Frozen in shock and aww as 12 kids dressed as Elsa descend
IN 1999, The Edge wrote the foreword for The Whoseday Book in aid of the Irish Hospice Foundation. Next to contributions from Charlie Haughey, Anthony Cronin, Brian Friel, Noel Pearson, Enya, Neil Jordan, Marian Keyes, Seamus Heaney, and Richard Harris, the U2 guitarist mused on the coming Millennium.
“Learn French. Pay your TV licence,” he wrote. “Read some Shakespeare. Cut your toenails. Stop buying shoes you never wear. Go to Vietnam. Teach the Orangemen how to jog. Get down on your knees. Think again. Say goodbye to the past. Talk to the neighbours.”
For the last four months, because of Covid-19,
I’ve been talking to the neighbours more than I ever imagined possible. I’m sure some of them have a pain in their face, or some part thereof, looking at me, and I them. Especially in the bleaker times of the lockdown. We had great times, too. When the weather was nice, we had glasses of wine (observing social distancing) in front of our cars.
It was like being stuck in a holiday resort where the airport was closed indefinitely and you didn’t know when you could leave — if at all.
So for four months I met the same people sometimes in the morning, the afternoon and the evening for pretty much the same conversation.
On our estate, there is a grass area with swings and a slide where all the kids have played when the restrictions lessened. This area became the focus of our road during the lockdown, the watercooler moment where all the adults would come to moan at each other.
We had one rule. The question ‘Any news?’ was barred from any conversation — primarily because none of us had any news, because we never did anything other than be in our houses or out to the swings for a chat in the rain while we looked nervously at the kids running around not always obviously observing social distancing.
There was great excitement, and slagging, on the road last week when Chelsea beat Man City, and Liverpool claimed their first top-flight title in 30 years. (The lockdown’s four months has felt more like 30 years at times.)
This excitement, it transpired, was nothing compared to the undiluted, kiddie exhilaration last Friday afternoon in our house when Frozen II was finally shown on the Disney channel
My five-year-old daughter invited what I thought was a few friends from the road over to watch it at 4pm. At 2pm, I mopped the floor in anticipation of four or five whippersnappers. Twelve turned up at the appointed time in full costume. Princess Elsa, the Snow Queen, and her younger sister Anna were well represented by kids of ages from four up to seven, in gowns of various colours, and hairdos of various colours and styles. I was frozen in shock and aww. A little bit of Arendelle came to south county Dublin.
In fact, that little bit of Arendelle is still here, as the house is wrecked with the Frozen balloons (which I spent half an hour exhaustingly blowing up) bobbing against the ceiling, half-eaten treats and the like scattered everywhere, to say nothing of my beautifully mopped floor looking like a herd of socially distancing wildebeest has rampaged across the big room.
Most of the whippersnappers, wonderful though they were, were still here at 7pm, too. Then, just as I thought they would never leave (and I would never get this column finished at all), suddenly, a profound silence descended on the house. The kids all left and went to the playground across the way.
The host of the party, otherwise known as my daughter, returned in full Princess Elsa regalia from the kingdom of the swings and the slide at 8pm, before posing the big question: “Mummmmy — can I watch the new Frozen movie again before bedtime?”
Even allowing for exaggeration, I think I can say safely say that I would rather cut my leg off with one of Kristoff ’s axes than sit through that entire movie again.
But you know what? And nothing should shock you in the time of Covid. On Friday night, we sat down as a family — our five-year-old daughter, her two-year-old brother, in their jammies along with mummy and daddy in their PJs too — and watched a certain movie again. And it was brilliant.