The childminder was talking to me about the children’s homework. “Daniel keeps reversing his “b”s and “d”s,” he said. “Not to worry,” I said, “I used to do the exact same thing myself.” The Princess piped up, “I didn’t know that you were dyslexic Mum.”
– I’m not dyslexic, it’s just that when I was little I reversed by “b”s and “d”s.
– Dyslexia is nothing to be ashamed of Mum.
– I know it’s not, it’s just that I’m not dyslexic.
– It’s alright, lots of people are dyslexic, you know.
Confidence Boosting
Strike 1
I was recounting to Mr. Waffle in the car how I dreamt that when I arrived at my office it was occupied by a young whipper-snapper and I was confined to a desk in a dark windowless cubbyhole. “And I didn’t even protest,” I said mournfully.
Strike 2
Herself pipes up from the back, “That was a dream? But it sounds like exactly the kind of thing that would happen to you in real life!”
Strike 3
I was telling a friend in work about this and she said, “Gosh your daughter knows you really well, doesn’t she?”
Busy Day
Today is:
Google’s 14th birthday;
The feast day of Saint Vincent de Paul;
And of Saint Michael;
The feast of the French Community of Belgium (for details, I refer you here);
My parents’ 45th wedding anniversary;
And Daniel and Michael’s 7th birthday.
Update – 24 October
And I finally got around to writing a birthday note.
Thank You for Pushing my Boundaries
That’s what my husband said to me in tones of mild bitterness earlier this evening. We went to see “The Boys of Foley Street” in the Dublin Theatre Festival. It was very hard to get tickets. This difficulty was explained when the tickets arrived with an explanatory note that there were only four audience members for each show. I was unnerved. Mr. Waffle said acidly, “I bet there’s going to be audience participation.” He was right.
Then I got this email:
Dear Anne,
Thank you for your recent booking of tickets to The Boys of Foley Street as part of Dublin Theatre Festival.
I am getting in touch with you now to let you know that since you made the booking we have learned that the production contains scenes of sexual violence. As this is a new piece and constantly evolving, we were not aware of this at the time of your booking. We want our audiences to enjoy every Festival show they attend and we felt it was important to update you so that you would have all the information available on the production.
We advise that The Boys of Foley Street is not suitable for patrons under 16 years of age, and that the production contains material that some may find disturbing.
Should you have any queries or concerns on the content of this material I would be happy to discuss these further with you.
Kind regards,
Box Office Manager
Dublin Theatre Festival
I have to say that my enthusiasm levels hit record lows. As Mr. Waffle and I trudged through the rain to the venue, I feared the worst. We were led to a car across the road and told to sit in. This documentary was playing on the radio. An alarming looking tramp with a bottle of cider under his arm came and knocked at the car window. Actor or local? Hard to tell but I suppose that this was part of the attraction. I rolled down the car window cautiously. He began to ramble but he seemed more likely to be an actor.
Then we were driven around this very depressed part of the city to a housing estate like this only not as pleasant. There were some locals drinking in a huddle in the corner (not actors) and we went into one of the flats where, alas, we were separated. The actors (lots of them) acted very dysfunctional lives just for you – all by yourself. It was really cleverly done, though intimidating. That was kind of the point, I suppose. I did find myself looking at the actors’ teeth showing fine orthodontic work and saying mentally, these people are not really alarming, violent, alcoholics. No they’re not.
I used the same technique in a back alley while a drug dealer was beaten up and I was holding the IRA man’s coat. [I subsequently found a picture of the actor on the internet drinking prosecco with his friends. My conscience is clear] Mr. Waffle was in a shed sitting in an old car while a dead body slid up and down the roof. Frankly, I wouldn’t have minded having him to hand as that would have stopped the actor playing the alarming tramp giving me a kiss (peck on the cheek, but still) because I was his girlfriend. We finished up in a meeting room where pushers were being denounced having been brought there by Macker the reassuring IRA man. When he left, we noticed that our pictures were on the walls. Possibly because we were on “the list”.
Still and all, highly recommended; there are no dull bits.
Running against the Tide
On Saturday I took the children to the Phoenix Park to find that it was closed to cars because there was a half marathon. We parked outside the gates and walked while carrying mountains of kit (me), cycled (Michael deploying new found skills), roller-bladed (herself) and solo-ed (Daniel) 2 kms into the playground at which point we were only fit to turn around and soldier back to the car so that we could get home for lunch.
Then, this morning we dropped Mr. Waffle to the airport (he’s in exotic Finland for work) and went on to a playground in the grounds of a big house nearby. The car park and grounds were full to overflowing. Yes, indeed, another wretched run ruining our weekend.
Some further indications of the national interest in running: the Irish Times is now doing special running articles; lots of my relatives run including ones you might safely assume were a little old for this kind of thing; my colleague who started running a couple of years ago got a bunch of people at work interested and now they’ve gone and won a race – they have a trophy, it’s unmissable; and further the stand-up comedian we went to see the other night is running. I am a little concerned that I may be the one person in Ireland who isn’t running. Look, I had shin splints in 1989 and I’m not going to risk that again.
New Glasses
Did I tell you that Daniel got new glasses in August? Well he did. Note how he has already managed to bend the frames. He has decided that he doesn’t want the little round ones any more as he is a big boy who is nearly 7.
I suppose that the round ones were a bit babyish. He first got his round ones when he was 2 which doesn’t seem quite as long ago to me as it does to him:
