Herself has taking to cooking. She does all the measuring, creaming and mixing. We light the oven and put in the cakes. We are greeted on weekend mornings with requests to be allowed to cook. We are full to the brim with cakes and buns. I am not sure whether this will be sustainable in the longer term. But we are all very impressed all the same.
Archives for December 2010
Restoration Drama
For her own obscure reasons, the Princess tossed a pen on top of the bookshelf on the landing and asked me to get it down. Standing on top of a chair, I groped blindly behind the books stacked on the top and felt something soft and extremely dusty. He’s back, the one and only, the original transitional object.
When Speed is not of the Essence
I subscribed to the Economist for Mr. Waffle for Christmas. Yes, I know what you’re thinking, you’re right. What can I say, he’s hard to buy for.
I ordered it the other day and they said it would take three weeks to arrive. I was therefore, understandably, mildly peeved when this evening he waved a copy in front of me and said, “This arrived today for me – is it my Christmas present?”
“Happy Christmas”.
In completely unrelated news, I am inexplicably fascinated by the deeply offensive Horse Outside. Maybe it’s because I’m half Limerick myself.
Violent, Enid Blyton-Loving Gaelgeoir Proclaims Loyalty
Herself: It’s funny how knowing about something changes your loyalties.
Me: How do you mean?
Herself: Well when I lived in Belgium, if someone had said that Irish was pointless I would probably have agreed but now, if someone said that, I would jolly well hit him in the face.
Further Adventures in English Usage
I overheard the Princess explain her activities at school to Daniel:
“We are currently painting our shoeboxes to make them into cribs, we will be adding straw to the floor of the manger presently.” [Emphasis original]
Clearly, a proud moment.
The Middle Classes at Play
We went to a performance of “The Snowman†in the Concert Hall with a live orchestra. I saw it advertised in September and thought it might be nice for us to go. A family Christmas outing. I forked out €70 (non-refundable) for this piece of Christmas cheer. When I announced the proposed treat at the start of December, the children all groaned. “We hate the Snowman, we’ve seen it loads of times before.â€
The children’s best friends decided to hold their birthday party on the same afternoon as the Snowman. After much agonising we decided to stick with the Snowman even though a) our children would have loved the party and b) all three of them would have been gone from 2.30 -5.00 and we could have read the papers. They still don’t know that they missed the party. I really hope that they never find out.
On the day of the treat, we dragged them to the Concert Hall. The foyer was abuzz with excited children and their parents. Sample conversation: “Have you put little unpronounceable (aged 3) down for secondary school yet?†“No, actually we haven’t, but imagine the local primary school is no longer taking names for its waiting listâ€.
Despite their best intentions, the children did actually quite enjoy the show. In addition to the Snowman it had a range of other attractions. It featured Santa and, in a complicated plot development, the Grinch. The latter was stealing clothes from a washing line. When Santa asked where the Grinch was all the children in the audience roared out “behind the line†except for Daniel who shouted in his best demotic Dublinese “behind the li-onâ€. He is great at picking up accents. We have a CD of Irish songs and when Daniel sings along, he sounds just like a little boy from the Connemara Gaeltacht. I am hoping that this will be useful to him in later life. Have I told you this before? I digress. There were some songs from Glee all of which the Princess seemed to know (mental note – how?). There was much talk of the X-factor. There were carols. When asked afterwards whether they enjoyed it, the Princess and Daniel said that they did but Michael (despite ample evidence to the contrary during the show) said that he did not.
Emboldened by the relative success of the show after a poor start, we decided to go to Milano’s. The children were ravenous – having refused to eat lunch – and the sight in the foyer of a Christmas treat box sent the Princess wild. She really wanted that box. But we were going for pizza and her mean, horrible parents would not let her have it. Cue unfortunate meltdown in the foyer as a number of people we knew tripped out of the stalls. Sigh. The trip for pizza passed off peacefully though. We should be grateful for small mercies, I suppose.
Tomorrow: the pantomime.
