wendy house

what do you cook? unless you include toast and porridge I dont really cook.  You don’t cook?  Do you eat out all the time? the question is asked with the intonation of shock,  disapproval or possibly repulsion.  I eat out once or twice a week, having a quality meal produced for me is one of my favourite luxuries. 

If you don’t cook and you don’t eat out,  what do you eat, microwave meals? My questioner is still intoning in a disapproving manner.  For a few moments I wished that I had aspirations to conform to the social norm of interest or pride in the preparing and cooking of food.  Those moments pass quickly.  My lack of indugence in use of the microwave,  only for porridge,  allows my interregator to release a wrinkly or two from her brow.  I mostly eat cheese, tomatoes, cheese cucumber, cheese, coleslaw, cheese, necturines, cheese, toast, cheese, marmite, cheese, twigletts, cheese, triffle, cheesecake, peanut butter, date and walnut or battenburg cake.  All raw,  no cooking involved.   You like cheese then?  My interregator appears to be reasonably satisfied with this reply.  But still their hangs a a niggling doubt over my ability to be a fully functioning member of society if I don’t cook.

can you cook?  It had never occured to me that people don’t cook because they can’t.  At high school all girls were required to take cookery classes, under the title of ‘home economics’ classes.  They taught me to do things I’d been doing at home for years.  I used to cook, a lot.  As a student I rarely ate out and hand’t yet lost my verve for food preparation.  In my 30’s I used to host about one dinner party per month and the food seemed well appreciated,  in my 40’s I hosted fewer parties with more guests and they seemed well appreciated.  I can cook.  I only really enjoy it when I’m cooking for others and not doing it in a rush.  My interregator appears convinced that I can cook.

All my lasting lovers have been excellent cooks,  deriving pleasure from whipping up food to whet my palatte and I certainly enjoyed them doing so.

past debt paid-off
several people’s dose of a social disease
rather shapely backsides
all of the above
none of the above
whatever

skulking through the swelling peace and fire of the desert.

Fearing that someone, somewhere, is drowning in something they have mistaken for happiness, or rain.

hermit
from the Greek ἔρημος ēremos, signifying “desert”, “uninhabited”, hence “desert-dweller”
itus
This suffix has come to mean “inflammation of” but originally it meant “pertaining to” or “of the”
da-itus
The fear that, out there, somewhere, someone is happy

Pink.  They shout Charlotte across my chest. 

Following me home from a tourist shop in the steamy southern US city several years ago.  They continue to lure me into long undressed Sunday mornings, afternoons, evening.  Blurring the edges between day and night.  The baggy track-suit-like pants could cover the nether-regions of a fat person.  Down my hips they slide, jostling to trip me up on the decidedly dangerous Wendy House stair-ladder. 

Can I escape their clutches?

When your self esteem is in hiding, when you are looking for a way out, remember that maybe you’ve been brainwashed too…  

the new radicals sang  ‘you only get what you give’

Several years later, in America,  far away, I had found my self esteem,  I found a way out.   Lost on the roads of a driving culture.  

From your home that I shared you send me CD’s with lyrics about moving to America, lyrics about flying away, lyrics that echo my words to you.  Before I left.  You haunt me through songs and the mailbox.  Distance in time and place are no distance at all. 

For a while I tried to reconjur why I left,  then found peace in just forgetting

the new radicals sang ’someday we’ll know’.

why I love England #12:generous heavens

When the heavens open we are blessed with the peaceful hypnotic sound of rain

on the Wendy House roof

on a summer evening

Please adjust the speed of your comments appropriately.

Thank you

No prizes for guessing the countryof residence that produced this preference list posted above the kettle in a shared kitchen.  It does include the preferences of some non-natives.  I wonder what a US equivalent would be like,  slightly more options?

A Sunday afternoon in Helston. 

Spotty dog and I had confused Helston and Helford.  Thinking we were catching a bus to the seaside town of Helford we caught a bus to the inland town of Helston.  As we wandered through Helston looking for the coast we stumbled upon the town park.  A skateboard park with a coffee bar and dozens of fathers walking their children around the pond.  A veritable single-father-fest,  no-doubt influenced by the proximity of a substantial military base on the outskirts of town. 

I managed to keep my eyes firmly on the duckies. 

No dribbling.

In different Falmouth stores Spotty dog and I simultaneously whipped out our new-fangled plastic cards to pay for lovely pressies.  Much to our suprise these words greeted us:

“we don’t take cards here, cash and cheques only’  

Neither of us use cheque-books.  We trundled off on a quest for cash-points,   only to find that Brett couldn’t help us and we couldn’t have called him for help even if we had his number.  Tricky.

The soulful behatted pianist who does not sell his songs to product advertising, and does proactively support peace and respect for fellow human beings.  I was lucky enough to see him perform live in 2004 on the Real Gone tour.  Hero.

Tom Waits sings Tom Traubert’s blues

The curb stones on the streets of Heltson are made of local granite,  the gutters are deep and floored with local cobbles.  These gutters can both cope with the not insubstantial rainfall of the local climate,  they can look beautiful too.

The natural harbour at Falmouth is one of the cheapest places to store large, unused, container ships. 

We counted 7 of these large automotive carrier ships stored in the tiny, otherwise picturesque, Falmouth harbour.  The ships are waiting for the automotive industry to either come out of recession or decide to send them to the scrap yard.

At Pendennis castle, a wedding party finished their breakfast then photographic sessions in time for the bride to be whisked away by the whirling winds of passion and tears of happiness mixed with the rain.  Beautiful.  A groom tackling a kilt would have added a cherry to my experiential cake.

On a Falmouth street an elderly gentleman caught me gazing into his front garden, admiring the plants.

He came out and apologised that his wife, who maintained the garden, wasn’t available to give me a tour of the tiny garden and name specific plants.

Spotty dog and I then accompanied him on his walk down a steep hill to the dentist.  On the walk he told us how his house was once a Quaker school and brief histories of several other houses on the street.

Cornish folk are extremely personable.

Cornish bus drivers would check when people got on their buses that they knew where to get off and how to get back. 

The passengers slept thought the journey while the buses dodged the plants which grabbed at them from the side of the high hedgerows encroaching from either side of single-lane roads.

The locals on Helston bowling green persistently tried to get Spotty dog and myself to join them because they needed what they called ‘young-blood’ especially that of ladies.  Spotty dog and myself managed to escape with all our own blood before the games ended

Living in windy Birmingham I quickly learned that my umbrella management skills were inadequate. The high turn-over of umbrellas was too burdensome for my student income. I started wearing hats, getting wet.

Walking through fountains.

Specifically the fountain infront of Birmingham museum and art gallery.  A summer night in a fountain, a wonderful temporary innoculation againt the pain of a lost heart. A fountain and The Blue Nile’s album  ’A walk across the rooftops’ took me to the places I needed to be. When they later released ‘Hats’, naturally I was thrilled by their unknowingly knowing insight.

Beach hut anyone? 

 Delivered, installed, then removed at no extra cost.

at school in the 1980s, if asked to present work,  I stuttered.  Teachers and classmates made sure I never had to do it, I was complicit in avoiding this painful experience/

At university I joined the students amateur dramatics group to try and practice the problem away. In at the deep end.  I helped with the make-up, brochure design, set-painting, costume creation and most of the time enyoyed being in the background.  Then pr0gressed to my first role. ‘Rumplestiltzkin’.  Lead in the xmas pantomime, few lines, all rhymed, easy to memorise. I over-practiced to take the edge of my feelings of shere terror. First night, 300 people in the audience including my parents. Minor dose of terror.  It went well. 

Over time I ramped-up my speaking parts.  In a community theatre production of Peter Shaffer’s Amadeus I played Constanza Mozart, a small significant part.  The production was so good were invited to the Edinburgh festival.  I still pause to find the words when I’m uncomfortable.

Then yesterday.

Half an hour in phone conversation with an amazing expert with the worse stutter I’ve ever heard left my empathsing in action in subsequent conversation.  Temporary relapse.

Words of wisdom from an almost stranger*. in this case Flat Eric during an annual office party:

“Jagermeister chaser“

I didn’t follow this tip.  I’m just not ‘Kewl’ enough to be able to imbibe strong alcohol frequently over a whole evening,  night, morning… like the other dudes.  I did manage my maximum binge-drink consumption of 3 pints of the ex-local brew stones bitter  before taking this photograph, realising my total wobbliness, and sneaking away to crisp white cotton hotel sheets,  much like those supplied by Jacksons to the Wendy House.  Love those sheets.  Clearly I haven’t got the English office party skill fully cracked.   I did manage not to fall over,  quite an achievement by personal standards.

Past tips provided by Alan the hairdresser.  Lucia the hairdresser, an anonymous manicurist, a Jackson’s sales assistant, a bus stop philanthropist, a mini salesman, Windows Network Diagnostics and Reading Police.

Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant’s first feature film is named after a place in Reading called ‘Cemetery Junction’. “A 1970s-set comedy centered on three upstart professional men working at an insurance company” staring Ralph Fiennes.

I haven’t noticed the film cameras locally.

Holiday warning!  Cornwall here we come!

With my

Rod Stewart haircut,

Oakley sunglasses,

figure hugging fab frocks,

I’ll be wandering over the rocks on the coast.    

Rock chic!

There will also be the standard Wendy, none-rock chic, outbreaks of:

• A bit of paddling
• collecting pretty coloured, pocket-sized, pebbles 
• eating fish and chips wrapped in newspaper for supper
• wearing Sunhats galore (consecutively)
• reading a book about the Medici
• blowing rasberries at the seaguls
• riding the local BUSES on windy cliffside roads

Excitedness levels are already Amber.  OH!

When submitting your Tax return in the UK it’s quite important for Her Majesties Revenue and Customs to know whether you are a same-sex couple or a hetero-sexual couple.  Implying there is a difference in how these groups are treated legally.  Marriages can include separation and can be followed by divorce,  while civil partnerships are either civil or dissolved.  If one person in a civil partnership dies is the remaining person a widow or widower?  Why is the gender of the surviving partner important?  Why doesn’t the list simply offer the gender-free option of  ’Widowed’?

I became very confused quite early on,  and things quickly degraded from here

Wendy:  Do you remember Rod Stewarts haircut in his early years? When he was in The Faces?  about the time of Maggie May?  No.  Silly question. You are clearly way too young.  It’s an early ’70’s cut, short on top and longer at the back,  it was called a feather cut

Alan: like a mullet

Wendy: Yes! That’s what I want,  a 70’s kitch mullet

Alan:  you’ll need a lot of product

Wendy: Oh <mindful not to argue with the hairdresser before he starts cutting>

I got exactly what I asked for.  Hoorah,  it certainly turned heads on the street

Rod Stewart sang the first cut

7

Seven is a good figure,  it needs no explanation, it just is

it out

It out is a good figure,  it too needs no explanation, just a little effort

and ME!

“that’s a pretty dress Wendy,  its nice to see you in a dress,  you have such a good figure its ashame to hide it under a t-shirt”,  just someone said

Thanks to Mathias for pointing out this charming piece of national pride. 

How hot was it today? 

The thermometer says DANG HOT,  no number necessary. 

 The kitties look cool as pie, stetched out in the conservatory hot house rather than in the cool dark back room where I’m making my way through a chocolate eclair accompanied by a sleeve of Old Speckled Hen.

A week of temperatures in the 30’s (centigrade). 

No air conditioning in the Wendy House. 

Remiscent of North Carolina in the spring. 

Beautiful. 

Body Heat.  

Hot enough to draw sweat in the shade and not too hot to drown movement.  Body Heat caused quite a stir in 1981.

after putting on the kettle for my morning cup of tea,  much as I always do, I turned the TV on to the BBC Breakfast news,  much as I always do.  The words below are approximate  just the gist because I don’t remember the details:

• someone on TV:   This will be moment that you will remember vividly for a long time
• someone-else on TV  Like the day Lady Diana died

My attention is grabbed,  Indeed Lady Diana’s death was memorable for me:

8am Sunday morning,  tent taken down and packed in the boot of the car,  tired and sad,  I started driving from the Yorkshire Dales to Portsmouth via London with only a radio for company.  All the BBC radio channels played a short loop of music and provided no other news than a regular announcement of Lady Diana’s death.  After a couple of hours, hoping the loop would stop, I turned the radio off and drove through the mist and rain accompanied only by the noise of my own sad thoughts.   The BBC TV followed a similar format:

With no intended disrespect,  I suspect that I’ll forget all the uniqueness of the moment that I head Michael Jackson had died.