belgianwaffle

Heaven is a Place on Earth


Posted in: Cork, Family, Ireland

I take the children to Cork for the weekend from time to time. During these weekends away from their father – who is all virtue – I tend to give up on the healthy eating/playing in the park regime which we try to achieve in Dublin. As a result their time in Cork is spent eating pizza, watching television and playing on the iPad and the x-box. It’s quite relaxing for me too but, of course, my enjoyment is undercut by a steady pulse of guilt, made no better by the following happy confidence from my youngest child when we last visited: “I love Cork because there aren’t so much [sic] rules.” “How do you mean Michael?” I asked. “When we started playing the x-box it was bright but now it is dark.”

Also, are you singing that Belinda Carlisle number?

Sweet Cork of Thee


Posted in: Cork, Ireland

With one thing and another, I have been in Cork quite a bit recently. Does where you are from become more loved when you move away? Cork is delightful in the Spring (though showery). The city centre is small but not too small. Last time I was there a busker was belting out Spancil Hill in front of the Crawford and the sun was shining and people were milling about and it was lively and familiar.

I was desperate to get out of Cork and see the world when I qualified. I left in 1993 and haven’t lived in Cork for any significant length of time since. When we came back to Ireland from Brussels, Mr. Waffle suggested that we might consider moving to Cork. I did consider it but it didn’t suit for a range of reasons (including that neither of us had a job there) and I was ambivalent about living in Cork again. It’s small and all my friends had left. If I go to Cork now, there is no one I know beyond my immediate family. So, my homesickness is artificial and I think living there would be difficult. When I had the chance, I turned it down. But yet, it is a lovely place and I miss it.

Eavesdropping


Posted in: Ireland, Travel

I was on the train from Limerick to Dublin last night and found myself distracted from my book by the conversation of four young men opposite.

Boy no.l: I am well-pleased with my skipping.
Boy no.2: You’re in the gym all the time alright.
Boy no.4: Diet is very important too.
No. 1: Absolutely, I ballooned in second year because I ate take away all year.
No. 2: I make a mean omelette actually.
No. 3: What do you put in it?
No. 2: I fry up onions… [insert your own description of how to make an omelette here].

[Is it all the images of male supermodels pressuring these young men to worry about their appearance?]

Pause

No. 1: UCC girls are really pretty. But they really know it.
No. 4: They don’t look after themselves like us though, they kind of let themselves go.
No. 3: Yeah, they’re all a bit over-weight. When do you ever see them in the gym?
No. 1: Trinity girls are well fit though. Of course they’re stuck up and all English.
No. 2: UCD girls are beautiful. And they are really natural and down to earth.

[Can I point out here that I was a UCC girl?]

Pause

No. 3: Have you ever seen Blood Diamonds?
Others: No.
No. 3: You have to see it, it’s one of the ten best films I’ve ever seen. It’s set in Sierra Leone.
No. 1 : Where is Sierra Leone?
No. 3 : In West Africa.

[Go Leonardo Di Caprio]

Pause

No. 3: I went to look at a flat and it had an outside toilet.
No. 1: No way, I don’t believe it.
No. 3: Really, I couldn’t stop laughing, it was like something out of the 1980s.

[As someone who lived through the 1980s, I longed to reassure them that despite all our problems, we did have indoor plumbing.]

I’m practising to be the next Maeve Binchy.

Austerity, What Austerity?


Posted in: Dublin, Ireland

Work on the new house is progressing. Mr. Waffle went to give them a cheque the other day and pronounced himself pleased. The electrics will be finished off when our electrician comes back from his skiing holiday in Val Thorens.

Damn You, Stephen Colbert


Posted in: Reading etc.

The boys were playing on the computer and the Princess and I were watching this video about bullying on my phone:

She found Stephen Colbert absolutely hilarious [can’t see it myself but I understand I’m in the minority]. The boys had wandered over from their video game at this point to see what was so funny. They all asked could we see any more videos. I know a lot of Colbert’s stuff can be a bit risqué so I flicked through the offerings on youtube and saw that he gave a commencement speech at Northwestern University. Surely that would be safe enough. It started off tamely. The children found it hysterical. Colbert referred to the students’ proud parents and grandparents. All was well, until about 8 minutes in. That was when he started talking about sex. The children wrested the phone from me, still laughing hysterically. And then, it moved back to safer waters; all was well. Another couple of alarming seconds followed at 11.53 but then back again to firmer ground. Just when I thought it was safe to go back in the water, he hit a final great moment at 19.45.

What was the first question Michael asked his father when he came home from work that evening: “Daddy, what’s a brothel?”

Births, Marriages, Deaths


Posted in: Cork, Ireland

I was in Cork recently for my mother’s birthday. I was collected from the station and promptly sent to mass with my mother for a local priest’s month’s mind.

I hadn’t even known that Fr. C was dead. At the mass (cast of thousands, well 10 priests on the altar) there was a long and interesting sermon about his life which in no respect chimed with what I knew of him. Until I was 11, every evening in term time, my parents would eat with Fr. C while my siblings and I were fed elsewhere. My parents therefore knew him very well and they were fond of him. I only met him occasionally and, as this was the 1970s when adults were not obliged to show interest in children unless they actually were interested (possibly a better system than that which currently applies where everyone has to be fascinated by children all the time), he paid me no great attention.

I was a bit surprised when he turned up on the altar at my wedding to concelebrate the mass with my father’s cousin (who was the priest we had asked to come). On the day, Mr. Waffle raised his eyebrow – who was that – and I shrugged whispering, “Family friend, rather dour.” And then Fr. C christened all my children for me. He was as gruff as ever and I can’t say that I ever had a conversation of any length with him but I came to expect his lined, frowning face at important religious rites. I was surprised to hear the priest at the month’s mind refer to him jovially as Canon Mike and a “charismatic priest”. I can tell you, he was never Canon Mike to me and the charisma, if any, was in trace quantities as far as I was concerned.

Still, I do feel that perhaps, from his now lofty perch in heaven (gruff, but holy, you know) he may just, unexpectedly, keep an eye out for my family here. I stopped and said a quick prayer at his grave on Sunday, just in case.