Mr. Waffle performed some service for Michael and I said, “Who is the best Daddy in the world?” Daniel was lying on the floor staring at the ceiling and, after some thought, decided to answer the question, “I don’t know, Uncle G maybe?”
Family
Cork
Last weekend my kind sister and parents minded the children while Mr. Waffle and I skipped off to Kinsale. As a former local, I’ve never really been a tourist in this part of the world before. It’s lovely, I can tell you.
We stayed in a place called the Glebe House [query for Protestants – what’s the difference between a Glebe, a Vicarage, a Rectory and a Manse?] and it was delightful – roaring fires; Victorian furniture; pleasant views; and a charming hostess.
On Saturday morning we took the Scilly walk out to Charles Fort.
I had, to my intense chagrin, left my heritage card in the car but the nice woman from the OPW looked in her book and found the entry showing where my sister had bought the card [a present] and let us in free. €8 saved – hurrah [insert your own cliché about the recession here]. Charles Fort has been tarted up enormously since I last visited – probably about 20 years ago – and it looked very cared for. The OPW staff gave an interesting tour and were very knowledgeable about the site. The sun was shining; the weather was beautiful could it get any better?
Oh yes, it could. A local collective was having a sale of crafty things; including expensive, but very delicate and beautiful batik pictures. I bought Christmas tree ornaments and soap from the lady who makes it. She was cutting her own ribbons while I was talking to her – the handmade clearly covers all angles. And then we went for late lunch in here; a restaurant I have been curious about for some time. It was nice and very, very busy – still heaving at 4 when we left but not as spectacular as local opinion had led me to believe. Then we went our separate ways for a bit. I got to go around the town which is pretty, though familiar, and particularly rich in what Mr. Waffle disparagingly calls “upmarket tourist tat”. In a sweet shop, there was a young man leaning on the counter speaking to the young woman who was serving in a strong local rural accent. “I was up fixing your father’s rooter last night,” he said. “What kind of agricultural implement is that?” I wondered to myself. Then the young man added, “He’s delighted with the new netbook, isn’t he?” Ah, that kind of router. My favourite shop is Kinsale Silver where I almost always find something but there are lots of great, small, appealing shops and, if only I were a little more organised, my Christmas shopping would now be complete.
On Sunday before being reunited with our children we went for a walk on Garretstown beach and it was so warm that we had to take off our coats. I think we must have got one of the best weekends of the year. As we hopped into the car, I called my sister to tell her that we were on our way, “Will you be glad to see us?” I asked the babysitter in chief. She considered for a moment, “I’ll be glad to see you leave,” she offered. It’s a good job that we had such a wonderful time because I can’t see our babysitter in chief being ready to take on another weekend of sunshine and laughter with small children immediately.
Family History – For Philatelists Only
When I was in Cork over the weekend (more on this anon), my mother made me clear out some of the accumulated papers which had settled down in my old bedroom.
One of the things I found was a House of Floris box; does anyone remember these? My father used to bring them to my mother from London when he went there for work in the 70s and there was a really delicious one with a crystallised violet on the top (or something purple, maybe it was just a sugar violet, same difference). A trawl of the internet failed to turn up a copy of the cover so sparing no expense, I have taken the box from, possibly, 1976 and scanned it. Now you too can gaze at that familiar cover and remember biting off the crystallised violets, or possibly not.
Why, you might ask yourself, did I keep a box from the 1970s, well, obviously, because that’s where I kept my stamp collection. To form the core of my collection, I was given a number of stamps which I carefully affixed to my album, using hinges, remember those? What I did not properly appreciate at the time was that my father had kindly given me his collection and also my Great Uncle Jack’s.
Great Uncle Jack’s collection goes from the late 1890s to the early part of the 20th century (he seems to have given up collecting about 1902). This is the cover of his stamp album:
And here is an exciting sample page:
I thought you might like to see the list of countries (you can’t fool me, if you’re reading this post, you’re that kind of person). I’ve only done page one; that’s enough for you, no sense in overdoing it.
My father’s period of stamp collecting covered the period 1938-39. Here’s the cover of his album:
And here’s a sample page:
You will appreciate that 1938/39 was a difficult time for the stamp collector as borders began to move with some rapidity. The index of countries had to be considerably amended by the careful owner to reflect the progress of the advancing German armies.
I think that a quick look at the cover of my album will show how the romance had gone out of stamp collecting by the 1970s:
I mean, it didn’t even have an index, is it any wonder I became disillusioned?
Finding the Old Homestead
My brother is on an extended holiday in the US [because he can] and he sends us the odd update [because he believes we should suffer].
Not a lot of people know this but as a child, my father lived in Southern California. His parents came back to Cork in the 30s and people used to ask him to talk – “Let’s hear the little yank”. He remembers the ice man, and seeing a film being made at night but that’s pretty much all we’ve ever heard of his sojourn in America. My father is not a great man for nostalgia.
Latest missive from my brother includes the following:
Hey folks how,s the form…..whoever sang that song it never rains in southern California has seriously misrepresented the reality. It,s been raining here solidly all day, it,s like the west of Ireland with Palm Trees thrown in. I,m in the apple store in Pasadena near Los Angeles, trying to use the iPad 2, have to admit it,s well cool though ridiculously overpriced. It is pretty cool despite the fact I can,t find the apostrophe on the key pad. It,s also the childhood home of [our father], the directions I was given to the actual house from the man himself was that there was a machine that sold nickel sweets on the street corner sometime in the 1930s. With these pinpoint directions I have only my ineptitude and terrible sense of direction to blame for failing to find the landmark building.
The End of Culture
I am not organising any further outings. On Sunday afternoon, we were supposed to go to a worthy theatre offering. When this treat was announced, the children were unenthusiastic. Daniel and Michael howled, “no”. Due to a series of accidents, we arrived 5 minutes late and latecomers were not admitted.
Oh I was cross. I have announced that I am organising nothing further and that the children might therefore miss seeing some architectural gems during the Open House weekend. They were gutted, as you might imagine.
Event Guide
Some colleagues said to me recently that I am like an event guide. This may be true. Sometimes I think the children wish that they could be let stay at home a bit.
We have been harvesting fruit:
Cycling in the city:
Watching canoe water polo (you haven’t lived):
Observing the man-made desert island in the Liffey (it’s art, someone lived there for a week, except for a break during the gale)
Chopping wood and doing other outdoorsy things in the forest:
Sampling culture night. The only actual culture we experienced was a quick concert for children in the Ark. This was a mixed experience. The performance, a violinist and a guitarist, was delightful [I subsequently discovered that they are married to each other and have two small children – her sister was in school with a colleague – welcome to Ireland]. The performers were terrific and very good at engaging the young audience. In one segment they played themes from television shows. On the very first one my boys were out of their chairs yelling “Ben 10” before the performers had played two notes. Mortifying but a triumph at the same time – see all those hours in front of the television weren’t wasted.
And then, on Sunday, I took my mother to watch the Solheim cup.
