wendy house

3 male colleages and I wandered along a crowded  Bourbon St (New Orlean’s) on a balmy November Saturday night.   The first night of a work related conference, we were full of smiles and energy.   A  Sassy Young American Lass (SYAL) worked straight up to me, flung her arms around my neck and attached her mouth to mine.   She stopped us all in our tracks.   I peeled her tentacles from around my neck, held her shoulders at arms length

wendy: excuse me,   but I don’t think we’ve been introduced

SYAL: ooooOOOOOOOooooo and a cute English accent TOO!

wendy: incase there is any doubt,   I’m not a lesbian

SYAL:  You look like a lesbian, ashame, ciao…

Turning to a giggling  colleague who,   unbeknownst to me at that time was ‘polyamorous’ (a swinger) and, was  much amused my complete lack of flow with the young lady.  

wendy: what does an american lesbian look like?

swinger: you

wendy: big nose, spectacles, flat shoes and a confident swagger?

swinger: short hair

Later that night  he put a slightly non-sober me in a Taxi to make sure I got home  without being accosted  for my cute crop. A subsequent informal  survey of my US friends determined that locally  short hair looked very lesbian….

Flat Eric looks out over the Mississippi as a steamboat rolls by

As his confidence grew he followed me into my favourite local pubs.   I first noticed him when I left the ladies room.   He was leaning against the wall.   As I walked passed I heard him quietly sing.   Like you hear leaves rustling, just there and natural.   I thought he was a gentle natured  giant singing a sweet song. Nothing ominous,  as our eyes met, smiled,  he stopped singing as I blushed.  

Soon after I started noticing him everywhere I went.    I’d catch his eye across a crowed room,  hear him singing as I left the ladies room, bump into him at the bar ordering drinks.  We barely spoke. My friends told me he was a prop on the high-school first rugby team, not a man of many words.    He used a few of those words to  prop-position me,  a few more to  tell my friends and the  rugby team,  we were dating.  

As if saying it would make it so

I politely turned down his prop-positions, told my friends that I had not dated him,  had no intenion of dating him. I didn’t think that neanderthal was your type… …normally it’s the hookers you have to look out for,   you can see the props coming…     close friends didn’t buy his story.  Persisiting,  he started turning up at my home, writing letters,  song lyrics transcribed followed by some of his own  mechanistically pornographic explanations of why I should  date him.  

He didn’t understand a polite assertive no, I’m not interested

He didn’t understand a screaming, swearing, spitting  version of **** off and leave me alone    

I moved home, moved cities,, moved home several more times  before I  finally got away from him. ‘Where do you go to my lovely is probably a beautiful song,    unfortunately I’ll never really be able to hear it as beautiful.  

Peter Sarstedt sang Where Do You Go To My Lovely

I still get over-excited when booking holiday flights,   all bouncy,   liable to get a bit too click-happy.   Even the airline realised this and instructed me not to go clicking around when I can’t see anything happening.  

Please be patient

a message just for me,   personal service

Bing-bing, cur-clunk

Louise: Goodmorning, how can I help you?

I glance at the hosts of wedding hats and fascinators arranged by colour and the large striped floorstanding hat boxes.

wendy: I’m looking for something casual                 for an Italian vacation in May

Louise: Oh, we don’t bring out the casual hats before April.          I have SOME in the boxes here,   I COULD get them out for you

wendy: It’s alright, I can come back in April, there’s no hurry,   thank you for offering.   Can I take some photographs of your lovely shop?

Basildon Park was cast as Netherfield Park in the 2005 Working Title production of Pride and Prejudice.   Like the Bennet family I popped up to the Park for some fun.   Like Elizabeth, my hems  became a little bit muddy from wandering through  the parklands.    I do understand the fun of the services provided…

• playing large draughts on a slippery garden surface during a drizzle downfall
• dressing up as Bob the builder on a real building site and playing with pretend  power-tools

But,
despite the glossy, green,  signage,
I don’t understand the family fun of plant pots containing dead plants.

According to a UK Nivea TV advert 77% of women feel sexier when their armpits are shaved.

Hooray for the 33% 23% who do not derive their sense of sexiness from increasing their physical similarity to pre-pubescent children.

The new stovetop kettle on the verge of a  full blown  boil while the two mechanical clocks tick-tock and two organic kitties stretch-snore

What better place to plan a summer holiday than in a sunny Southsea Diner where the rockabillies are literally bouncing?  

After two cups of coffee I was also bouncing of the red plastic benches while spottydog calmly booked a hotel in downtown Turin.

Judging by the items in the shop window,   EXtreme urban clothing involves brightly coloured trousers, t-shirts, shirts and trainers.   Compared to the black and grey commuters on the London tube,   this is indeed extreme….

 a very busy hotline,   very personal service, hot and personal

Jonny Cash sang  personal jesus

Sheffield city centre on a cold, wet March evening hosted this advert, selling shorts.

Pressumably the advertisers believe there is something in this image that will make women want to buy their product. Something aspirational and attractive in this image?   The unusual placing of the arms, the lack voluptuousness?   The image firth  made me want to cry with pain then scream with anger.  I wonder why the advertisers didn’t try adding the humour  with a topical retro 1970′s theme and spread her across the bonnet of a sports car implying if she purchased these shorts she could get fucked by men who can afford a good sports car.

Oftentimes it feels like the 21st century redefinition of feminism is an appropriation of examples of  freedom of choice that in actuality  maintain the role of women as slaves.

Would you stop by for a cup of tea with the person who’s Saturday shopping trip included

• cat food and litter
• a large axe
• soda crystals
• the axe is still quite large
• WD 40
• that axe has a handle for swinging
• long handled matches
• the axe has a blade protector
• lavendar shampoo
• the axe is in the corner of the front room, for the moment

The upcoming cartoon  ”Cheyenne Cinnamon and the Fantabulous Unicorn of Sugar Town Candy Fudge” is about “a Strawberry Shortcake pop princess that lives in a candy wonderland just outside of Detroit. She comes into Detroit and helps solve problems of racism and teen pregnancy with the power of love and teen pop songs“.   The lead cartoon character lip-synch’s to sing the pop songs because the actress is a country and western singing star,   not a pop singing star.  

What a fantastic cartoon idea.   I love it when the Americans self-parody like this.   They are self-parodying aren’t they?

Since the arrival of a woodburner in the wendy house,  things have started to get

• high temperature,
• high tempo,
• hi disco.  

Disco inferno is the current tune of choice

The Trammps sang Disco Inferno

Terry: this chimney was added after the house was built

wendy: what makes you think that?

Terry: none of the chimney brickes are meshed with the outside walls

He then whacks another brick out of the bottom of the chimney and dust motes swirl through the sunshine.

The Wendy House was originally a coach house for one of the larger houses nearby.   The large house is now two large family homes and the wendy house sits behind them.   It always seemed a bit odd that a coach storage room would have a chimney.   The Coach house became a garage and the garage was converted into a home in the late 1960′s.   It’s likely that the chimney was added at this time.

Got WOOD!

Or rather, for £15, Thomas gathered 0.4 cubic metres of mixed wood types from Nettlebed Sawmill and shuttled them to the Wendy House woodshed. It was like stepping into the Waltons, the nearby saw operator smirked charmingly as I loaded Thomas…

Fabulously orange brick dust swirls around the wendy house and out the open windows and doors.

The builder wears a facemask as he powerhammers through the brickwork to widen the fireplace enough to to fit the woodburner.   He lends his oversized hammer to  the gasman removing the supply to the fireplace.

Gasman “The conservatory wasn’t here when I last came round, how long have you been here?”

wendy “2 years”

Gasman “Did you buy the place from Claudia?”

wendy “Yes, she added the conservatory around 5 years ago”

It feels like all the service providers that come to my home have been here before and remember the previous owners.   Very homely local feel.   The gas man took a while to sit with me on the K2 snowboard garden bench, enjoy the spring sunshine in the garden, talk about what a lovely secret spot it is and how the kitchen skylight has transformed the kitchen.

I like that people like the wendy house, so far that seems to be everyone who visits. NICE!

cousin: are you planning to settle down, get married and have kids?

cousin: you all look the same. Except, well, perhaps, wendy.   Wendy was always the quiet one.
wendy: I’m not quiet now
cousin: I can see

I was wearing  a pair of  beautifully embroidered 2-tone cowboy boots, black leather jeans, and my favourite fluffball of an artificial skunk-skin jacket.  I like to think of it  as pret-a-road-kill.

Aunty (87yrs) shouts:   I wanted you to wear those lovely red leather trousers
wendy shouts back: Oh Aunty!   I wanted to wear my favurite red leather trousers too, but I thought they might be just a bit too loud for some of the youngsters here.

Every cake should tell a story

This cake tells of  the busy 90 years of my uncle Albert (pronounced  Awe-burr).   Busy ballroom dancing, cruising, fiddling on the computer  and his favourite motorcycle.  A great grandchild reads the pictures.  The cake is edged by the tools he used to build things and was delivered in a Mason’s hall.  

What does your cake say?

Home can be anywhere, anytime,
It can be in more than one place and time.  
Home is always there and never there.  
Unlike Rome my home doesnt need time to be built.
Like a shadow it follows me around.
Always welcoming,  its presence  waxes and wanes through my days.

Morcheeba sang rome wasn’t built in a day