My Aunt: When I was younger, I wanted our family to enter one of these family quizzes on the television where you could win a holiday; your father would have been brilliant.
Me: Mmm, he does know everything but I doubt he would have liked the idea much. What did he say to you?
Her: Would you sell your dignity that cheaply?
Family
Harassed Parent
When I came home from work one day in late June, the childminder said to me : “Your daughter wanted to know the meaning of the word ‘amant’ but I felt it was best if you explained when you got home.” He then left; she was very anxious for an explanation. I was distracted, however, from my difficult task by the sight of a number of small downy feathers floating around the utility room. No sign of the cat either, ominous.
I explained the word “amant” to the Princess asking how this had come up [apparently, the childminder had been scraping old newspaper from the floor – don’t ask – and come across a cutting on the death of Diana and Dodi – thank you British royal family for indirectly introducing my child to the concepts of infidelity and the amant] and was interrupted by a piercing squeal. I ran and added my own piercing squeal as the cat was sitting on the utility room floor tucking in with great gusto to a meal of a small bird. To her intense chagrin [and indeed mine but Mr. Waffle was not yet home so I saw my duty clear] I chased her off it and picked up the bloody corpse in a plastic bag which I swept into the dustpan and then threw in the bin. Moments later I saw that one of the children had put the dustpan and brush on the work surface in the kitchen. It was all very trying. Can I tell you how glad I am that the summer holidays are finally upon us?
Cultural Activities
Things we have done in the holidays thus far:
St. Michan’s Church on Church Street
I had to practically beat the children to get out of the house to come here. The rain was coming down in sheets and even the short walk from the car to the church had us sodden. But it was so worth it. We have been here before. There are Mummys in the crypt [very dry apparently, unlike outside] and there is a great guide who makes the whole think immensely entertaining for children. They shook hands with the crusader [800 years old still quite a lot of face left – they know he was a crusader because his legs are crossed] and heard the gruesome story of the hanging, drawing and quartering of the Sheares brothers [involved in the 1798 rebellion – ended badly for them]. This was described in loving detail to the intense delight of all the children on the tour. There is also the family crypt of the Earls of Leitrim which has lain unused since the third earl (a bad lot) was buried there. The church boasts the font where Edmund Burke was baptised and the organ on which Handel practised the Messiah before the first performance in Fishamble Street. We ran into the vicar [I think, the titles of Protestant clergymen are always a mystery to me] who asked the children where they went to school and then surprised them by saying he was a neighbour of one of their classmates and horrified them by speaking to them in Irish. After this alarming encounter, they decided that it was best to leave again but not before writing in the visitors’ book. A number of American visitors had described their visits as “awesome” and “amazing”. Michael having laboriously written his name and address went for a more restrained “good”.
The Princess and I walked up and down Henrietta Street and admired the buildings. Number 14 was home to C.S Lewis’s great, great grandmother. I thought you would like to know. We went to the Uilleann Pipers house and had a look around. The boys sat in the car and refused to move.
Subsequently I went on my own to no.14 to see the Dublin Tenement Experience. This is a performance set in the 1913 Dublin lockout and using no.14 Henrietta Street which is largely unchanged since it was used as a tenement. The performance is done by the same people who did “The Boys of Foley Street” so I was prepared to be alarmed and to have plenty of audience participation. Maybe my previous knowledge of the company ruined it for me but it’s just not so real when you are accompanied by a bus load of elderly tourists from Northern Ireland. I thought it was mildly interesting and reasonably well done but I certainly wouldn’t have been gushing that it was the best thing I had ever seen as I heard one of my fellow participants say in awed tones to the woman on reception. Still and all, well worth a look.
Unrelated but as I was there they were filming an ad for C&A. The security man told me that they had been filming for 5 days for a 30 second slot. 5 days! So, if you see a nice old Georgian street in a C&A ad, you’ll know where it was shot.
The Princess and I had previously tried to visit this restored Georgian house but it was closed for renovations. This time we got in and I think she found it mildly entertaining but really more fun for me than for her. Sometimes she is a saintly child. Ironically, the ESB which funded the restoration of this house, knocked down all the rest of the terrace. There is some bitterness about this. It’s interesting though that Irish attitudes at the time were very ambivalent towards Georgian architecture and what it represented. I think now there has been a complete turn around and no one would argue for the wanton destruction of Georgian houses but certainly there’s still plenty of neglect in the centre of Dublin.
I forced the children to go to this world famous monastic site. They haven’t been for a couple of years. The traffic was dreadful. It took us an hour and a half to get there. The information that the American first children had recently been forced to go there left them unmoved other than leading to a slight fellow feeling. When we arrived I made them go on a mild walk.
It went pretty well for the first half but by the second part of the circuit they were getting tired, hungry and fractious. Michael fell down a hill and was picked up by a kindly German tourist. Daniel got stung by nettles. We saw deer but even that was insufficient to rouse them to any great enthusiasm. The Phoenix Park has made them all a bit blasé about deer.
I got to use my picnic basket again. As I was unpacking it, two very small girls stood and watched me enviously. See below, Michael enjoying the picnic which, in his case, consisted of 5 cream crackers.
After the picnic, I played hurling with Dan. Very poorly. A number of Americans stopped and took pictures of this native sport; unfortunately the quality of the play gave very little idea of what hurling is actually like.
After this I tried and utterly failed to get them to the monastic site. This is as close as we got to Glendalough this year.
For the best part of a year, I have been threatening to take my family to this city centre church. Mr. Waffle kindly minded the children one morning and I set off on my own. It is a lovely, lovely church managed by the Office of Public Works in co-operation with the local parish. It’s less showy than St. Patrick’s or Christ Church both of which are nearby but really peaceful and very appealing.
The OPW has done a great job with the exhibition in the oldest part of the original church. There is still an unroofed part – the Portlester chapel – which is somehow particularly attractive in the centre of the city surrounded by very busy roads. It feels like it belongs somewhere else altogether. Petrie has a drawing of it from the 1800s and it is still very recognisable; although no one was hanging out washing while I was there.
I will now force the children to come with me and see it because they have not suffered enough.
More weekends
My friend from school came to stay with her American husband and four American children. Even though our new house is much bigger, it was still something of a squash and a squeeze. But it was lovely to see them – we last saw them on December 29, 2010 when their youngest was a very sick baby. They are all well now and particularly polite in the manner of nice middle class American children: eye contact when talking to adults! Still a skill which some of my children have not mastered. The children all got on pretty well. My friend’s two youngest boys were particularly excited by the presence of my boys’ extensive arsenal of weapons from water pistol to plastic sub-machine gun and stocked them on the landing with great enthusiasm. When the three-year-old came up to me laughing and shot me, I played dead but his parents were appalled. They have no toy guns in their house. Culturally, there seems to be a difference in toy gun control between here and the US.
So, picture the scene, they arrived off the plane on Sunday morning, hired a car and turned up at our house having been travelled from their home in Vermont at 2pm US time on Saturday. Were the children cranky? They were not. Were they tired? No. Were they even particularly grubby? Not really. Instead of collapsing into their beds, they spent the afternoon with us at the church garden party. This event was, by the standards of these things, a huge success. Crucially, the sun shone. Members of the Indian Christian community [larger than you might think] performed a dance to Shiva the Destroyer in front of the priests’ dining room and all the cakes were sold. Herself was deputed to sell raffle tickets and to her great joy, our visitors bought €20 worth.
All was well with the world. And the children all slept all night. The Americans went to Cork on Tuesday and on to a wedding in Kerry on Friday before flying out of Shannon on Saturday. The horror. But they are brave souls.
Weekend Round Up
That’s actually the weekend from weeks and weeks ago. I’m behind. Anyhow, some of the people I used to work with in Brussels came over for the weekend. It was lovely to see them and the weather was spectacularly beautiful.
One of my former colleagues, T, stayed with us. She does not have children herself and one can only hope that she has not been put off the idea by Michael’s constant, mortifying whining – “How much longer is she staying?” He gave up his room, most unwillingly, and boy did he want everyone to know that he wasn’t happy about it.
Typical conversation:
Me: Michael, did you know that T is a twin also?
Michael: I…DON’T…CARE!
Me: Michael that’s very rude, say ‘sorry’.
Michael: Sorry.
Me: Like you mean it.
Michael: Daniel doesn’t say sorry like he means it.
Yes, Ireland of the 1,000 welcomes.
Fortunately, former colleague N, who is working in Dublin for 8 months, had arranged an elaborate programme as I was something of a broken reed. They walked around Howth Head in searing heat (unusual); they came to my housewarming on Saturday night; they went for a stroll around Dalkey on Sunday.
On Saturday, Mr. Waffle had to work and I took the children off to the beach in Portrane. I had never taken them there before and was a bit uncertain of the way but we made it. It is a lovely sandy beach that is shallow for miles. When I reached waist height in the water, I collapsed after the long trek and had my first swim of the season. It was all very pleasant in a mild way. When I saw those who had walked for 4 hours around Howth Head earlier that day, I knew that I had been wise to acknowledge my limitations and only walk into the sea.
Not a great shot of the beach but you can see that the sea is a long way away.
They have also decided to go for an unusual juxtaposition of old and modern in the siting of their water tower beside the clock tower:
On the housewarming, one of my former colleagues asking whether there were any single men coming. A rapid mental scan of my guest list confirmed that there were not. Woe. On the plus side, older married couples are great with the presents. We are groaning with fancy champagne stocks. The weather was terrific and we stayed outside until late. One set of neighbours had brought their 10 and 12 year old children and our children stayed up until 12 to entertain them – something that herself particularly enjoyed. She was hyper all evening letting people in and telling them where to put their tasteful gifts and chatting animatedly. A friend commented that it was a shame that the Princess had set her face against an Irish medium second level school as she didn’t think that her English needed further improvement. I was torn between smug delight and angst at the knowledge that herself had been letting her, occasionally forceful, personality shine forth on the guests. At one stage during the evening, she hugged me and said, “I love this party!” She is really one of these children who love to talk to adults. Also, she is very sociable, like her father.
And then on Sunday, out to Dalkey: it really was beautiful and quite unlike Ireland; my Brussels friends now have a deeply warped view of what the Irish summer is like. All to the good really.
Bank Holiday Weekend
According to RTE, the bank holiday weekend is sponsored by Liberty insurance. Humph. Anyhow, it’s certainly not sponsored by Anglo-Irish Bank whose unfinished headquarters looms over the docklands. As Mr. Waffle said, enough irony for a double Alanis Morisette album.
We were down in the docklands yesterday for organised fun and it was, as ever, disastrous. Queue to get on to small boat; fork out for overpriced random treats; walk for miles. I don’t know why we do this to ourselves. Here are some photos which in no way reflect the actual level of fun had at the event.
Today we fulfilled a long held ambition of mine and went on a day trip to Northern Ireland. It was, as Daniel said, almost successful. The weather was beautiful. The walk through the woods near Rostrevor was lovely.
But herself was wearing fur lined boots and she was very toasty. She told us about it a great deal. Michael had fashioned a wand for himself which he lost and no other twig in the forest was a substitute. We went back to the viewing point to get it. It is now beside his bed. In case Voldemort attacks during the night.
On the plus side, the views were beautiful and we did reach the big stone (Cloch Mór) which Fionn mac Cumhaill was supposed to have thrown at a marauding Scottish giant. Tempers were a bit frayed, though, by the time we had our picnic at 2. However, I finally got to use the fancy picnic basket that we got as a wedding present nearly 12 years ago, so another tick for my life list.
After the picnic, we went into Rostrevor; it was pretty but very quiet. We visited a graveyard where there was a 15th century church ruin and tried and failed to find Giant Murphy’s grave. The children refused to leave the car so Mr. Waffle and I wandered round in sunshine peacefully reading 19th century gravestones.
Then we went to look for a nice cafe in Warrenpoint. I was led astray by the internet which plugged a place called Sweet Pea very hard. It’s in the car park of a large garden centre rather than looking out over the beauty of Carlingford Lough so, poor choice. On the plus side the internet said it was “waaay overpriced” but to our Dublin sensibilities £1.50 for a cup of tea was excellent value.
The children quite enjoyed crossing the border and using sterling, seeing different signposts and red letterboxes and telephone boxes. However, when we crossed back into Co. Louth and I said that we had left Northern Ireland, Michael rolled down his window and said, “Ah, Irish air”. He has much to learn about the complexities of Irish identity.
Addendum: I should have said, a part of Michael remains forever in Northern Ireland as he finally lost that tooth that has been hanging by a thread for months. Despite our best efforts to find it, it remains hidden in the long grass in Rostrevor.
