Archives for June 2004

Sunday – Traffic Day

We arrived into Dublin airport (north of the city) at 11.30 where mother-in-law Waffle was kindly waiting to escort us to the distant suburb (south of the city) where the Waffle grandparents live. We collapsed into chez Waffle, exhausted, at 2.00.  Something will have to give.  The traffic in this city is appalling.
Noticed that it was kind of chilly. Was alarmed when m-i-l Waffle suggested that we might eat outside.  Asked whether this was what she had meant when she said it was very warm. Yes, apparently.  Began to regret bringing one pair of jeans and one pair of shorts for the week. Spilt tea on jeans.

Monday – Rainy day

Lunch time on Monday Mr. Waffle minded the Princess while I skipped off to meet my friend D for lunch.  All very nice but quid pro quo was that he skipped off to meet his friend in the afternoon leaving me with the Princess. For reasons that now elude me, I felt it important to get the Princess out of the house so took her in to a rain sodden hamlet. Passed Marian Keyes‘s house on the way and hovered anxiously outside hoping that she might come out and I could say “I really like your books and do you know that my husband was your next door neighbour growing up?”  I was hoping to get a cup of tea based on this tenuous connection. But no joy. I suppose it was wet, why would she want to leave the house?

Went home and waited for Mr. Waffle’s return. Went to the gate to greet him.  I took the Princess out in my arms saying “Daddy’s coming home”.  She started chanting “Daddy, Daddy, Daddy”. We arrived at the gate and no sign of himself.  However, the senior Waffles’ neighbour, a retired judge of blameless reputation, was pottering about in the front garden (the rain having, briefly, abated) and the Princess pointed her finger at him and said in loud, excited tones “Daddy, Daddy, Daddy”.  I thought that he looked rattled.

Tuesday – Lots of relatives day

My brother has just started working in Dublin and my kind parents-in-law had him round for dinner.  All very pleasant.  And Mr. Waffle and I were very relaxed because his saintly mother had minded the Princess for a large part of the day so we went out for lunch and a walk and a read of the paper over a cup of tea.  When we came back the Princess was cooing delightedly at her grandmother who was singing and playing the piano for her.  Her parents received a cool reception.  For the remainder of the holiday upon seeing her Granny, her highness would stretch out her chubby little arms and demand to be held by the person who she knew could meet her entertainment needs fully.

Parents in law are doing intensive Italian lessons and came back this evening anxious to practise on the assembled multitudes.  In fact, there were more people to practice on than you might think.  I speak Italian (I know, I know, I am so talented, why does no one want to employ me?), so does Mr. Waffle, a bit. So does his brother, G and so does G’s fiancee S.  In fact S is half Sicilian and G and S are getting married this Summer in Sicily.   And in case you were wondering, the publishing exec wasn’t there, but she speaks Italian too.

Wednesday – Sippy cup day

We bought the Princess a sippy cup. These are magic.  They don’t leak.  The Princess tested this thoroughly by shaking it upside down on her tights.  Not a drop escaped, her parents were jubilant, she was downcast.

We went to my friend C’s house for lunch.  C lives in a very convenient location in the city centre.  The only drawback is that her house is across the road from a methadone centre so there tend to be a lot of spaced out people wandering around with vacant expressions.  The Princess waved at them merrily and was indignant that they seemed to be largely indifferent to her cheery salute.  C was in the middle of packing boxes. She and her husband are moving to a leafier, drug free location.  Less central perhaps but drug free. The Princess had a wonderful time clambering over boxes and up stairs.  Bubble wrap is particularly appealing to babies.  C showed her how to use it by wrapping it round her (C’s) head.  Eventually the bubble wrap had to be moved to a place of safety.  It was then that I noticed that the sippy cup had disappeared.  C and her friend S who had been roped in to packing boxes carried out a thorough search for the sippy cup but it was nowhere to be found.  I rang Mr. Waffle who was shopping and asked him to buy another sippy cup.  We left C’s house and there was the Princess’s sippy cup, put safely on a windowsill across the road by some kind drug addict.  So now we have two, but really, you can’t have too many.

That evening I went out leaving the Princess to the care of her father and met friends in town.   D had rallied troops and I now know who my true friends are. C2 told me that she has my weblog as her home page.  She somewhat took from this by telling me that my best work was over.  “Peaked too early” she sighed, “the cabbage leaves, breastfeeding entry was the best one”. As my greatest fan (apart from my mother) she has taken it upon herself to email the best extracts to a group of our friends.  Just that one, it transpires. No wonder C1 kept asking me how my breasts were.

Thursday – Stalking day

I passed Marian Keyes’s house again.  Does she never come out?  I was armed with further information to ingratiate myself into her establishment: my parents in law were at her wedding; my mother-in-law once lent her a suit in which to do an interview.   Mr. Waffle says that if I keep hanging round her house like this, she will probably call the guards.

Friday – Escape day

My mother-in-law minded the Princess until 2 in the afternoon.  Mr. Waffle was at a conference but I was free to do whatever I wanted. I went into town. Superb.  Saw a Luas.   On the way back from the Dart (welcome to the world of Dublin public transport), I was busy reading one of the six books I had acquired in town.  I walked into a very tall person. It was C1.  Ladies and gentlemen, which book was I reading when I walked into my friend C1 who has been known to reduce strong men to tears with her criticism of their reading material? Was it either of the Booker nominated tomes I had purchased? No, indeed, it was Shadowmancer. C1 would doubtless have commented at greater length had she not still been slightly winded from my walking into her.

Saturday – Do we really have to go back tomorrow day

Just as we had got used to the joys of adoring grandparents, it was all about to end. We gave the Princess to her loving Granny and went off for lunch with a friend of Mr. Waffle’s. When we arrived there were two friends. Friend one is a young man with no interest in clothes and a trust fund. Friend 2 is the best dressed woman in Ireland.  We had only been expecting Friend 1, so my effort to dress up was minimal. I actually wore no make up. Friend 2 arrived looking perfect This is the girl who once said to me (seriously, I think) when I admired a beautiful skirt she was wearing “surprisingly difficult to accessorise”.    This is Ireland, we are a nation famed for our poor dress sense.  She spent too long in London at a formative age. When we left, I said to Mr. Waffle “I didn’t realise Friend 2 was coming, if I had, I would have dressed up more”. He said “Mmm, I know what you mean”. Does my training count for nothing?  The correct response is, of course, “Really?I thought you looked beautiful”.

Sunday – Travel back in state of nervous exhaustion day.

Mr. Waffle and Grandad Waffle entertained the Princess from an early hour while I slept in bed. They will get their reward in heaven. Then Grandad Waffle drove us all to the airport in a zippy 50 minutes. Having left at lunchtime, we got home about 7.00. Princess was pleased and surprised to see the flat again. She was very disappointed, however, that no stairs had been installed in her absence.

Nice to be home all the same.

This week, Mr. Waffle has needed the car to go to a training course in a distant suburb.  He comes home every night with personality tests for me.  You will, I am sure, be fascinated to hear that I am an outgoing consensus seeker who thinks inside the box.

The upshot of this (the absence of car, not the personality) is that the Princess and I have been travelling a lot by public transport this week and she adores it.  People smile, wave and chat to her.  There’s the excitement of people getting on and off at every stop. She can’t get enough of it.  It is a little tiring for me though and it takes us a lot longer to get anywhere, so I think next week it’ll be back to the car.

The car is a 1.4 litre ford focus. Nothing wrong with that really.  Though it is an American car and we should, I suppose, be supporting the sluggish European economy, although I would point out that the original Mr. Ford was a Cork man (or at least his parents were) but I’m not sure that that counts.

Really, I hanker after a Fiat. Before we got our family car we had a lovely 1.6 litre Bravo and it was full of vim and energy and used to sprint away at traffic lights.  True, it was not as full of vim and energy as D’s VW Beetle which had a 2.0 litre engine but in my heart of hearts I believed it was nippier.  When we left for Belgium we sold the Bravo to R; when we were in Ireland last week we visited him and it was a little odd to go round to our house (we lived in his house while he was away trying to bring peace to the Balkans) and see our car parked outside.  It appeared to have a dent.  Poor Bravo.

I love Fiats even though my parents always had Fiats when they were a byword for unreliability. My father had a theory that you should keep your car for as long as possible; if you sold it after a year or two then the price dropped hugely vis a vis a new car but only very slowly after that.  I think we must have had one car for 9 years.  It would never start in the cold and we had to push it down the hill to start it and, if it didn’t start, we had to phone the AA. I think everyone was grateful when the AA introduced home start and we could just leave the car in the driveway when it wouldn’t start and wait for the nice man to come round and fix it.

Once we had our ancient Fiat in France tugging round a trailor, a tent, 2 adults and 3 children and it sulked and refused to go any further as we were heading for the ferry home. Immense panic. The French sister organisation of the AA came to inspect.  No joy, the gear box was dead. The car could not do first, it could only be started in second.  My intrepid mother had them start it and she drove to the ferry stopping nowhere while the rest of us sat numb with fear with our hands over our eyes.  When we got to the ferryport she stopped at the top of a small hill. We looked at the steeply inclined ramp cars were chugging up to get on the ferry.  A first gear job.  We were foiled.  My mother is never foiled.  To our intense mortification and grudging admiration, she approached one of the men loading cars.  She explained our predicament.  They cleared the gangway and surrounding areas.  The rest of us pushed the car with the trailor attached and my mother got going and zoomed down the hill and up the ramp at 50kms an hour.
And still I hanker after a Fiat. And if we did get one, it would have to be a people mover, I suppose. And, alas, the Fiat people mover, the Multipla is the only ugly car that Fiat has ever made.  It’s all tragic really.

We were in the car the other day listening to Umberto Tozzi (no you probably don’t want to know) and Mr. Waffle explained to the Princess that she was in Belgium  listening to an Italian man singing in Spanish on a tape which her Irish parents bought in Portugal.  “La, la, la” she said sourly.  Umberto Tozzi isn’t to everyone’s taste.