It’s all so long ago now. First Dublin, grandparents were dutifully wonderful and, as far as I can remember, it was all about abandoning the Princess with her unfortunate grandparents while skipping off to town or to dinner or to shop. Princess had a fabulous time as did we. She became very interested in the picture in our bedroom (which is the pub exec’s room when she comes home) which was “The Fall of Icarus”. This enabled Mr. Waffle to do some work on his “Greek myths for the under twos” project. “Icarus flies like a birdie, cheep, cheep. Icarus is too close to the sun. Hot. Hot. All fall down. Into the water, splish, splash.”
Cork involved two trips to the beach. On both occasions the Princess threw up due to what Mr. Waffle refers to as my exciting driving style. It also poured rain. While the rain and the vomit significantly dampened our enthusiasm, they in no way impeded the Princess’s enjoyment of events. So keen is she on her bucket and spade that she has been known to sit on concrete and play with imaginary sand. The sight of the real thing and sea made her a very happy girl. Other than the rain and vomit, Cork was a lot like Dublin. My loving parents minding the Princess while we ran off and disported ourselves around the real capital. Also, we met more babies. A lot of people in Cork come pre-equipped with babies. Including one old friend who was duly mortified when his three year old spent his time with us weeping and clutching his (the father’s) arm saying “I want to go home”.
So, to summarise, we met a range of people in both locations, all of whom insisted on paying for our food and drink. Since leaving Ireland we appear to have lost the knack of paying for ourselves or anyone else. We will spend the time between now and December trying to pay for other people’s meals to get in training for the rematch over the Christmas holidays.
