belgianwaffle

Oh No Redux


Posted in: Middle Child, Princess, Siblings, Twins, Youngest Child

So off she went for her PCR at 11.30 this morning and at 8.15 this evening she got her positive result. Alas alack though impressively speedy work by the British testing people, I must say. I spoke briefly to her this morning and she was pretty miserable – in a bad cold kind of way – but not at death’s door.

My sister is a big fan of moonpig which does personalised cards. She went online and got the Princess a card with a personalised message and my sister’s cartoon of a corona virus on the inside. Unfortunately the site kept crashing and my sister had a lot of difficulty with it. This is why the personalised greeting card has, “Get well soon, Caroline!” on the front. The Princess’s name is not Caroline. Funnily enough when I mentioned moonpig at home, both boys said, “Uh oh, data breach,” so perhaps not where you should go for your personalised greeting cards.

In other news, we had online parent-teacher meetings for the boys this evening. This was extremely stressful. I had to be in the office and called in from there and Mr. Waffle and each boy in turn were tuning in from home. The format was five minutes per appointment. It was like academic speed dating. I turned up in other people’s meetings, they turned up in ours, I couldn’t get in to some teachers, the home team couldn’t get in to others. I mean it was better than nothing but I wouldn’t call it a triumph for new technology. On the plus side the teachers love my children. They’re both doing fine, thanks v much. My favourite nugget from the evening was the following: Michael tends to finish his in class economics exercises ahead of the other students and when he’s finished, he pulls out his book from his bag and starts reading, an activity which is apparently tolerated by the economics teacher but he is keen that Michael would stop reading promptly when class recommences. I can imagine.

Oh No!


Posted in: Princess

I rang herself this morning and, startlingly, she picked up the phone. She has a nasty cold and she was miserable. While I was on the phone with her she did three lateral flow tests [swab over your tonsils or where your tonsils would be – best line from the instructions]. Two of the three tests were positive for Covid. She’s locked up in her room and she’s booked in for a PCR test and, you never know, it might be negative but I am not optimistic. My poor child, it is no fun being sick when there is no one to look after you. And she was supposed to be going to Paris at the weekend. Alas alack.

Her father has ordered a box of goodies for her to cheer her up. Poor miss.

More Covid


Posted in: Family, Ireland, Reading etc.

Two of my colleagues have Covid this week. Both fine, thankfully but not loving the general prevalence levels.

Meanwhile my brother-in-law and his family were due to go skiing in Austria for a week at the start of December. Alas, that adventure has been cancelled as Austria is in lock down.

In unrelated news, my teeth having basically caused me no problems whatsoever for the first 51 years of my life have really pulled out all the stops this year. I was sitting at my desk minding my own business when I noticed that a bit of tooth had crumbled off. This was at the site of an enormous filling and it had already been earmarked as problematic but having spent most of October in the dentist’s chair, I was holding off doing anything about it until next year. Until, of course, it fell out of my head. I’m back in for treatment on Friday afternoon. Sigh.

I met a friend for lunch and he told me how his daughter had to do research on Muhammad Ali for school, so she dutifully prepped away, she was on top of the Rumble in the Jungle. She went into school the next day and the teacher asked her, “What were some of the key events leading to Indian independence?” Mahatma Gandhi was who she was supposed to research apparently.

He also offered me this story which he believes to be true. I really hope it is. The teacher asked a child to get a guillotine, off she skips out of the class. She is gone for ages but finally comes back with 15 other children. “Sorry miss, I thought you said the Gaelic team”.

And finally, in the good news category, Emily Bell’s book is in the bestseller list. Extremely pleased by association.

Out and About


Posted in: Middle Child, Mr. Waffle, Reading etc., Twins, Youngest Child

Mr. Waffle is still sick.

It was a beautiful day. On the way home from mass, Daniel looked at me warily and said, “Please don’t suggest a cycle”. I am afraid that that is exactly what I did.

We met friends in the park who invited us to go to see Eurydice in the Met in the cinema (live streamed from NY to your local picture house). I blithely said yes for me and Mr. Waffle, the boys politely but firmly refused the generous offer. I thought it was the “Orpheus and Eurydice” with tunes but it turns out that it is an original composition. I fear the worst. As Mr. Waffle said about these much loved friends of ours, “It’s not just that they love opera but they love hard opera.” A three hour treat for December.

We had a lovely cycle. Even the boys didn’t hate it.

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I peeled off and went to the museum to see the Eileen Gray exhibition, sending the boys on home on the basis that they had suffered enough. The exhibition was mildly interesting. I’m more of a good mahogany furniture kind of person than a modernist so not really for me but I could see it was good, if you see what I mean. Apparently she left Ireland in horror after they did up her family home. I mean, you can see where she was coming from. What an absolutely horrific thing to happen to a perfectly nice square Georgian house.

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I was quite taken by the practicality of some of her more famous pieces. The chair that acknowledges that people sit to one side.

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The “practical for breakfast in bed” table:

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She had an extraordinary life and lived until 98 working away into the 70s. She lived long enough to see her furniture and ideas come back into fashion and in some ways, she’s the godmother of open plan living (though she seemed to have moved away from that in later life). Interesting.

Not Waving But Drowning


Posted in: Middle Child, Mr. Waffle, Twins

Mr. Waffle continues to be ill. He decided that it would not be conducive to his recovery to stand in the middle of a windy field for a couple of hours so he delegated to me the job of taking Dan to his hurling match in west Dublin. “You’ve a beautiful day for it,” Mr. Waffle thrilled as we headed off.

We arrived and schlepped for miles from the car park to the designated pitch. No sooner did we arrive than the rain started. I discovered to my horror that although we were instructed to assemble at 1.15 the match was only starting at 2. I trudged gloomily around the pitch regretting that I had neglected to bring any kind of hood and discovering that my boots were not waterproof. Truly mine eyes have seen the abomination of desolation.

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There were 6 subs and, to my relief, Dan was in the starting 15. I spent a good while watching number 24 before I realised that my son was playing up front (normally he’s a back) in the number 6 shirt. Half time arrived mercifully quickly. Sadly, it turned out only to be a water break (quarter time, if you will). I continued my trudging. The heavens absolutely opened with that kind of rain that bounces off the ground and back up your trousers.

I telephoned my sister and she asked how wet I was. This is the photo I sent her. Very wet. Apparently it was a lovely day in Cork.

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Daniel was having a great match but he got knocked down and the coach ran over, patted him on the back and came to the sideline reassuring me that it was only a hard shoulder to the head. I was not reassured. Later he got a hurl to the head (they were all wearing helmets but still) and eventually, about 5 minutes before the end, he was subbed off somewhat to my relief as he is absolutely fearless on the field and I wanted him to finish alive.

I was very proud as we went back to the car and people kept coming up to congratulate him on a great match, sadly though, not great enough as, in the end, they lost by six points but, honestly, it felt closer than that.

We were both glad to get home.

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In other news, I bought logs from a garage and on my way out, accidentally blocked a middle aged woman in high vis and lycra who was marching determinedly in the rain, clearly getting her steps in. She gave me the evil eye, as well she might, and I realised it was the leader of the opposition. This is the kind of glamour that west Dublin offers. Let’s have your own celebrity encounters.