I am just about to leave my parents’ house to get the train back to Dublin. My poor husband and children have not seen me all weekend. My mother is sad to see me go – my father is too, in his own way, I’m sure though I suspect it is a mild relief that no one will leave the doors open once I go. I hardly saw my beloved aunt who lives next door to my parents. I did not get to tidy out my old room (task list from 1993) or sort out my poor sister’s broken car window. And I have work papers in my bag that I will have to read on the train because staying late at work is a luxury I no longer enjoy. Sometimes it feels like there just isn’t enough of me to go around.
Family
Pressing Matters
On Saturday, I went to see number 10, Henrietta Street as part of the Open House weekend where all sorts of places are thrown open to the public. Number 10 is a beautiful former townhouse which has been a convent since the start of the 20th century. It was restored in 2003 and an architect involved in the restoration gave a fantastic tour.
I have fallen in love with Henrietta Street and want to live there. It is quite beautiful to look at with the King’s Inns forming the end of the street and very large early Georgian houses on either side. The area is very urban and edgy (what some people might call rough and dangerous) and the houses are beautiful, listed, huge and, in many cases derelict. As recently as 1974 they were tenements with 36 families living in one of the houses. Hassett and Fitzsimons has one for sale with the fantastically engaging description “unique refurbishment opportunity”. €1.85 million before you have at all begun your unique refurbishing. When I told Mr. Waffle all this with shining eyes on my return, he started to bang his head against the fridge. I suppose my only hope of moving there is either a) win the lottery or b) become a nun.
During the week my brother brought us up an enormous quantity of apples from my parents’ house in Cork. We took ourselves off to West Wicklow on Sunday morning where a look branch of the slow food movement were making an apple pressing machine available to those with plentiful apple crops. This was terrific. There were lots of children to play together while the grown ups made apple juice. Those attending ranged from bohemian couples with children with unlikely names to elderly protestant ladies. Although we were a bit outside the general demographic, it was great fun and I am contemplating shelling out some of my income to be notified of future events where I will be able to overhear more conversations along the lines of “I knew, just by looking at them that your children had to be homeschooled…” and “Have you met …, she’s a herbalist.” Also the Princess made a friend. They discovered that they were both from Dublin and arranged to meet at the Spire. I knew she had met a soulmate when the new friend said to her father, “Daddy, I am meeting my new friend at the Spire, when would be an appropriate time for us to meet.” [Emphasis added] To her great chagrin, her father replied “In about 6 years.”
Weekend Round-up
The Princess and I went to the National Gallery on Saturday morning to inspect the Baroque rooms. She has developed an enormous interest in Greek mythology thanks to the Percy Jackson books and I thought we’d have a look at some paintings of Greek gods. Unfortunately, this outing of supreme middle class smugness was spoilt by the fact that they are repairing the roof in that wing. So, instead of looking at art we went up and down in the glass lift several times. When we emerged there were two patient English tourists waiting outside, one of whom was Emma Thompson. Being Irish, I pretended not to notice. Being 7, the Princess didn’t notice but I thought you ought to be told.
On Saturday afternoon we walked in the rain in the Phoenix Park. I seethed that Saturday’s Irish Times, allegedly a national paper, devoted a full page to the discontinuation of a Dublin bus route (the number 10, if you’re asking, in fact, its functions will be taken over by the 46A so it was really more a change of name of a Dublin bus route). That was fun for everyone, as you can imagine.
Saturday evening saw us leaving the children in the hands of an older woman who had moved to Ireland to be near her daughter. For 20 years, she worked for a surgeon in Cannes and she lovingly described his spotless operating theatre. I can’t help feeling she must have been appalled at our bathroom. Sigh. We went out and had dinner in a place specialising in Irish beer. Mr. Waffle tried O’Hara’s on the basis that I used to regularly lunch with one of the co-owners who worked in Brussels at the same time as me. I tried to identify him to Mr. Waffle. “You must remember him,” I said. “He worked in the same office as that fellow whose parents live around the corner from my parents in Cork.” To which, Mr Waffle replied, “This country is far too small, isn’t it?”
On Sunday afternoon, Mr. Waffle had to work but the children and I went out to the parents-in-law and, on the assurance of my mother-in-law that their neighbours had said to help ourselves, hopped over the garden wall and stripped the neighbours’ raspberry canes. This morning we had homemade jam for breakfast made from raspberries which were, only yesterday, basking in the South Co. Dublin sunshine. Oh the unbearable smugness of being.
Last night, I cycled into town to go on a blind date. Town Mouse was visiting and had suggested that we might meet. I’ve only ever met one person through the internet before and so this is all a bit new to me. It is a very odd relationship when you know a lot about what a person chooses to put on his or her blog and not a lot about anything else. Like say, her partner, who is a very distant background presence on the blog but, you know, much more rounded when you actually meet him over dinner. There was so much to talk about and I feel that I didn’t get even half of it in. I feel a bit sad now, that, realistically, unless they start making a habit of coming to Ireland, I will never really know TM and her young man. Still, maybe I will go and visit her and insist on inspecting her vegetable garden which fills me with envy. Though she did cast a pall over my evening by mentioning that she, like my children, was a picky eater when young and now she eats most things “except vegetables beginning with C”. We’re doomed.
Notes from the edge
We have done all these things recently that I want to record faithfully here. But I haven’t time because we are out doing things.
Thing one:
We went to the fire station for a visit. Firemen and women are a) very kind to children and b) amazing. Did you know that they are all trained paramedics as well? That they can abseil? That if you fall into the Liffey, they’re trained to dive in and take you out. That they will let small children ride in their fire engines, play with hoses and show them equipment? It was the kind of thing that we did for the children and were genuinely fascinated by ourselves. One of the firemen said that he was in hospital for four months when someone threw a brick on top of the engine from a pedestrian overpass. I am still outraged on their behalf.
Thing two:
The President turned up at Sunday mass. She did a reading. She did not tut at my children running up and down the aisle. Her security man took part in the service and put money in the collection box. I told my mother that the President was at mass; she said, “What was she wearing?” “And what did you say to that?” asked my husband. “A camel coloured coat.”
Thing three:
There was organised fun in the Dublin mountains. We took the children. I am always surprised by how much they actually like just running around in the woods. There was a time when I would have photographic evidence but it appears to have passed.
Thing four:
At 10 this evening, I dashed upstairs to turn off the Princess’s light. Clearly, she should have been asleep but she was reading her book as we had neglected to turn off her light because we were distracted by hunting the internet for bouncy castles for hire. She asked what the gentle plinking noise in her room was. Investigation revealed that it was a drip in the ceiling. Further investigation in the attic (all three children now awake and peering up the into the attic) revealed that a slate is missing from the roof. And we only just got a leak fixed. My father says, “Houses are nothing but trouble.” I’m beginning to see what he means.
Tomorrow we are going out for culture night. The boys’ birthday party is on Sunday. Further details may follow. There’s something to look forward to.
Weekend round-up
It was heritage week. Getting into heritage week events is a bit like getting your children into a good secondary school in Dublin. You have to start before you might conceivably have thought it was necessary. The minute the brochure came out at the end of July, I attempted to book us in to three events. One was already fully booked but the other two came good. On Saturday we had a children’s tour of Farmleigh which, though led by a slightly forbidding woman, was actually very well done. She had stories from the last children who lived in the house (now grown-up Guinnesses) and she handled the crowd very well. It was her outdoors colleague who was less successful. His job was to introduce the children to the horses and donkeys on the estate. On the face of it, this was the easier job. However, he was the kind of man who likes to complain about his job and he told the utterly uninterested audience that you might think that he would be allowed to name the foals but no. That job goes to the general manager. And then when he goes on his holidays, the lad who looks after the horses doesn’t talk to them and they’re wild when he comes back. He would do anything with horses but he won’t get up on one, not for all the tea in china. And so on.
The mild success of Saturday was, however, completely eclipsed by the trip to Kilmainham Gaol on Sunday. The authorities in the gaol had gone to a lot of trouble and they put together an excellent tour for children. Firstly the children were given sheets of paper with their “crimes” and sentences on them (things like vagrancy, 6 months hard labour) and photographed. Then they were marched single file into the gaol carrying their crimes in front of them. Then they met the governor, Obadiah Bartley, who harangued each of them in turn for their “‘orrible crimes” in a strong Yorkshire accent. It was unfortunate that the Princess was the first child he came to as she collapsed in nervous tears even as Daniel whispered to her that it was “only pretend”. The children were then put in a cell, accompanied by parents, if they wished. Herself sat in the corner weeping hoping that the governor would not come to inspect her. The boys were already starting to enjoy themselves. On emerging, the children met prisoner 98 (an actor dressed up in prison gear) and went into his cell to see what he ate and what work he was doing. Even the Princess started to enjoy herself. Then they went out to the exercise yard in single file and marched around. Prisoner 98 attempted to escape and they ran after him and stopped him. Then they followed the Governor as he locked up prisoner 98 in the “smelly cell” in the basement. The Governor said that the children had all been good and he would pardon them. He then asked whether prisoner 98 should be released also but they were unanimous that he should be left to rot. Children have no bowels of mercy. They were then given their release papers.
The children were sufficiently reconciled to the Governor that they even got their picture taken with him and prisoner 98.
And there’s more
Saturday, August 14
For the foreseeable future we will be holidaying in August. This has a number of disadvantages in terms of cost and availability of accommodation and travel. It does have the advantage though that this is when all the excitement for tourists is laid on. August 15, the feast of our lady is a general occasion for parades and rejoicing. On the eve of this big festival, I took myself off to the church at the foot of the mountain to see the “pardon” of the Menez Hom. On the way in, I met an elderly local lady and she pointed out to me all the banners of the local towns and the mayor who was in his traditional gear. “I wouldn’t know who the mayor is,” she confided to me “except that he is the son of my cousin.” She told me that she was a native Breton speaker and only learnt French when she went to school at 6 and promptly began exchanging greetings in Breton with the equally elderly gentlemen in the parade. Mass lasted an hour and a half and had the somewhat festive atmosphere of Christmas mass at home. The church was filled with people of all ages including saintly French children. I noticed a group that I had seen at the bakery the previous day sitting silently in a nearby pew and gazed in awe.
Sunday, August 15
We took ourselves to see the parade at Plomodiern. This was terrific. It was short, not too crowded and the man who had led the bagpipe session earlier in the week waved at Michael and Daniel from the parade. Mathilde the silent’s father and sister were parading along with almost everyone else from the neighbouring parishes. The photographer from Ouest France was there and we had high hopes of making the cut for the following day’s edition as he pictured Daniel and Michael sheltering from the sun under a Ouest France advertising hoarding but it was not to be.
Our timing was perfection which almost never happens. We retired to a nearby restaurant just before the end of the parade and got prime seats upstairs from whence we could eat mussels and chips and survey the rest of the excitement. To make our happiness complete, a kind local lady gave Michael and Daniel little Breton flags (made in China, of course) and the Princess a stone painted with figures in Breton costumes.
That afternoon on the beach, Michael managed to find another English child and was ecstatic. Hugh from Harpenden was not, alas, as wonderful as Joe, but he was just fine. At least he didn’t speak French.
Monday, August 16
We went to the beach in the morning and the children dug a large hole with their hands ignoring the spades we had carted from Ireland.
They liked it. We liked it. We read our books. Something of a book crisis was approaching as herself had re-read Harry Potter books 5 and 6 several times, I had finished my books and I had read her Harry Potters, even Mr. Waffle had finished his books and was contemplating HP. Only Ouest France stood between us and disaster.
That afternoon we went to Pont Croix. It’s a lovely, lovely place, just as pretty as Locronan but mysteriously devoid of tourists. It has a deserted village feeling about it.
”
We went to a house which had been turned into a small museum. It was delightful and we had it to ourselves.
The whole place was absolutely entrancing. The children thought that it was a bit dull and the ice-cream offerings were poor. They were quite pleased with dinner in the local crêperie though.
Tuesday, August 17
It poured rain. Along with every other tourist in Brittany we went to Oceanopolis for the day. As we trudged from the muddy overflow carpark in the driving rain, I suspected that we were not going to enjoy our visit. I was correct. The place was heaving and the visit nearly killed us. Next time I will go on a sunny day. Luckily Mathilde the silent was booked for that evening and Mr. Waffle and I were able to go out for dinner to recover.
Wednesday, August 18
We drove down to the south of Brittany where Mr. Waffle had been on holiday with his family as a child (all remembered in loving detail – all I can really remember distinctly about my family holidays in Brittany is the time the girl from the tent next door insisted on playing with my slime and then dropped it on the ground and ruined it). We visited the château de Kerazan which was grand but I think that our familial tolerance levels for museums were declining at this point. We took the boat from Loctudy to ÃŽle Tudy (5 minutes each way) which the children absolutely loved but when we got there, they were hungry and demanded to go to a cafe. I got cross and things went downhill from there.
We finally got back to Plo̩ven to go to the soir̩e cr̻pes (local excitement with pancakes Рobviously РBreton music and dancing) with bitterness all round. Michael declaiming loudly from the back of the car that all he was was a servant to his parents being dragged from place to place to do their bidding. This tetchiness was not helped by finding on arrival at the soir̩e cr̻pes that there was nowhere to sit and you might have to wait up to an hour to get your hands on a pancake. Disaster was averted by nice locals kindly finding and moving a supply of tables and chairs for us. The younger members of the party ran off with a group of feral children and, aside from the cold, it passed off better than might have been expected given the dismal beginnings.
Thursday, August 19
Michael was ill in the morning. I dragged himself and Daniel to the beach to find stones to paint and he trudged back very dolefully and promptly got sick in the toilet on his return. Heartlessly, after lunch, I left my sick son and his brother to be minded by their father and the Princess and I went shopping in Quimper. So excited were we by this outing, that I nearly completely lost the run of myself and was in the Petit Bateau queue, waiting patiently to pay over €100 for three pairs of children’s pyjamas when I said hang on a minute, put them back on the shelf and ran out of the shop. I subsequently got three pairs of pyjamas from Eurodif for €18. With the savings, the Princess and I were able to buy macaroons. And by the time we got home, Michael was better. This inspired me to try out the barbecue that came with the house (I dunno, I felt I’d like to give him a further dose of food poisoning?). This, despite the children’s interest in the novel coooking method was, frankly, not a success. Dinner was late and undercooked.
Friday, August 20
Raining again and, increasingly, the troops were getting restive and speaking longingly of home. We spent the morning in the local pub playing games of mini-foot. The Princess and Daniel are terrible (and loud) losers. Mr. Waffle and I were going out for a final French dinner together that night and I thought I would try to find somewhere nice. So I phoned my long-suffering sister and ask ed her to harness the power of the internet and see whether there was anywhere nice to eat nearby. There was; a two-star Michelin restaurant only up the road. And, in a classic my bourgeois hell moment, I knew that Friday lunch time in the middle of August would be too late to book a table for dinner that night. And I was right. Oh blah. To help me recover, Mr. Waffle took the children to the cinema while I went for a further stroll around Quimper. This sustained me during a last dinner in the crêperie. I am not sure that, if I were told that I could never eat another pancake, I would be altogether sorry.
Saturday, August 21
We spent the morning packing and cleaning. This was the moment to remove the revolting but highly effective fly paper that had been hanging from the ceiling when we arrived and swayed, increasingly ominously, over the breakfast table with its grim cargo for our fortnight in the house. Mr. Waffle did it. He is very brave.
We drove up to Mont Saint Michel and played I spy on the way. Daniel said, “I spy something red, white and blue”. “A French flag,” I said. “No, Mummy, in the car.” “I give up.” “Your eyes, silly!” No more late nights for me.
When we arrived our hotel Mr. Waffle and I were keen to get out to see the Mont but the children really didn’t see how it could be better than a two star hotel with the Pink Panther on the telly. Eventually we hustled them out under protest.
I may have been to Mont Saint Michel before. I can’t remember. I suppose an apology is probably due to my parents at this point. I do remember my mother telling me that the tide came in faster than a horse can gallop but whether this was in the context of crossing the causeway to the Mont or just the kind of general knowledge she felt I ought to have, I cannot say. Anyhow, on this occasion, I read nothing in advance. I knew what it looked like from the outside and that was it.
We arrived in the car park (not covered by water and unlikely to be flooded that evening – reassuring) and went in the gates. It was about 7 in the evening and from the moment we walked in the front gate everything was absolutely perfect. Mr. Waffle had the inspired idea of suggesting to the Princess that Mont Saint Michel was like Hogwarts and she was entranced. As the shopping districts in the HP books are inspired by twisting medieval streets she was soon happily pointing out Diagon Alley and the Hog’s Head. We stopped for dinner in a restaurant with a beautiful view out over the bay. The children were good. And after dinner we kept climbing up, up, up to the very top. The children were full of enthusiasm and ran ahead. Michael was particularly delighted and pointed out each of the many, many images of his patron saint taking out the dragon. Even though it was August, the streets were relatively empty as it was quite late in the evening. It was 8.50 for an adult to get into the church at the top of the mount and I hesitated. I have seen a lot of churches. The children, however, were keen to go in, so we forked out €17. The children were right, it was €17 well spent. The bored teenager in charge of ticket dispensing was charged with asking tourists where they were from and when I had asked for my tickets he said to me “quel département?” I was delighted with myself – he thought I was French. I think the secret of my success was that I had only to say “2 adultes et trois enfants” words which do not contain the almost impossible “ue” sound (if you can pronouce ‘rue’ and ‘roue’ differently you’ve got it, congratulations).
Then we went into the church. Except it wasn’t a church, it was a whole monastery complex. It was enormous and breathtakingly beautiful. Huge gothic chambers illuminated by the setting sun. Room after room after extraordinarily beautiful room, even the children were astonished. And the views:
The most amazing moment was when I finally thought I had reached the top. We went up a narrow twisting stairs and I expected to come out in a small turret with a view of the bay except I didn’t, I emerged in a gothic cathedral. It was quite astonishing. I nearly cried in wonder. I cannot imagine what the medieval pilgrims thought. And then in front of the church, there was a parvis with spectacular views. Off to the side there was a cloister. It’s difficult to convey how surprising it is to see all of these things on a small rocky outcrop. Then we left and ran down the near empty streets in the gathering darkness. It was without a doubt the best moment of our holidays and the most spectacular monument I have ever seen.
Sunday, August 22
We were a bit reluctant to go back to Mont Saint Michel in case we somehow ruined the magic of the night before but we went back anyway because we hadn’t walked the ramparts and we are thorough tourists. It was still beautiful but full, full, full of people. It was standing room only and the children were cranky and we were worried about losing them. I went to mass which was lovely but I was conscious of poor Mr. Waffle waiting outside with the children (couldn’t face letting them run riot in a French church with only elderly people – I know, this makes me both a bad mother and a bad catholic). Mass was a welcome break from the relentless peddling of cheap tat and hoards of tourists on the streets outside and a reminder of why the Mont was actually built. As soon as I emerged we hot footed it back to the mainland. The previous evening I had looked at diners in the tacky restaurants across from the Mont and wondered who on earth ate there when they could eat on the amazingly beautiful Mont Saint Michel. Well this was my day to find out: people who ate on the Mont yesterday and couldn’t face the waves of tourists and fancied better and cheaper mussels.
We then went to a bed & breakfast we had found on the internet. It was run by a retired English couple. Normandy is awash with English people. There were times when Normandy felt like it was suffering a reverse takeover by the English. The nice B&B couple recommended that we go and visit a nearby forest and, shortly afterwards, the Princess was swinging through trees on a rope. Really. The boys were too small to go up but she was attached to a harness and sent flying for a couple of hours. She loved it. No helmet, no knee pads, no nothing. I can’t help feeling that this more relaxed attitude is delightful. The boys and I went on a little electronic boat to help them recover from their sorrow at being under 5 and therefore unable to do the rope thing.
Monday, August 23
We were all pretty much ready to go home at this point. We drove north to Cherbourg in good time acutely conscious of the horror of the journey to the ferry. We stopped off and looked at the beautiful cathedral in Coutances. We then had lunch in a brasserie congratulating ourselves on how the children’s restaurant manners had improved over the holidays (they all used cutlery, sat up in their chairs, didn’t shout, it was lovely).
As we had lots of time, we then stopped in a chateau in Pirou which was mildly interesting. When we emerged we still had three hours until the boat left. It was at this point that we realised that we had left all the children’s coats and jumpers in a bag in the brasserie in Coutances. We considered abandoning them but in the end decided that we just had time to go back and get them. Coutances had been dead as a doornail when we went there in the morning: rainy, gloomy and windswept. By the time we got back in the afternoon, all that had changed, the shops were open, the sun was shining, the good burghers of Coutances were out and about doing their shopping. The traffic was murder. I thought that we would never get out. There followed an unnerving drive to Cherbourg during which Mr. Waffle was heard to say between clenched teeth “you will never pass that caravan unless you drop a gear when we come to the next climbing lane” which remark led to some tension between driver and navigator. The children, doubtless recalling the journey to Rosslare, remained virtuously silent in the back. Cherbourg was full of traffic too. Surely we weren’t going to miss the boat? We didn’t. Next time, however, we will drive to the ferryport at 9.00 in the morning and remain there all day until the ferry leaves. Our marriage depends on it.
The boat was full of Irish people. After a month of French people, I found my compatriots delightfully chatty. You know, just exchanging little asides when we were standing looking at the same thing. French people don’t really do that. I was also quite shocked by how badly behaved some of the children were. After three weeks of French conditioning, mine seemed positively saintly in comparison to many of the others.
Tuesday, August 23
We were home. Note to file: we drove back from Rosslare in 3 hours. When I asked the children whether they would like to go to France again, they said yes, so I take it, the holiday was a success. Although Michael did say that he would like to go to England also to find Joe.
One of the courgettes in the back garden had grown to enormous dimensions while we were away and we harvested it and had it for dinner. I discovered that I am the only person in my family who likes courgette gratin. So much for all this guff about children liking vegetables they grow themselves.
And now the holidays are really over. The children are going back to school on Wednesday. The cat who was coldly indifferent on our return has now, just about, forgiven us for going away and last night consented to eat some cold roast chicken.
How were your holidays?
