Herself is in Italy and has inadvertently turned all her white clothes pink in the wash. She is gutted. “I’m sure it’s not as bad as you think,” I said. “Yes, it is, I look like a prawn,” she said. Alas.
Princess
Further Adventures in Gardening
When my father came home from work to see that my mother had spent some time wrestling with the hedge he would say regretfully, “Ah, the hedge hating peasantry”. A wonder she didn’t hit him. I have inherited her hedge clippers and did some damage to the hedge myself today. I also cut the wire on the extension lead. Sigh. It tripped the relevant trip switch and obviously the extension lead no longer works but otherwise, mercifully, no harm done. I can’t help wondering whether more modern models might be a bit safer.
The extension lead was not my only victim. My agapanthus has only put up two flowers this year (still buds at this point). One of them was knocked off by a careless family member some weeks ago, the culprit has still not been identified. While I was wielding my clippers of death today, Michael was cutting the grass. When I paused in my labours he said laconically, “You’ve cut your flower.” No agapanthus this year then.
Lest you think Daniel was idle while Michael was mowing, fear not, he was on “pick up the clippings” duty. Herself cut me to the quick (cutting appears to be the theme of today’s piece) by saying recently that one task just conceals another so the reward for completing one task is getting another. This is, sadly, true. So, I sent the boys upstairs to sort out the schoolbooks they no longer want. No sign of this task actually being completed so I can keep it in reserve for emergencies, I guess.
An old friend of mine – a great gardener – once said that every garden has at least one thug. My garden has several but I was resigned to this until I saw something growing like crazy. I became convinced it was Japanese knotweed. I was filled with gloom and despair until Mr. Waffle made me do a google image search and it turns out to be Alpine Enchanter’s Nightshade. Welcome, welcome to your new home remarkably hardy and charmingly named Alpine Enchanter’s Nightshade. No haters please.
Plum season has begun. Shortly we will be in intensive jam production phase.
Until I was 12 or so my family lived in a very big house that came with my father’s job (I have covered elsewhere the trauma of moving from this to a semi-detached Edwardian number). The garden was big. We had a big lawn with a dozen apple trees and a large vegetable garden. There was a gardener who came very regularly but maybe not every day. His name was Michael Lyons and he was genuinely one of the kindest people I have ever met. He worked really hard, I remember him bending down to weed – from the waist, like a tent – and never having a bad word to say to us children as we ran in and out through the potato plants. In retrospect that cannot have been good for them but I remember them being large and providing excellent cover in hide and seek. He came in at lunch time and Cissie (who lived in and minded us and cleaned and tidied and whom we loved – when we moved out, my sister who was small used to say, “I’m going back to my own Cissie” when the rest of us annoyed her, i.e. frequently) made him two perfectly round poached eggs which I was transfixed by. He was unmarried and, naturally, he had a little Jack Russell dog. He was always very quiet and gentle. We used to visit him at home around Christmas and he always seemed pleased to see us – a niggle, was he really? My mother loved sweet peas and he grew masses of them on a fence for her. This year, for the first time, I have grown my own batch of sweet peas. I thought they would remind me of my mother. And they do, of course, but every time I pass them and smell their beautiful summery scent, I think of Michael Lyons.
It’s the Circle of Life
A friend of mine has not one but two colleagues who are expecting twins. For both women it is a first pregnancy and they both want to breastfeed. She asked me would I meet them and give some advice. I, of course, was utterly delighted to do so – there is nothing I like more than doling out advice. Unfortunately, I retain almost no memory of those first six months of utter exhaustion but, never mind.
My friend (mother of four) came to lunch as well and her colleagues were suitably grateful for her advice and mine. The pregnant women are both professionals in their mid-thirties and they have clearly no idea what is going to hit them despite being thorough researchers with health professionals and, you know, mothers in their families. I offered by way of comfort that I really didn’t think two was a lot harder than one. I did say that one was pretty hard in my experience. One of them said, “I am prepared for breastfeeding to be difficult and painful for the first week.” My friend and I almost laughed. The problem is that it’s really hard to imagine what it’s going to be like until you actually have a baby. One of them said, “My husband will sleep in the spare room as he will have to go out to work and will need his sleep.” My friend and I were firm that her marriage was unlikely to survive this kind of arrangement. Both of us said that it was much easier to go out to work than to stay home with a baby or two and, in fact, she would need any extra sleep that was going. I think she thought that we were crazy.
It really brought me back though to those early miserable days when I was so tired. But, as my friend said to me afterwards, “We got through it and our children are now almost grown ups, we did it!” In fact her youngest is only 12 but I still know what she means and in any event her 12 year old would (in the manner of youngest children) buy and sell the lot of us. My friend said that she gathered her four children together to tell them some good news recently (a promotion) and then had to step outside for a moment before making the announcement. From the hall, she heard her 12 year old confidently inform her older sisters in a stage whisper, “No it can’t be that, she’s definitely started the menopause.”
Foreign Parts
At the crack of dawn on Sunday morning, the boys and I hopped on the ferry to Wales. We were quite tired so it was a shame that we only discovered at the end of the journey that the swift ferry (a catamaran, bumpy but, in fairness, swift) seats recline. Alas.
We arrived at 10ish and then had a long, long drive to go and pick up herself and her belongings. The guys were charmed by the signs in Welsh. They were less delighted by the discovery that England is a quite big country. We only arrived at our destination about 4.30 having briefly stopped in a motorway service station for what, in my view, was a deeply unsatisfactory lunch. Dan had never had Gregg’s before and he thought it was the best thing ever. Honestly, no. He needed filling up as he was sitting up front as my navigator and car DJ – he actually did an excellent job on both fronts. I wouldn’t have minded a paper map as back up to my phone but Mr. Waffle had gone to Eason’s to see if he could pick one up before we left but none were for sale. What is this brave new world?
On arrival we filled the car to the gunnels with stuff. Very tiring but herself was touchingly grateful for our efforts. Actually more her siblings’ efforts than mine. While living on the fourth floor with no lift, I am sure, has advantages, they were not immediately apparent as we toiled up and down the stairs in 30 degree heat.
Unfortunately, herself had an ungettable out of engagement that evening but the rest of us went to Pizza Express and, I’ve had worse. Definitely in Gregg’s.
It was pretty toasty the next day and we met up after breakfast to do various touristy things including a boat trip and a not terribly scary ghost tour but it was quite interesting as a walking tour so there was that. I had hoped to get in a swim but logistics and dreadful traffic prevented it. Still, we had dinner by the river which was lovely.
The following day, I rearranged everything in the car, I wouldn’t say it was comfortable but it was ok. After an elaborate shared breakfast we went to a local art gallery (herself, at work as scheduler extraordinaire again) and then hit the road. It was much less trying than the journey there on Sunday and, in fact, we made far better time. Are all road works in the UK scheduled for Sundays, I wonder. I had thought we would be super speedy on Sunday but in fact it was very slow and busy whereas Tuesday was, by comparison, painless. Michael whiled away the drive by reading Lady Gregory’s Irish Myths and Legends. He kept us updated on new facts. There was a lot about the impressive fighting force that was Na Fianna. “Apparently,” said he, “the old High Kings were a bit nervous about the power of Fionn and the Fianna, a bit like Putin and Prigozhin.” I like to think that this was the first time this comparison has been made.
So speedy was our journey that we were a bit early for the ferry. I wish Holyhead boasted more delights. Inevitably the ferry was then late. The food on the ferry was appalling. Let us not speak of it. We got home about 1.30 in the morning, nearly two hours later than planned, but at least we were home. When we took all of the stuff out of the car, I was amazed that it had all fitted in along with the four of us.
We only had a flying visit from herself as she is off to Italy today but back again in a couple of weeks. It is nice to have her home and her bedroom full of stuff again.
Done
So what have I been up to? I know you are on the edge of your seat out there. I went to the Dalkey book festival last Saturday. I mentioned it to a friend in the context of not being available for something else and he said, “[Snort] the Dalkey book festival, could you be any more middle class?” Well, I could, in fairness. I could actually live in Dalkey which is a lovely sea side village with the most expensive houses in the country.
I enjoyed my trip to Dalkey. Mr. Waffle and I went to see Lea Ypi whose book I recommend. I found her interesting. Quite angry and still, I think, at heart a communist. You can take the child out of Albania etc. The setting was a Protestant church and I found the seats exquisitely uncomfortable. A former colleague of Mr. Waffle’s was there and she asked a hard question. I was suitably impressed but it disappeared in the deluge of other questions.
The parents of a boy who was in Daniel and Michael’s class in primary school had a party to celebrate their third and final child finishing primary school. In a very real way, we helped them to find the school. The mother met the Princess in the park – aged 5- with her minder and cross-questioned her on the school. She liked what the Princess said and the cut of her jib more generally and decided to send her precious first-born there which is how he ended up in Dan and Michael’s class. I have never before considered how much you have in common with parents of children who went to the same primary school as yours. Even if we didn’t know the parents (and we knew lots of them) we mostly knew them to see. We were all able to admire the school class photos which our hosts had dug out. It was a lovely idea and everyone had a great time. There was even dancing.
Sunday was Fathers’ Day – bit of a quiet day but, you know, grand. Mr. Waffle got a card and a present. And I thought a bit about my own father who was always pretty disapproving of Fathers’ Day; a festival designed by Hallmark, in his view.
No idea what happened on Monday but on Tuesday I was up with the lark, out for a swim, then a cycle in, alas, driving rain which I had not at all planned for.
I then had a very satisfactory long lunch with a friend, cycled up to the school for a last engagement (uniform swap, all of the children’s uniforms have been given away, I am a model of efficiency) and on the way home from school I found a swarm of bees in the lane and got a beekeeper to come and take them away. Your correspondent was exhausted but broadly pleased.
Wednesday was June 21 the longest day of the year and also the day of Dan’s last Leaving Cert exam. It was physics and he was pleased with the paper. In the newspaper a teacher was quoted as saying that it was “a very fair paper”. “That’s teacher code for easy,” said Dan. Herself was pleased with results also so it was a good day all round.
Thursday saw me beating the locked doors of the church with a new father to get in for a baptism prep meeting. The house of the Lord is never closed eh? Anyway, in fairness, the parish priest let us in so new father’s trek from the other side of the city was not in vain (he believes our church to be a half way point between his wife’s family and his, I believe he is mistaken).
And today was Michael’s last exam. It was economics. He had a long time to prepare and he was not enjoying working when Dan was finished but at last the day dawned. He did not like the paper, sadly, so has finished on something of a low. However, it is done and as my father used to say, “students are very poor judges of their own performance”. We all went out to lunch to celebrate. That’s really the very, very end of school. How peculiar.
Endings
The nice young man who gave conversation classes to the boys this year has gone back to France. We had him round for a cup of tea before he left and he stayed for two hours. That is such a long time. We gave him a small present. When we gave him a present at Christmas (a coffee pot and some coffee), he told us he didn’t like coffee while expressing his gratitude with great charm. Our present this time was two books: Dubliners by Joyce and some Yeats poetry. Later he texted me his thanks while commenting that he had previously started Dubliners but had given up. This would give him an incentive to try again he said. During the afternoon when he came around he mentioned in passing that the French regard hypocrisy as absolutely the worst vice. Honestly, this explains a lot. Anyhow, he is the last person who we will be having round to speak French with the children. It’s the end of an era. We have had Francophones (mostly French people) in the house since we came back from Belgium in 2008 talking to them, minding them and giving them the kind of values that mean when Michael hurts himself he still says stoically, “La douleur ça passe”. I’ll miss them.
This year has been a bit of a disaster at school with teacher supply. History and Geography, both of which Michael wanted to study were timetabled back to back in school so he did History outside school. We picked History to study outside because the Geography teacher in school was so good. He had her for fifth year and she was amazing. But – good for her but bad for us – she had her first child at the start of this academic year and over the year her role has been taken over by a range of subs of varying quality. The Maths teacher went on maternity leave in January and since then, the boys have been taught by a number of people with no teaching qualifications. I mean, you would like it to be a bit better. I had a neighbour’s child up the road who is doing a PhD in maths give them a grind. Daniel’s fantastic Physics teacher got a job in a new school at the end of the last school year. She was replaced by a zoom class after school once a week with a less than stellar substitute. I paid for extra physics classes for him on Saturday morning. The German teacher is off on maternity leave too. She was great but both boys say that the substitute is even better. I guess you’ve got to win some of the time. Anyway, all things considered, it has been pretty disruptive for them both. However, now all grinds and extra classes are mercifully over as they have started into the worst exam any Irish person will ever sit – the Leaving Certificate – go on ask any Irish person you know, I’ll wait.
Their school graduation was on a Thursday. They had various mild pranks (they were all going to wear a mustache to school) planned in the run up to it. Monday was “anything but a bag day”. They all brought stuff to school in wheelbarrows or whatever their vivid imaginations suggested. The principal sent a text message to all parents at 10 in the morning saying “6th year students are finishing now in order to prepare for the Leaving Cert. We will see them on Thursday for graduation.” This was news to the parents, students and (rumour has it) the teachers. They got given breakfast and black plastic bags to clear out their lockers. The kids were really upset. I felt it was disrespectful and horrible for them and, apart from anything else, those three days in school with their teachers wouldn’t have hurt given how interrupted their schooling has been. To be fair to the authoritarian authorities, there had been something of an incident with a water pistol in a previous year and it seems to have marked them.
On the Wednesday, a really nice teacher invited them all in for a cup of tea so that was good. And then the graduation itself was lovely. They gave the principal a present while I gritted my teeth. They did an amazing video which made us all laugh and many of us cry. It was really super and helped to make up for the previous Monday’s debacle. It made me feel really sorry for herself who had a graduation with parents watching online.
The children, the teachers and some parents (not us at the urgent request of our children) went to the local GAA club afterwards and stayed late. They seem to have had a great time. One of the other students asked Michael (yes, 17 year old Michael, all the rest of them, except his twin obviously, are 18) why he wasn’t drinking. “Is it because you’re a Catholic?” he asked. There seems to be a fundamental misunderstanding of the rules of engagement among the younger generation.
Anyway, there we are. I have no children in school. What a weird feeling.
Keep your fingers crossed for my guys in the Leaving Cert, they are in the middle of it and they are not exactly having the time of their lives.
No more uniforms though, so there’s that.
