Sometimes at lunch time I go to the National Gallery. It’s peaceful there. Following my trip to Paris and my new found love for Largillière, I have been working my way around the two (very small) French rooms. I looked at the picture of Richard Wall by Van Loo. It’s a good picture and I spent a while imaging Mr. Wall, who has a face made for meetings, chairing a very dull modern committee without a wig or a skirted coat. He was described as Spanish Ambassador to England and I thought that was a little odd and perhaps it should be the other way around. Wikipedia, as ever, was my friend. Richard Wall was indeed Spanish Ambassador to England although he was more commonly known as Ricardo Wall. But he was of Irish origin, in fact his people came from Kilmallock in Co. Limerick (where, as it happens, my mother grew up and my cousins still live). Wouldn’t it be worth mentioning this in the description and perhaps even moving Ambassador Wall to the fledgling Irish portrait gallery on the ground floor?
Family
Round-up
I took the boys to Cork for the weekend. The train journey was horrific due to overcrowding but fellow passengers were kind and the boys reasonably good so it passed off peacefully enough. The weekend was largely uneventful which in itself is remarkable. The boys were saintly at mass with my parents (front pew – the anguish) and my father gave them a fiver afterwards for good behaviour. Enormous largesse which they promptly disposed of in the scout hall jumble sale across the car park.
In fact the only eventful thing that happened was in the park on Sunday afternoon when a small child (maybe aged 6/7) armed with a water pistol (machine gun sized, pump action – I have to say, letting your child bring such an object to the playground, is a poor decision) started spraying my children from the top of the slide. Reluctantly, I heaved myself up from the seat where I had been happily chatting to my mother and went to intervene. Although the boys were clearly enjoying themselves, I didn’t feel that water down the backs of their coats was going to make them or me happy in the longer term as the weather continues cool (alas). I went to the bottom of the slide and wagged my finger at the young man at the top and said “No matter how much they ask you to spray them with water, don’t do so because I will be displeased.” Suddenly, this woman approached me like a fury from where she had been sitting on the sidelines.
Her (livid): Did you hold your finger up to my son?
Me (surprised): Yes, I did, you see he is spraying my sons with his water cannon…
Her: (still livid) I’ve been watching those boys, they were running around underneath encouraging him to spray them.
Me: (placatingly) I’m sure they were and I’m sorry about that..but I don’t want him to spray them and…
Her: (still absolutely livid): Then keep them away from him and don’t you ever raise your finger at another woman’s child again. And you should chill, it’s only water.
I kept them away and shortly after departed as her son was very keen to play with my boys and his form of playing involved spitting mouthfuls of water all over them (which I admit, they enjoyed) and I was too scared to reprove him or approach his mother.
I was really upset. She was so unpleasant. I didn’t want to go to war over the water pistol and did everything I could to diffuse the situation but to absolutely no avail. On subsequently recounting this to a number of people, they said I was wrong not to approach the mother in the first instance. I didn’t see her but I suppose I didn’t particularly look for her. It didn’t occur to me for a moment that I couldn’t say to this child, stop soaking mine with your water pistol. My tone was jocular (though firm, like supernanny) and the child smiled mischievously at me – he didn’t look at all upset and I didn’t mean him to be upset, just to make less free with the water pistol.
If the boot had been on the other foot, I honestly think I would have rushed to apologise. My sister says that this is because of my constant desire to please. I really don’t think so or, at least, not entirely. My experience is that when there are grown-ups and small children around, the grown-ups are the ones who are rational and reasonable and, if they are reproving my children, then they are most likely to be right. I have never in seven years of intensive playground frequenting in various jurisdictions encountered anything like this woman. She scared the bejaysus out of me. I hate to come over all Daily Mail here but what is the world coming to when, in a playground, with your children, you cannot say to another child “stop that”? Actually, to be honest, I think you probably can. But I won’t be doing that again, I will be frantically looking around for parents and saying really apologetically, “Look, I’m sorry to interrupt you, but your child appears to be [soaking mine/strangling mine/thumping mine] and while I know it’s my child’s fault, I wonder whether you’d mind asking yours to stop before he exhausts his [trigger finger/delicate hands/little fist]?” And they will be apologetic and think I am insane, but at least I won’t be scared rigid.
In other news, the children are off school for the week and today I took them to Glendalough for the day. It was chilly and despite having seen the Secret of Kells as a prelude to exploring one of Ireland’s most famous monastic settlements they remained unmoved. The Princess was, however, in a position to toss words like scriptorium about with authority, if not with accuracy: “It’s the scriptorium.” “You know, I really think it’s a church.” “It’s not.” At the end of the day, both boys when questioned separately identified getting an ice cream cone as the highlight of the trip. In response to the same question, the Princess said that the picnic would have been had it not been so cold and had I remembered to bring the buns. Not a disaster then, but not exactly a success either. Tomorrow we’re staying at home.
Mr. Waffle is supposed to be back from his glamourous foreign location tomorrow night and M, the babysitter, is supposed to come back from France. They may both be foiled by the cloud of volcanic ash which is currently scheduled to sit on Ireland. In which case, the children and I will be spending more time together than we had planned. What do you reckon, Newgrange?
It begins
Only the other night, Mr. Waffle was expressing the mildest affection for the cat. Of course, that just invited what follows.
Shortly thereafter I was dropping the babysitter, M, home. “How was it?” I asked. “Fine,” she replied, “there was just one thing.” Apparently, as the Princess was playing Club Penguin, the cat came into the room with a pigeon clutched between her jaws. M saw the cat playing with something but didn’t notice what until feathers began to float around the room. With great self-possession, M did not squeal, as I would certainly have done. She left the Princess playing Club Penguin and unaware of the drama and, to the cat’s consternation, picked up the bird with a cloth (note to self – where is that cloth?) and chucked it out the back door. The cat followed and continued to play with the corpse outside. M was force to put the dead pigeon in the bin in a plastic bag. Apparently, it was a fully grown pigeon. Since Hodge is not a fully grown cat, I do wonder whether she would be able to bring down a big pigeon. I can’t help fearing that she found a dead pigeon somewhere and this is not going to be good for her health or ours.
The following morning when I came downstairs, Mr. Waffle had thrown the sofa cover in the wash. Apparently the cat had coughed up a hair/feather ball on it. Lovely. When I left for work the cat was lying on the Princess’s bed enjoying the morning sunshine looking like pigeon wouldn’t melt in her mouth.
My bourgeois hell (TM)
1. I still haven’t had a chance to use the immensely large gift voucher my parents gave me for my birthday 6 weeks ago.
2. You may have noticed that posting has been light here recently (or not, don’t shatter my illusions). Our computer is broken, the men have taken it away to fix it but still it is not back. And my husband wants the laptop to work in the evenings. The injustice. I have wrenched it from him tonight but I think he wants it back.
Vignettes from the babysitting dungeon – in case you were wondering how my sister got on last weekend
A phone call.
Me (sitting on a chair by a pond in the Tuileries): Hi, how is everything going?
Sister (in Dublin minding offspring): Not great, I am making pancakes, the smoke alarm has gone off, the children are screaming and the cat is pooing in the kitchen. How are things in Paris?
A further phone call
Me (sipping tea in a Parisian cafe): Hi, how is everything going?
Sister (at the side of the road in the car): Not great. Your daughter won’t stop saying “church in a church” and it’s driving me and the boys insane so please will you talk to her.
Daughter: Church in a church, church in a church, church in a church..
Me: What does that mean?
Daughter: Church in a church, church in a church, church in a church…
Me: Unless you stop saying that straight away, there will be no Club Penguin for a week.
Daughter: Eek.
Sister: Thank you that seems to have worked.
Not a round number
“I recollect nothing that passed this day, except Johnson’s quickness, who, when Dr. Beattie observed, as something remarkable which had happened to him, that he had chanced to see both No. 1, and No. 1000, of the hackney-coaches, the first and the last; ‘Why, Sir, (said Johnson,) there is an equal chance for one’s seeing those two numbers as any other two.’†From Boswell’s Life of Johnson
My father is fond of this anecdote. He is against numerology. All the same, he has now reached the age where people start to say “that’s a great age” so surely a cause for celebration. Happy birthday, Daddy.
