Of late, I have taken to trying to put my phone down at 6.30 when I come in from work and not picking it up again until I go out to work in the morning. I have imposed my draconian regime on Mr. Waffle and the boys also. From when I come home, no one looks at the phone. I’m not saying it works perfectly all the time and sometimes things ping in or there is a phone call but basically we are phone free for most of the evening most of the time. I have a slight tendency to check the phone as I’m going to bed but I am trying to stop. Overall, it’s great for me. Now Mr. Waffle is saying we watch too much telly but, frankly, that’s a bridge too far for me. I’ll keep you posted on our progress towards Victorian evenings.
Extended Round-Up
The coda to our logistics last week was getting Herself back to France. She was due to fly out at 9.50 on Wednesday morning. Alas, I did not see some form online which was supposed to be filled in for under 16s [Air France didn’t need one but Aer Lingus did – I know, I know, when you’re explaining you’re losing] and she was thrown off on the steps of the plane. Mr. Waffle had to zoom back to the airport and re-book her for a later flight and then we needed to re-book her train from Charles de Gaulle to the west of France. It was all a bit stressful. She is Miss Super Competent in fairness to her. She got on the plane in Dublin and from there, unaccompanied, navigated her way to the train station in CDG and on to the express train back to her host family in the west of France.
Poor Mr. Waffle meanwhile spent the morning in the airport (unexpectedly, obviously) and then came home to find that the wretched cat had captured a blackbird and brought it into the kitchen. Mr. Waffle arrived home to a storm of feathers and the bird standing dazedly on the work surface between attempts to hurl itself out the closed window. The cat was pacing the floor frantically some dimly understood precept (or possibly her vast bulk) preventing her from hopping up on to the work surface. Mr. Waffle threw her into the utility room and ushered the bird into the garden. The cat got out the cat flap in the utility room and was waiting anxiously for them at the back door so that escape plan was not entirely successful. The bird got out eventually and we are still finding feathers in surprising places. Joy.
Meanwhile it was Halloween in Dublin and for the first time since moving in, our decorations beat next door’s. It could be that now that their children are 19 and 17 they are not trying so hard but I like to think that we really tried. The boys looked very impressive in their costumes but were too sophisticated to go door to door and just wore them for school.
We had planned to go to Cork for a couple of days over mid-term before Mr. Waffle’s father died and I wondered whether we should cancel but after some humming and hawing we went in the end. In a new development, the boys stayed in my parents’ house and Mr. Waffle and I stayed with my sister. This was a very satisfactory development for everyone except, possibly, our host.
We drove down on Thursday night which was a bit of an epic trek but it did mean that we woke up in Cork on Friday morning ready for a day of Cork related fun. In what can only be called the high water mark of family cultural engagement, the boys said that they wanted to go to Charles Fort in Kinsale on Friday, so we did. It was a bit damp but we missed the worst of the rain. On the strength of this, I bought a new family heritage card for €90 which means that we have to go to at least six heritage sites over the next year to break even. I fear the worst. So do the children.
We went for lunch in the Bulman and Daniel took the obligatory before and after pictures of the ketchup bottle to send to his uncle who does not love ketchup. The waitress assured me that ketchup is part vegetable but I am not entirely convinced.
We took the traditional picture at the caution children sign.
On Saturday, my brother and sister minded the boys for much of the day (including a trip to Milano’s for pizza, let joy be unconfined) leaving myself and Mr. Waffle to our own devices. We were a bit blinded by the unexpected freedom. We went for breakfast and, after a trip to the Crawford gallery and a mild wander around the town in the rain including a look at food fair in the City Hall, we waddled on to lunch. In slight desperation, wondering what to do next, I asked Mr. Waffle to check a list of 17 hidden exciting things to do in Cork he found on the internet. One of them was feed the ducks in the Lough. I mean, I’ve no objection to feeding the ducks but I wouldn’t exactly call it exciting. We had about an hour and a half until Mr. Waffle was meeting a friend for coffee and I almost suggested going home (to be fair, it was lashing) but then I had a mild stroke of inspiration and we went to see Elizabeth Fort and the Protestant cathedral.
Elizabeth Fort boasted mildly exciting views and an air raid shelter which I don’t remember seeing before. It was extremely damp and had a random collection of cold damp objects for viewing including this slightly alarming map.
I quite like the cathedral although I am not generally a fan of neo-gothic. Mr. Waffle wondered about the candles and the IHS on the altar. “Maybe they are very high church?” I offered. “Not in Ireland,” he said firmly. He said it was the least Protestant looking Protestant church he had ever been in. I wonder was he misled because Ireland is basically full of 19th century neo-gothic churches that are Catholic and there are inevitable stylistic similarities. It’s a mystery.
That evening, the boys played board games with my sister and her partner and had a fantastic time.
We drove back on Sunday morning. It was actually a really good idea to go in the end. We all had a lovely time. It turns out that despite the cynical words of my son Michael on another occasion, there is such a thing as fun for all the family.
Wednesday to Saturday
My poor father-in-law died on Tuesday night.
Wednesday
On Wednesday morning, my sister-in-law flew in from London. She and Mr. Waffle and Mr. Waffle’s brother went off to the undertaker at lunch time. I was home from work to help but found myself at a loose end once I’d organised for herself to get home from France. It was strange. I then realised that I had given the boys a lift to school that morning and would be unable to give them a lift home as they might expect because the car was on the other side of the city. I cycled in to the school to tell them this, stopping off on the way to pick up a newly arrived library book.
When I arrived at the school, the boys were fine about getting home by bus and I said I would take their school bags on the bike. This was a bit unsatisfactory as the bags were quite big but I got home safely only to discover that the library book must have fallen out in my perambulations. I cycled all the way back to the school hunting for it but it was gone forever. I thought about going into town with the boys to get funeral wear but decided I would wait until the following day when I had the car. When Mr. Waffle and his sister arrived home, they said that the funeral had been arranged for Saturday morning. They had found a priest with some difficulty, their brother was deployed to find a venue for lunch afterwards and they were doing the missalette and finding the singers. Mr. Waffle said it was like organising a wedding, weirdly, but with only three days notice. He and his brother met for a drink that evening and I gave his brother a lift home. We talked about his father, of course, and I couldn’t help feeling that my father-in-law was so lucky to have him – they had a shared interest in running and even when my father-in-law’s dementia began to take hold, my brother-in-law was organising running gigs in the mountains for him.
Thursday
We did a bit of work picking readings in the morning and then Mr. Waffle drove his sister to the airport to pick up her husband and baby daughter who had spent the previous day packing up their flat in London (mostly him, to be fair). She booked the soprano and the organist for the funeral on the way in the car and selected the music. My poor sister-in-law, it was quite the week. Then there was a difficulty getting in to their air bnb and various tense emails were exchanged. I drove them there and then turned around to go back to the airport to pick up herself. I was just in time.
It was wonderful to see her. Exciting and delightful. She had been followed by a middle aged man at the bus stop in France (broad daylight, not her usual bus stop but still) and I was a bit worried – we’d spoken on the phone and by Skype but it’s really not the same – once I saw her, I knew she was alright. She has been having a fantastic time in France and, I think, it’s been really great for her. That night Mr. Waffle toiled over the missalette and I put my amazing word processing skills to work.
Friday
The boys had to be got ready for Hallowe’en in school on a slightly last minute basis (a skeleton and an assassin, thanks for asking). I drove Mr. Waffle out to to the church in the morning to finalise the funeral arrangements with the priest. Then I came home and took herself into town to buy something suitable for a funeral and bought a jacket and shirt for Daniel as well (Michael had a jacket in stock but as it travelled into school as part of the Hallowe’en outfit, I was a bit nervous, herself said she had a white shirt in the drawer that would do for Michael). I realised, to my horror that it was the day of the presidential election vote and the blasphemy referendum. I flew down to the polling station. Turnout was low. Bad for democracy but good for me, I was in and out in 2 minutes.
I got a message from Mr. Waffle that he would like the boys to get a haircut so we drove (reprehensibly, it’s really close enough to walk, but it was an emergency) to the hairdresser, dressed them respectably and just about managed to get in the car for 3 to get across town for the beginning of the removal at 4. We were the first to arrive at the undertaker’s and the woman in charge took one look at my children and murmured, “He had very strong genes, didn’t he?” We looked at Grandad in the coffin and he was wearing a tie which he never liked in life, so the undertaker took it off. He didn’t look like himself really. I thought the children might be upset but they were ok. We were so early, we had time for a cup of tea. When we came back, people were streaming in. Across the road at the church, all sorts of unlikely people turned up who it was really lovely to see. The deacon said a couple of nice words and it was clear that he knew the deceased which is not always a given.
Many people repaired to the pub afterwards including herself and Mr. Waffle but I took the boys home as my sister was coming up from Cork on the train. By the time I got my sister to our house, I was flattened. I felt very bad when I saw a text message from Mr. Waffle saying that he and herself were trekking across town on the bus but also, pathetically, very relieved not to be sitting in to the car again to collect them. When they came back, herself was wrapped up in her Grandfather’s jacket which they had taken from her grandparents’ house on the way home to add to her own rather flimsy jacket. She’s hardly taken it off since.
Saturday
Mr. Waffle went off early to get his mother from the nursing home, she only went in to the home the week before her husband died – that is a lot of change for one family.
I got Daniel to try on the jacket I’d bought for him. Tragically and clearly, much too large. I called for the white shirt which herself had stashed in her room. She handed it to me sheepishly. It turned out it was Mr. Waffle’s shirt. I dropped my poor sister and Daniel into town and told them to find shirts and a jacket and quickly. They did. Almost miraculously, we were all in the car and ready to travel at 10. We parked around the corner from the church for the funeral at 10.45.
Oh the funeral, it was awful. The readings were great (herself did one – I have run my race to the finish– particularly appropriate in this case), the prayers of the faithful were fine (the boys and the cousins) but almost from the beginning, all three of my children started crying silently (I was crying myself but, as Michael pointed out, everyone expected me to cry, I am the family crier). Then, my nephew read a letter which his grandfather had written to him for a school project when he was 6. The letter was put in a time capsule to be opened when he was 12. He’s 12 now. My father-in-law’s voice came through so clearly, talking about all the fun they would have in 2019.
Loads of people made the effort to come to the funeral, including Mr. Waffle’s friend who lives in the Hague who was in Cork visiting her own mother and heard and came up. It was surprisingly lovely. There was more lycra in evidence than you normally see at funerals as the hill runners made him a guard of honour. He would certainly have enjoyed that. My sister had to go back to Cork for a meeting but my brother was there for the next bit having arrived towards the end of the funeral mass (he will certainly be late for his own funeral). We went to the cemetery which had views of the mountains my father-in-law loved and we went to the lunch afterwards.
The grandchildren reminisced about their holidays in Kerry when (we now discover to our horror) their grandfather would pile all five of them into the back of the jeep with no safety belts and drive them at hair-raising speed to the beach. They kept that quiet at the time.
“How are you?” I asked Michael after the funeral. “I’m thinking of ‘the Muppet Christmas Carol'” he said, his voice breaking. “‘Life is made up of meetings and partings. I am sure that we shall never forget … this first parting that there was among us.’†I don’t suppose we will.
Bitter Bitter Bitter
Me (buying the Saturday newspaper requirements for Cork – The Daily Telegraph (yes, I know) and The Examiner for my father, The Guardian for my Aunt and the Irish Times for me – truly a back breaking load): Can I tap to pay?
Young woman in the shop: No, I’m afraid you’ll have to put in your PIN.
Me: Why don’t you have the tap facility? Is there a cost?
Her: The boss doesn’t want it. It’s a no go, if it makes our lives easier.
Ye Know neither the Day nor the Hour
My poor father-in-law died last night. It was very surreal. He went into hospital a month ago with a sore back. Over the past number of years he had suffered from dementia and he was getting worse but he was relatively young (74) and he was walking and talking when he went into hospital. Last week the discharge co-ordinator was talking to the family about arrangements for him to get out this week.
Yesterday morning, my husband got a call about his father and he said to me that it sounded serious. “Let me know how it goes with the doctors,” I said. When I got out from a meeting at lunchtime, there was a message that things weren’t looking good. When I called, Mr. Waffle sounded a bit shell-shocked. His father had pneumonia and they were trying one last ditch effort with antibiotics. I still didn’t really think things were serious but about mid-afternoon, I got worried and called Mr. Waffle to ask whether I should come into the hospital. He didn’t feel it was necessary but said it would be nice so in I went. His father looked alright but was not conscious and was on oxygen. I rang my father (doctor) and my sister (has spent so much time in hospitals tending to aged parents that she has doctor like knowledge of geriatric issues). When I said he had aspiration (not aspirational as I thought – I was corrected – it’s not the kind of pneumonia you hope to get if you are upwardly mobile) pneumonia, they both thought it was not a good sign. My father is normally very optimistic about things but he was not on this occasion. “How long does he have, do you think?” I asked. “Find a senior ward sister and ask; they always know and they are always right,” he said. But my nerve failed me with the family gathered at the bed, I didn’t think I could ask. My sister texted that she reckoned 2-7 days. Even then, I didn’t think it was an immediate deathbed crisis.
We left in the late afternoon. That evening, about 9, there was a call from the hospital; his heart rate was very low. By the time the family arrived at 9.30, he was dead. The speed of it was shocking.
My sister-in-law flew in this morning from London. She and her husband planned a move to Dublin from London and had all been due to fly in tomorrow anyhow. Absolutely miserable for her and for him (packing in London with small baby). I have just arranged for the Princess to fly home from France tomorrow for the funeral. It’s all very strange.
I feel very sad, he was a lovely man with enormous joie de vivre. The last couple of years have been tough for everyone but we have been reflecting on all the years of fun and generosity that proceeded them: holidays, dinners out, long runs up mountains followed by pints in the pub. He derived immense pleasure from life. He retired early and for years, he and my mother-in-law enjoyed holidays in Italy where they learnt Italian in the morning and had fun in the afternoons. He was a daily reader of the Corriere della Sera and regularly clipped out items of interest for me. He liked nothing more than taking the extended family out and buying us all dinner. He was endlessly generous, even profligate, as far as his family was concerned. He was the life and soul of every party.
Cultural Exchange
In the school in France, they have a language assistant for English class. Herself is obliged to attend English class which she does not love. The language assistant is from Ballymena in Northern Ireland. She told the class about the Northern Irish counties and said that a good way to remember them was the acronym “FAT LAD”. “Fat Lad,” thought herself, “no Fat Dad surely.” There was more to come. “Here,” she said, holding up a Union Jack, “is our flag.” “Does anyone know, who is our Queen?” “Well,” I said when this was recounted to me, “if you ask who is the Head of State of Northern Ireland, the answer is the Queen of England.” Herself harumphed, “She didn’t ask ‘Who is the Head of State of Northern Ireland?” she said, ‘Who is our Queen?'” As I explained to her, there’s a whole world for her to explore out there.
