I asked the children recently whether they thought I spoke better Irish or French. Instantly, all three said “Irish, of course!” I was surprised. I can read well in French, I have been known to draft work texts in French and I speak it well enough to say anything I want to say, within reason. Alas, I have none of these skills in Irish (although I did have an excruciating work conversation in Irish on the phone during the week the memory of which makes me blush). Of course, the difference is that my Irish accent is, understandably, fine (although purists may point out that I have city Irish much further from the real thing than its country cousin) but my French accent is clearly foreign.
Daniel
Feis Ceoil
The school had a singing and recitation competition on Saturday. The boys were both very brave but failed to scoop any medals. Michael took this very hard. “I try and I try, but still I don’t win,” he sobbed as the kindly adjudicator mouthed “sorry” at me over his heaving shoulders. The same adjudicator proceeded to award his sister second place in her category which she regarded as no more than her due. If I were giving out medals, I would have given one to Daniel, I think, who did his impression of a child from the Connemara Gaeltacht.
In completely unrelated news, herself walked a neighbour’s child home this afternoon and came back carrying a bag full of swag. Apparently, every day when coming home she, the childminder and the boys, meet a nice lady who lives on the street. The Princess had informed the lady that her birthday was coming, as indeed she has informed everybody. The lady acted on this information and as the Princess was passing her house this afternoon, she came out with various offerings. Unfortunately, the Princess has inherited my sense of direction so she has no idea in which house exactly her benefactress lives nor is she aware of other useful identifiers like the lady’s name. She has composed a thank you letter to hand over next time she meets the lady in the street and that is the best we can do for the moment. Who says the big city is an unfriendly place?
First Steps in Reading
Daniel has begun to read by sheer will power alone. He painstakingly sounds out words from everywhere. They are always slightly disappointing words – Avonmore, O’Neill’s, stop, yield – but he is undaunted. Next stop, the Russians.
Making Sense of the World Around Us
The Home Lives of Others
Me: Do you like the new babysitter?
Daniel: Yes.
Me: What language do you think [insert the most Irish name you can think of at this point – babysitter’s mother is a native Irish speaker from Donegal] speaks at home?
Daniel: I dunno, French?
Relations
Me: Everyone has two grandmothers. Do you know who your two grandmothers are?
Daniel: Grandma and Aunty Nic?
The Solar System
Daniel: Do you know which planet is closest to the sun?
Me: Mercury?
Daniel: Yes, and then it’s Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. Do you want to hear about sunspots?
Why you Should Try to Keep your Small Children away from Police Stations
To renew the children’s passports, we have to bring them to a police station and let a Garda look at them. This may or may not be because Mr. Waffle was not born in Ireland but in a country well known to harbour dangerous subversives (Canada, since you ask). So on Sunday we trooped into the station where the Gardaà duly looked the children over and pronounced that they matched the photos. During that time, I fielded the following questions from the Princess based on a series of posters on the wall:
What is rape? [Having looked at these excellent but disturbing posters]
What’s human trafficking?
What’s a drug dealer?
While doing this, I had also to break up a fist fight between the boys on the subject of Daniel’s wellingtons.
Unrelated: Praxis, please advise on the capitalisation of the title.
Signs, omens, portents
Daniel came home with a big cut across his forehead. “What happened to you?” I asked. “Mary Lou [McDonald, successful Sinn Féin candidate in the recent election] hit me,” he said. “WHAT??” “Well, Michael, threw her at me and she hit me on the forehead.” It transpired that one of the candidate’s posters had fallen off a lamp post and Michael decided to test its aerodynamics by flinging it as his brother. I tell you, if it’s not one thing, it’s another.
