belgianwaffle

He’s Not A Tame Uncle, You Know


Posted in: Princess, Siblings

Despite what you might think on reading this blog, I am actually very fond of my brother. He is maddening but hilarious. He lives life very much in the here and now. He has left France (on a bit of a whim) and returned to the land of his ancestors. He was staying with us last week (a plus – he doesn’t seem to have caught Covid here). Consider this text message exchange where I ask about his dinner plans.

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Herself went out to France to him for a holiday before he came home. He was very good to her and took her skiing which she enjoyed.

Her ski gear was in Dublin and he took it back to France in advance of her trip. He insisted in taking it in a tote bag though I had many better suggestions. Here is his description to myself and my sister of his trip back to Geneva with the gear.

Stressful [trip] back. There was only like 10 mins to make the connection to geneva at cdg. Ran like a mad man stuff falling everywhere. [The Princess’s] ski gear was a curse. Left a bright pink sock at security and they called after me. Had to run back and take I lacked the time and linguistic capability to explain. V embarrassing still made it just about [by] running. Good news though my McGivor knife [Swiss Army] was in the place I stashed it in Geneva (Hel, just to fill [you] in I had accidentally brought the penknife [you gave] me for Xmas to the airport. Confiscation seemed certain. But in the tradition of the great McGivor himself I stashed it in a plant in the departure area. And was there when I got back).

Now that he is back in the jurisdiction I foresee much higher levels of spontaneity in all of our lives.

Parasocial


Posted in: Reading etc.

When I started blogging in 2003, it was because I was far from home, I was lonely and I had a new baby. My family in Ireland were interested in my doings. And it felt social to a new mother at home alone with her baby. I started reading other blogs. Here is a list of some favourites I made in 2009. Neither today nor yesterday. It was a good while before that, that I started reading Heather Armstrong on Dooce.com which is one of the blogs on that 2009 list. I was definitely reading it as early as 2004 when the writer’s own daughter was born.

I followed Heather faithfully over the years, I listened to her podcast, I followed her on Instagram and twitter. When she got divorced, I sent her a present (weird man, but she had a PO Box and I was so sad for her). She was one of the funniest writers on the internet. She often made me laugh out loud. Although her life was very different from mine, we had children of similar enough ages and her ability to articulate the universal experience of child rearing was extraordinary. She was a very gifted writer.

She was also pretty sick. She struggled with chronic depression (which she wrote a lot about) and alcoholism (which she wrote about more recently) all through the time I read her blog. Of late years, she basically disappeared from the internet aside from the occasional appearance on Instagram. I always kept an eye out for those updates. Her last couple of posts sounded manic and were confusing and hard to read. I was glad for her when she more or less stopped posting. It seemed like a good sign.

On May 9, she committed suicide and I am so sad for her two beautiful children (her elder child had just started college last year, the younger is only 13), her mother who had such a starring role in her blog and all of her family and friends. I’ve been thinking about her all day. It’s so strange to feel this way about a total stranger but there you go. Fluid Pudding (the strange names were a thing when blogging started) another of my favourite bloggers – also a great writer – put it this way:

Because she held nothing back, we felt like we knew her, and we loved her honesty. We laughed with her and we cried with her and we celebrated her victories. Then we watched her struggle. We followed along as she went down paths that felt destructive, and we suddenly felt uncomfortable with the honesty we once loved.

Uh Oh Redux


Posted in: Dublin, Ireland, Middle Child, Mr. Waffle, Twins, Youngest Child

I had a busy, busy day yesterday. I began by making breakfast for my husband (in isolation) and packing lunches for my children. I left my misfortunate husband a couple of sandwiches for lunch and went out. He’s still positive, thanks for asking.

I was going for my first swim of the season with a friend. She is an all year round swimmer. I am not. Although I did swim in October and now in May, so I suppose that’s something? After our invigorating swim we had a lovely lunch and I was delighted with myself until we got back to her house and I realised that I had managed to lose my headphones. I cycled on home, picked up the car and drove back to Howth to look for them (not handy) but did not find them. Alas. They were a present and a little bit pricey. Double alas. All this driving around in traffic made me late to take Daniel to his match (near the airport on a Wednesday night, the GAA, I love it).

When I got home from dropping Dan, I made dinner, dropped Mr Waffle up a tray and sat down with Michael while leaving food for Dan warming in the oven. I hadn’t seen much of Michael that evening and he looked a bit flushed. “Are you ok?” I asked. “I’ve had a headache all day,” he said. I instructed him to go upstairs and give himself a Covid test after dinner and rushed back out to the airport to pick up Dan (they won, a win). Michael texted me his test result. He has finally succumbed. How very 2022 of us.

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Uh oh


Posted in: Mr. Waffle

As mentioned, Mr. Waffle got my cold. He decided to take a Covid test. He has Covid.

And we’re back.

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I fear it did not even occur to me to take a Covid test when I was sick last week. I took one now and I am negative. Is that any good? As I said to Mr. Waffle, “It’s just that I was basically at home and cancelled all social events, so I didn’t think to take a test as I would have if I had been going out.” “Except for the 20,000 people you were in a field with on Friday night,” said he. Oh yeah, except for those. Tony Holohan was clearly right not to trust us.

The Family Home


Posted in: Cork, Family, Ireland

It’s my age but I know lots of people whose parents have died. With this comes the melancholy task of clearing out the family home.

I am lucky that my sister has bought my parents’ house so it hasn’t been a complete break with the past and in some ways the house feels just the same but in other ways not.

A friend of mine emptied out her family home with her siblings and she said that it was very hard but they did it over a long weekend and then they sold their house. A new family lives there now and she said philosophically “That’s the way it ought to be.” I suppose it is, as she very wisely said, “Without the people you loved who lived in it, it’s just walls and a roof.”

Toujours La Politesse


Posted in: Middle Child, Twins, Youngest Child

We have a lovely young man who comes in once a week and speaks to the children in French.

One evening I got a text from him profusely apologising for disturbing me but wondering whether he had left his headphones at our place. He had looked everywhere else. He had, in fact, left them here and I texted him to tell him so. If it wouldn’t disturb me, he would come and get them the following day. I said that he could come that evening if he liked as we were still up. He was v grateful. Next thing I got a text, he didn’t want to ring the bell, in case he disturbed us but he was outside the door.

I love the reluctance to disturb and the infinite politeness of this young man. I try to teach my children to be like this but I sometimes wonder is it overkill in this brave new world. Perhaps not. How reassuring.