:: The Wendy House ::

Wendy:  I accidentally pulled the bathroom light fitting on the ceiling,   today I picked up a newer sealed light fitting.

Dad:  Do you want me to bring me tools?

Wendy:  Not really,  [brothers' name]’s coming round with his tools, advice,  and innovative home-improvement books on Wednesday.  I’d rather he climbed the ladder than you or I.

Dad: Yes, I do get a bit dizzy when my feet leave the ground.

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… 

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…