wendy house

During commuter time, even in London, it is possible to be alone in public

When I stepped into this empty circle line carriage at 08.45am I felt like singing. So I did! No-one smirked, No-one shook their head, no-one asked me to stop screaching.

No-one joined in. I did’t feel embarressed because  I’m not a talented or even accurate vocalist

When there’s no audience in the room – I’m an extrovert

I normally choose to be in a place with few, or no, people present – does that make me an introvert?

If I tell my friends that I’m an introvert they disagree.  They describe things I do that are typical of an extravert. Things that I don’t actually enjoy or find easy. I’m an introvert who can do extrovert things when the occassion requires. Happily living alone, spending many nights in, is probably the biggest indicator that I’m an introvert at heart

I got my wish – no surgery!

I’m normal (Clinical diagnosis)

The route to this radical, yet  insightful, diagnosis required a hospital referal to get a clinical consultants’ opinion. A medical second opinion. That’s a verified, safe, judgement.  I suspect that my waving an unused sanitary towel at the consultant did the trick! What could be more normal in a maternity department? Waving unused sanitary towels is probably a daily occurence

Normal

service is resumed

Once the joy of the tinkling bells had worn off I looked towards the end of the isle. Mum and dad weren’t there

It wasn’t fair, they could walk fast or slow. Slow was the only speed I could walk. Slow or running.  They always walked fast, I had to run, whizzing passed so many fascinating things. I’d only taken a moment to listen to the bells while mum and dad wandered off.

I ran to the end of the isle, glancing both ways then looked down every isle. From a safe distance, I even checked the escalators. No mum, dad or brothers. I hadn’t got lost. I know where I am. They are lost.  Welling tears were barely held by remembering mums’ instructions

‘what to do when you are lost’

1. stay in the last place that you saw mum, dad, your brothers or school teacher
2. do not talk to strangers
3. talk to a policeman and they will help you find mum and dad

Standing by the silent bells, soggy red-faced, I wondered if mum and dad were also staying in the last place they saw me, not talking to strangers. People were watching me and talking to each other. A lady bent down and asked if I was alright. I tried so very hard to follow rule 2, not talking to this stranger. It tooks seconds for me to fail. Mucus spluttered

I’ve lost my mummy!

Why did everyone seem so calm? Why weren’t they crying too? My friends and I always cried together. Maybe these strangers were going to take me away to an orphanage and I’d never see mum and dad again. The lady leant forward to grab me.  I scrambled out of her reach towards the bells, crying louder in the hope that someone would join in.

Wearing her angry face, Mum appeared at the end of the isle to rescue me. When angry, she walks faster. I ran all the way home trying to slow mum by singing  I want to hold your hand.

scribble inspired by Nick’s recent musings on lost children

Can you improve Cemetery Junction?

Is it so gorgeous that any changes are more likely to ruin its existing gorgeousity?

Is it so icky that people have given up hope of being able to improve it without first obliterating it?

The question raises all sorts of emotionally charged, creative, cynical, optimistic, pragmatic and other reactions from people who live near, or pass through, the infamous local junction of the A4 (London Road) and A329 (Kings/Wokingham Road).

A local councilor, Rob White, is working with local action groups to improve the Cemetery Junction area. At the moment he’s consulting with locals. The co-op has a big cardboard suggestions box decorated with a collage of magazine pictures of pretty things. Excellent stuff. It made me feel like being back at school where having a go was important, encouraged and easy.

I’m loving the humour and creativity evident in this summary of suggestions to improve cemetery junction made on a ‘Get Reading’ news article:

• i’m thinking giant dinosaurs
• how about a cinema or a roller disco?
• Napalm
• Make it a spooky theme park
• How about a monorail?
• A small tactical thermo-nuclear device
• Bit of paint and a clean should do it….or if you really wanna prettify it, hanging baskets
• An underpass
• make a big roundabout where resturant is
• Nuke the site from orbit. It’s the only way to be sure
• re-install the gallows that used to stand on the site now occupied by The Granby? It might act as a deterrent to the hoodies and wannbie gangsters in that area
• What about an H Bomb?
• Prevent shop keepers and traders from parking cars and vans on the pavements
• The overhanging bushes on the London Rd side need trimming… …new paving and signage
• can’t be improved – its a dead loss
• A Tesco supermarket each side of the road, with a couple of Tesco Expresses sprinkled around Liverpool and Cholmeley Roads
• big ornamental archway would brighten up the area considerably
• Give me some explosives and a bulldozer and Ill give you instant results. Guaranteed
• Zombie Apocalypse

charming friend #1:  that’s a nice neckscarf

wendy: it doubles as a hankerchief for sneeze emergencies or magic tricks

charming friend #2: I thought it was hiding a hickie

wendy: (raucous loud laughter, trying to dispel the hickie myth before rumours take flight)

wendy: tomorrow I will be Audrey Hepburn all day!

friend:  why? have I missed something?

wendy: you haven’t missed anything, it’s a random act of quirkiness

friend: Ah, your speciality

Facebook suggests that I, or my baby (???!), should learn to type and get a part time job.

Facebook knows my age, gender, relatives on face book (parents, siblings, cousins, nieces), apps I’ve installed and the advertisments I’ve dismissed because they were either ‘uninteresting‘ or ‘offensive‘ (e.g. Make-up, diet, cosmetic surgery, high-healed shoes). Facebook does not know about my schooling or employment.

What do you think? Should I give up my FT, rewarding job, have a baby, and get a part-time typing job working from home?

Visitors to earth from planet Wendy see the marketing of high healed shoes as institutionalised violence, targeting females. For some inexplicable reason hobbling, the risk of broken ankles, is an attractive female characteristic.

Women are the only exploited group in history to have been idealized into powerlessness.

Erica Jong

The majority of females are complicit in perpetuating this violence. Visitors from planet Wendy are baffled by this complicity. Visitors keep their befuddlement under their stylish hats lest they cause offense, identifying themselves as targets for the near ubiquitous, rigorous enforcement regime.

What shoes should I wear to demonstrate my lack of complicity without attracting non-compliance social penalties?  My tastes rarely coincide with high street fashion. My criteria for yesterday’s shoe purchase trip, in priority order, were

• must not introduce a risk of bodily injury when walking – I can fall over without artificial aides.
• comfortable – definitely bouncy soles and soft uppers
• can be worn to walk 4 miles per day on sidewalks and in buildings
• please or amuse members of the public, work colleagues and clients when I wear them to work
• give the impression that I’ve dressed-up a bit for a trip to the Theatre, Garden or Dinner party
• colour should sort-of go with some of the clothes I already own. A fairly open criteria favouring blue, black, grey, brown, white and orange.

I’ve wanted a pair of red shiny, low-heal, soft soled shoes ever since I first read the Wizard of Oz. This pair of Kansas hoppers closed the deal in the time it took to try them on. I only visted 2 shops, RESULT!  All my criteria filled and MORE!

Waiting decades before finally meeting these shoes adds a special relish to our union

Unwrap the Edam, the cheese is on me!

In my valiant steps to curb my consumerism, mend my waywardness, I partake of old-fashioned passtimes such as darning socks and spurious knitwear. Mumsie taught me how to darn. Darning wasn’t a syllabus item on the compulsory (for females) Home Economics course provided by Chipping Sodbury Comprehensive school. A lot of useful home economics were omitted from my Home Economics education. It wasn’t comprehensive by any stretch of the imagination.

Recently I’ve added ‘Brickette‘ making to my many economic home skills. Here’s the recipe

1. Borrow a brickette maker (I failed at this first step – I bought one)
2. Use a large (not plastic) bag to collect the shreddings from the confidential document shredder at work.
3. Empty the shreddings into a large waterpoof container (Bucket!)
4. fill the bucket with wate
5. Leave the shreddings to soak for 3 days
6. Scoop the soggy shredded paper from the bucket into the bricket maker and squish into a brickette
7. Leave the soggy brickette in the sun tor dry-out. I’ve placed my first brick in my log-store

Three days to make one brick. I only have one bucket. I wonder how many bricks I’ll be able to make this summer? I wonder how well they’ll work as fuel on the woodburner. Apparantly it is possible to make brickettes from tea bags…

Ostara, in the form of a hare is cohorting around the garden today, delighting the local adult children (Sampo and I) celebrating the shift from more than 12 hours of night to more than 12 hours of daylight.

With a clear view of the sky, in the Wendy House orangerie, the circular dining table has taken the role of an altar dressed in green cloth, laid with candles, flowers, seeds, pen and paper. Drinking large mugs of hot spiced apple juice from the caldron on the woodburner. Yummy. In a small celebration we’ve danced a clockwise circle round the table, written our hopes and desires on the paper, burnt the paper. Tomorrow I’ll put the ashes in the garden, plant the seeds where the growing daylight will nourish and draw them towards the sky

That’s the vernal equinox described in story form. The focus is on the people words that draw images and emotions, describing what people do and how they do it. This writing style is traditionally the domain  and humanities.

I find the scientific style of writing which often deliberately excludes explicit reference to people and beliefs fascinating in itself. Some ‘social sciences’ have included people by treating them as the objects to be studied, for example psychology that conducts research with human participants (not called people) and produces research papers written in the scientific tradition of the passive 3rd person. Wikipedia articles are examples of writing in the 3rd person passive, which I understand as core to the current scientific style. Wikipedia describes the vernal equinox in detail.

Here’s a few things I found out written in a more scientific style:

The word “vernal” is of Latin origin and refers to the season – spring. The word “equinox” is another word of Latin origin that means “equal night”. The vernal Equinox is a time when day and night are of nearly equal length, 12 hours, across the world. Today is the March equinox, which is the vernal equinox in the northern hemisphere and the autumnal equinox in the southern hemisphere.

Sometimes the everyday barrage of pressure to conform to gender-stereotype through jokes, advertisements, news, and everyday conversation, that re-affirm the female role as

• trivial
• survile
• productised
• dehumanised

gets me down

This sea shanty by the outstandingly talented ‘the Decemberists‘ can lift my mood, let me sing and dance, let me hope for the some form of justice. Though in reality I doubt such a well established system of abuse as the Patriarchy has developed will change for the better in my lifetime, at the moment things seem to be getting worse

The Decemberists sang the Mariners revenge

Every morning when I leave the Wendy House a tiny spider attempts to stop me. The Wendy House residents love me so much they want me to stay there

After a couple of mornings eating spider’s web for breakfast-desert I’m begining to warm to the idea of joining the residents. Succumbing to their desire to keep me home

Life pace in the Wendy House is enticingly in tune with my heart

Miss interpretting and spelling written words is one of my innate talents. Context, together with how the word sounds in my head normally helps me get things right

Sometimes I use the wrong context. Here in the fabulous Jackson’s I was thinking about ‘Austerity’ when I read this sign. I read Boys School Uniform Debt and assumed it was some form of financing offer to help parents avoid getting into dept when buying school uniforms for their boys.

It sounded plausible to me….

Popular conversational topics #6: hair changes

girlfriend: what have you done to your hair?

wendy: what looks different?

girlfriend: it looks longer

wendy: I’ve grown it?

I’ve had over 6 conversations of this ilk in the last 2 weeks

It’s as-if my hair length has recently passed some plateau that shifts peoples’ perception of it from not-long, to long

Here we see evidence of my attempting to befuddly my niece with battiness. It is my firm belief that aunties were invented to introduce befuddlement into the lives of their relationshions and I’ve never been one to shirk such a valuable social responsibility.

I wonder what a cool 18 yr old will do with such a letter, assuming she can read my rather degraded handwriting. Handwriting was never one of my strengths, Western writing was designed to favour the right-handed.
At junior school (age 10) I was taught cursive writing using a fountain pen. I’ve never really been motivated to master the rather boring script style taught in school, now I’m thinking of trying to learn Bickham script.  Bickham is more legible than the secretary hand, a script popular in 17th Century Britain, and bears a reasonably strong resemblance to my current scrawl of idiosyncratic and inconsistent style.

The corner shop, the post-office, both still sell writing paper. Lined writing paper. No letter-writting paper. No Basildon Bond. I should not have been suprised, the demand for letter-writting paper must have waned with the growth of the internet as a way to communicate with remote friends. In the 80′s I had a collection of different letter writting papers, varied colours, varied sizes and some with subtle water-colour marks. I didn’t use Basildon bond, it was too boring for the many letters that I wrote. Often I would write four or five letters a day. Not so now.

It was a real treat to buy myself a Parker fountain pen, letter-writting pad and envelopes. Now I just need to find my friends’ physical addresses….

By the time I came along mumsie was a skilled child-manipulating propaganda machine. She’d gathered tips and tricks from other parents, Dr. Spock, and refined her practice on my elder brothers

Whenever we left the house mumsie always carried paper and coloured pencils. If I was cheeky enough to declare that I was bored Mumsie would remind me that:

• only stupid people couldn’t entertain themselves
• I should have bought something with me to make sure i didn’t get bored
• she had paper and coloured pencils if I hadn’t bothered to bring anything

I don’t remember the last time I was bored or even what being bored actually feels like.  Mumsie gave me the lifelong gift of being able to entertain myself, anywhere. 

Alas, along the way I picked up my own intolerance of others that lack this gift.

Why I love England #15:  ‘peeling church bells

Seattle Sunday and Saturday felt interchangeable. The main percievable difference was that Saturday night heralded a sleep-in while Sunday night heralded the start of the working week. Saturday and Sunday were both filled with open, buzzing, malls, bowling alleys, ski-slopes and roads. Returning to England returned my beautiful Sundays.

English Sundays start well with a warm, naturally slow, awakening. Things just keep getting better from there. Whether sunshine, rain, fog, drizzle… going out in it or staying in, the choice is mine and the doing is free from shopping. Then comes the distant peal of church bells. Sunday gives time to be with beautiful people; to do nothing or something. Perhaps a spot of painting, a walk in the park, pull weeds from the garden, talk, listen.

On colder days a log fire fills the house with the gentle scent of warm woodsmoke, the clicking of the Stove as it warms, the sparking of logs and roaring of flames.  Lashings of tea, Sunday lunch followed by lashings more tea.

An evening amble to a pub quiz, real ale, laughter, debates and arguments in the company of friends.

Sunday draws to a close with me all wrapped up in sweet smell of fresh laundry and crisp, silence, of the white cotton sheets. They engulf me as I contentedly fall into deep sleep.

feeling compelled to share my experience I’ll ask

• have you tried this…
• do you know about that…

Asking before I’ve heard all the story. Not finding out all the twists and turns in the story as the teller may find it. Not giving full space for the storyteller to explore and reflect at their own pace, in thier own perspective, which is so much more full of more relevant feeling and being.

The story may be about a problem, but the telling of the story may be all that is needed. No solution sought, just the time and empathy of the listener.

Sometimes it’s difficult to remember that even pragmatic advice may not be of real benefit, it may even detract from the real value of talking around the problem.

• walnut and carrot cake
• Peanut butter
• wendy house kitchen
• wendy house bed sheets
• wendy house

All my adult life I’ve popped into restaurants, cafes, bars without being accompanited by another person.  yes, ALONE.  Iet out in public alone.  Somehow I’d managed to miss that this is not something people easily do.

Then Mr. London Street wrote a blog post encouraging his readership to eat alone. He mentioned that this doesn’t instantly appeal and may be stigmatised. At first I was baffled. What is this stigma? Why would someone not want to eat in a restaurant alone?  I thought, poor chap I wonder what is wrong with him to make him think and feel like that.  Then his readers comments showed he was describing something they recognised and understood.  A shared experience for many, though not all, of them.   

If eating alone in restaurants was once difficult for me, I’ve forgotten it. I have noticed how being a lone customer in a restaurant has changed over the decades. In the early 1990′s staff would show me to a seat out of sight, towards the back of the restaurant. As if a woman eating alone in a restaurant was indeed stigmatised.  In those days, with my mobile phone, book, and note pad I was happy with good light, good food and some table space for sketching. Now, in the naughties, I am more often seated near the window, as if the sight of a single woman eating in their restaurant is a positive thing.  Still happy with my notepad, handheld, book and now with a digital camera.

I drop by Mr. London St‘s blog occassionally because his writing appears to tap into something that his readers empathise with and admire. He lives in Reading town, but not in the same place I live.  He often writes things that his commenters empathise with, but I don’t. Consequently, his writing often makes me feel unique, even special. 

Excellent.

Everywhere there are uniforms. Uniforms for

• Empowered girliness – high heels, short skirt, proudly displayed cleavage
• IT safe corporateness – khaki cargo pants, branded baggy t-shirt
• London tube commuter - black and grey tailored and ironed outfits
• Healthy person - fleece, neoprene, goretex jackets and bouncy footwear
• Cyclist – lycra overdose, wrap-around glasses, go-faster helmet
• …..

There’s rarely an instruction manual for these uniforms. Working out what’s best is all too much for me. I’ve jumped ship and tend to opt for wearing comfortable clothes that make a token gesture towards the uniforms. Not excelling in displaying any 0ne unifrom, but partially there with all that needs to be conformed-to for social acceptability.

On a good day I’m slightly quirky. More often I exist somewhere in everyone’s experience of visually bland stylessness. 

Apart from my hats.

The urban dictionary attributes my singleness to my name:
1) Intellectually attractive woman.
2) Physically attractive woman.
3) Emotonally attractive woman.
4) Attractivve in all 3 major ways, yet not you are condemned to be ‘just friends’

Person A: Oh man, she’s perfect!
Person B: Oh yeah? So are you guys dating ow what?
Person A: Nah man, she’s a total Wendy….ya know?
Person B: suxx0rz 2 b u l4m3r!!!11

Would ‘Person A’ please un-anonymise themselves…

of the office Christmas party

just be myself?

Even here, under a psuedonym where I lace fantasy with fact I still believe that I am myself and can never be anything but myself.   How can I be other than myself that I could put effort into just being myself.

Sometimes, even with spectacles, I don’t see

I am marked by a stubborn unwillingness to obey figures of authority such as dictionaries, alarm clocks, and flatware.

Please adjust your balance before commenting.  

Thank you.

  During a week littered with  uncharacteristically fabulous sunshine I’ve been wrecklessly wandering out without a coat or a vest.  

Wandering nowhere in particular.   Directionless in the garden.    

Planting bulbs and border-blooming plants  for the summer, digging-up weeds, drinking gallons of well brewed  tea and generally admiring the arrival of spring blooms from bulbs and bushes  planted last Autumn.  

It’s leave from normal work.   It’s in my garden.

Its not technically gardening leave.

How silly is that?

Wendy: do your eyelids sweat before you cry?

Wendy: Yes! they do, how did you know?

Wendy: I felt it

Wendy: bizarre

Friend: I didn’t recognise you without a hat

I pulled an emergency  beanie from my flight-jacket pocket and placed it on my head

Wendy: does that help?

Friend: Yes,   much better