The weather around here has been snowy and everything is looking beautiful.
This inspired me to start singing Christmas songs. I was half way through “O Holy Night” over the breakfast table (my family have to put up with a great deal) when Daniel said, “I know that one.” I stopped and smiled encouragingly, “You sing it then, sweetheart.” He began at once, “Davy, Davy Crockett, king of the wild frontier.”
The phone rang and the Princess answered. I heard her end of the call. “Yes” she said tersely followed by an equally terse “no”. Then she handed me over the phone. It was my sister calling from America. “Did you feel that your niece was overjoyed to hear your voice?” I asked. “Was it exciting to be greeted by someone so audibly delighted to pick up the phone?” The Princess looked at me balefully and said, “Sarcasm is wasted on the young, you know.”
“One Day” by David Nicholls
Not as good as “Starter for Ten”.
“A Hatful of Sky” by Terry Pratchett
Unchallenging. Readable children’s fiction by the man who brought you Discworld.
“Freedom” by Jonathan Franzen
I did not like “The Corrections” very much but I was surprised to find myself really liking this. And there’s nothing like really enjoying a book about middle class middle aged angst and realising that it runs to over 500 pages. Do they not have editors in North America?
The Princess and I are up late watching the Late Late Toy Show, along with the nation’s twitterati: I see #LateLateToyShow is trending. Well, it beats the bailout.
When I lived in Brussels, I was once walking in Matonge during the evening and a black woman spat at me. It was a bit disconcerting but I assume you could write it down to madness rather than racial tension.
In the Princess’s class in Belgium, there was a little black boy called Charles. She once said to me that she was one of the Belgians in her class but he was not Belgian. When asked where he was from she couldn’t say but she was adamant that black people couldn’t be Belgian. As she was an Irish child talking about a Belgian little boy, there was some irony there.
Once a Chinese baby looking at the Princess started to cry. “He probably wishes he had Belgian skin like me,” she commented.
I’m sure that racism is alive and well in Ireland but I am glad that it seems to have completely stopped appearing in my daughter’s conversation in the way that it did in Belgium and never appeared on the boys’ radar at all as far as I can see. It’s not all bad here, you know. Though being the centre of European attention as a bush fire that may lead to contagion is about as much fun as you would think it might be. I was at the National History Museum with the kids yesterday (near the Dáil and Government buildings) and the place was heaving with foreign camera crews. If you saw small children in grey uniforms waving behind the reporter who carried the Irish story in your country, they were mine.
Michael does not like much. The long list of foods he will not touch includes sweets. For special occasions he likes crisps (or cwisps as he refers to them).
This morning I got this email from my husband.
From: Husband
Sent: 24 November 2010 12:37
To: Wife
Subject: Sounds like one for Michael
From the journal:
TAYTO PARK: The world’s first theme park dedicated to the humble crisp, Tayto Park, opens today. Launched on 55 acres of Meath farmland by crisp king Ray Coyle, the park will create 85 jobs and offer children the chance to visit Santa, experience a Native American village or, er, eat Irish crisps.
I thought you would like to know.