Yesterday afternoon, I was roasting at the citadel in Namur. Late last night I checked into my hotel in a very damp and cool foreign location. Air travel is extraordinary. I had a good dose of working mother’s guilt as the boys waved good bye to me on Sunday evening and the Princess sobbed “why do you have to go away so often?” For the first time, Mr. Waffle was also away so we had to deploy our babysitting team to look after the children and get them to bed this evening. It seems to have gone fine but it is odd to think that our little family was in three different countries today.
Family
Actually, not the Hague
Getting there
We went to visit friends in the Hague for Easter. The Princess grasped immediately the nature of the Netherlands which is essentially a vast conurbation. As we crossed over the border, she said “we are in the Otherlands we must be in the Hagueâ€. Unfortunately, there was a good forty minutes drive after that and neither her father nor I could convince her that constantly asking “are we in the Hague?†as we tried to negotiate the tricky final miles wasn’t going to help anyone. As we drove along with our three ratty children, Mr. Waffle said wistfully “I don’t suppose you’re ever going to let me go to Baarle-Hertogâ€. “Why would I want to go to Baarle-Hertog?â€. “It’s a part of Belgium entirely surrounded by the Netherlands.â€. “Fascinating, you’re absolutely rightâ€.
Settling In
We arrived safely at our hosts’ house and disgorged ourselves and the enormous quantities of luggage we had brought with us for three nights away from home. We settled in to eat them out of house and home and work creatively on making a mess. Fortunately they have two children of their own, so they were somewhat prepared for the onslaught. In fact, the trip was a great success. The children got on really well together and it was lovely to see them playing together when they weren’t hitting each other. In particular, the Princess got on with C who is the elder of our friends’ two children. C, is a very gentle, charming and sweet little boy who is nearly 5. The Princess loved him. Despite her exterior toughness, I feel the Princess is quite timid and I have never seen her warm to someone, the way she did to C. They spent hours playing together. I heard her diligently trying to teach him some French: “We say ‘Winnie l’Ourson’ for Winnie the Pooh; I know the French for poo is ‘caca’ but we don’t say ‘Winnie le caca’†which is just as well for the marketing people, I suppose. C’s sister E is only just 3 and the Princess enjoyed a more combatitive relationship with her. E is much more forceful and I don’t think that the Princess liked that half so well though they did play together a bit because whatever the Princess considered E’s faults might be, she was, at least, far superior to the Princess’s little brothers. What the Princess particularly enjoyed was teaming up with C and excluding the others, particularly her brothers, if at all possible.
The Linguistic Regime
The Dutch Mama is, despite her name, from Cork as well. As the weekend went on, I could hear both of us reinforcing each other and speaking with more amd more pronounced Cork accents. The Dutch Papa is Dutch. Very Dutch, he’s 2 metres and 3 centimetres tall (nearly 7 feet) and one of my favourite things was seeing him bending all the way down to talk to Michael who was staring up at him with considerable interest (I suppose everyone is tall to Michael, though). The Dutch Papa used to live in Japan; he must have been a sensation there. The Dutch Mama speaks English to her children and I speak English to mine. Both the Princess and C were able to chat away happily to each other in English. They were not at all thrown when one or other of them spoke French or Dutch to another parent. However, E didn’t speak much English to us at the start and she didn’t get very far with Dutch; though the grown-ups and the boys were prepared to give it a go, the Princess certainly wasn’t. It was amazing by the end of the weekend how much more willing she was to chat away in English (to clarify, she had always been able to chat in English but just choose not to, I mean why would you bother, everyone speaks Dutch – you have to see her point, she’s only 3). At one point she said something to me and I didn’t understand “you know, I don’t understand a lot of Dutch, sweetheartâ€. She looked at me coldly “that wasn’t Dutch, it was Polishâ€. And, it was true, she’s minded by a Polish woman and speaks quite good Polish as well, clever girl.
Outings
Our friends do not, in fact, live in the Hague, they live in the Roman town of Voorburg which is, essentially, a nice leafy suburb of the Hague. Great was the Princess’s delight when she found that I had made a mistake. All weekend long we heard about foolish Mama’s ineptitude. We took a stroll around the suburbs and into the lovely old town, taking in the market. It almost reminded me of holidays before children (what, oh what did we find to worry about on those holidays?) except for the insistent demands for sweet purchases.
We went on a rural walk to look at windmills. Well, as the Dutch Mama pointed out, it was rural, if you could close your ears to the sounds of the motorway and look away from the tower blocks. My God, there are a lot of people there. It’s just as well 90% of them cycle everywhere because otherwise the country would be one big car park. Michael has become entranced by ducks. While the windmills left him cold, he very much enjoyed chasing ducks. “Ack, ack†he said pointing his little finger and trotting off in their direction. The Netherlands is full of open water. The Dutch Papa explained that it would cost too much to fence in all the open water in the Netherlands, so they taught people to swim; the whole law of tort seems to not have taken off there. They’re very pragmatic, the Dutch. Nevertheless, since Michael can’t actually swim, unlike the ducks he had set his heart on, this did present some problems. I was rather taken with the windmills which are inhabited and one of which had a duvet stuck out the middle window to air but I couldn’t really focus on them as I was trying to haul Michael away from water hazards.
We went to the beach; you’re never too far from the beach in the Netherlands. The children loved it, though Michael was scared of the sea. Daniel loved the sea and got his trousers wet chasing waves. The Princess focussed on denuding the Dutch coast of shells. The beach was busy. I couldn’t help comparing it to an Irish beach at this time of year where you would have a half dozen walkers. This beach was full of Dutch people disporting themselves with their dogs. “You asked me what I disliked about the Dutch†said the Dutch Mama “16 million people and they have 16 million dogsâ€. It really felt like it. The beach was very developed with lots of cafes and stalls. Nice, fine but so different. Obviously, it also had lots of bicycle racks. We went for tea and a bun. Michael took the Princess’s bucket of shells and turned it upside down. The Princess was furious. To my really intense mortification she said “Michael, you bastard, I’m going to pour tea all over youâ€. All the polite Dutch people looked at their feet. I wanted desperately to explain that really, this was not the kind of language she uses all the time and not me either but, of course, the problem is, she does travel in the car with me. In the past couple of weeks, she has taken to getting out of the bath and wrapping herself in a towel crouching on the floor and pretending to be a green cushion. The cushion says “shag it, shag it, shag it, you bastardâ€. I have tried ignoring and reprimanding “it’s the feathers in the cushion, Mama, not me†but she knows I don’t like it and she can use it against me. Must try harder either that or we walk everywhere in future.
On Easter Sunday, we all went to mass. I was a bit surprised that the Dutch contingent were coming. “We’re cultural catholics†explained the Dutch Mama. This is a far superior term to “lapsedâ€, I like it. Outside the church, there were, of course, hundreds of bicycles, all the more impressive when you consider that the average age of the congregation was 65. This was probably why we ended up sloping off early as our children’s were the only raised voices. In fact, C and E were very good and kept quiet by the promise of a further jelly from the supply that their mother had brought. The Princess also enjoyed the Dutch jelllies. She, however, approached matters differently by turning what was intended as a bribe into an opportunity for blackmail “I won’t be quiet, unless I get another jellyâ€. “My children never thought of that†muttered the Dutch Mama. I am so proud.
Activities
The children painted Easter eggs; the Princess discovered that she does not like hard boiled egss, however nicely they may be painted. They all hunted for chocolate eggs in the garden which was much more successful though Michael appears not to like chocolate. Can this be normal? They spent hours playing baffling games together. I fell down the steep stairs which are a feature of Dutch houses but no one else did. As I went bump, bump, bump down a flight of stairs, people came running from all sides. I sustained minor injuries other than to my dignity. The Princess was very thrown. As I sat in a heap on the floor she called “Mummy, mummyâ€. I thought she wanted something but no, she came wanted to check that I was alright and came running out to give me a kiss. Last night when I put her to bed, she was still exploring matters “You fell down the stairs Mummyâ€. “Yupâ€. “But normally, grown-ups don’t fallâ€. The whole thing was particularly embittering as I had just started to get my stairs legs and the pains in my thighs from climbing three flights were beginning to abate. Three stories over basement brings its own difficulties, I suppose.
The Princess rejected her own bed in favour of sleeping top to tail with C in his and E’s room and the three big children got to bath together which they enjoyed very much and gave us an opportunity to snap photos in our ongoing mission to ensure that no second of our children’s lives will remain unrecorded. After the bath, the Princess announced to C that she would have breasts when she grew up but he would not. She would also be able to have children but he would not. “I can be the Daddy†he countered but they both seemed to believe that she had the better deal. You would think that an inspection of the Dutch Mama who is currently seven months pregnant and not able to walk very far (though she still cycles to work – they’re Dutch) would convince them otherwise but no.
The Dutch
I was chatting to the Dutch Mama about the Dutch and what they are like and in many ways, we think they are like they see themselves. She says that living in the Netherlands has almost turned her into a monarchist. The Dutch queen is so nice. She described watching her going to some god forsaken part of the Netherlands where the locals appeared to have made a sculpture from sewage pipes to greet her. It was bucketing rain. One of the little girls from the band out to play for the queen had started to cry. She arrived and, said the Dutch Mama, you would genuinely think to look at her that there was absolutely nowhere she would rather be, she set everything to rights and also gave the crying little girl a hug. They’re tall, they’re pragmatic, they’re frugal, they’re hospitable, they believe in community. The Dutch Mama says that she reckons marrying a Dutch man has added ten years to her life. Before she met him she took less exercise, she smoked, she weighed more. And she reckons that her kids watch less TV than their Irish counterparts and that they are better served in creches and schools. I looked at her and asked “what quintessentially Dutch emotion are you experiencing at this moment?â€. “Smugness†she replied instantly. Having the perfect society does have its downsides.
The return
Prised a howling Princess away from Voorburg and bundled everyone back to Brussels. The Princess and Daniel slept but Michael burbled quite cheerfully to us all the way back. The boys were surprised and delighted to see their home again but the Princess continues to pine for the delights of the Otherlands. Indeed, this very night the last thing she asked me before I turned out the light was when we would be going back to C and E’s house.
Minutes
The holiday sub-committee formally reconvened tonight having reached no decision at its last meeting. Time is pressing and, if resolution is not speedily achieved, it is likely that the issue will have to go to plenary. This will present its own unique difficulties as two of the plenary members can only say “ball†and “mama†and interpreting their votes will be a fraught process.
While the fundamental issues before the sub-committee remain unchanged, new information is regularly becoming available which feeds into the decision making process going forward. In the matter of summer holidays, it was originally proposed that Mr. Waffle would take six weeks of leave: one month of parental leave and two weeks of holidays. Unfortunately, work commitments in July mean that he may no longer be able to do this. The Princess finishes school for two months at the end of June and the boys’ creche is closed for August. The sub-committee has formally agreed that the Princess can be accommodated in a series of courses for the four weeks of July though no such courses have as yet been identified and agreed by all parties. Pending resolution of the over-arching holiday arrangement package, this issue has been parked. It is, however, likely that the task of organising this will be delegated to Mr. Waffle who has shown particular expertise in this area on previous occasions.
The information on the July holiday period has presented particular difficulties for the sub-committee and it is a matter of considerable regret to the sub-committee that the business of Mr. Waffle’s employer cannot be subjugated to the Waffles’ needs in relation to their extensive summer holidays. The sub-committee actively considered a motion of censure but, under pressure from Mr. Waffle, the motion was ultimately withdrawn. Nevertheless, the sub-committee asked that it be minuted that this is a particularly vexed issue as the original proposal was satisfactory to all parties: namely that Mr. Waffle and the three junior Waffles would travel to Kerry to meet formally with the babysitting team (or team grandparents as they are known in committee jargon), one of the current Ambassadors to the Holy See and the latter’s spouse, children and grandchildren. The Holy See team are close friends of team grandparents and their children the youthful companions of Mr. Waffle. They will not be the Holy See team forever and when they go back to the distant land from whence they came, joint holidays in Kerry will be more challenging. The sub-committee, therefore, spent some time discussing this issue. All parties were extremely disappointed that no solution could be reached and this led to what were arguably circular and certainly futile discussions. A suggested compromise of travelling to West Cork for a fortnight in late July/early August to at least stay with team grandparents is under active consideration. At this point the chair deeming that the sub-committee had progressed as far as was possible on this issue and called for a break for a cup of tea.
Subsequently, the sub-committee reconvened and moved straight to item 3 on the agenda “American Holidayâ€. The arguments for and against were again rehearsed by members of the sub-committee. They might be summarised as follows:
The climate of Chicago is one of extremes – members of the plenary are likely to deal poorly with extreme temperatures;
The Chicago welcoming committee is primed and its premises are in order. Members of the sub-committee are enthusiastic at the prospect of inspecting the Chicago branch’s newly acquired premises and the surrounding area;
A nine hour flight may stretch the participants to breaking point;
More particularly as it will be followed by jet lag and, eventually, a nine hour flight back and further jet lag; members of the sub-committee expressed particular concern as to whether members of the plenary would be amenable to this kind of activity;
The issue of cost and convenience also arose: should the group choose to fly from Ireland, then they will fly free to Chicago courtesy of the branch office which is willing to put its airmiles at the disposal of head office. The sub-committee has two reservations in relation to this – should the group take such a generous gift from the branch when these costs should, more properly, be borne by head office and would it not be more convenient to fly from Brussels in view of the particular needs of members of the plenary. As against this the sub-committee noted that the 3,000 euro which would be saved by availing of the Chicago branch’s offer is not a negligible consideration in these times of increased budgetary constraints and predicted economic slowdown.
At this point barracking from the bedroom caused the meeting to break up in disorder.
Executive Summary
Internet, please tell me, are we mad to think of taking three small children to Chicago in August? What will we do when we get there? Does anyone have any advice?
O frabjous day
Today is my birthday.
To celebrate, I took yesterday off work. On Thursday my lovely, lovely colleagues surprised me with cake, flowers and chocolates. This is as a direct result of my insistence on constantly reminding the people around me of the date of my birthday. How can people be expected to remember, if you don’t remind them? And, if you’ve forgotten, it’s never too late to send a card.
Mind you, this conversation was was not entirely what I hoped for:
Me: It’s my birthday, happy birthday to me. Gosh I’m so old now. Who would have thought youthful little me would ever reach this great age. Goodness gracious me, go on, go on guess how old I am.
Foolish work colleague: 40?
Indignant me: 38!
And, after a particularly busy period, things are going swimmingly at work in general at the moment.
The Princess greeted me with this the other day:
The excitement. However, since she is left handed and firmly believes that the world should be ordered to suit her, this is what I got on my birthday card:
Lovely all the same.
As it is my birthday, I reserve the right to put in here whatever random things take my fancy. This, as you will be fully aware, is not the kind of operation we usually run here at waffle blogs incorporated. Please see below, Cinderella of the ancien régime:
The Princess is very taken with “Barbie of Swan Lake” these days. What can I say; it was recommended to us by friends. We will cut them in future. It stars Frasier as the baddy and Janice from “Friends” as his daughter. You would think that at least one of these people had enough money to be saved from the indignity of doing voiceovers in “Barbie of Swan Lake”. So taken is the Princess with this that Mr. Waffle has bought her the music by Mr. Tchaikovsky. She is unclear as to why Mr. Tchaikovsky is so derivative and composes music identical to that made famous by Barbie but she likes his stuff. You may see her dancing/flapping to the music here.
In conclusion, you might like to know, 38 is a lot of candles and this isn’t the half of it:
Reality Television
Whispering male voice with peculiarly patronising tone: Mr. Waffle is home alone until Thursday while his wife is off for a work trip (or an illicit break of the working mother as it is better known). He has faithfully promised her that he will not be cross with the children while she is away even if they cry all the time and conspire to make him late for work.
Whispering male voice continues: Mr. Waffle returns from work and is left alone with his three small children. [Camera pans around scenes of chaos; the boys cry and the Princess is bold]. We see Mr. Waffle remaining calm and firmly putting her in the “coin colereâ€. The annoying whisperer observes: The boys continue to cry; will Mr. Waffle remain true to his promise or will he snap? Daniel gets sick. Michael crawls away while Mr. Waffle mops up. The Princess wees in the confines of the “coin colere†because, as she explains, she couldn’t go to the toilet because she was in the “coin colereâ€. Michael calls merrily from the bathroom “I’ve climbed on to the cistern and I’m trying to get my head into the toilet bowl from hereâ€.
In fact, my loving husband, tells me it wasn’t as bad as I might have imagined when I left first thing on Monday morning but he said that Wednesday was a particularly low point. In the morning, he dropped her highness to school with the boys in the buggy. Then he walked home and loaded them into the car and took them to the creche and climbed up to the third floor with the boys crawling ahead. At lunchtime he picked her highness up from school and deposited her at the glam potter’s house and went back to work. In the evening he collected her and then the boys. A fatal error. He should have collected the boys first. The boys were cranky, the Princess was cranky. He had to get shoes on all of them and carry/chivvy them down three flights of stairs and get them into the car. Hideous. But now I’m back from no internet land and I will mind my loving family and post all the material I wrote while I was away.
Finally, I see that I belong to the most discriminated against group in the British workplace. And who will be paying the pensions, eh?
Recent culinary disasters or this is all very dull stuff but why should I suffer alone?
A while ago, I had some cold cauliflower which I decided to use up by turning into cauliflower cheese. I was undaunted by two significant facts which in retrospect should have daunted me: Mr. Waffle and the Princess do not like cauliflower cheese and I had never made it before. I turned to Mr. Conran for help (one of the many cookery books Mr. Waffle brought to our marriage). The quantities were for a head of cauliflower and it all seemed surprisingly complex. This is where I made my first mistake. I decided I couldn’t be dividing everything by four so I cooked the rest of the cauliflower. Then, Mr. Conran’s recipe had tricky bits in it like “make a mornay sauce†but add extra butter. So with a greasy thumb, I flicked between the cauliflower cheese and the mornay sauce recipe. And then it transpired that the mornay sauce recipe was a variant of another recipe on a different page; you know the kind of thing “as x sauce but with ingredient a instead of b and five times more câ€. So I created a lifetime’s supply of cheese sauce using recipes from three different pages of the book. It tasted quite nice too but that didn’t encourage the Princess or Mr. Waffle to indulge and a head of cauliflower cheese lies waiting in small packets in the freezer to be fed to my sons over the rest of their lives until they leave home when they will be taking the remainder with them to university.
Regular readers will, I am sure, recall that I bought wild boar in the supermarket months ago. Last week, I decided to cook it. I used Mr. Waffle’s “La cuisine pour tous†which is a terse French cookbook originally published in 1932. It assumes a lot of knowledge on the part of the reader. None of your sissy modern day explanations for Ms. Mathiot although she does give excellent instructions on how to manage the hired help and how to lay a family dinner table. The recipe for the marinade gave quantities for some of the ingredients in dl. I was not sure how much a dl was and neither was Mr. Waffle and none of our cookbooks gave instructions on this point and we were too lazy to turn on the computer (foolish, foolish people). We decided how much a dl was (by looking into our hearts and comparing the results) and using the handy calpol measuring spoon we carefully spooned in what we believed to be the correct quantity of vinegar. The beast was marinaded and on Friday night served up to my misfortunate family. Actually, the boar itself wasn’t too bad. A bit gamey but not tough. Regrettably the sauce didn’t taste of cloves or peppers or sherry or red wine (3/4 of a litre) or anything really, other than vinegar. I am reassessing our guess on dl quantities. Mr. Waffle and I gamely (ha, ha) ate some but the Princess, very sensibly, refused to have any truck with it. However, later in the evening on our way to the cinema, Mr. Waffle turned to me and said “I’m not quite sure how to put this but, do you think we could stop for a toasted sandwich?â€. Who was I to quibble. And to round off the evening, the film was quite, quite dreadful. May I recommend that you avoid Code 46? Having seen Samantha Morton in this, Minority Report and Morvern Callar, I have decided that I have suffered enough and I am going to foreswear any film in which she features in future. Happy Feet, anyone?
And finally, in other news, the royal grandparents are in situ for the week, minding the Princess for mid-term. They are not yet exhausted from their labours but we aim to send them back to Dublin shrivelled husks. Mind you, the Princess refused to go out with them this morning because she wanted to stay home admiring herself in her Snow White carnival outfit. They took Michael out instead (Daniel was napping) and he nearly expired from happiness at having two grown-ups all to himself. She did let them take her out this afternoon though. I am sorry, obviously, that I didn’t mention to her grandparents that she has got into the habit of putting on as many underpants as she can at a time. Not as sorry though as her grandmother who had to take her to the toilet in the local cafe and help her out of 14 pairs of underpants.
