belgianwaffle

Nature, tooth, claw etc.


Posted in: Family, Mr. Waffle

Having just disposed of the flies, we now appear to have a wasps’ nest in the old extractor fan shaft. Home ownership is so trying.

Mr. Waffle bought foam, a mask and a boiler suit and sprayed the wasps. Now they may well be dead. The smell of insecticide foam has invaded our kitchen. Would you say that is good?

We are going on holidays tomorrow (East Cork, West Kerry, try to keep up) and as well as packing (v. traumatic), I decided that I would empty the fridge of food likely to go off. I found that we have, inter alia, smoked salmon, two eggs, a packet of sausages and most of a roast chicken as well as half a birthday cake which the children and Mr. Waffle made for the childminder. I told my loving husband that we would have a picnic tomorrow on our way to Cork. I asked him to go to the attic to get down the tasteful wicker picnic basket which we received as a wedding present but he demurred on the grounds that our luggage is already so extensive (two large bags, several smaller bags, buckets, spades, balls, hurleys, swing ball etc.) that it would hardly fit.

Contemplating my fridge findings, I decided chicken, stuffing and mayonnaise sandwiches would be nice. This is why just moments ago at 23.30, I was whisking oil and egg yolk (one egg slipped from my nervous grasp) in the insecticide foam infected kitchen. I may well be losing my mind.

Anyway, we’re off for a fortnight and posting will be limited. I’ll tell you all about it when I get back. There’s something for you to look forward to.

Recommendation


Posted in: Dublin, Ireland

Some time ago we acquired the Pevsner guide to Dublin. It has, obviously, come into its own since our return to the empire’s second city. The author, Christine Casey, is a fantastic writer. She deftly, accurately and sometimes wittily describes the buildings between Dublin’s canals.

Recently we noticed a large mansion in a very run down part of Dublin.
Aldborough House

Pevsner told us it was Aldborough House and Dr. Casey introduced it thus: “Above the portico the thoroughly misleading motto Otium cum Dignitate (Leisure with Dignity). This grandiose and yet remarkably dull house is a testament to the inveterate vanity of Edward Augustus Stratford, 2nd Earl of Aldborough.” In describing the house, she says witheringly “The main facade is a traditional Palladian composition in all but proportion.” She includes an “oft quoted but indispensable [contemporary] account by Lady Hardwicke”: “The staircase is richly adorned with paintings. Let one be in your idea a model for the rest. Imagine a large panel occupied by the “Triumph of Amphitrite”personified by Lady Aldborough in a riding habit with Minervas’s helmet, sitting on the knee of Lord Aldborough [then aged 57] in a complete suit of regimentals, Neptune having politely resingned his seat in the car to his Lordship, and contenting himself with the office of coachman to the six well fed tritons. The whole corps of sea-nymphs attend the car in the dress of Nereids! But each, instead of a vocal shell bears in hand a medallion with picture (the head and shoulders as large as life) of and admiral’s wigs, bald heads, crops etc. Think of a whole mansion decorated in theis way.”

See what I mean? Within 20 years of its completion, it was being used as a school (by a Luxemburger – extraordinary no?) and now it is, apparently, very delapidated offices having put in some considerable time as a store house. Which, for all its lack of merit, does seem rather sad.

Cork News


Posted in: Cork, Family, Ireland

The Princess and I graced Cork briefly over the weekend. We went to the Lough to feed the birds. Guiltily, we brought grapes rather than stale bread – our usual offering. We were somewhat chastened by reports in the Examiner of the death of 40 swans from botulism. Unfortunately, other visitors did not seem to have read the report. Let me tell you that those swans (like the species I know best) do not know what’s good for them (I really wanted to write “what side their bread is buttered on” and I almost stopped myself). We cast our grapes upon the waters and they sank unnoticed and unloved while others got a great response from fresh bread. They even, kindly, offered some bread to the little girl who was bitterly chucking grapes in the water. We also tried some cherry tomatoes but swans and ducks don’t like those much either.

I had a look, with my parents, at the digital photographic archive of the National Library. What is really astonishing is how little Cork has changed in nearly 150 years. The layout of the streets is determined by the twisting of the river’s channels and the contours of the hills and the centre is very much the same. Although the city was burnt in 1920 by the Black and Tans, the new buildings that went up to fill the gaps fitted into the same streetscape and were not so radically different as to render the streets unrecogniseable in their previous incarnation.

Browsing through the photographs, we came across several of the papal nuncio’s visit to Cork. Specifically, several pictures which are set in a very well-known Cork institution. These are captioned “Papal Nuncio in Cork: Large crowd scenes (in grounds of Rochestown College ?) “. This building is most emphatically not Rochestown College. On seeing these my father and I laughed aloud and he said sagely, “ah yes, you must never trust anything from the great wen” as he has taken to calling Dublin. Gentle reader, can you identify the institution in this picture?

Papal Nuncio

If you can, if it is obvious, even to the internet, I think a strongly worded letter to the national library is called for. This brings me back to the problem of second cities everywhere which I always feel more acutely after visiting Cork. In Ireland, it sometimes feels that everything is run from Dublin and for Dublin. This impression is compounded by the national broadcaster, RTE, which rarely ventures outside the Dublin suburbs to report news, relying on the odd file recording to indicate national coverage (in the current climate they seem keen to show a longish queue outside the Cork dole office – same one, every time). Compared, however, to the Irish Times, RTE covers a wide range of the country. The Irish Times doesn’t even cover all of the Dublin suburbs let alone distant outposts like Cork. I note, however, that recently the Irish Times has been running articles about things to do in West Cork. Do not be deceived, this is merely to inform its Dublin readership. Certain Dubliners like to descend on West Cork en masse for their summer holidays to the intense chagrin of Cork city residents who regard it as their holiday destination. Annoyingly, the Dubliners tend to go to different places every year whereas Cork people tend to go religiously to the same place. This means that when you speak of West Cork with Dubliners, you are instantly at a disadvantage as you only know Goleen or Skibbereen after a childhood spent staring out the windows in the rain in these spots. Dubliners on the other hand speak with irritating confidence of Union Hall, Roscarberry, Skib (they will always use the local abbreviation), Clon (see, always) and Castletownbere and so on. And, to add insult to injury, they have also been in Mayo and Galway, where you have never been because you always went to Skibereen on your summer holidays. We are going to East Cork this summer, I don’t think I could stand the opprobium, if I ventured west with my little Dublin family.

Summer Timetable


Posted in: Ireland, Mr. Waffle, Princess, Twins

Fresh from our experience of Belgian summer “stages”, in the spring we started looking for ways to entertain our daughter in the month of July when she would be on holidays but we would not.

In March I signed her up for a week at the National Concert Hall. It cost €150. The week before the course started in July, they were advertising places for €75. The early worm gets the bird. The course started at 10 and none of the other aspiring musicians appeared to be the offspring of two parents who worked as there parents were able to drop them off and collect them. A task which we delegated to C, a nice French girl on our books. Nevertheless, it did run for more or less the duration of the school day and herself learnt to conduct and to sing:

Haydn’s Great Surprise
SURPRISE SYMPHONY – JOSEPH HAYDN
Listen very carefully/To this noted symphony/Maybe you will recognize/Haydn’s Great Surprise
Though it’s slow make no mistake/This piece will keep you awake/With a trick that typifies/Haydn’s Great Surprise
Did that outburst startle you?/Well that’s what it was meant to do/Don’t forget its name implies/Haydn’s Symphony’s the Great Surprise
Oh there’s that burst again/You will hear it now and then/Every time that we reprise/Haydn’s Great Surprise
And if you think you’re smart/Try to learn this piece by heart/See if you can memorize/Haydn’s Great Surprise
Just be careful goodness knows/While list-e-ning stay on your toes/Heed this warning to the wise/Haydn’s Symphony’s the Great Surprise

Then the next week, it was off to the Municipal Gallery which, for €60, undertook to entertain her from 10.30 to 12.00 for four days (closed Monday). On day one she spent the whole time “staring at just one painting, can you imagine how boring that is?” On inquiry, it transpired that the painting was Waterloo Bridge by Monet:
Waterloo Bridge.

I don’t think that she’s going to like the Impressionists. In any event they’ve got off to a rocky start. Day 2 was better; they made a drum and didn’t look at any art. Day 4 was rendered hideous, for me, by having to tackle the much loved babysitter C, in relation to the (unknown to us) boyfriend whom my husband met on returning to the house unexpectedly at lunch time on Day 3. She was contrite.

Weeks three and four were due to be spent in the Alliance Francaise for an eye watering €450. I hope that she will thank me one day when she can properly roll her French rs. In the first week she really seemed to like the course and it made French seem much more real to her to be speaking in French to children her own age again. In the past month, she had stopped speaking to her father in French though he has nobly kept us his role and suddenly she was back speaking to him in French again. I have to record, in proud parent fashion, that as her English reading has improved her French reading has come along in leaps and bounds and she is now at a stage where she can (more or less) read age appropriate comic book material which means that she is doing a lot more of French reading than when she could only read baby books. Anyhow, I felt very warm towards the Alliance until late Friday evening when we discovered an email telling us that the course for the following week had been cancelled. I fail to see how a two week course could have enough children in week one but not in week two. On finally, after many irritated hours on hold, getting through to reception on the following Tuesday afternoon, I was greeted by an outstanding member of staff. My irritations were many but she soothed them wonderfully by making noises of competent contrition. She made no excuses. She apologised with gratifying thoroughness. She asked me to send in my complaint in writing (something I have been itching to do) and she promised that she herself would see my refund cheque was issued that evening. I felt distinctly less chilly towards the Alliance than I had done over the weekend. Emergency arrangements were made as follows: the Princess went to her loving Dublin grandparents for a couple of days and I took part of yesterday and today off to whisk her down to Cork for the end of the week. My loving husband is off from today until the end of the summer; remaining holiday cover falls to him to deal with. And there’s plenty of it since the boys finished Montessori today (something you might think would merit a post on its own – I’m getting to it) and herself is now officially finished all her courses. Thank heavens we are all off on August 8 for a fortnight. Mr. Waffle might otherwise collapse from the strain.

IKEA


Posted in: Dublin, Ireland

IKEA has opened in Dublin. The first branch in the Republic of Ireland. The Irish Times ran several articles, there was a play (“Waiting for IKEA” – I am not joking) and the city is filled with those IKEA poster ads. You know the ones I mean. The nation is beside itself with excitement. It was discussed extensively at a dinner party in our house last Saturday night. I flaunted my superior knowledge of IKEA and its products (the Billy bookcase, the Expedit shelves, the Malm drawers, the inedible meatballs) until my husband glared at me and said “Yes, Anne knows all about Swedish flat packed furniture” and I was suitably quashed. I was also slightly amazed that none of our other guests had been to the establishment which supplied a depressing quantity of our furniture. They were excited and enthusiastic about IKEA and its works. Not quite as excited as the Irish Times on Saturday which observed:

Those who have not before ventured into an Ikea outlet are likely to be gobsmacked by their visit. It’s not just the scale of the store, but the sweep of its ambition. Ikea stores have more in common with attractions such as zoos or large garden centres than shops; they are destinations for a day out, where cheap and cheerful eating and putting the kids in the creche are as important as the shopping.

Still, I understand the enthusiasm from my superior perch. When I moved to Belgium for the second time in 1998, I had to buy furniture. I fell in love with IKEA. So cheap, so handy, so beautiful. As the years went by, I fell out of love, so cheaply made, so challenging to assemble and so exactly like what everyone else has. As my ultimate ambition becomes to get rid of all my IKEA furniture and replace it with slightly more unusual things I can find elsewhere, my contemporaries are desperate to hand over their hard earned cash to the Swedish giant. I am enjoying the feeling of smugness that accompanies me everywhere. I said proudly to my husband the other day, “I will never cross the threshold of IKEA in Dublin.” “Mmm,” he said, “did you say that we needed a big plastic box on wheels to store the boys’ train sets in? I wonder where we would find something like that?” “Trapped like a trap in a trap,” as Dorothy Parker would say.

Reading


Posted in: Reading etc.

“The Secret Life of Bees” by Sue Monk Kidd

This is on the new Leaving Cert English syllabus and I had never read it. It’s a beautifully written book with lots of interesting themes: race relations; family tensions; religion; gender roles; chance; and bees.

“Count Karlstein” by Philip Pullman

I picked this up in the library. I found it to be a slightly dull offering for younger readers. Disappointing.

“The Moronic Inferno” by Martin Amis

I do like the way that Martin Amis writes but this is a dull collection of old, old journalism dragged together, rather unwillingly, under the unifying theme of America. The best parts are the pieces on authors but, frankly, there is only so much that I want to hear about Saul Bellow whom he worships. The article on Truman Capote was much better. His articles on Norman Mailer and Philip Roth are alright. Norman Mailer sounds like a pain. I’ve read a lot of Philip Roth and I thought that the article suffered quite a bit from having been written well before Roth’s most recent spate of books from the mid-90s onwards. The political and current affairs stuff dates very badly. The article on AIDS is a mildly interesting insight into the height of hysteria in 1984. Current affairs in a mobile free/internet free world is just weird. There is one very good essay on child murders in Atlanta but that and a flashy cover is not enough really. So disappointing when I consider how much I enjoyed “The War against Cliche” (another reheated journalism collection).

“The Clothes on Their Backs” by Linda Grant

I quite enjoyed the themes explored in another book by Linda Grant, “When I Lived in Modern Times” and I bought this on the strength of it. I found “”When I Lived in Modern Times” full of plot and incident and interesting background but not very well written. I think that this book is a much better written book but I found it less engaging. Perhaps this is because I know more about Jewish refugees living in England (not a lot but more) than I do about the State of Israel. I am fascinated by Israel as a State more nakedly founded on an idea than any other. I was a little disappointed by this book. On the plus side, the author has a blog about clothes.

“The Northern Clemency” by Philip Henscher

It took me ages to get into this large tome and I had to incur a 50 cent late fine from the library upon returning it. I am very glad that I persisted. It’s an excellent book though I remember thinking that the author was having his own little joke when he wrote at page 482 “she’d been reading The Far Pavilions for four weeks now, persevering with it; handling seemed to have incresased its bulk by half as much again”. Also very true of this 738 page book; Sheffield all week long. It’s a sprawling family epic (my favourite), competently written and more slice of life than plotted but it works reasonably.

“Brooklyn” by Colm Toibin

This is a book about emigration. Emigration is a big theme in Ireland. If I may present a potted history of Ireland since Independence, you will see why this is so (I can’t face going back to the Famine).

Ireland Since Independence – A Potted History

1920s: War of Independence/Civil War, continuing emigration
1930s: The Losers get into Power and, with brief interruptions hang on to it ever after, continuing emigration
1940s: The Emergency (this is how WWII was known in neutral Ireland), continuing emigration
1950s: Comely maidens dancing at the crossroads, continuing emigration
1960s: The modern era, the Whitaker report, free second level education and continuing emigration
1970s: The oil crisis and continuing emigration
1980s: The IMF is on the doorstep and continuing emigration
1990s: Jobless growth and continuing emigration
2000s: The Boom (when we lost the run of ourselves) and net immigration and then the Bust.
2010s: OK, any predictions?

My children have two parents, four grandparents and two great grandparents who have lived abroad and come home. They have innumerable relatives they will never know at all who emigrated in the past: their great-grandparents’ and grandparents’ brothers and sisters and their children. The phrase “American Wake” was coined to describe saying goodbye to someone who was going to America and who you knew that you would never see again.

Colm Toibin’s book taps into the banal misery of emigration. It highlights how you can never go back (the “returned yank” syndrome). Initially, I found it gently and persuasively sad. He is convincing in small town Ireland; he fails in Brooklyn. Also, I got very tired of the heroine who is a pain, frankly. I have two further reservations. Firstly, I went to see the Man Booker International jury talk about their deliberation process and Colm Toibin chaired the session. For a man who writes thoughtful, inward looking (in a good way) books he is a very annoying, mouthy chair. He and Jane Smiley, the chair of the jury, clearly didn’t get on and he talked to much and didn’t let the interesting Ukrainian man get a word in edgeways. I suppose, if disliking the author put one off a book no one except Kingsley Amis would ever have read Philip Larkin. Secondly, I read this for bookclub and everyone thought that it was distinctly underwhelming. The author was writing as a woman and they felt that he was unconvincing. I am not sure about that myself. It’s just that the character was shy and reserved and kind of annoying.

Updated to add: I see the Booker jury does not share my views.