Where is Michael, you might be wondering. Yeah, he’s ignoring our petty earthly concerns.
An Exchange giving an Insight into the Personality of each Family Member
Mr. Waffle
Christmas Round Up
Daniel read at the carol service on the Friday evening before Christmas and he was absolutely fantastic. I was very proud of him. Mr. Waffle tends to regard our children’s successes and failures as their own but I regard everything as a reflection on me and I basked vicariously in his glory. The carols were nice too.
On Sunday we had our Christmas drinks party. Every year I am in the horrors in prospect and then quite pleased with it when in progress and delighted with myself afterwards. This year was no different. We had a moment of suprise when Daniel said, as I stood poised with a toothpick over a cocktail sausage, “I think those are the ones Michael puts in his mouth.” “And puts back in the box?” I asked in horror. Apparently so. Anyhow we had an unopened packet and we spoke to Michael about toothpicks being a single use item so a win overall.
On December 23, I queued outside Sheridan’s cheesemongers in town for 20 minutes. It was a small price to pay as my sister-in-law was making Christmas dinner but I think we can take it as a sign that the Dublin economy is still doing just fine.
It was a busy couple of days. For all of us, apparently.
On Christmas Eve, the children and I met and an old friend of mine and his children. We’ve been doing this for about 10 years now so that makes it a festive tradition, I suppose. I found old pictures of when the children were smaller and he and I were quite nostalgic. My children were politely indifferent.
When we got home, Mr. Waffle told us that the toilet seat upstairs had broken. I thought it a bit unlikely that he would succeed on his hunt for a replacement on Christmas Eve but I underestimated him. A Christmas miracle.
We went to midnight mass (starts at 9, over by 10.30) and so we had a pretty relaxed Christmas morning with no one up before 9.
Christmas presents this year were pretty successful overall. I rolled over Mr. Waffle’s subscription to the Economist and did not get him a copy of “Surveillance Capitalism” about which I had given strong hints and which filled him with fear because all he really wanted was the new Ross O’Carroll Kelly book which I dutifully delivered.
As we were going out to dinner herself did us all an amazingly elaborate Christmas breakfast which we all enjoyed though she was slightly frazzled. Christmas lunch with the cousins was very good and entirely labour free although Mr. Waffle and I felt a bit guilty; we’ll have them around for dinner in the new year.
Mr. Waffle and the children refused to go orienteering on St. Stephen’s Day but we did go for a walk so there was that. I was not as pleased by the situation as this picture might lead you to believe but my children were an absolute delight.
We did very little on the 27th and headed down to Cork on the 28th. We decided to have lunch in Milano’s in town when we got to Cork before pushing on to grace the relatives with our presence. I was ill-prepared for parking in town. I decided I would test out the city council’s park by phone service, it is not effective. I am €10 poorer and I still had to scoot off to buy parking discs – I met two traffic wardens and they told me that the park by phone service was down; where I might buy discs and that they would not clamp my car while I was gone. This is perhaps not fascinating but I had to get it off my chest. It ended up costing me €20 for an hour’s parking.
Nonetheless we went on to my parents’ house in reasonably good order. My sister and brother always get very extravagant presents for the children (and indeed me) and this year the children, yet again, cleaned up.
I gave my father a new cap – sorely needed – and it may have been my most successful present of the year. He wore it to mass on Sunday and we both thought it looked pretty good. He was chirpy on Sunday and as he and I drove back from mass together (leaving the others to toil on foot) we reprised together some of the more popular carols performed by the choir.
My brother, the boys and I went ice skating together which was moderately successful. We went to Kinsale for a walk with my sister. As I said cheerfully to my little group as I ushered them in to the car, “It’s not actually raining.” The children dutifully posed for the now traditional “caution children” shot.
After an hour or so patiently waiting outside in the damp, we finally got our lunch in the Bulman. While we were queuing, my sister’s friend came with her husband, her five year old, her brother and her 83 year old father. We chatted. Mr. Waffle suggested that we should give them our place in the queue. The rest of us were heartless. He is a better person than us but we were hungrier than him. Happily we were all seated at more or less the same time so the terrible ethical dilemma did not arise. Then we went on to Charles Fort which, alas, was closed. Curse you, OPW.
My sister and I went for a wander around the craft shops of the town and Mr. Waffle and the children went home (having driven to Kinsale in two cars which was handy if not ecologically sound). By the time I got back to Cork that evening, I was starting to feel ill. I was sick as a dog last night and was not wellfor our drive back to Dublin this morning but here I am in the comfort of my own home with as much lemsip at my disposal as I may need to see in the new year.
A very happy new year to you all and hope Christmas went well for you too.
Le Hollybough Nouveau est Arrivé
What did the world’s best husband purchase for me? Oh yes.
He’s Hilarious
Me: How did the history exam go today?
Herself: Not great.
Mr. Waffle: Chronologically speaking, she is the latest victim of Hitler’s foreign policy.
Book Club: An Incomplete Social History
I’ve been in book clubs since I was in my late 20s. Always all women. I wouldn’t say that reading books is/was entirely incidental to these groups but I always found it to be secondary to the pleasure of being with a group of friends.
The first one I joined in Brussels was a very sophisticated affair with hard books and a serious focus. I only got in because they wanted some more English speakers. I quite enjoyed it though all of the other members were slightly terrifyingly beautiful (all Dutch and Swedish bar me and my English friend) and had very impressive jobs (our biggest coup was a Dutch MEP – look I was in my 20s we were all a lot more impressionable then). We read worthy books around a theme and if it was your turn to lead debate, then you read the book and wrote up reading notes for the others. Once a year we had a black tie dinner with partners. Yes, really.
When I came back to Ireland in 2000, I missed the camaraderie of the Dutch (really it was basically Dutch – v organised and immensely thorough) book club and set up one with my friends in Dublin. This is still going strong – first Monday of the month for nearly 20 years. We take a relaxed approach to reading the book. Mostly at least one person has not read the book and, on at least one occasion, no one had read the book. It makes me really happy because without this book club I think I would have lost contact with a lot of my friends from that time, just because we’re all busy and lots of us have children. When I came back from my stint in Brussels in 2008, I rejoined seamlessly. I love it. [A parenthesis here – did I set up another book club while I lived in Brussels between 2003 and 2008? I most certainly did.] We have a core group – lots of lawyers – and a revolving cast of members who come and go. Three of our core group are sisters and I am almost certain one of our revolving cast left in horror because she heard them talking to each other without knowing they were sisters. Sister one remarked that sister two’s new coat was not a success and sister three agreed. There was then a discussion of sister one’s new haircut and all three agreed that it was probably a mercy she wore a wig for work. I could see new member thinking that this was a tough school.
And then, eight or nine years ago, a friend of Mr. Waffle’s invited me to join her book club. This was different again – held about once every six weeks on a Sunday afternoon, always in our foundress’s beautiful, beautiful house – this is one where everyone reads the book and we have a very structured discussion about it and then go next door to the dining room and have the most wonderful afternoon tea. In the course of this we discuss weighty political topics and current affairs but also all sorts of gossip. It’s lovely to make a group of new friends in your 40s. Mr. Waffle’s friend (he sometimes says plaintively ‘she is my friend, it’s very unfair that you see so much of her’ – I think of her as a shared resource) is from Limerick so many of the members of the group are from there also and as my mother was from Limerick there’s something about their voices and expressions that remind me of her. They’re a diverse bunch with a couple of media people so they always have excellent gossip. The Sunday before last was the book club’s tenth anniversary and there was a book club quiz (I love a quiz) and a goody bag for each member with a bottle of gin from the Isle of Harris (our foundress’s husband is half Scottish); various cards and bookmarks and a mug. I nearly died of happiness. It was the surprise and the delightful nature of it.
I was reflecting the other day for women and men of my generation our mothers played tennis and golf and bridge but for my children’s generation, their mothers will all have been in book clubs. I wonder whether the days of book clubs are numbered or whether they will be with us forever?
Cooking on the Aga
Unusually for someone who is as fond of eating as I am, I am not a very keen cook but, having invested my retirement fund in our new Aga (make your own jokes about going up in smoke here), I am doing my best to use it. When the Aga was delivered it came with a free (for a certain value of free) cookery book. I used a recipe from the book the other day. It involved using both hot plates and all three ovens. It was very elaborate and I also made a vegetarian version with tofu for herself (she once told me that tofu could substitute for chicken) further complicating matters.
I served it up, quite late but triumphant. The boys had a look at the creamy sauce and instantly said that they didn’t fancy it. “Surely, you’ll have some chicken,” I pleaded. Mr. Waffle obliging dipped in the ladle to extract some chicken. “Um,” he said, “are you sure that there is chicken in here?” Alas, I had left the chicken in the warming oven after quickly frying it and it was sitting there on the raw side still instead of having spent a happy twenty minutes in the roasting oven. I microwaved it. Michael pronounced it rubbery but nobody died. Herself said, “I’m sorry I led you astray but tofu cannot substitute for chicken on all occasions.” Really, is it any wonder that I dislike cooking?
“I suppose,” said Mr. Waffle, “that poultry is that which is lost in translation.” Daniel went for “Fowl play is suspected” and herself offered that it was just a run of bad cluck. Alas.
