:: The Wendy House ::

HIF: Did you enjoy your holiday in Italy?

Wendy:  yes

HIF: are you all fresco’d out?

Wendy:  yes

The Piccolomini library in Siena was outstanding, fabulous books, floor tiles, wall frescos, ceiling frescos, quiet ambience, excellent lighting and virtually no other visitors.

On Friday in Joe Allen’s*   Exeter St. restaurant Mrs. Pouncer partook of some Chardonnay,  Scarlet Blue imbibed some Mules and I took a small Boddingtons or four.

I can unreservedly, with miss spellings and split infinitives, confirm that Mrs. Pouncer is in person everybit the stylish counsellor that her entertaining blog suggests.  During our brief encounter I discovered the true extent of my lack of knowledge of advance eyewear handling techniques.  Mrs. Pouncer arrived at Joe Allens equipped with both fabulous stories and the four sets of eyewear necessary to fulfill all advanced eyewear handling techniques.  Needless to say I learned a thing or three. 

I can also confirm that Ms Scarlet Blue’s hair was of a certain colour and that meeting her has brought new dimensions to my understanding of the word ‘cute’.

* no relation of Mrs. Pouncer’s acquaintance Keith Allen, father of Lily Allen.

Wendy House service will be temporarily sub-sub-standard while flagrant‘ Happy Birthday to us’*  activities are conducted in Italy accompanied by this years soundtrack courtesy of Eyan …

* us = people I know (Eyan, Jenn, Angela, Dr. Phil, Prof. Dave) and pobably quite a few people that I don’t know…

When spottydog visited the Wendy House I gave her a full 1 minute tour.  The full 1 mintue tour is the executive version of the 30 second tour.  It is akin to the 15 minute Hamlet only quicker and with less literary credibility.  As audience, spottydog’s role was to provide her unique insight into potential lifestyle developments.  Half way through the tour,  near the end:

Wendy:  this is my wardrobe (US = closet.  A closet is a place where you keep skeletons, hence the title of this post)

Spottydog: that’s orderly

Wendy: its half empty

Spottydog:  its organised by colour and size,  even the shoes

Wendy:  Errrrrmmmmmmm…….   …is that bad?

Spottydog:  its not scatty

Lifestyle development suggestions involved, ‘open the beers’ and ‘you need more plants’.  Spottydog, spot-on again.

One of the larger (circa 1862) houses in my street hosted a street-garden party where I ate oodles of triffle and met dozens of neighbours who chose to buy homes there because of the:

• good nearby schools.
• curved, quiet, tree-lined street.
• proximity to town, buses, trains, work.
• nearby co-op store.
• beautiful old houses at reasonable prices.

Each of us introduced ourselves by name and house number, I became ‘Wendy at n(a)’.  My introduction received one of two common reactions:

1. Oh,  the cute one that isn’t really on the street!  We knew Marion who lived there before you.
2. Where is that?  We know [name] at n+1,  n,   and the empty new house n(b),  there is no house between them.

Uncommonly, the Wendy House doesn’t have a frontage on the Street.  It is hidden behind n+1 with the pathway approach unintuitively placed between n+1 and n(b) rather than intuitively between n and n(b).  I discovered that a prior resident of this Wendy House,  Marion:

• moved in soon after the stable was converted to a house,  mid to late 1960’s.
• moved out in 2002.
• died in 2005.
• was a kept woman,  no-one knew who her patron was.  My deeds show the house was owned by Brian during her time here.
• would stand at the gateway and chat to passers-by. 

My plan to become the wierd lady with the hats was generally well recieved.  One neighbour may give me an old set of oak gates from a local house currently stored in his stables which haven’t been converted into a residence for a working woman.

also known as:  Remembering what to remember

I first encountered the currently popular (in Psychology of memory circles) ‘prospective memory’ as a term to describe remembering what to remember through Baddeley & Wilkin’s 1984 article ‘Taking memory out of the laboratory’ .  The Laboratory, Lab, was typically where British psychologists studied human memory using rigourous exprimental methodologies.  The lab was normally a windowless, beige, unadroned room lest participants, then ’subjects’,  be distracted or inadvertantly influenced by non-experimental phenomena that might undermine the effect of the experimental manipulation.  

I liked Baddeleys work because he’d systematically estabished the positive impact of re-instating memorising context on recall levels through various studies including the influence of alcohol (Vodka) or physically being under water (diving) when memorising,  and recalling.  Both these experimental studies sounded fun,  were themselves memorable, and were even repeatable* in less rigorous forms with colleagues at University during normal studenty nocturnal activities. 

‘Taking memory out of the laboratory’ was published in a book called ‘Everyday memory, actions and absentmindedness’ .  This was ground breaking news to me in 1984.  There I was in the middle of a degree course, approved as official content and jargon by the British Psychological Society, where I had focussed my study on memory research.  I had just about got the hang of the technically specific language of psychological memory research such as retro-interference, auditory-loop, digit-span, recognition vs recall and much more.  Then,  THEN!  Those gosh-darn leading memory researchers sprang some non-technical terms that made sense and weren’t part of the current disciplin jargon.  How cheeky is that?

Absentmindedness? 

Cognitive psychologists study the absense of mind.  It was too much, I had a couple of vodkas and fell in a local canal with my miss spelt revision notes to celebrate. 

PS:  If I remember I’ll tell you why I’m telling you about prospective memory in a later post…

* Actually conducting the experiements makes them more memorable and easier to understand an evaluate than just reading or thinking about them over a cup of tea.

Schrockthehouse recently pointed out that there is a shop in Oxford dedicated to keeping me informed about the goings on in the world,  called the Wendy news shop. 

while visiting Seattle this April I met with many local friends, indulged in lots of purring, stroking, creaky-meowing, general faffing and furring-up-nosing.   All in the best possible taste.

A spiritual sensitive spent the night in the Wendy House guest room. He picked-up on Wendy House memories.

The house remembers several of policemen looking at the bedroom wall over the kitchen. On several occasions since I’ve since seen flocks of policeman on bicycles swarming past, the Wendy House. He also saw a fellow on the landing darkly dressed, silent, wearing a bowler hat, watching the police people search, not ominous. I wonder what the house remembers?

I wonder how I can find out what the house remembers through more conventional means than dream observations… …dreams have revealed nothing to me… …yet…

I’m currently somewhere in Cambridgeshire dressed as a 1940’s French Cabaret artiste pretending to be at a dinner party in Casablanca while trying to work out which of the other guests,  or me,   murdered someone.  

I’ll probably need some character witnesses so vouch for me,  if you see me.

Megalithic  graves across Europe.  Populated, or not, 3 to 4 thousands of years Before Christ.  While in Ireland I toured the Burren and stopped at the Paulnabrone dolmen.  Very atmospheric.  “The Modern Antiquarian” a fabulous book by Julian Cope lists megalithic sites throughout Europe.  The book is one of my most treasured possessions.  Websites selling the book under-detail the sheer volume and depth of research that Julian put into constructing this fabulous book. 

Before the advent of anti-aging products these dolmen represented the celebration of aging, death, and life beyond.  Julian Cope is one of the most influential celebrity individuals in my formative years,  I blame him alone for a pair of black leather jeans being a main stay of my wardrobe and, or course, my RAF orignial flight jacket.

my father once mentioned that he has second sight.  Apparently it runs in our family 

“How do you know?” …he did not reply with…

‘how do you not know?’  …or question his role as my biological father…

He told me a story of how, as a teenager, he shook hands with a girl and foresaw her death.  This had disturbed him so much that he avoided using his second sight,  except, of course, in his job for divining. 

Before retirement my father was responsible for the overhead and underground lines of a regional Electricity group before Thatcher sold them all off.  Dad used his divining skills to pinpoint the location of underground electricity lines or other obstacles such as sewers when directing digging for repairs etc.   Dad kept his divining rods in the house.  As a child (5yrs, 1968) I would test him at the weekends.  A fun game.   The test involved him using his rods to find a single tuppeny bit hidden under reams of  used computer paper I had liberally strewn across the living room floor.  Dad used his divining rods to find the coin.  I watched him intently to make sure he wasn’t feeling the coin with his feet through the paper or using some other cunning strategy. 

Dad normally found the coin 

then giggled

“I don’t know the way to wiggle”

this statement was made by a very vertically challenged young boy probably as short as 4yrs old.  A person that short really should know the way to wiggle.  I gave him a demonstration,  he wasn’t amused.

“why have you got a handbag?”

Asked the father of above short person and friend since we were both 4 years short.  He and said young wiggle-free-youngster failed to refrain from laughing when asking this question.  I explained that I was in training to be a real woman and that this involved taking a handbag everywhere.  I only managed 2 days in the England before I gave up on the handbag thing,  too many short people surrupticiously giggling at me. 

“you should be able to climb an E2 without any trouble based on your build and fitness”

 I took another swig of wine and grunted.  In the UK I only climbed to S (Severe).  In the US on indoor walls at 5.8 (equivalent of UK VS, Very Severe).  This climber was telling me the only obstacle to my climbing a higher grade was my attitude.  Plausible.

“we recognised you from a distance despite the blue hat”

A friend that has known me since I was 5yrs short announced ebulantly.  Despite the blue hat?  I’d been labouring under the misaprehension that my hats were my most distinguishing feature.  Apparantly it’s actually my skinny legs and deportment (wiggly walk).  I’d already given up on the handbag thing by now.

“Please kill my fish”

short person while jumping up and down and wringing her hands together.  The conversation quickly went down hill from here.

Has curry ever killed anyone? 

This excellent question came from my niece and left me picturing people drowning in curry,  curry pans falling on people’s heads,  people exploding from eating too much curry etc 

“I am tall, blonde and tanned”

Having not met or seen photographs of said fellow I was anticipating short and bald with the pants of Khaki Cargo.  I made the most of this rare opportunity to feel short again.

“is wearing kharki cargo pants and dark blue t-shirts Microsofts uniform?”

asked by a person unaware of my blog who worked with Microsoft Reading.  I replied that its not limited to Microsoft employees….   …I suspect it’s a viral disease…  …like overuse of ellipses…

“would you like another cup of tea?…    ………..silly question really.”

An old friend who had temporarily lost the plot then regained it after a liberal dose of ellipses.

The graffiti in Bristol provided a pleasant surprize, especially this humerous piece by Banksy. I am completely soppy about Banksy’s work.

Russian: V-eye durs yrrrrr tea shrut say zeeez?*

Wendy: guess

Russian: No.  V-eye durrs eat say zeeeez?

Wendy:  it’s my age and….

Russian: NO…       …NO…     …NO..   … NO !

shaking her head which flings her hair in a whirlwind effect. The ‘no’s sneak out as her faces passes mine during its wild swings

Wendy:  yes-yes-YES and it’s THE answer to life the universe and EVERYTHING have you read……

giggles, nearly falls off chair in all the excitement and the rare opportunity of repeating the word ‘yes’ in quick succession as the Russian finishes my sentence by telling me what her guess was…

Russian: Durglurrrrrrrs arrrrderms, ysss,  I sort dat frhurst.  

Russian: NO

Wendy:  YES.  I’ve maintained my immaturity 

I think I’ve blown my cover as a real professional adult type person.  This Russian has excellent interrogation skills.  Between the two of us I think we’ve cornered the local (within 100yards) charismatic foriegner quota.

* apologies for my atrocious Russian accent. Hers is, naturally, outstanding.

it’s firework’s night in the UK,  401 years since the gunpowder plot.  Below is a rhyme topical to the time of the event.  Most contemporary English people know the first verse and if you say the first line out loud will join in for the second line.  According to Wikipedia the latter verses were gradually lost to shared memory due to lack of use through content offensive to catholics:

Remember, remember the fifth of November,
Gunpowder Treason and Plot,
I see no reason why gunpowder treason
should ever be forgot.

Guy Fawkes, Guy Fawkes,’twas his intent
to blow up the King and the Parliament.
Three score barrels of powder below,
Poor old England to overthrow:
By God’s providence he was catch’d
With a dark lantern and burning match.
Holloa boys, holloa boys, make the bells ring.
Holloa boys, holloa boys, God save the King!
Hip hip hoorah! 

A penny loaf to feed the Pope.
A farthing o’ cheese to choke him.
A pint of beer to rinse it down.
A faggot of sticks to burn him.
Burn him in a tub of tar.
Burn him like a blazing star.
Burn his body from his head.
Then we’ll say ol’ Pope is dead.
Hip hip hoorah!
Hip hip hoorah!

Bonfire night is an annual English event that, for me in the US, is emotionally replaced by July 4th (fireworks celebration) and US elections on November 7th. Today’s bang! started on the November 4th at a friend’s birthday party. 

Hoorah! 

(imagine a couple of Hip swings for good measure)

Fun and beer all around,  in mouths and beards.   Memories of fireworks from July 4th in the US that make me feel closer to the November 5th celebrations in the UK:

Even better, a present (US = gift) turned up in my post (US = mail).  It isn’t even my birthday.  It is,  however, close enough to call this a surprise Birthday present

World traveller called to tell me the Truck has finally shuffled of this mortal coil.  Let’s take 2 minutes silence to respect the daring do’s of the red truck:

• Being shiny and new (1974)
• Costing $450.00 and driving from Oregon to Ellensburgh (2005)
• Carrying the contents of World traveller’s home 3,000 miles from Ellensburgh to New York, with only one little hiccup (Aug. 2006)

You’re talking to yourself

a friendly wendyhome blog reader points out when passing me in the corridor at work.  Lucky person may have picked up a gem of wisdom.  Then he tactfully gave me a gem of wisdom, while slowly stepping backward. He gave me a potential reason for my being single.  Wonderful!  Don’t you just wish you’d been there too?  Instead, you’ll have to wait until next Wednesday to find out….

House party!  As we entered the house my friends seemed to melt into the colourful crowd of over-dressed and under-weared party-goers.  This was the 80’s.  The house awash with colour, exotic make-up and loud loud underwear.  I made my way towards the kitchen in search of alcohol to mellow the noisey tones.  A crowd had gathered around the doorway and against the kitchen counters.  In a large arc with the fridge,  and Burnel, at it’s apex.

Burnel, simultaneously beside,  around, and on top of the fridge.  Wearing his performance persona.  At first I didn’t recognize him.  The imaccualte make-up,  tight fitting black leather trousers wrapping themselves around and over the fridge, the cape gently obeying the movements of his body.  Girls giggled. Boys smirked.  Gradually they lost interest and dispersed into the main rooms of the party. 

I stood riveted to the scene.  To me a fridge is cold,  angular,  almost definitively unsensuous.  Yet here,  with his own movements,  Burnel managed to imbue the fridge with a delicate coquetishness.  It was clearly desirable.  He may have acknowledged my presence with a glance,  I may have said ‘hello’.  It’s unlikely.  The fridge was undoubtedly recieving his undivided attention and I certainly didn’t want to break the unique experience he was building.  I suspect I remained in the kitchen watching him for the duration of the performance.  I certainly pondered on that philosophically fundamental question

‘what is it like to be a fridge?‘ 

Several months later on a nightclub dancefloor I found the answer.  Burnel spontaneously mistook me for a fridge.  My compressor promptly broke,  resulting in giggle fits and an unceremonious dash to the shadows for emotional repairs. 

How appropriate that a picture of Burnel now clings to my fridge.

I see their heads, a pair of pinballs bouncing in the distance, as they scan the hall between the taller, faster-moving, arrivals.  Dad’s thick heavy straight hair has a glass-fibre-optic luminance that is easily held in view.

Heading towards them, restraining the impulse to run, my strides extend.  I’m bound to fall over if I run amongst unsuspecting normal people.  A quick glance around confirms that  adults don’t run in arrivals lounges.  I’m an adult now.  I walk, like the other arrrivals around my parents, very very very fast. 

After the 200yrd dash I manage to approach dad head-on and get both arms around his shoulders before he’d recognised me.  His shoulders?  I don’t remember ever having been able to reach his shoulders before now.   He kisses my cheek in front of my ear.  He can no longer reach my forehead.  Standing upright with his familiar cheshire cattish grin while Mum joins the hug simultaneously giggling and chattering.  They had, they explained, ’seen’ me but not recognised me…..

I hug-herd them to the luggage reclaimation rack while mother spills the first few lines of this story, then that, then the other, and another.  I barely have time to savour the images she draws before being pulled to the next story.  Dad grins silently,  keeping his sparkly dark blue eyes trained on the baggage go-round,  going round.  In this moment of our studying the baggage go round,  unobserved chattering mother wanders off,  disappearing into the crowd,  giggling and chatting to herself as she goes.

Is this how toddlers’ parents feel when they realise they can no longer see or hear their their toddler?

I’ll never know.

pre-teenage Wendy to Mum and Dad:

not ANOTHER castle,  please no.  No more Castles.  Look, Castles are made of stone,  have dungeons and halls and lots of spiral staircases and are generally falling apart.  Once you’ve seen one or two Castle’s you’ve pretty much got the Castle thing covered.  Can we go to the beach instead?  Please… please….  …or a tin mine?  

After 6 years living inn the USA, during a visit to Mum and Dad’s home last year….

Let’s go on a day trip to a Castle or a Stately home,  or somewhere maintained by British Heritage,  please,  anywhere on your list of old places to visit?

Mum and Dad arrive in Seattle tomorrow for a week long holiday.  Holy Vacuum Cleaners!  Parental cleanliness standards are beyond my comprehension.  This means I’ll be spending Satruday blitzing the cat-fluff.  There are no Castle’s nearby so I’m going to spring Teatro Zinzanni on them,  wish me luck…

OK, I admit it. I’ve taken lots of naughty scenic photographs that have been upstaged by multiple profesional photographers before me.  Darn.  But no-one. Yeah!  No-one has caught me in my hat with flat Eric as well as my co-pilot (world traveller) did with this outstanding picture.  Don’t you just wish you were with us?…

Space Needle 11pm June evening

Originally uploaded by :: Wendy ::.

after a couple of beers in good company (LaCroix, Anne, Jen). Just to be clear, its not a Pie and its not a Hole. It is a bit fuzzy…

my world traveller friend is moving to NY this weekend.  In the 6 years I’ve known her she’s lived in:

• Seattle
• China
• Madrid (Spain)
• A private yaught (Alaska, Mexico, the Pacific coast)
• Ellensburgh (urgh?!!!)

She’s a special friend.  We met during my first week in Seattle at a pub quiz.  Hardly knowing each other arranged to runaway to Mardi Gras, a weekend in New Orleans. 

Travelling separately.  I sat on the porch of our 2 star hotel with a bottle of wine I’d corked by forcing the cork into the bottle.  In the heat of the evening I drank the wine and waited for the stranger,  my room companion,  to turn up.  An asian guy arrived at midnight.  The hotel staff had gone home.  He’d booked a room, had no-where else to stay. World traveller turned up with a tiny back-pack and all the enthusiasm of a toddler.  Of course she didnt mind him staying in our room.  We looked after him for a a couple of days, expored the city,  had our fortunes read,  met strangers and lived stories that warrant thier own blog entries.  She’s so easy to be with,  so bright in many ways.  I’ll miss her presence in this State painfully because friends like her are rare.  Friends like her are usually somewhere else.  My friends are usually somewhere else….  I’m not often a soppy bugger, but for tonight there will be BIG

BLUBBING

in the Wendy house this weekend.  Actually there will be blubbing in a sleeping-bag on the floor of her packed apartment,  but you get my drift….   

Our Barcelonean correspondent, Eyan, wants to know about the Microsoft Word selection of Synonyms for that naughty word:

Why isn’t toilet in the Word synonyms dictionary for British English? Are we being coy? Sweeping things under the carpet again?

I think it’s outrageous Toilet water and toilet block are there, but no toilet. What is a guy to do ? It’s there for US English, but not for British English.

I’m baffled,  I’ll have to rest in a room for a while to wonder whether the water closet (WC) should come out of the closet and declare itself a toilet 

The question from the man with the essential questions ‘what does chilling injury mean’? 

1. putting a bag of birdseye frozen peas on damaged muscle?
2. a wound that sends shivers up your spine because its sooooo icky?
3. other?

what?

An ‘unportrait’ is a portrait that doesn’t include the person.  A description of the person that doesn’t include a figural image.  Here’s one.  This photograph was taken in a tiny apartment,  it includes most of her belongings.  You can see so much of her,  what do you see? 

our Barcelonean correspondent, Eyan, writes:

Sometimes I think my spelling skills may rival yours. After numerous attempts I had to look up archaeological. Yesterday I couldn’t pronounce clandestine correctly. My students said they would continue to use secret instead (similar words exist for both in Spanish).

remember,  tripple vowels are tricky for the spellingly challenged…

Joanna Lumley was an early ‘Bond Girl’ in ‘On her Majesty’s Secret Service’.  She became a big star in the UK as a secret agent in the 1976 revival of British TV cult classic drama ‘The (New) Avengers’.  This drama was unusual for having a female lead that was intellegent, pro-active, assertive, witty and sexy.  Her character called ‘Purdey‘ (after the gun) had a distinctive haristyle that became very popular in 70’s Britain. 

Since that series Joanna Lumley has remained an icon of British female sexiness.  She is probably more well known internationally for her role as “Patsy” in “Absolutely Fabulous“.  Less well know for her long term support of the Free Tibet Campaign.

Last night Paul Weller deservedly won the Brit Award for outstanding contribution to the British Music Industry.  From ‘The Jam’  through ‘The Style Council’ to his solo work Paul has always been involved in producing musically interesting, lyrically astute, songs.  The award was presented by another gorgeous, talented, Londoner; Ray Winston.  Double GUSH!