’s haunting me.
My mother had her operation yesterday and it all seems to have gone well. I do think Irish hospitals are good at operating and treating people, it’s just the ancillaries that seem to be sadly lacking. Anyhow, her recovery will be slow enough and she won’t be discharged until next week and then probably to somewhere they can do rehabilitation but the prospects look reasonably rosy. Thanks for the good wishes.
Keep your fingers crossed for her please or pray to your gods, if appropriate.
Before I ended up staying in Cork for the weekend, we had planned to go to Northern Ireland for a day trip. The children were not enthused. Mostly because they, quite rightly, scented the prospect of a health giving walk. The Princess however began to plough a particularly fertile furrow. “I’m scared, we’ll be bombed,” said she. “Don’t be daft,” we said pointing to the Belfast agreement and, more practically, the people we knew from Northern Ireland and the fact that the sixth class school tour was going there; she knows that her school principal is not a man for taking unnecessary risks. It was at this point that Daniel felt inspired to intone from the back seat “Ireland unfree shall never be at peace!”
I think we may have to look a bit more closely at his reading material. Mr. Waffle tells me that Daniel has been reading a “very green” children’s history of Ireland and Mr. Waffle feels that peace and reconciliation may not be among the themes addressed. All the more reason to take them off to see the glories of Northern Ireland where they can see swords being beaten into ploughshares with their very eyes or, more likely, have a walk followed by tea and a bun in a National Trust property.