:: The Wendy House ::

 Can you see them?

Scary!

A family of biddies and the bunnies (SylvaC).  I really must put a cap on the bunny habit,  before I am lured into the church of the cosmic bunny,  or the odd hare that creeps in for a quick box while gazing at the moon. 

climbs trees with a nylon sleeping bag for a sleep-out party with his friend

puts his bum against the open window of the car so that his silent but deadly fart doesn’t disturb the other car occupants then giggles incessantly for 20 miles

chops off his fingertip with an axe then runs around shaking his hand to increase the polkadot patterning on mums walls

makes a multi-level gerbil cage out of an old sideboard

sings into a microphone strapped to a standard lamp,  without removing the lampshade

writes the name of the girl that he loves on the inside flap of his school canvas haversack in different pens,  fonts and colours

ramps up the volume on the house stereo and arranges an echo, closes the window blinds,  peeks through then whispers in high volume ‘this is the voice of god’ when he sees a schoolchild in uniform walking by outside

earnestly says ‘you’ve failed?  how did that happen,  you’re the clever one’

Takes me into a record shop and says,  you can have any record you want,  its on me.  I pick the first Album he ever bought ‘Ride a White Swan’ by T.Rex

Persuades a friend to drive him to the warehouse 2hrs away where I’m holding my 21st birthday shindig,  Gives me 6 marbles and waits for me to be disappointed,  then gives me a hipflask full of Napoleon Brandy saying ‘I was going to have it engraved with to my wonderful sister,  but I didn’t’,  stays at the warehouse when his friend decides to drive back before midnight

Says of his visits to me at university ‘I wish my time at University had been as good as this’

Calls his first cat ‘f*ck-off’ because the cat followed him back from a superstore and he didn’t want it to,  then takes the cat everywhere in his Trenchcoat pocket and renames her Hoagie after Hoagie Carmichael

Drives a soft-top MG Midget despite his head creating a big upward dent in the roof because he’s 6ft4

 corrects my pronunciation

During a conversation about films that are substantially at variance with the books that provided their original title and approximate plot and characters: 

Wendy:  W’thering Heights

Bros:  WUH,  Wuh-thering Heights

Wendy: yes,  that’s what I said W’thering Heights

Bros:  Wendy,  Wuh-thering has a U in it

niece & her friend: (snigger,  sniggger,  snigger,  hiding mouths behind hands and flashing smiles at each other and checking to see if we ‘adults’ notice)

Bros:  (shakes his head and tuts)

 Wendy:  (decides not to mention that Bros appears to have failed to count the double-u)

Wendy aged 12 (1975): can I have my ears pierced?
Mumzie: when your are 18yrs
Wendy: will you pay for it?
Mumzie: yes, when you are 18yrs
Wendy: if I pay for it can I have it done now?
Mumzie: yes if I choose the place that you get it done and come with you.

-

Wendy aged 18 (1981): remember you said you’d pay for me to have my ears pierced when I’m 18.
Mumzie: you’ve had them pierced already, I’m not paying for a second piercing, I’ll throw you out, if you get them pierced a second time.

-

Mumsie didn’t notice the second piercing for nearly 6 months.  Rather than throw me out she sighed very heavily and used the mumsie version of the Chinese water torture.  almost lethal.

The younger generations of the House family have, more topical, gory, body-piercing stories, because time has changed the etiquette of piercings

I did my upmost to light family festive barneys by:

• eating a whole jar of pickled beetroot at one meal.
• Using the wrong remote-control (choice of 6) to change TV channels. 
• asking for porridge.
• Securing the largest portion of Triffle.
• mentioning that ‘run cmd’ provides access to a DOS window in XP

Shipping (air or land) frieght to the UK requires that the owner have a valid passport at all points when the freight will be moved.  Frieght moval times are unpredictable because of seasonal and weather variations and because frieght,  especially home-frieght,  is very low priority.  Remember by ditsy person’s annual passport?  It’s due for renewal this autumn…  …while the Wendy House is in transit….  Apart from guffaws of laughter this is what dad had to say when I asked him if I could hand-carry some stuff over to his home and leave it there ready for when I arrive,  just to be sure it would actually get there…

Mum says that will be OK…     …Passports and Passport timings are highly critical factors in travel – at least it is not as bad as in war time when you had to bring your Ration books with you if you were going out of the country – these had to be checked and if you had used next weeks rations woe betide you! That still applied the first time I came to England after the war – I nearly was not allowed to leave!

I should have guessed that it was worse during WW2.   I’m lucky that Britain and the US prefer peacekeeping to war or I’d probably have to live in a bunker at the bottom of the garden.

1977.   In Helsinki mum, dad, and both brothers were visiting dad’s family.

Dad took us all into the Kalnuun Puukko shop and we spent the afternoon each choosing a Puukko.  After Puukko’s were purchased we went off into the woods around Helsinki to find fallen wood to wittle.  We wittled together.  All good family fun.  Result?  Lots of pointy small sticks left in the woods.  My psyche was forever scarred by this experience and I’m now totally undatable.

When asked for some clarifying points on this ”knife’ aquiring experience Dad described the social-cultural significance of a Puukko beyond my constrained concept of a ‘knife’:

Knife in Finnish is veitsi – You should never call a puukko a knife – it is much more than that – it is the basic survival tool that you should have when you venture into the forest or into nature at wintertime or summertime. Its very name is associated with its prime use puu is tree or wood and kko implies a thing associated with the former – a woodworking tool. With it you can build a shelter in the forest, make a spear for spearing fish, use as an ice pick to drag yourself out of broken ice and much more. It does not weigh you down – it is essential in hunting and fishing. The original puukko had handle made of tightly woven young birch bark which often had a spell written on it before it was applied. This had to be replaced regularly – the modern puukko often has a solid handle often simulating the old type. Taken into cities and suburbia it becomes a weapon rather than a tool and it loses its basic character. In the Finnish – English dictionary the puukko is described as a sheath-knife as English does not have a separate word for a woodworking knife . It can and is used for stabbing by roughs and the verb puukottaa means stab with a puukko and the stab (noun) is puukonisku. The blade of the puukko is puukonterä. The man who makes it is a puukonseppä ( a smith) A true puukko should be bought from the man who makes it and you should visit him so that he can choose the right blade for you – However mass production does not allow for these old niceties and a tourist shops in the city is the source nowadays.

I wonder what equivalent stories with socio-cultural significance will be handed down to our next generations… 

Auntie Wendy’s Aunty. 

Is preparing to die.
The thought makes me cry.
She knows how and why I love her
But I should double-check.  Just make sure.

Spring to our 20’s, 
Summer to our 40’s, 
Autumn to our 60’s.
Winter to our deaths.

Winter is in my elders house. 
Please wrap-up warm.
Take a scarf and hat.
Can I hold your hand?

Poem inspired by the photographed letter from mumzies sister, received the day before my brothers-daughter’s birthday.  My neice, my namesake on a day when I am thinking of Auntly things. A day when I am glad that I’d booked a full 2 week holiday in the UK covering Christmas to be both aunt and niece in the same day, in the same company, in the same room.  

I did not return to Britain for her brother’s funeral.  I wrote letters, a poem and promised myself that I would join the family this Christmas.

Happiness and Sadness. 

Hand in Hand.

On my birthday mumzie’s eldest brother was found dead (heart attack) in his flat, several weeks after his death.  He had lived alone ever since leaving his parents home in his late teens.  Mumzie, his little sister, provided his family since grandma’s death (1980).  Every Christmas, Easter, Bank Holiday, long weekend, he would move in with us.  The old uncle chuckling in the corner,  entertaining himself or completing the cryptic crossword with Dad.  Liberal lashings of witty,  dry and sarcastic comments all round. Interspersed with simply snoozing in his chair. 

Death happens. 

Old people are particularly prone to Death. 

At the moment I’m angry becasue, for various unpublishable reasons, the best thing I can do to be supportive is nothing. 

I’m going to line the dining room chairs up in front of me,  like naughty school children,  and give them a STERN telling off for being dining room chairs.  Then I’m going to spank them with a fluffy pillow because I can’t imagine doing such a bizarre thing and remaining angry.

three leftys on the lawn, sinister!

• Hear no evil. Partially obscure vision for good measure

• Speak no evil. Put a thumb in it

• Let me at it.  No frill-laden panties will stop me enjoying Halloween,  I can still crawl…

Poem inspired by Halloween,  or Harlow-in as the US locals say, and an old family photograph,  can you spot the wendy?

Pathetic Person Advisory (PPA):  look away now if you can’t bare soppiness ⁽¹⁾ 

When I get home-sick ⁽²⁾ I take a trip to ScanDesign and look at the furniture.  The wood is mainly an orange shade with simple lines.  My parents home is packed with co-ordinated Scandinavian teak furniture.  In the 1990’s, when I had no furniture, I begged them to leave thier front room to a Museum as an intact example of 1970’s Chic.  It still is 1970’s Chic. Only now it’s really cool and I’d rather they left it to me,  not that I could afford to ship it to the US.  

Now,  my front room looks frighteningly similar to theirs.  I am becoming my parents. I have exactly the same dining table. When buying it I didn’t think,  ‘oh my parents will like that I must buy it’,  I thought wow that’s beautiful, cheap and I need a round table.  The English cultural icon King Arthur made the need and value of a round table quite clear.  My current table was oblong and identical to my parents’ table.  Buying a round table marked my independence.  Later,  when I visited the biddies, I discovered they had replaced their oblong table with one identical to mine.  The good news is that my parents will feel very ‘at home’ next time they visit.     

Notice the blue glass grail-like challice on the shelf?  It’s Marimekko,  I have grown into a scandinavian design adict. I’m not looking for a cure.  It just is.  I’ll live with it.  On a related note,  I’ve noticed some Ikea products sneaking into my bothers home.  Nothing sinister,  just a chair and a bed….

1. I gather from this Times Online article that soppiness may well be a British trait
2. In this case, home = living with my parents.  I have way too many ‘homes’,  different cities,  houses,  countries…. 

Happy mumzie day

The BBC explains the origins of the day:

Most Sundays in the year churchgoers in England worship at their nearest parish or “daughter church”.

Centuries ago it was considered important for people to return to their home or “mother” church once a year. So each year in the middle of Lent, everyone would visit their “mother” church, or the main church or Cathedral of the area.

Inevitably the return to the “mother” church became an occasion for family reunions  when children who were working away returned home. (It was quite common in those days for children to leave home for work once they were ten years old.)

And most historians think that it was the return to the “Mother” church which led to the tradition of children, particularly those working as domestic servants, or as apprentices, being given the day off to visit their mother and family.

As they walked along the country lanes, children would pick wild flowers or violets to take to church or give to their mother as a small gift.

The US celebrates ‘Mothers day’ in May.  This website describes the US history as:

In 1907, Anna M. Jarvis (1864-1948), a Philadelphia schoolteacher, began a movement to set up a national Mother’s Day in honor of her mother, Ann Maria Reeves Jarvis. She solicited the help of hundreds of legislators and prominent businessmen to create a special day to honor mothers. The first Mother’s Day observance was a church service honoring Anna’s mother. Anna handed out her mother’s favorite flowers, the white incarnations, on the occasion as they represent sweetness, purity, and patience. Anna’s hard work finally paid off in the year 1914, when President Woodrow Wilson proclaimed the second Sunday in May as a national holiday in honor of mothers.

It’s not clear to me why it a, new,  different day was required.  This website mentions several different, non-christian, celebrations of motherhood.  Wikipedia lists differnet days of celebration in different countries. 

The British pagan goddess Brigantia,  after whom Britain is named, is a mother figure celebrated long before christianity.  I was suprised that my search didn’t easily find information on more diverse celebrations of motherhood being appropriated into the current ‘mothers’ days.

On Boyfriends:

• Wendy age 12 “Mum, what do you think of boyfriends?” .  Mum “They’re okay one at a time“
• Gave me a front door key (age 12) and said “let us know if you’re not coming home over-night,  otherwise we’ll stay awake waiting to hear you come in“  Cunning,  I always felt morally obliged to tell her exactly where I was and when I was coming home…
• Wendy age 16, after boyfriend dumped me because I wouldn’t marry him before I’d been to college.  Wendy “what did you think of him mum?“.  Mum “He’s in the Navy dear“
• Wendy age 17, dating an Oxford University undergraduate studying “Classic’s” who had an Aristocratic family name, all boys-private-school education with a ‘plummy‘ accent.  He would bring HER roses when he visited.  She phoned all her relatives, even distant ones that she didn’t like, to tell them his name.  Never before or since has she done this. 
• Upon meeting my first love (age 19),  she left the hallway,  shut the kitchen door (NEVER normally shut) and we could hear:  “HaaaHaaaa Haaaa,  haaa,  haaa,  teeee heee heeee“
• After first-love dumped me (age 22):  “He didn’t have enough umpff for you dear“.  I know why she laughed,  I thought that was ‘Umpff’.  Poweful insight on her part,  wish I knew how to recognise “Umpff“. 

On Wendy’s pierced nose (since age 19)

• “Congratulations,  you’ve managed to highlight the worst feature on your face“
• “Oh,  let me polish that dear it’s all greasy“
• “It’s just a phase you’re going through,  you’ll grow out of it”
• “Is that a zit dear?  oh,  I couldn’t tell the difference”
• “Don’t wear emerald’s there dear“

 On Wendy’s tattoos (since age 22)

• “Oh dear,  will that wash off?”
• “Is that cancerous?”
• “What exactly is it meant to be?”

On Marriage:

• After Wendy had been ‘engaged’ for 3 years, over formal family dinner, she said to us both:  “If you want to elope,  that’s fine with us“
• After Wendy had been ‘engaged’ for 5 years,  to me in the kitchen ”If money’s the problem dear we can contribute  <generous amount>“
• Unprompted this September:  “good job you didn’t get married dear,  have you seen the cost of weddings?  Its outrageous!“

Mum’s a complete treasure.  I adore her mixture of pragamatism,  support, and clearly stated prejudice.  Love her to bits.

Wendy