wendy house

Canterbury has more than its fair share of  people roamng the streets on a sunny summers day.   I often shy away from areas that are clearly main attractions during their busy hours.   I’m drawn down the empty streets and alleys.    Generally empty streets are not lined with shops, museums or cathedrals.     Often they do provide other pleasant suprises.   This is one of the alleyways thay  pulled me from the busy streets of beautiful Canterbury.

Down one such alleyway I found this fabulous rivebank restaurant,   disguised as a  stone shed, with few windows with flag-stone floors,   old beamed ceilings, a charming French waitress, an  excellent menu and no other customers.    

Eric, Neverland with a picture of Matrix  and a Swedish speaking  Florence joined me for a delectable meal.

In the UK an MP’s income is a salary plus expenses  ‘necessarily incurred for the performance of a Member’s parliamentary duties’  .   MP’s understanding of expenses appears to be equivalent to my notion of a salary,  that is,   spent on  anything that supports your preferred lifestyle.    Expenses have been paid to conservative MPs  to cover moat cleaning,   buying chandaliers, mending tennis-court water-pipes, Piano tuning,   gardening,   Island homes for ducks,  changing lightbulbs, and swimming-pool servicing.    

Newspapers covering the Bill Cash expenses exposure have avoided  commenting on his name,   so I’ll avoid it too.

friend:   that’s a pretty top

Wendy: it goes all the way down to my knees

friend:   lets call it a dress

Wendy: yes, lets

My pink leapordprint mini-dress was a tad anachronistic in the quaint leafy streets of Burford. Families of pleasant, conservately dressed people  wandered in an out of stores selling expensive clothes, kitchenware, art and antiques.  

My attraction to antique stores was aligned with the other people,   crowds,   that had accepted the pilgramage to Burford.  

I prayed in the antique fair,   strolled around the churchard then settled in the tea rooms.   On the journey I caught the sunshine and smiles.

lots of pollards line the streets of quaint little English villages.   Apparantly, pollards maintain a partially  juvenille state, living longer than maiden trees.   I wonder if haircuts work in the same way for humans?

why I love England #10:   conkers

A wealth of green leafy blooming conker trees in the spring showers and sunshine hail the arrival of competitive conker activities where naughty cheater might resort to soaking said conkers in vinegar or hardening them by  cooking them in the oven.   One-ers,   two-ers,   and more,   champion conkers paraded and gawped-at performing in play grounds,   fields and gardens.   The sound of conker on conker is as English as leather on willow.  

Goodness,   its one of the legacies of the empire.  

It’s more than rather cute

It’s rather fun.

A few years ago, I used to see this group of children playing in front of my building, and there was one of them, whose name was Luka, who seemed a little bit distinctive from the other children. I always remembered his name, and I always remembered his face, and I didn’t know much about him, but he just seemed set apart from these other children that I would see playing. And his character is what I based the song Luka on. In the song, the boy Luka is an abused child — in real life I don’t think he was. I think he was just different     Suzanne Vega

Suzanne Vega sang Luka

Please pollinate your comments appropriately.  

Thank you.

There is a branding, marketing, styling opportunity in the tea-cosey market which is woefully or wonderfully underdeveloped depending on your perspective.   This collection didn’t prompt me to part with £5.37  

My main tea-cosey was hand-made by my talented sister-in-law.    My name is sewn on the inside incase a moment of scattiness leads to my  losing  it (the tea cosey).   It fits on my head as snug as a custom-made hat.   That kind of personal tailoring does take some beating and these shop displayed tea coseys just aren’t up to par.

Information

A most reverend, new  Archbishop,  version 11 was successfully downloaded and installed in westminster cathedral yesterday.  

OK?

I want some of  dickies red hawk action trousers,   don’t you?  

They’ve got zipped hand thigh and back pockets.  

YES!  

They are only £12.95.  

BARGAIN!  

They are sold by Screwfix.   Whereas Diamond Back USA sell toolbelts.   One day I’ll treat myself to my very own toolbelt,   and hang around my house with a powertool or two in it.

2am
Cemetery junction
Heards of black taxi’s rumbling by
Smaller, colourful, cabs weave between them
Heels clicking, skirts, hair and make-up readjusted
Bright laughter and  flourescent light waft from the rows of fast food shops
sometimes I feel wonderfully invisible in the bustling crowds as I wander the Reading streets at night

Wendy: t-mobile’s colours are almost the same as HMV’s   – pink and black

t-mobile assistant: Magenta

Wendy: Oh (signifying recognition that the assistant’s correction was blunt),   I’m sorry,   is Magenta a technical term for pink?

t-mobile assistant:   There’s been an SQL error entering your details,   I don’t know what SQL  is but its not your fault.    

Wendy: Sequal Server? Maybe it needs a t-mobile technical specification,   like magenta instead of pink?  

I’m not so environmentally friendly since I paired up with Thomas.   On the otherhand, I’m not using a jet to get around. With the exception of a classic cathode ray tube,   few things are actually back and white.  

The Monochrome set sang jet set junta

friend:   she’s very Diesel

wendy: Diesel?

friend:   see how her girlfriend looks like a girl?

wendy: yes

friend:   it’s clear who wears the trousers in that relationship

purple pixie: why haven’t I met you before?   you know everyone I know here

wendy:      I don’t go out much                                             just weddings and the odd quiz

Thomas and I will be going places without relying on Flat Eric’s inspired if not route-bound navigational advice.   Florence has joined us,   Florence is a satelitte navigation thingy that was pleasantly easy to turn on and use straight out of the box.

“If you liked it then you shoulda put a ring on it”  
chorus from ‘Single Ladies (Put a Ring on it)’ by Beyonce Knowles

Is Beyonce singing about

• mobile phone ringtones?
• a runnaway bullock that wasn’t tethered securely by a nose-ring?
• a single lady,   as the song title implies?

What a plucky lady Beyonce is,   if she isn’t treated well (which appears to be equated with being invited to be a wife)    then she  moves on to find another chap who pressumably might ‘put a ring on it’.   Why does Beyonce appear to refer to herself as an ‘it’ that should be tethered by the putting of a ring?   Even with her plucky   ‘I can find myself another man’    attitude she still appears tied to the idea of being a male’s chattels.    

An action packed weekend in the Wendy House garden:

• a fuzzy-buzzy bee feeds on a rotund allium
• a Peacock butterfly feeds on another allium
• the garden robin feeds on insects attracted by my recent digging
• a harlequin spectabilis ladybird takes a break from aphid eating on one of the acers  
• Matrix snoozes under another acer
• A large hornet (2 inches) found its way into my bedroom.   I didn’t know it was a hornet.   They look scarey.     I panicked, squeaked, opened the bedroom windows,   wrapped myself in a curtain and wafted the corner of the curtain at the hornet until it  took the hint and  left via the window.  

I left my bear and set-off on the A4 heading to London on the Bath Road.

There were 10 roundabouts in as many miles.  Roundabout overdose.      

What were the town planners thinking of?  

Are multiple roundabouts good for traffic speed and flow?    

Did the planners get a  ’buy one get one free’ deal from the road construction company?

Are these magic roundabouts?   Is this a modern incarnation of circle dancing?

Beltane is the name for the gaelic, pre-christian, celebrations of a day halfway between mid spring (equinox) and mid summer (solstice),   normally between May 4th and 11th.    The children of Woodlands junior school describe the current manifestation of May day in their own charming way.  

Luckily for me ‘Well dressing’ isn’t about dressing-up well.

I’ve always rather liked Marc Bolan’s take on the whole affair, walking out along roadsides, whirlpools and in the west wind looking for love:

T.Rex sand Beltane walk

Today I have been using a very shiny laptop that hosts a fingerprint reader thingy for a secure logon.   This will be very secure

if

the US government doesn’t use one of their many, many copies of my fingerprints  to break into the laptop,

or

no-one lifts one of my fingerprints from the shiny laptop lid

6pm in Leicester Square, Westminster, London

England feels crowded compared to the NW US,   even compared to New York.   People brush against you as you pass them on the pavements,   the tube staircases,   mounting and dismounting the trains.   The tube stations are warm and muggy laced with the stench of sweat,   and its only April.

Sidewalk person-to-person collision avoidance weaving is required, not optional.     Here in Leicester square,  Alfred Gilbert’s statue of Eros has his own space above the crowds  on the originally much maligned  Shafetsbury memorial fountain from where he threatens passers-by with a dose of love, intended as a representation of christian charity.

I was taken completely by suprise.   What is a girl to do?

Quaker weddings.   Highly recommended.

The couple marry each other.  No third party symbolic proxy as a represenative  of a god.   No-one gives the bride away.   The couple make a public commitment to each other in a way that suits their own personal relationship with their god.   Everyone shares meditative silence, interspersed with thoughts, poems  and music as the spirit provides,  followed by tea and cake.      Then  all the guests sign a wedding certificate for the couple to keep.

There is a fabulous peacefulness, equality and equanimity about the occassion.

 The couple used a classic VW camper van to take them from the ceremony to the field that hosted the reception.   The same camper van  provided the bride and groom with a place to spend their wedding  night.

In the reception field,   a marquee tent hosted a blue grass band,   bands with brass sections, inflatable chairs,   and oodles of wedding guests.   The field also hosted the guests tents,   fireworks, fire and pathways of candles carved through the grass.  During the fireworks I snuck off to keep warm by a fire where I was leant a  much needed  pair of long,   black, thermal leg warmers.   All around excellentness.

For all your wedding-guest transportation from church to reception veunue needs.    A red London bus wedding special.   As you can imagine,   this was the highlight of the wedding for me.  

The reception venue in a cricket pavilion, while a match was in progress,  was also so wonderfully English that soppiness abounded.

Whilst concentrating on driving home through the outstanding Oxfordshire countryside I am everywhere-aware and nowhere.   The journey lasts as long as a daydream,   a CD,    15 Johnny Cash songs, 20 miles.   Suprisingly, Thomas didn’t warm to Johnny Cash,   on the other handbrake,   Dusty definitely pumps  his petrol Diesel.  

Dusty Springfield bounced us to In the middle of nowhere

In a rare,  mercifully quick,  shopping moment I replaced 3 pairs of well-worn, too-small, skinny, hipster blue jeans with  new jeans that:

• fit
• don’t break along the seams when tugged
• say  ‘not-a-soccer-mom’
• tone  with my ‘I’m-a-professional-person’ jackets
• are not blue
• chafe to the optimum temperature in all the right places and none of the wrong places

Way too much excitement for one day,   I must lie down and breath slowly lest I become overwhelmed by it all.   You all take care,   don’t over exert yourselves,   its tough out there and a well stitched pair of jeans can help keep things under control.

Two slim elderly gentleman rest their walking sticks  as they wait to cross the road in downtown London.   Flat caps keep their heads warm,   cardigans sensibly cover their torsos in the cool spring sunshine.   The modern office block in the background reflects the sun and current fashion.