:: The Wendy House ::

first Man In Panama Hat (MIPH): that is the most striking womans hat at this wedding,  I didn’t recognise you earlier, is it new?

Wendy:  I have a tan.  The hat’s about 20yrs old, from Cornwall, it’s my favourite hat, though I rarely have a special-enough occassion to wear it (subdues jumping impulse based on the excitement of being in the company of 2 other people wearing hats).

first MIPH: it did SAY Cornwall to me (giggles). 

second MIPH: it is the ONLY woman’s hat at this wedding (giggles).

Headgearless guest:  Isn’t it good of the Bride and Groom to arrange a wedding so that we can all wear our favourite clothes (smiles).

On this fabulously sunny and very cheerful day the female wedding guests were not ruining their immaculate coiffures by squishing them under hats.  Instead a rash of fascinators were jiggling with the movement of their wearers.

We motored North towards the party Island of Ios, into the meltemi, into the wind, sails tightly packed-away, avoiding the katabatics.  Wind speeds were between 40 and 50 knots,  gale force 10, with what the skipper described as flying water from the tops of the whitecaps.  Red, Poodle and Spanial donned anti-seasickness wristbands.

Labrador in full sensible waterproofs stayed dry on deck to the left of the skipper.  To the left of Labrador Red lay back-to-the-bench shivering in full sun and swimwear.  Red was unable to sit-up lest the action give momentum to Red’s stomach contents.  I dragged myself along the boat, down the almost-as-dangerous-as-the-wendy-house-stairs and went below to bring-up Red’s fleece.  It was like navigating a fairground ride without a laughing audience.  

Poodle was buried beneath towels lying on the bench next to me, groaning.   All the colour had drained from Spaniel’s lips laying back to the bench opposite facing the sky.   Retriever was head over the side wretching while Spanial and I held a leg each lest the jerking of the boat lever Retriever ir-retriever-bly overboard. 

Skipper would smoke a cigarette every now and then… 

Lighting a cigarette is a tricky manouvre while helming a boat in a gale,  one has to admire the skippers dexterity and skill.  With each puff on the cigarette the pack pulled either hands, towels or jacket collars over their nose and mouth to filter any trajectile-style impact of the smoke on thier bouncing stomachs.

Skipper put the boat on auto-pilot and went below to brew a coffee.  As soon as he’d left the deck labrador elegently turned,  ejaculated a globule of stomach contents in one smooth action off the stern, then returned to face the wind looking like a true stalwart.  Good timing and action,  10 for technique I’d say.

I sat in my sea-spray-soaked, warm, neoprene jacket in the blazing sunshine with regular sea-showers.  Each sea-shower produced a seemingly choreographed choral groan from the lying-on-thier-back pack.   I waited unimpatiently for

real sailing experience #2: feeling sick

I never did get real sailing experience #2. 

The shere volume of flying water made reading my novel impossible,  the powerful swinging motion made  writing in my journal or sketching impossible,  the pack were clearly not in the mood for good conversation,  the views were rather predicatbly sea and sky, which can induce visual boredum.  Instead of developing seasickness I worked on fending off the boredum by considering the contents of this post and singing to myself… ‘What shall we do with the drunken sailor?…

Why I love England #1.  First in an infinite series

Healthy ladies in slightly ridiculous hats & waistecoats made of flapping strands of material oddments jumping around with large sticks and bells tied to their staunchly sensible shoes within the ruins of a 12th century Abby adjacent to a Victorian prison on a rather damp June day.  How could you possibly not love this?  and it happened in Reading!

In a fit of unfettered curiosity about the wonkily hanging light fitting on the ceiling of the Wendy House bathroom with a bulb that didn’t respond to the light switch,  I turned off the mains electricity then used one of my fancy little screw-drivers to remove the fitting.  It was not a water-protective fitting,  the wires were bare.  I need a complete new light fitting,  not just a bulb. 

Even Wikipedia acknowledges the pecularities of English home electirical wiring traditions.  There are no sockets in English bathrooms and the light is controlled by a pull-chord.   I noted the red and black wires hanging from the ceiling,  covered the ends in insulation tape and bounced off to a lighting shop (by bus). 

All the lights looked jolly pretty with a mass of  small chandeliers both modern crystal and psuedo candelabras. 

I asked the lighting assistant if I could look at the wiring on the lights to see how I would attach them to my two wires in the ceiling.  The lights in the shop all had 3 wires,  yellow,  blue and stripey yellow-green (earthed).  I asked about how they mapped to my 2 wires.  The assistant tushed  in a patriarchally concerned manner and advised that I get an electrician to install my light.  Luckily,  dad and one brother are electricans. 

Phew.

my new passport arrived.  Secure mail services let me use an old passport as proof of ID to sign for the new passport.

Wendy:  OoooOOOoooo THANKYOU!

Secure Mail Service:  that sounded like genuine excitement

Wendy: its a long story,  OH,  its a 10 year real-adult-responsible persons passport! (jumping up and down and slapping the passport againt my hand in a clapping-like manoeuvre)

I’m a real proper UK person now, who can come back to the UK if I leave,  until I loose it again…

First in a monthly (moon cycle) series of posts that detail ways to reduce overt mood related PMT (USA = PMS) symptoms. 

PMT treatment #1:  bunny bounce balancing

1. find cute small soft plushy,  in this example its the Easter bunny.
2. balance said plushy on foot.
3. jiggle foot to produce plushy-balance challenges (and baffle nearby cats).
4. jump up-and-down to make plushy-balancing even more challenging.  Push yourself to the absolute plushy-balancing limits.  This could be the birth of an extreme sport…..
5. attempt to photograph wobbling plushy mid-bounce.
6. blog about the experience.

It works….

March 15th 1984

It will take several months to read the varied scrawl of miss-spelt ramblings in my early diaries.  Mumzie recently discovered these diaries in a dark corner of her home.  The diaries stop in 1984 when I switched to letter writing…

A second sheet was added to this 1984 entry during my first year at University.   The day went something like this: 

A morning of contemplating whether a fascinating but somewhat screwed-up boy should have the benefit of my influence in his life.  

An afternoon sketching portraits of 2 handsome boys while they supplied me with lots of tea.  The tea taking isn’t explicitly mentioned because it is understood as a part of the ’spending an afternoon with a handsome fellow’ process.  The boys had the afrontary to keep the sketches.  Sadly,  I don’t actually have copies of any of the portraits I used to produce.  I was fairly prolific with my sketch-book as well as in my diaries.  

The evening involved drinking ’side cars’ in a disco and helping a girl-friend disrupt the dancefloor during some of those slow girl-boy cuddling dances by jumping around between the soppy-people.  

A fabulous day indeed.

One year of subscribing to a web service,  developing the Wendy House blog….

memories of Sunday evening heavily distorted by the best part of a bottle of white wine consumed that evening:

Wendy:  whines about the lack of attractive approachable single men in their 40’s

Snewtee: positive suggestion ‘what about those 2 over there?’

Wendy: Oh, ok  (bounces in a slurred fashion towards two men.  Introduced myself… …somehow)

Man #1:  physically recoils

Man #2: giggles and introduces me to his wife.

Wendy:  something about David Beckham scoring an outstanding goal from 25 yards against Ecuador today followed by singing ‘Eng-GER-land’ and waving my arms in the air.  Aren’t you impressed by my skills for engaging the locals in conversation?

Man #1: several more steps backward

Man #2: more giggles

Wife: ignores the goings-on

Wendy:  something along the lines of ‘it’s been nice chatting with you,  bye’ shakes the hands of man #2 and man #1 (who appears to have relaxed now he’s realised I’m leaving).

Must remember to moderate drinking in the sunshine and try not scare the locals….

Wendy:  “How long are your jump leads?”

Guy:  “this long”

Whips them out to demonstrate. Wendy blushes then smiles.  Easily over 10ft of lead.  More than enough to reach LooSea.

Wendy:  “Will you marry me?”

Bouncing and clapping hands with eyes clearly fixed on the jump leads.  Nearly slips on the wet-grass.

Guy: “I don’t think my wife would approve”

eyes focused on his jump leads with no actual jumping.

The rest of the conversation is unpublishable. 

My proposal wasn’t accepted. 

Sigh

Wendy persistently-impulsive

Tea is a meal. 

Chicken Tika Masala is a very ‘British’ meal. 

I’m not one to lightly cast-off cultural stereotypes so finding this little beauty in the Fridge was cause for 6.5 bounces on the Wendy-scale (variation on the richter scale).

Mildly spicy?  Understatement.  Disappointingly MILD.  When are they going to release microwave meals into the US that are Manzil’s Digbeth Curry House good?   I suspect this type of meal,  like my nail clippers, is currentlly considered too dangerous to come through customs. 

This means I have to cook,  yes COOK to get my regular supply of hot sauce.  Sigh.

W

While the big shiny black man (BSBM) scanned my tea and beers from the fridge.  I slipped in a little yawn.

BSBM:  “why are you tired?”  <he flashed his abundant white toothipegs at me><

Wendy: “I’m pathetic AND I stay up late,  you know,  ’til midnight”

BSBM: “You’re not pathetic,  <more reckless toothipeg flashing> you should give me a back-rub when I finnish here“  <Thank heavens for a normal man,  my singleness must be showing>

Wendy: “I’m way too tired to give you a back-rub,  I’m really THAT pathetic” <Wendy bounces out of the store>

Wendy showing-kick-arse-development-potential