I had my best night’s sleep in ages last night. I lay down with the Princess at 10.00 to persuade her to go back to sleep and didn’t wake up until 5.00 am when she prodded me awake with the magic words “I’ve had an accident Mummy”. I discarded my sodden pyjamas and rooted round in the hot press for a pair that I might have left behind when I moved out of home about 14 years ago. Why does one keep this stuff? Did I really think that denim dungaree shorts were ever going to be fashionable again? Really?  Anyhow, I found a pair of pyjamas but there was no elastic in the bottoms (really, would it have been too much of a risk to have thrown them out in 1992?). This morning as I wandered around the house with a baby under one arm and a dirty nappy under the other while holding up my pyjama bottoms with my teeth, my loving husband was kind enough to say how very attractive that look was.
We had decided to go to the beach and I was not to be deterred by driving rain. Welcome to Ireland, the land that global warming forgot. On the drive down, I kept seeing new buildings that hadn’t been there last time I was home. Mr. Waffle looked around nervously before suggesting that I keep my eye on the road to avoid headlining in the Examiner as “Architectural novelty causes freak pile up”. This boom just keeps on booming.Â
We got to the beach and put the Princess into her anorak and wellingtons. She and Mr. Waffle went to the beach where the Princess cowered in terror at the sight of the ocean. Mercifully, she wasn’t afraid of the dog which attached itself to them and presented them optimistically with a stick. I waited by the car with an awake Michael kitted out in his anorak and an asleep Daniel. When Daniel woke up, I put Michael into the buggy where he gazed dourly at the rain coming in from the Atlantic and lashing his protective plastic sheeting. Daniel was cranky so I went to the boot to get out a bottle for him. I was in a bit of a rush what with the screaming and the rain and, alas, locked the key in the boot. Darn and double darn. I fed Daniel, put him into his anorak and he joined his brother in the buggy. I then emptied out the back seat and floor of the car of three car seats, the nappy bag, the bag of swimming gear (you have to admire my laughable optimism) and miscellaneous junk and tried to pull down the back seat to get to the boot. It would not budge. I started wondering frantically what I was going to do. Could I get my parents to bus down to us with a spare key? Would I find a locksmith or a mechanic? Meanwhile the rain continued to pelt down on our belongings and the boys had started to wail forlornly. Yeah, ok, you worked this out already, there was a button thing in the front to open the boot. The key wasn’t there when I opened it because it had been in my coat pocket all along. How we laughed. Hah.
The day was redeemed by lunch in the Blue Haven where the lovely staff (all Polish as far as I could see – more boom) provided two high chairs, heated baby food, brought our food speedily and brought some bread in advance to stop the Princess from starving. The food was also really good, not something that necessarily goes with kiddie friendliness. I couldn’t help comparing it with yesterday’s lunch in Fota where the food was atrocious and there were far more kiddies yet they only had two high chairs in total rather than the five or six which the Blue Haven staff airily told us were available there.
