belgianwaffle

I Despair

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Posted in: Middle Child, Twins

You will recall that middle child is on crutches and has to wear a boot following an incident last Monday. Today we deposited our precious child at the airport to go to Paris for a bit. The journey passed off peacefully and the wheelchair assistance at both ends all worked fine. So far, so good.

Unwisely, however, I did not supervise the booking of accommodation. When I rang this evening to check that all was well, I was told that the flat is “6ème étage sans ascenseur”. This is a Paris classic, the maid’s room under the roof, 6th floor and no lift and just not suitable for someone on crutches. To add insult to injury, the bed is on a mezzanine. So you get up to the 6th floor and then you have to hop up the ladder to the bed. It is true that in the booking process I was asked to explain what a mezzanine was but I thought that my description would steer my beloved child away from the mezzanine option. More fool me.

By our mistakes we learn. Keep your fingers crossed that that ankle improves rapidly.

Exhausting Weekend Round-Up

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Posted in: Dublin, Ireland, Mr. Waffle

Friday, July 17

You will recall that I do not work on Fridays. I recommend. I know it’s not good but the glorious weather continued. My friend and I had arranged to meet to go for a swim. I cycled to her house (almost the whole way via cycle lane); then we drove out to Howth in her luxurious car (I’m a bit ambivalent about this but there is something very luxurious about being up high on a leather seat) and had a lovely swim at Balscadden beach and lunch afterwards in Howth. A colleague texted me to confirm that something I was hoping would go at work went. The sun shone. All was right with the world.

We went back to my friend’s house and then I cycled home along by the sea side and through the park and even where I was with the traffic (hardly at all), I had dedicated cycle lanes. Living the dream, lads.

I stopped off on the way home to pick up “The Fellowship of the Ring” which I had ordered from the library a while ago and which had finally landed in my local branch. Thrills. I love the library, what a service.

When I got home, I made 7 kilos of jam. That’s right.

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Hot work in the current climactic conditions.

And I made dinner. And afterwards we watched “The Fellowship of the Ring” until the DVD stopped working at the Council of Elrond and I felt a bit less warmly towards the library service.

Saturday, 18 July

First thing in the morning, Mr. Waffle and I went out to Dun Laoghaire to do one of Arran Henderson’s excellent walking tours. We’ve done them before and they have not disappointed. Dun Laoghaire did disappoint a bit though. Not because of the tour guide who is reliably excellent, full of enthusiasm and knows everything but a suburban seaside town just has less to offer than the city. Mr. Waffle is from that neck of the woods originally so I think he got more out of it that me. I’d really like to do an Arran Henderson tour of Cork but this, sadly, is not available.

A former colleague of Mr. Waffle’s was on the tour so the three of us went for lunch together. As we queued for the cafe in the people’s park (location delightful, food mediocre, alas), Mr. Waffle pointed out that the son of my father’s friend was in the queue behind us. His father and my father were friends from when they were in school in the 1930s and his father had died recently. I couldn’t go to the funeral as I was abroad so I turned around, sympathised, chatted and met his niece who had just finished school and was a very patient girl who listened to our reminiscing about childhood summers together in west Cork with no outward sign of boredom. While it was nice to see Mr. Waffle’s former colleague and my father’s friend’s son, it was a bit more socialising with acquaintances than I was quite prepared for.

After lunch we scooted home (no time for a swim, alas, which seemed like a real shame when we were right beside the sea) as I had a tennis match at 4. After tennis, I went round to a tennis friend’s house for a drink. There were four women – 3 Irish and one Polish. The Polish woman looked so elegant compared to us (no shade on my Irish friends but this dilution of the Irish gene pool cannot come soon enough); to be fair, we were fresh from the sweaty tennis court and she had come from a walk in the park, but still. We ended up staying for dinner (who can turn dinner for 2 – hostess and husband – into dinner for 5 at the drop of a hat, not me, but our hostess apparently) and I only staggered in home about 10.

We watched the second half of the “Fellowship of the Ring”. We were able to skip the scene with the Council of Elrond where the DVD refused to perform; perhaps someone had just been watching that scene over and over again? We’d all seen it before (Mr. Waffle under protest) but somehow the sudden appearance of Sean Bean (Boromir, in case you’re wondering), threw us a bit.

Sunday, July 19

After mass, Mr. Waffle and I went out for breakfast together then he, poor him, had to go to work. I went home and prepared myself for another tennis match. My ancient body did not welcome this development at all. I survived but it was warm and myself and my friend spent a lot of time talking. Two hours on court, about an hour’s tennis, I would say. The courts were quiet because it was baking.

After tennis, I came home and prodded the children to do various tasks that they regarded with low levels of enthusiasm and went into town to pick up labels for my jam (supremely unhelpful comment from Mr. Waffle, “I think we’ll know what it is.”).

But maybe I’ll give some away. Actually, I’ll have to, it’s a bumper year for plums. I’ve had to power up the shed fridge. This is what it looks like at the moment and I will be out doing a last sweep of the garden before bed later.

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Also, unrelated, I grew these. I know anyone can grow montbretia and hydrangea and they will grow wild on the side of the road but I’m still pleased and look, lilies.

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Trying

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

After a lot of humming and hawing, middle child decided that it was time to get away for a working summer holiday and yesterday booked tickets and accommodation to depart tomorrow.

Last night as I was at my bookclub sitting in the back garden; enjoying the cheeseboard; and chatting merrily in a sort of end of term way, my phone began ringing off the hook. It was middle child injured in a park on the opposite side of the city but sounding reasonably cheerful, if immobile. My immediate reaction was to say, “Ring your father!” but then I remembered we are a one car family and I had the one car (serves me right for not cycling). Off I went to the rescue.

On the drive home, Mr. Waffle rang me to remind me that we had a double mattress in the boot and it would need to be removed to accommodate both the injured warrior and the injured warrior’s bicycle. Why did we have a mattress in the boot? Well, you may recall that I spent months swapping the content of the box room (the former fastness of youngest child) and the double room on the return (the Princess’s old room). I did this on the basis that she will probably never live at home again (sniff) and the youngest child should have the larger bedroom. For obvious reasons she was not pleased. He said he didn’t care beforehand and he was remarkably consistent afterwards. “How do you like your new bedroom?” I asked perkily. “Fine,” he said with zero enthusiasm, “but the mattress is really uncomfortable.” So we bought a new mattress and put the old one in the car to take to the dump. But then Mr. Waffle discovered that Dublin City Council are doing a mattress collection and all we had to do was email them and they would collect it from the front of the house. Great news. We await confirmation of our date but, in the meanwhile, the mattress is living in the boot.

I came home and dislodged the mattress. Meanwhile the texts from the park were becoming increasingly alarming: “I really can’t move at all.”; “Maybe I need to see a doctor?” I said to Mr. Waffle “Perhaps you should come too.” When we got to the park, Mr. Waffle went in to find the afflicted child and I looked for parking. Then Mr. Waffle called me to collect them. Mr. Waffle and I are not good at communicating directions of any kind to each other and it took some time to locate them. I heard Mr. Waffle say tetchily to the victim, “Your mother and I lack a common language for communicating directions.” I felt somehow that I was being blamed. One of us spent formative teen years orienteering and it wasn’t me. When we eventually found each other, the poor old victim was looking a bit miserable. A faithful friend had stayed with the victim to the end and I could tell that, eyeing the parents, she felt more support might be needed but we thanked her and sent her off into the night about which I felt a little guilty but we were in no position to offer anyone a lift home.

The victim’s poor ankle was swollen like a balloon and we felt that perhaps we should go to accident and emergency in the local hospital. Then we realised that three of us wouldn’t fit in the car with the bike. In retrospect, I feel we should have interrogated that assumption a bit further but as I said, we were tetchy. So I said grumpily, “You guys go in the car, I can cycle no problem” not for a second thinking that I would be left to cycle 3kms in the dark on a bike with a crossbar which was much too big for me. But my remarks were taken at face value and I found myself wobbling down the road in that lofty vehicle high dudgeon (not my joke, I suppose really high nelly here). It was ok but anytime I had to get on and off which was with surprising frequency, I kind of got my leg stuck in the basket at the back while swinging it over the crossbar so it could hardly be called elegant progress. I went through a park where someone was giving his XL bully dogs a run without muzzles or leads, one of them frolicking alongside me was some kind of enormous Doberman cross and I was nervous especially since I knew I wasn’t going to get up a head of speed on the bike but it just frolicked and left me to my cycling.

When I got home I hopped on my own normal sized bike and went to A&E. I foolishly thought it might be quiet on a Monday night in July. It was not. It was absolutely heaving and very miserable. We stayed until about 1 in the morning and did not even get to see the triage nurse let alone a doctor so I took an executive decision that we would go home and go to the private health clinic in the morning when it opened. I was a bit worried that the ankle might be broken and moving would make it worse but on the other hand, the child was exhausted and in pain and at the rate we were going, likely to be there all night. We went home.

After the misfortunate child (literally) crawled into bed, we put ice on the ankle and doled out powerful painkillers (the victim had some in stock having been prescribed them earlier by the dentist for impacted wisdom teeth, it hasn’t been a great time healthwise) and hoped for the best.

The swelling had gone down a bit in the morning but the ankle was still very sore so I took the morning off work (usually Mr. Waffle does this kind of thing but he had a conference in the morning and I, miraculously, had no meetings) and drove the afflicted child to the clinic. I was not delighted to be charged €75 almost before I got in the door. What am I paying an enormous sum in health insurance for, if I have to fork out in the clinic? This is not a question for Americans who seem to enjoy their own weirdly painful regime which is maybe even worse? On the plus side, a greater contrast to the hellish scenes of A&E the night before would be hard to imagine. The patient was seen immediately, x-rayed immediately, diagnosed immediately and the seats where we barely had to sit and wait were leather and not wipe clean plastic. Great news – no break! Less great news – a bad sprain, a torn ligament, crutches and a boot. The doctor looked slightly askance at the painkillers the dentist had prescribed and said that he would prescribe something less strong. I mean he didn’t know that the dentist looked at those wisdom teeth and said, “Wow, wow, wow!”

Anyway was this a child who was going to be going on a plane at 8 the following morning? It was not. When we got home we changed the flight booking. It was hard (expense, on hold to aer lingus – twice, you know the drill). But we did it. The question of accommodation we punted to another day and I went off into work on my bike to spend an afternoon catching up and Mr. Waffle promised to drop home over the afternoon to see how the sufferer was.

When I got home from work that evening like a damp, exhausted rag and told Mr. Waffle of my adventures he, very tactlessly, said, “But wasn’t this supposed to be a working holiday, is there any point going at all in a boot and crutches?” A fair point but an unwelcome one.

“And how is the sufferer?” you ask. Much improved after a day in bed and, as I write, at a friend’s house watching the world cup match.

How have the last 24 hours been for you?

By Our Mistakes We Learn

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Posted in: Mr. Waffle, Siblings, Travel

Last year we went on holidays in late August/early September and I hated it. Too late. Never again.

Part of the reason was that we booked very late. June 16, in fact. Have we booked our summer holidays yet? I’m glad you asked. We have!

We are going away for three weeks in August. For the first time since herself was born, it is just Mr. Waffle and me. Though we have posted our itinerary in the family group chat and said if anyone wants to join us for a bit we will cover flights and accommodation but they’ll have to arrange it themselves (unless they want to join us in Flåm, they just can’t join us in Flåm, too expensive, too complex and no accommodation and no train tickets – more anon). So far, the response has been…lukewarm. And we are going on a thrilling odyssey in my view.

We will fly to Gothenburg, from there we will go by train first to Oslo for a couple of days, then onwards to Flåm (bet you’re excited to hear about Flåm now) and to Bergen. From Bergen we will fly to Reykjavik and then home. I am so looking forward to it.

Before we began the booking process, I had never heard of Flåm but there’s a fjord there and it’s a good thing to see apparently and I became determined to go. Mr. Waffle wrestled with Norwegian rail and bought us tickets from Oslo to Flåm. Not easy, they are very much in demand. We are spending two nights in Flåm, possibly one too many but we will not dwell on that as due to a severe shortage of accommodation we will be spending more per night on our hotel in Flåm then we have ever spent on a night’s accommodation before. When I tell you that Mr. Waffle refused to stay in a shared room in a hostel (we’re too old for that) and that was €250 per night, it will give you a slight inkling of the cost of the hotel. It had better be good is all I can say. We took a few days off after the excitement of the Flåm booking and then realised that we would want to leave Flåm by rail and perhaps those tickets might be difficult to get also. We got our tickets out.

Mr. Waffle has been reading a lot of Nordic crime in preparation for our trip. I hope it will not be directly relevant. More practically my sister has been to these parts very recently and given us her insights. She has a friend who lives in Gothenburg and is a big Nordic traveller. Still, I was a bit surprised when she rang me and said, “I’ve booked my summer holidays and at the start of July I’m flying to Bergen then on to Oslo by train and then on to Gothenburg also by train.” Great minds etc. I am pleased with her tips but since she didn’t go to Flåm (her loss) no insights on that one.

Please give me your Nordic tips.

A Question of Taste

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Posted in: Middle Child, Siblings, Twins

My brother of whom I am fond when he is not driving me crazy has firm views on what size a television should be and his view is that it should be the size of one wall of your house. This is not a view I share.

Before we moved to this house he very kindly bought me a present of a television. I didn’t want a television, I thought my normal sized non-slimline TV was fine. In our old, small house, the new television loomed in the downstairs room where we basically did everything; I did not love it. When we moved to this house which is mercifully bigger, the new TV looked a lot better and I am now pretty pleased with it and would not part with it. It is about 15 years old but it has worked faithfully for us all these years with no problems of any kind. “What a successful present!” you say.

However, my brother is unhappy. Television technology has advanced and this TV which he kindly bought all those years ago is now too small he feels. It is a 32 inch screen (I’ve just measured it for you, you measure diagonally apparently). It drives my brother bananas and I would be lying if I didn’t say that this was, perhaps, not the least of its attractions. In his own house he has an enormous television which feels like it’s following you around the room. We enjoy regular free and frank exchanges of views on television sizes. I honestly thought that he was the odd one however some alarming evidence that there may be something in what he says has come my way recently.

Middle child had some friends around and reported to me the very unwelcome news that they said, “Why is your TV so old and small?” SMALL? What is this craziness? One of the offending children looked around the room and said, “It’s because they spent all their money on lamps.” Who doesn’t like mood lighting and despise the harsh central light? 20 year olds apparently. So long as my brother never finds out, we’re alright, I suppose. Might I ask, what size is your own television?

I Understand that the Alternative is Worse

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Posted in: Dublin, Ireland, Middle Child, Twins

I was buying candles in a shop and the young man serving me said, “Why so many candles?” “I like to have them in stock, you never know when you’ll need them,” I replied. “I like the cut of your jib,” he said. “Oh,” I said delighted, “my children say that no one says that any more.” He said, not at all understanding my point, “I know, I found a list of phrases only old people use and I’m trying to bring them back into use.” Great, thanks.

I was out for dinner last night with two friends from college and I was telling them about this and they confirmed that nobody uses “cut of his jib” anymore. I asked whether anyone ever said “You’d drive a horse from his oats” anymore. One of them hadn’t even heard the expression and the other said she hadn’t heard it in years. I’m trying to bring it back here.

And we talked about the people we know who are retiring or retired and how they are finding it; many people are going back to college it seems; some are setting themselves up as consultants and some are living it up on their loot. I told them about my friend the banker who was forced to go to a pre-retirement seminar. The organisers said that everyone was over-provisioned for retirement (Mr. Waffle counsels that the organisers were speaking to a room full of bankers) as people see the bit at the start when everyone is travelling and so on (very expensive) and the bit at the end where people are getting care or in nursing homes or in and out of hospital (also very expensive) but tend to overlook the middle bit where people are just pottering around, not travelling extensively but not sick either and this is apparently the longest bit and cheap. They called it go-go, slow-go and no-go. The conference organisers also offered the sage advice that 60 is the new 50; 70 is the new 60; but 80 still 80. We appear to have reached a stage where we all found this interesting.

And the people we know who have not retired are at the top of their professions. I mean, one of them told me that her friend from school is now the principal in her old school. Every week brings more shocks of this nature as my generation is basically in charge of everything now (unless retired obvs). A friend from Brussels nearly fell off his chair when an ex of a mutual friend of ours (from 30 years ago now, everyone has moved on) turned up to give a keynote at a very important event as she herself is now a very important person. He recovered sufficiently to text me the news.

I am in the process of changing dentist. A long and fraught operation that I don’t want to speak of. The new dentist wanted to x-ray my teeth; they love an x-ray. In my experience, if you are a woman regardless of age (until now, she said darkly), the dentist will ask whether you are pregnant before giving you an x-ray. Did the new dentist ask? He did not. Furthermore, on inspecting the x-rays he said my teeth showed lots of evidence of “a life well-lived”. Not the compliment it might be on, say, your deathbed. I see shoals ahead on the tooth front.

I was chatting to my boss at work (I love her, so gratifying) about my extensive holiday plans (more anon) and she said, “Is your husband able to take that much time off work as well or is he retired?” My love dimmed a little. No, he’s not retired, how could youthful me have a husband who’s retired?

I have an app (BeReal) that prompts me to take a photo every day with the front camera and the back camera. I like it but it comes with messaging that I find dispiriting. On being presented with a photo of me looking, to my own eyes, perfectly normal, it will say comfortingly, “It’s ok, not to be ok.” Clearly, everyone else on the platform is so perky that my elderly visage causes the app serious alarm. Meta: it just pinged me now and I took a photo of this. It looked at my face and said anxiously, “How ya feelin’?”

Earlier today myself and middle child went swimming and we saw a seal. Mild thrill.

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There he is.

And we had ice cream.

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“What has this to do with today’s theme?” you ask. Well, the tide was very low and whereas normally in the spot where we swim you can launch yourself from the steps into the water, today you had to pick your way across rocks with water at ankle height. A bit uncomfortable but fine, or so I thought until a woman (and here’s the kicker) who looked about my own age came surging up to me and insistently offered her hand to me to help me get in. I refused but in the end I yielded and, very annoyingly, it was helpful.

And just this week I got a congratulatory message from the Health service telling me I am now eligible for the free bowel screening programme. Can’t wait.

Noticing any intimations of mortality yourself?