Mr. Waffle is giving me a break this morning. He got up with the Princess, dressed her, fed her, changed the boys, dressed them, put on their coats, put on the Princess’s coat, put the boys into their car seats, stacked them in the lift, persuaded the Princess into the lift and headed off. I shut the door but moments later heard a plaintive bleat from downstairs. From the stairwell Mr. Waffle’s voice echoed “Could you bring the Princess’s shoes downstairs?”
Mr. Waffle
Knight in shining armour
Me: Did you slay any dragons today, sweetheart?
Him: No, but I told one to feck off this morning.
End of an era
I was at the physio on Monday for my last session before I go back to work. I can’t say that my stomach is exactly restored to its former glory (ahem). As I finished up I said glumly “I suppose I should do sit ups and stuff at home”. “Absolutely not!” said the physio “although you should do the exercises you learnt here”. “Why no sit ups?” I asked. Apparently they are bad for your pelvic floor and when you’ve had three babies (including two at once) you don’t want to do anything that’s bad for your pelvic floor (incontinence, people). I can’t help feeling that it was very prescient of me never to have done a sit up in my life.
As I left, the physio said “I suppose we won’t see you again”. I
live around the corner so I looked at her a bit blankly. “Under
the same circumstances, I mean.” “I suppose not” I said
“especially not, if I remain married to the same husband.”
The Belgians, they drive with such dash and élan. Road signs and markings are advisory not compulsory, if you’Â’re Belgian. The Princess has a little ditty that she learnt in school which shows the mindset of the Belgian driver:
Dans ma petite auto, je roule, je roule
Dans ma petite auto, je roule à toute vitesse.
Quand le signale est rouge, il faut que je m’arrête (bis)
Quand le signale est vert, je fonce, je fonce.
A rough translation: I zoom around in my little car, alas when the traffic lights are red, I have to stop, however, once they are green, I speed off at a dangerous rate.
A little of this has rubbed off on me over the years. My driving style has been described as “exciting” by Mr. Waffle. My parking is pretty good too, I can shoehorn our ridiculously long car into surprisingly small places. If you need to decant three little people, you like to be close to your destination, trust me. I can tell you, I never thought that I would be able to do this kind of thing when I spent many hours preparing for my driving test by repeatedly trying and abysmally failing to parallel park in the car park of my mother’s golf club while she went and played a round of golf.
I try to keep the worst of my offences from Mr. Waffle, but the Princess has turned out to be a fifth columnist in this regard.
She and Mr. Waffle went out together in the car recently and as they toured around looking for a parking slot, herself kept up a monologue in the back “Lord, will we ever find a space, look that man has got the last space in Brussels. After a bit, she said to her father ““Daddy, if you can’Â’t find anything, we can always park in front of a garage, itÂ’s a little bit illegal, but itÂ’s alright”.” I hastened to explain to my outraged husband that I would only do this for a short time, like when going in to collect her from school and if I double park, I put on my hazards, which makes it legal. Practically. Yes indeed, if thereÂ’’s a large station wagon impeding your exit, itÂ’s probably me. Or, of course, it could be a Belgian.
I wrote this the other day and as some kind of hideous judgement by the gods of parking, all day today a car
has been parked outside my garage preventing me using my gas guzzling behemoth. Alas.
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Lenten Fast
I have given up biscuits for Lent. Last night I asked Mr. Waffle whether he would like a square of chocolate with his tea. ““Eh?” ““I bought chocolate because I can’Â’t have biscuits. I’Â’m off biscuits for Lent”,” I explained patiently. “”I think that youÂ’’re missing the point somewhat”.”
God these lapsed Catholics are such nitpickers.
By the way, we’re not in the Hague. The Princess is still not better and she was so miserable and cranky that we decided that we had better stay put rather than packing her up and taking her to another country. Unpacking when you havenÂ’’t even got to where you were packing for is very distressing. As far as I can see, the only upside is that I can now eat the box of Belgian chocolates which we had been planning to give the Dutch Mama. With my post dinner cup of tea, should I so wish.
Comments
Buffy
(Homepage)
on 04 March 2006 at 12:57
It’s Lent already!!
kristin
(Homepage)
on 04 March 2006 at 18:08
poor princess. kisses to her, and enjoy your lenten chocs. *chortle*
beachhutman
on 04 March 2006 at 23:19
Good reasons to be lapsed, part three.
Friar Tuck
I believe this requires an expert opinion. Ahem. If your Lenten penance makes you irritable and unkind, THAT is missing the point. I know that going off chocolates makes me irritable so I can only imagine what it does to less saintly people. Eat up with a clean conscience. Now, go get that expert opinion I mentioned earlier.
poggle
on 06 March 2006 at 13:26
Has Mr Waffle no compassion at all? Tch.
belgianwaffle
on 06 March 2006 at 22:30
Thank you LM. Yes, Buffy, you may rely on this site for ecclesiastical guidance. Thanks Kristin. BHM, nitpicking? FT, it’s all clear now. Will you start your own blog? If not will you use your IT skills to help me set up my own website? Pog, none, he has a heart of stone.
Enterprise
From my brother:
How’s it going? This is the game I’m hoping to get tickets for Munster v Perpignan, Lansdowne Road Apr 1 Semi final of Heineken Cup (they call it H Cup in France as alcohol advertising is banned). Couldn’t really make out what the story with tickets was from the Perpignan site was, below are their details. http://www.usap.fr/ Tél : 0 892 68 66 15.
If they are in fact offering tickets the more the better, if they’ll sell six, I’ll buy them….any at all would be
great. They may ask for prospective ticket buyers to join a supporters’ club, lots of places do, if it’s less than 50eur that would be cool, and would even stretch to 100eur, if I could get 4 tickets.
Thanks a mill for helping.
Talk to you soon.
Mr. Waffle’s response to his brother-in-law’s impassioned cri de coeur:
Bad news, I’m afraid – the web site says that you can only collect the tickets in person at the club in Perpignan (no e-mail, no fax, no nothing). The sites says max 10 tickets per person – there is a phone number if you want to order more than 10 tickets but I suspect you’d want to be from Perpignan… Sorry about that, but full marks for ingenuity !
Am awaiting news of my brother’s next move with some curiousity.
belgianwaffle
on 02 March 2006 at 22:06
Yes, in his own interests, he can be quite enterprising.
