belgianwaffle

Onwards and Upwards


Posted in: Ireland, Reading etc.

I may have mentioned before that I am thrilled by the successes of my friends.

You are probably familiar with the Gore Vidal line “Every time a friend succeeds, I die a little.” I wouldn’t say that was never true for me but as I’ve got older I’ve got much more philosophical. Particularly when my female friends take on important roles, I feel their success is something bigger than themselves and I love that for them and for me and my children.

My school friend who I met last night has just got a big job as a site manager for a pharmaceutical company. So exciting. On cross-questioning, she told me that there are 3 female site managers across the company’s 47 sites, so some work still to do but it’s a start.

My friend in Holland (Mr. Waffle’s friend first, I have to concede) was offered a chance to go to Aruba for work for six months. She is a mother of 4 – two in college and two still in school. “Are you going to do it?” I asked her awestruck. “Anne,” said she, “I’m in my 50s who is going to offer me a chance to do something like this again?” And off she went, presumably with military style logistical preparations, behind her. The other day she sent Mr. Waffle a photo of a selection of her children and herself and her husband celebrating their 25th wedding anniversary in Aruba. I was delighted. My only regret is that I am now back at work and in no position to go to Aruba on holidays.

6,073 Tweets


Posted in: Dublin, Ireland, Reading etc.

I deleted my Twitter account a while back. For the past number of years I have really only been using it to push out blog posts. There were a couple of readers who came across from Twitter and believe me every reader is precious. But yet, this blog is a hobby not a job and the idea of sharing my content (such as it is) regularly on Twitter was becoming increasingly unappealing.

I am an early adopter and started my time on Twitter in 2007. Early tweets had sadly disappeared by the time I deleted my account so 6,073 is a very conservative estimate of the number of beautifully crafted tweets I put out into the world; my 200 or so followers were doubtless grateful. I did enjoy Twitter for a while but ultimately, it just made me a bit cross and it took up so much time. Overall, I am glad to be gone.

I see the Guardian has given up on Twitter as well. Two big beasts going at once, Elon Musk must be terrified.

Just in under the wire tonight as I was out for dinner with a school friend in Skerries in North Dublin. Apparently the best place in the world to live but quite the drive from the city, I can tell you.

Celebrity Culture


Posted in: Ireland

The traditional Irish approach to seeing celebrities is to ignore them. Partly because we respect their privacy, partly because, as a friend of mine said, “I wouldn’t give them the soot of it.”

I’m not sure whether these days are going but, as the Princess pointed out to me, I would still prefer to give a celebrity the cold shoulder than to pay him or her any attention. I’m not sure that’s still true for everyone, but perhaps.

There’s probably a reason for that. Laura Kennedy an Irish Times columnist who covers living in Australia, philosophy and make up (eclectic) had a beautiful piece recently about Tom, her little nephew in Limerick, who has special needs.

In Ireland, we value conformity. It is central to the Irish political and social project, stemming from a time when uniformity around collective identity was a key tool in combatting imperialism and cultural erosion. That had its benefits. We live in the legacy of some of its drawbacks.

You can’t wear a trench coat to the pub without your friends making Blade Runner references. We like people to fit in. We like to make it clear that we notice when they don’t, in both small, silly ways and larger, more serious ones. It’s a feature of our culture and for people like Tom, it has a higher cost than for the rest of us.

I think that’s probably true.

It’s also maybe why people are in general so friendly. Recently I saw the following (for me anyway) second tier, um, celebrities on the street: Brian O’Driscoll, Michael McDowell and the former archbishop of Dublin. To clarify they were not together. Each of them had a familiar face but not one I could immediately place so I went on the assumption that they were acquaintances of mine whom I had forgotten (a sadly all too familiar experience) and went in for the big hello. Each of them greeted this random stranger with a cheery hello back. It was only after I had passed them in each case that I realised that they were mildly well-known people who were strangers to me.

I have a friend who many years ago did something similar with her then TD (member of parliament) who was also a Minister. He cut her dead. She realised who he was a bit later and never voted for him again. His political career is now long over and although, one assumes, not solely due to this encounter, I don’t imagine it helped.

I went to an Argentinian restaurant recently for the first time (nice, surprisingly low on steak but containing real Argentinian customers saying “sho” and asking for limonada) and I thought I recognised my waitress. “Did I see you doing Irish language stand up?” I asked her. She confirmed that I had done and I told her she was great which she was. I thought, though, that she was a bit mortified about supplementing her income in this way (but, honestly, surely everyone knows that the big money isn’t in Irish language stand up?). Anyway I wish I’d just stuck to my guns and politely pretended I’d never seen her before in my life.

An Evening of Contrasts


Posted in: Dublin, Ireland, Mr. Waffle, Reading etc.

When the children were small, the parish priest asked me to be on the baptism preparation group. I was extremely reluctant (do you think I’m a fool?) but agreed in the end and 15 years later here I am with my children all grown up and still on the baptism preparation group. One of the other members is a grandmother so I am basically doomed to stay there for all time.

It’s quite straightforward there’s a rota and we are sent out in pairs (biblical). We meet in one of the rooms behind the church. The parents who are getting their children baptised that month come in and we go through the service and also talk about the practicalities (when to arrive on the day of the baptism, who does readings etc.) and make sure they have their paperwork (church bureaucracy is surprisingly efficient). We also do some very light proselyting (you might think that this would be unnecessary with people who are bringing their children for baptism but you might be surprised) and try not to scare them.

I had baptism group last night and we had 6 families with first babies for baptism. Mostly people don’t tend to bring the babies but one couple did and she was adorable. They were all lovely and agreeable and the whole thing was grand and as speedy as we could make it.

The speediness was necessary as Mr. Waffle and I were going to the cinema (booked when I had forgotten that I was on the rota for the baptism prep for November and did not know that he would spend the day driving to and from Limerick for a funeral). We saw Anora which has got rave reviews. It’s about an escort who has a relationship with a young rich Russian guy. The first part is very graphic (thank God I hadn’t gone with the children) and I found myself frequently wondering what you have to do to get an 18s cert in this country (it was 16s). Then the middle part when the Armenian henchmen become involved is played for laughs (and is very funny). When the Russian’s parents (who are excellent) fly in on their private jet towards the end it’s still funny but it’s also a bit sad.

Overall, it just seemed sad to me and I could have done without a lot of the graphic detail; I found it a bit exploitative and did not love it. I thought that the cast were outstanding though. In fairness, it was laugh out loud funny in parts and it definitely did not drag. There was lots of Russian which I enjoyed (coming as it did with subtitles). Many, perhaps most, of the actors were Russian and I wonder how this works with the sanctions on Russia at the moment. It’s set in 2019; is that supposed to be a solution to this particular problem?

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.

Untitled

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.

Untitled

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.

Untitled