:: The Wendy House ::

Few events can attract my attention as effectively as a TOOL SHOW. And a tool show in a school playground to boot!. 

Did I walk past this tool show?  No. I bounced right on in!

Looking for a suitable large mechanical warm treat for my impending birthday.  To my joy,  I was able to handle more tools than you can shake a stick at.

Not a euphemism for light sabres. 

Also known in the US as ‘Energy bars’.  Not a way of describing the throughput of electricity to an electronic device. 

High sugar-content (energy) biscuits in a bar shape marketed in the US as a lifestyle accessory for highly active people (Walkers, cyclists, etc).  Similar products in the UK appear to be marketed as breakfast bars and stocked next to the breakfast cereals in supermarkets.  I suspect they are breakfast replacements for fast-moving executives, children and aspiring anorexics. 

I’m trying a few as possible lifestyle accessories for my GREEK SAILING HOLIDAY.  Huuuuurrrraaaahhhhh!

A local Holland and Barratt shop lured me in with this ‘Love bar’.  I subsequently discovered that the advertising is naughty because Gillian McKieth cannot legally call herself a Doctor in the UK.  Her Dr. qualification is reportedly from a correspondence course with a non-acredited US University.  The Guardian reported on her naughty non-truths and misleading product information back in 2007.  In 2008 she’s still using the title Dr. on product packaging and making questionable claims about their ‘health’ impact…  

 I am a traveller when commuting,  most weekends, and for a couple of weeks in GREECE (Whoooooopieee!). 

The word traveller is now used in the UK to describe people that take their home (caravan) with them when they move.  It apears to include the older reference groups (Gypsies,  Romanies,  Tinkers) that I am more familiar with and may include newer groups that I am not familiar with. 

Recently,  in the spirit of travelling,  I rode bus #20 around Lower Earley.  For fun.  I as able to sit above the driver at the front of the bus and wave at other local Reading people that I knew.  I saw some camper-vans parked on the grass of Cintra park (formerly Sutton Seeds sports ground) with people picnicing outside.  Get Reading reports that these are travellers that regularly stay in the Park every year,  this year they arrived just before a fence as due to be errected with the specific intent of keeping them out.   I wonder if they come to take full advantage of Jackson’s summer sale?

One recent Sunday afternoon the neighbours, local Reading celebrities,  and a gal from West Sussex dropped by to warm the wendy house over lashings of tea and cake.  A jolly civilised affiar with a little bit of dribbling.  During the goings-on I discovered many useful facts including:

-  a local granny can climb the walls to escape from a locked cemetry after dusk.

-  the Wendy House was converted from a garage in 1968 partly explaining the dangerous staircase.

-  my nieghbours have lived all over the world - Kenya, Italy, India, Edinburgh before settling in Reading.  Excellent company.

-  the Readibus preferred gift to welcome a newcomer is a bottle of wine.

- the bath works best for a person under 5ft 2 (as do the stairs).

- house numbers evolve.  One person’s home had evolved from without number to  number 4 then number 2… 

I suspect I missed some real news treats while in the Kitchen warming the pots,  I wonder what other goodies these people are going to share with us in the upcoming years….

Off to the shops.  The shopping tortutre.  Ick.  Luckily I was armed with a set of seasonal shopping lists from those short-people* that must be obeyed because of their lung, pout, and innovative-torturing-technique, capacity. 

Toddling home armed with short-people pacifiers and a book.  A book that lists Reading street names,  almost but not quite, alphabetically as it outlines the significance of the names. 

Here’s an excerpt from my current Reading, reading, material (my emphasis):

The Reading Paving Act of 1827 – a splendid document written in legalese that never uses one word where three, or better still nine, will do – talks only of ‘streets, Lanes, public passages and Places’. (It also says that occupiers have to sweep the pavement outside their houses, and specifies when they should remove Night Soil or filth from the Necessaries or Boghouses.)

If you asked an English publican,  in England,  what their ‘rotating tap’ was they would likely look at you quizzically as they explain that it is the thing in the toilets that you turn to get water for hand-washing after having completed the necessaries. In the UK tap is a common referent for a fawcett.  

A disconcerting reply to an unsuspecting US person who tries to avoid using vulgar terms like TOILET when the words Bathroom or restroom are more acceptable referents for a room with a toilet in it.  Draft beers are described as being ‘on tap’ so after the initial surpirse the move to understanding your actual meaning will not be hard. 

By contrast,  if you go into a NW US bar and ask what are their guest beers they give you a quizzical look and after some basic clarification they will tell you that what you actually mean is what is their rotating tap.  Doh!