Michael tested negative for Covid about 11 this morning and was let out of captivity. I was surprised to see him turn up in his school uniform in the kitchen at 11.30. “I’m going in,” said he. Only 8 days of school left including today so, I suppose he felt it might be a good idea with the Leaving Cert coming up. I drove him in. “Can you give me a late note?” he asked. “I don’t think you’ll need it, we’ve already told them you’ll be out sick today,” I said. “Oh right, I didn’t know because I’ve never been late,” he said. “Never?” I asked. “Not since I’ve started secondary school and been in charge of getting in myself,” he clarified. That’s an impressive record, unfortunately, he appears to have fallen at almost the last possible hurdle. This didn’t come from my side.
The Circular Economy
My sister is a big fan of the Olio app. It is designed for food but now you can give away stuff as well. She has a lot of material to get rid of. It seems to work perfectly for her but I have found it a bit hit and miss. I got rid of a spare new car jack (don’t ask) in no time; the slightly wonky pedal bin took a bit longer and literally no one is interested in a perfectly good paddling pool (5,000 views and counting but still not a nibble). Mostly the people collecting seem to be young people and immigrants.
I was giving away an IKEA Malm chest of drawers and this man contacted me. He asked could he carry it on his bike (no, are you kidding me?) would he be able to take it on a trolley (maybe but not very far). Anyway, as is the way with Olio, he missed a number of pick ups. His tone in messages was terse but he was clearly not a native English speaker so I gave him the benefit of the doubt. Finally, he asked would I drive him and the Malm to his place. Because I am a complete sap I said yes. My whole family laughed at me. Did he come when he said he would? No. When he eventually came, we put the Malm in the car and drove to his place. He was lovely and his wife was too, they’d just moved to Ireland and were settling in. I felt a warm glow and that even if I am a sap, it all came good in the end.
I wonder will anyone ever take my paddling pool?
10 Years in Our New House
Back in April, when my blog was technologically challenged, we celebrated ten years in our new house. God, I love this house and I almost daily give thanks that we were lucky enough to get it. We bought when the property market was at a low point (not through cunning but because we were desperate to get out of our tiny house with three small children) and we could not have afforded to buy it at any other time before or since. I remember the day we saw it. We had seen so many houses. We had a spread sheet and everything. I remember standing in the utility room (sadly largely unchanged – needs work) with Mr. Waffle and the two of us just beaming at each other because we knew it was the perfect house for us.
As I am shallow – or maybe human? – my house has always been really important to me. Thorough readers with very long memories will recall that at the age of 11, I had to leave the house I most loved – a very large square four floor house with a large garden with half a dozen apple trees – think of it as the pre-lapsarian years. I have had some good houses since then, I loved all the places I lived in Brussels and I eventually grew to love the Edwardian semi-detatched house my parents moved us into when we left paradise but this is undoubtedly the best place I have lived in my adult life. I feel so pleased that my children grew up in such a nice place. I will NEVER move out. It is perfect in every way. Even though it doesn’t have a side passage.
He’s Not A Tame Uncle, You Know
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.
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
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
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.
