belgianwaffle

End of Term – Mixed Results


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

The boys are finished school for the summer. They had a reasonably good school awards season though Daniel felt he would have done better had he not irritated the school authorities with operation bald. Here he is after 3 weeks of hair re-growth.

Untitled

Daniel after finishing school last week hopped on a plane to Rome this week. Having ensured that his phone had roaming, Mr. Waffle and Michael dropped him off to the airport. It was only after Daniel had checked in his hold bag that he revealed that he had put his phone in it. This did not give me great confidence that he was going to find his gate and get to Rome safely. However, despite my qualms, he got there no problem and seems to be having a great time. I love seeing them make up for lost time under Covid. One of the really great things about a parent is how much joy you get from seeing your children having a good time.

I am also enjoying an end of term of sorts as I prepare to finish up work next Friday. A certain amount of extra lunching has appeared in my life. Most unusual – and rather charming – so far has been lunch in the club of a friend looking out of the dining room onto Stephen’s Green. Mr. Waffle came too and another friend who was in college with him and is extremely glamorous. I was pretty pleased – and mildly surprised, I had not thought of her as a cycling person – to see her rolling up to lunch on her bicycle until she tied her bike to the pole I had my eye on. On the down side this put her in a position to see my utter humiliation when I was taken to task by a guard for breaking a red light. Completely my fault and I abased myself absolutely apologising furiously. He was quite unpleasant but in the end he let me go with a scowl and trembling knees. Glamorous friend said that I was so long with him that she thought he might be a friend but then she overheard the tenor of the conversation. She was pretty indignant on my behalf and said that though I was in the wrong, I had apologised and what else was I supposed to do; although illegal it was not as though it had been a dangerous manoeuvre; and she felt that he was on a power trip. He did seem to be enjoying himself. I was heartened but also felt a bit feeble. As my father used to say “character is destiny” and I am much more likely to keep apologising than to argue back. I can’t help feeling she would have been far more robust in her approach.

Herself has secured a smallish sum of scholarship money and plans to use it to spend a month in Paris over the summer. Little does she know that there is a good chance I may visit her with my new found freedom. She is currently preparing for exams which start tomorrow. She is a bit nervous but all was going well until a random stranger came up and punched her in the face in the middle of the afternoon last week. It was a young woman, perfectly normal in outward appearance but obviously very unwell. The police said that it was a completely random accident and she was very unlucky. The paramedics said that nothing was broken but she would have impressive swelling followed by an impressive black eye. Right on both counts so far. She was really shaken, as you would be, in fairness. An academic and his wife saw what happened and were very kind to her and he wrote her a nice letter subsequently saying that he had been in contact with her lecturers about what happened. It was quite a shock though and I felt very helpless being so far away. I wish there were something useful I could do. She has a big ball next weekend after the exams and she says she will be like Pádraig Pearse, always getting her photo taken in profile. I am really looking forward to seeing her and a bit worried for her too; though she is pretty resilient it was a nasty thing to happen and has taken a bit out of her at a time when she was anxious anyhow.

And Michael? Michael has been happy as a sandboy since the end of school. He is currently enjoying his status as only child at home. We took him out for a mild walk in the Dublin mountains this afternoon and he seemed to enjoy the full blast of parental attention.

Untitled

Updated to add: The Italians have just called to say that one of their children has Covid; she’s been sent off to stay at her grandmother’s but I fear the worst. The plot thickens.

Committed


Posted in: Cork, Ireland

I was on the Cork – Dublin train recently and there was a Cork man sitting opposite me who was going to a concert in Dublin. He was about the same age as me and he confessed that the last time he was in Dublin was in the 1990s. I was amazed. He clarified that he had been regularly in a distant suburb of Dublin for work but had never bothered going into the centre again. He hadn’t thought much of it in 1995 and he clearly wasn’t going to give it another shot on the off chance it might have improved.

In many ways this is the quintessential Corkonian attitude to Dublin.

Moving


Posted in: Cork, Ireland, Siblings

My sister and her partner are moving in to my parents’ house. She plans to buy out my brother and me. At the moment, in this transitional phase, my brother is still there and though the house is not tiny, accommodating three adults working from home will add a lot of … thrills to the Cork environment. I have been following my sister’s progress with interest.

I was at home a couple of weeks ago and even though I was sure that my old bedroom was empty, it turns out that we filled an enormous plastic box with my stuff so, actually, not empty. Then my sister and I moved a desk from my father’s room to my old room which is to become her partner’s working from home space. I felt pretty virtuous right until the moment we inadvertently knocked over one of my brother’s working from home monitors and broke it. Happily my sister had a spare monitor and set it up for him but still a bit awkward. I was not entirely delighted to hear, as my sister’s moving reached a crescendo, this week, that her partner doesn’t actually want that desk for his home office and has another desk in mind.

My father always said of my mother that she never realised that time was finite. My sister is exactly like that and that may be why she will be visiting Skellig Michael this weekend. She has to hand over the keys to her rental property on Monday so, in my view, this is not the ideal moment for this trip. “It will be fine,” she says. It’s a three hour round trip by car and a ferry ride from Cork so that’s today and tomorrow accounted for. I suppose it will all be alright on the night.

Updated to add: It was too rough to land on Skellig Michael but she did have a very choppy boat ride which made her ill. Alas.

Excessive Enthusiasm


Posted in: Youngest Child

Text from Mr. Waffle: Michael is watching Charles Michel addressing the United Nations. Should we seek professional help?

Today he was filling us in on the political situation in Sweden.

The internet has a lot to answer for.

Shenanigans


Posted in: Middle Child, Mr. Waffle, Twins

The school called me at work the other week. I was at a meeting. “They’ll just have to call Mr. Waffle,” I thought. Ten minutes later, Mr. Waffle called me. I thought I’d better step out and see what was up.

The school were incandescent. Daniel’s friends had shaved his head, at school, on the school premises, for a bet. He was €40 richer and a lot balder. They all got detention and missed the school sports day (his last as they don’t have one in 6th year, a shame) although one of them was unwise enough to point out to the authorities that there is no rule preventing shaving a school mate’s head during break. Unsurprisingly, this did not help.

It’s growing back and he has gone from bald to new army recruit at this point. Will he get the top of his head burnt when he goes to Rome for the week on Friday? Yes, yes, he will. Will his host family recognise him when they were expecting a floppy haired blond boy? That remains to be seen.

School is now over for this year. We can only rejoice.

Foiled


Posted in: Dublin, Ireland

I am very jam ready this year. I have all the kit. I will be off work. Nothing can stop me. Have the plums failed? Yes, yes, they have. Could be a bumper year for apple jelly yet.