belgianwaffle

Belated Happy New Year


Posted in: Family

“What news from the Waffle Christmas?” I hear you ask anxiously. You have been consulting this website daily in hopes of an update. And, then again, perhaps not.

Well, Michael spent Christmas morning in tears as he got nothing he liked from Santa. He went to a lot of trouble to write a list including items such as a “sleep bomb” and a “spy plane” and, of course, “an x-box” but he didn’t get any of them. Great was his wrath. Alas. On the plus side, his brother and sister were quite pleased with their gifts.

On St. Stephen’s Day, we went orienteering in the Dublin mountains. This turned out to be a poor choice for reasons which are, I think, abundantly clear from the photographs below.

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On the 27th we went to Cork where the boys got an X-box. We didn’t see them for the remainder of our time in Cork as they spent it on the couch wielding virtual light sabres.

We returned to Dublin on December 30 with the two boys and the x-box. Herself stayed in Cork for a couple of days bonding with her Cork relatives.

I went into the office on December 31 and the place was like a morgue. I cannot believe how much work I got done. I was delighted with myself. Mr. Waffle said that I was on a bureaucratic high when he dragged me out at 6.15. Very kind friends had a new year’s eve dinner party where we stayed until nearly 4 in the morning (and we were the first to leave). Mr. Waffle drove to his parents’ house to collect the two boys in the morning and I was able to sleep in. I still had to go to bed at 9 the next two nights. I am, frankly, not as resilient as I once was.

As a reward for reading this far, may I refer you to a rather more entertaining tale of Christmas celebrations from a monastery? The whole world is on the internet, really.

Have you any good new year resolutions? I have none. I feel that I can never successfully top my January 2011 resolution so have given up. That’s the spirit, I think you’ll agree.

Ready


Posted in: Family

Mr. Waffle has taken the children out and I am sitting at home alone. I have finished the paper. There are carols on the stereo. The cat is sleeping on the rug. The Christmas tree lights are lit. Night is falling [which means that they will all be back soon because the park in the dark is no good; indeed have just received text message – ‘Park went well. In pub eating crisps. Home soon.’ All the news as it happens, that’s this blog]. All our preparations are complete. We have been so busy over the past couple of weeks and it is lovely that all is peaceful and quiet. Later all will be business and excitement laying out food and stockings for Santa; the Christmas carol service [slight nervousness]; washing children in preparation for Christmas morning; and shooing them back to bed as they venture downstairs to double check that all is in readiness.

Happy Christmas.

Untitled

Failing to Walk in the Air


Posted in: Dublin, Ireland, Princess

The Princess and I had a very traumatic choir practice the other night. The choir director for the Christmas carol service came (an important man who was far less interested in us than our normal choir director). The choir launched into various hymns (unknown to the Princess and me) in 5 parts. Sitting between the altos and the sopranos, with another three parts going on in the surrounding pews, and with no idea how to read music, I felt that I had zero chance of picking up any of the tunes. I was correct.

“Descant!” said the director. “What,” I hissed to the nice lady beside me, “is a descant?” Oh Lord.

Later one of the younger teenagers sang “Walking in the Air” alone. “That was lovely,” I said to her mother. Her mother repeated it to her and I heard her reply witheringly to her mother’s mortification “Anne, doesn’t even know what a descant is.”

The carol service is on Christmas Eve. The Princess and I are nervous. I think only prayer can help us now.

Mothers and Daughters


Posted in: Princess

Me: Are you trying to drive your mother to an early grave?
Her: I don’t have to try.

Like a Trap in a Trap*


Posted in: Dublin, Ireland

As I was walking home from mass last Sunday I was somewhat behind the main posse as the boys had cycled ahead with their father and my sister and herself were walking ahead together. This man I knew vaguely from mass came up to me and introduced himself. I felt like a little antelope cut off from the herd. My instincts were not at fault.

“We’re having a summer party in the church,” he said. “Mmm,” I said non-committally. “Would you like to organise entertainment for the children?” he asked. Oh no, I would not. “I’ll be doing the barbecue,” he said. Of course, I’m on the wretched organising committee, of course I am. He got me in a weak moment as I had just emerged from mass with Fr. Boston who made different bits of the church shout out different things. Those in the transept had to shout “Be Ready” and my sister who lived in Chicago for years alarmed many of the congregation by shouting out with enthusiasm rather than the usual apathy which greets Fr. Boston’s efforts.

I suppose this will make me a better person.

*As Dorothy Parker would say; though not in this context.

Reading


Posted in: Reading etc.

“A Traitor’s Kiss” by Fintan O’Toole [New Year’s Resolution]

I started off enjoying this very much. It’s a biography of Richard Brinsley Sheridan. But then at 22 Sheridan wrote his first play and Fintan, our national cultural commentator, begins analysing the plays and it is tedious. Alas. However, despite what you might have thought (well certainly despite what I thought), Sheridan was quite the politico. I hadn’t realised that he had played such a pivotal role in the Warren Hastings trial or that he was quite so pally with the Prince Regent. Or indeed, that he died in debt with the bailiffs at the door. All very dramatic.

Due to my relentless reading and re-reading of Georgette Heyer, I have developed quite an interest in English history from about 1780-1820 and I have read a certain amount of non-fiction about this era as well. But it’s so complex: the French revolution, Napoleon, the loss of the American colonies, the 1798 rebellion (big in Ireland though less so in England), the dissolution of the Irish parliament and the Act of Union (ditto), not to mention the madness of George III, Fox and Pitt [did you know that Fox was a first cousin of Edward Fitzgerald?] and politics with the beginning of parties. This book doesn’t make it easy to follow even for the interested and somewhat informed reader.

This is quite an old book and I think that the author’s style has improved over the years. I still find him pretty hard going in the newspaper but I read his book “Ship of Fools” a while ago and I found it quite understandable. Some of the sentences in this are so involved that it is difficult to have any idea what the author is on about. His use of pronouns is, frankly, suboptimal.

I was slightly surprised to see the extensive references to Lord Edward Fitzgerald. Sheridan’s wife, Elizabeth Linley, famous in her own right had an affair with Lord Edward. Though I had read a biography of him relatively recently, I had no memory of this. However, on looking again at the Lord Edward biography, I saw that it got quite a bit of air time [I think my memory has finally given up]. It was interesting to contrast the attention given to Elizabeth by both authors. Fintan O’Toole gives very little information about Elizabeth and her life before she meets Sheridan but Stella Tillyard, the author of the Lord Edward book gives lots of background. It struck me that Fintan might usefully have filled in readers a bit more about Elizabeth.

However, I must say that I was in the Smock Alley Theatre recently (just restored and re-opened) and was charmed to see copies of old playbills on the wall featuring Thomas Sheridan (father of our hero and manager of the theatre in the 18th century) about whom I would have known almost nothing if I hadn’t read this.

“Long Walk to Freedom” by Nelson Mandela [New Year’s Resolution]

Interesting enough but a bit one thing happened after another in style. I suppose if you’re reading this, you’re not really here for the quality of the writing.

His first three children get pretty short shrift. His little girl who died at 9 months gets three quarters of a page. The birth of his second son is given a couple of short lines. His first son gets a little bit more of the action. Even by the standards of the 1940s/50s, he doesn’t strike me as a very hands on father. He admits as much. Winnie, his much more famous and clearly more loved, second wife gets a lot more air time but still plays second fiddle to his work in politics.

And there is lots about his work in politics. It’s a long, long book. By page 350 you’re still dealing with internal wrangling in ANC committees and it does strike one that organisational politics are the same everywhere and you need to be a very gifted author with very strong material to make committee wrangling interesting.

That said by about page 500, I was quite enjoying myself. I knew he was in Robben Island for the long haul and the cast of characters for obvious reasons becomes narrower. Also, he does have a quite extraordinary story to tell and when you strip out the ANC/PAC rivalry and have more about him, it becomes a lot more interesting and more human.

When I finally finished it, I did feel a little sad because by the end, I was quite enjoying the company of this rather lovely man.

“The Dinner” by Herman Koch

The narrator of this book is profoundly disturbed and disturbing. I couldn’t really get past that. I didn’t find it particularly engrossing or page turnerish (which I had been promised). It’s the story of two couples who go out to dinner. The men are brothers and their sons (first cousins) have committed a very nasty crime and have not been caught. One of the brothers is a successful politician. All the ingredients are there for a very clever book but for my money, it didn’t deliver at all.

“The Long Song” by Andrea Levy

Someone at work foisted this on me when I mentioned that I had enjoyed “Small Island”. It’s fine and an easy read. But I wasn’t crazy about it. I think it’s a bit overwritten and though lots and lots happens the story is a bit slow to get going. The author has done a lot of research and she is determined to use it all. A mistake, I feel.