The Princess started school in Dublin this morning. It was very odd to see her in a school uniform. She looked so big. As we are still not in our house (alas) we had to leave the parents-in-law’s at dawn to get her in – they kindly minded the boys who apparently took our absence in good part.Â
It was my first visit to the school (Mr. Waffle having inspected previously) and I liked it. There was a good social mix and the teachers and head seemed very friendly. In contradistinction to Belgium where children are rather left to sink or swim on their own, the teachers were very anxious to introduce the Princess to other children and to give her a friend to mind her. Although it is, obviously, all the same in the end, it did make a difference this morning, I think.
The school is housed in a beautiful (though sadly delapidated) Georgian building. Senior infants are in a large drawing room with elaborate stucco work on the ceiling. Having myself gone to a suburban, socially uniform primary school where I received all my education in a prefab (the baby boom having taken the authorities by surprise) , I like the faded elegance and social diversity of her city centre school. I suppose this is hardly particularly relevant to herself and she did cry pitifully when we left. However, Mr. Waffle has just collected her and the whole thing seems to have gone off peacefully. I will be curious to see how she negotiates the linguistic regime but the teachers seem mercifully relaxed about using English as well as Irish. Hold your breath out there.Â
