Sign in alterations place:
“All garminds must be clean”
Dublin
St. Patrick’s Day
Last Thursday was St. Patrick’s Day. I dutifully started the day at mass. Further exposure to Saint Paul who continues to show his excellent turn of phrase and unbearable smugness:
“I have fought the good fight to the end; I have run the race to the finish; I have kept the faith; all there is to come now is the crown of righteousness reserved for me, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will give me on that Day..”
We took the children to the parade which was based on a short story by Roddy Doyle. Unfortunately only one of us had got around to reading the story and she was reluctant to share any of the details with her loving family. Nevertheless, it was all moderately entertaining.
In one aspect, it failed to please. The children had been saving their pennies to spend with the hawkers of St. Patrick’s day tat. Unfortunately, as we arrived, the gardaà were rounding up the illegal vendors’ stock for confiscation. One guard in his high-vis vest, was vigourously pushing a large old fashioned pram weighed down with horns, wigs, scarves and flags while being impotuned by an elderly, extraordinarily wrinkled lady. As he unloaded her tat into the van, my children went rushing up to ask whether they could buy some of it. Not a happy scene, I have to tell you.
Why you Should Try to Keep your Small Children away from Police Stations
To renew the children’s passports, we have to bring them to a police station and let a Garda look at them. This may or may not be because Mr. Waffle was not born in Ireland but in a country well known to harbour dangerous subversives (Canada, since you ask). So on Sunday we trooped into the station where the Gardaà duly looked the children over and pronounced that they matched the photos. During that time, I fielded the following questions from the Princess based on a series of posters on the wall:
What is rape? [Having looked at these excellent but disturbing posters]
What’s human trafficking?
What’s a drug dealer?
While doing this, I had also to break up a fist fight between the boys on the subject of Daniel’s wellingtons.
Unrelated: Praxis, please advise on the capitalisation of the title.
Why hello negative equity, I like the way you’re doing your hair
Did I tell you that we are thinking of moving house? Well, we are. The man from the estate agent’s came around to look at the house and after some humming and hawing told me that it is now worth only just over two thirds of what we paid for it in 2002. Oh the pain.
Signs, omens, portents
Daniel came home with a big cut across his forehead. “What happened to you?” I asked. “Mary Lou [McDonald, successful Sinn Féin candidate in the recent election] hit me,” he said. “WHAT??” “Well, Michael, threw her at me and she hit me on the forehead.” It transpired that one of the candidate’s posters had fallen off a lamp post and Michael decided to test its aerodynamics by flinging it as his brother. I tell you, if it’s not one thing, it’s another.
Incident
The childminder took the children to the park yesterday. Some big bold boys ran after them, tried to kick them, shouted at them and called them names. The childminder departed with the children in tow and the bullies following. They only left when the children got on the bus home. The Princess is particularly upset, pointing out that they tried to kick Daniel she said, “I can do that, but no one else is allowed to.” They were all a bit shaken up. Later in the evening, Daniel said to me, “Mummy, the mean boys in the park called me [insert nasty racist epithet here] what does that mean?” Lovely. Proof that racists are stupid, I suppose. Mr. Waffle said to them, that these were children who weren’t looked after properly and taught properly and they probably wouldn’t have very happy lives. I was much less inclined to go with the wishy-washy liberal approach than usual and just said that they were nasty children [looks like it’s true – a conservative is a liberal who has been mugged].
