My father’s first cousin died a couple of weeks ago. She was always very beautiful and quite exotic boasting a tan when everyone else in Ireland was ghostly white. She married a rich man and they seemed to lead extraordinarily glamorous lives even though they lived in Kerry which does not lend itself to glamour. My brother and sister dutifully went to the funeral and met lots of my father’s cousins and reminisced and brought back useful quantities of family gossip. It wasn’t a shock (in fact about a year ago, I had firmly and definitively told my aunt that this woman was dead despite her distinct – and, as it turns out, correct – doubts on that point, so, you know, definitely not a shock) but I do feel that I am certainly edging closer to the front of the church.
#Andshecycles
The other morning I was cycling in to work and I saw a schoolgirl cycling in front of me. I was delighted as you so rarely see schoolgirls cycling. The Princess’s friend E from primary school is one of the only girls, aside from herself, I know who cycles to school. I peered more closely at the child ahead of me and when I arrived at the lights, I confirmed that it was indeed E on the bike. She’s in her last year of secondary school now and while waiting for the lights to change we covered a variety of topics including how her parents and sisters were; what subjects she was studying for the Leaving Certificate and what she was hoping to study in college. I felt it was poor form of me to put off one of the few girls who cycle by introducing the additional danger of being interrogated by her friend’s mother to the already considerable dangers for cyclists on Dublin streets but what can I do, I am a middle aged mother of three and I live to torture teenagers with hard questions about their lives.
Upbeat
Michael wanted to read “1984”. Could I find it on our bookshelves? I could not. Not to worry, I took myself off to the library online to reserve a copy. The only one to hand in Dublin was a large print edition. I ordered it. It arrived. Do you think the people who designed the cover had ever read the book? I’m not sure whether it’s the comic sans font or the hot pink cover but probably not, I would say.
She Moves in Mysterious Ways
Herself was waxing lyrical about what she called “the year of the committees” the other day. It was when she was 14 and she was on some Dublin youth committee and the school council and the school trust organising committee and various others besides. At the time, I was even more unsure of the details as she is not necessarily forthcoming in relation to her various activities. The other day she ran assembly in school and the only reason we found out was her brothers told us (they have the kinds of loose lips that sink ships in her view).
She said to me recently, “You say I never tell you anything so I just wanted to let you know that I am facilitating an improv workshop for a group of Irish medium schools next week in one of our national cultural institutions as part of a cultural schools event. I’ve tested the material with a range of students in my school and I think it should work quite well. Here’s the permission form you need to sign. [Pause]. I definitely would have told you even if there hadn’t been a form.”
In the car the other night, she offered up, “I had a really nice taxi driver today.” What was she doing in a taxi you might well ask. We certainly did. Apparently she’s organising some conference and the school sent her off to the meeting in a taxi.
Yesterday morning she said she was going to see “Jesus is King”. This is not apparently a church (unlikely destination for her and her friend, I concede) but a Kanye West documentary (please insert your own joke here). It was on in the Cineworld and I said, “Oh you can use my Tesco vouchers for a free ticket.” Apparently not, this is the only showing in Ireland and her friend who invited her hovered over his computer and pounced the instant tickets became available. I feel I did not react appropriately to the limited information released to me to be honest. I’m probably better off not knowing.
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.
Catastrophe
Daniel loves sports. Since the summer he has been playing for the A team in his age group in the local GAA club and this is a source of unalloyed joy to him.
One Friday night he arrived back from training with a bloody lip. He had gone in to get the ball and his mouth had connected with another boy’s boot. Poor Dan. It was quite a bit later in the night when he confessed that his front tooth was loose. Mostly this was because he hadn’t been wearing his gum shield and he was worried we would be cross. He was right to be worried.
I rang my mother’s friend the dentist on Saturday morning (83 but how much do teeth change?). I said it wasn’t very loose but she said that front teeth were risky and I should get it seen to and ring the dental hospital which she thought was open on Saturday. It was not open (some things do change, it transpires). I decided to leave it and visit our own dentist on Monday. He x-rayed and opined that we might have “got away with it” and scheduled another appointment in a week. Sadly over the next week or so, Dan’s tooth turned grey which even I could work out was not a good sign. When we went back to the dentist he said glumly that it looked like we hadn’t got away with it after all. He put on a support thing and said he’d have another look in a fortnight but it is looking like root canal treatment is in Daniel’s future.
In view of this it was all the more devastating when Dan’s GAA team lost the end of season match which would have put them top of their division. At least he would have given up a front tooth for victory rather than defeat. Alas.
