wendy house

cousin: are you planning to settle down, get married and have kids?

cousin: you all look the same. Except, well, perhaps, wendy.  Wendy was always the quiet one.
wendy: I’m not quiet now
cousin: I can see

I was wearing a pair of beautifully embroidered 2-tone cowboy boots, black leather jeans, and my favourite fluffball of an artificial skunk-skin jacket. I like to think of it as pret-a-road-kill.

Aunty (87yrs) shouts:  I wanted you to wear those lovely red leather trousers
wendy shouts back: Oh Aunty!  I wanted to wear my favurite red leather trousers too, but I thought they might be just a bit too loud for some of the youngsters here.

Every cake should tell a story

This cake tells of the busy 90 years of my uncle Albert (pronounced Awe-burr).  Busy ballroom dancing, cruising, fiddling on the computer and his favourite motorcycle. A great grandchild reads the pictures.  The cake is edged by the tools he used to build things and was delivered in a Mason’s hall. 

What does your cake say?

My parents, brothers and nieces all turned up at the Theatre Royal Bath production of sleeping beauty.  3 generations laughing together at topical bad jokes involving duck houses, MP’s expenses and discrimination against ginger people. 

I was a little confused by the principle boy being an actual boy.  No girls dressing-up as boys in this production.  The songs were excellent and included perky famous dittys like ’Could it be magic’.  Lots of children dancing around, some slapstick and shouting and chanting.  Much fun for everyone. 

Family pantomime outings are THE BESTEST!

Bros 1957: Wendy, do you remember what we were doing at this time on September 11th 1979?

Wendy: Errr…..um…  …not really,  what were we doing Bros 1957?

Bros 1957:  Oh!  You don’t remember!

Bros can produce an ‘Oh’ packed with emotional messages.  It’s a family trait.  He was genuinely very suprised that I didn’t remember what we were doing at a specific time on a specific day nearly 10 years earlier

Wendy: Nope.  I can guess but it would be based on probablities that things I remeber happened at that time.  What were we doing then?

Bros 1957: We were having a family sauna at a ski resort in Inari, Finland 

Wendy:  I remember the Sauna.  How do you remember the exact date and time?

Bros 1957: because it was exactly 10,000* days ago (huge smile)

Bros 1957 has a fantastic ability to remember time and events together, he’s published an eponymous moon-based calendar.

* dates have been changed because I can’t remember them

Mumzie drives to another town to pick-up the only Rye crisp-bread that Dad considers to be like real Finnish Rye bread.

The myriad of quirky little things my parents do for each other shows they are still in love, 52 years after getting married.

My nieces look like they’ve escaped from Bananarama.  Having mislaid their dictionary during the breakout they are now tackling the ravages of teenage boredum.  Dedum. 

Grunting and liberal misuse of the original anglo-saxonisms helps alieviate the condition.  I’m thinking of trying it,  small doses.  But, as yet, I can’t bring myself to part with my 1982 Collins concise.

Banarama sang ‘Robert DeNiro’s waiting’

My parents took the family on a day trip to London, to the Tate gallery.  At 7 yrs I was not well equipped to appreciate the treasures on display.  Mum and Dad seemed to spend ages looking at dull boring pictures of clouds (Turner).  I asked permission to explore the galleries at my own pace and was allowed to wander off.  I walked briskly,  errr ran, around the building capturing impressions browsing for literally seconds at vaguely interesting paintings that I’ve long since forgotten. 

Then.  I turned the corner of a gallery to be confronted by the death of Chatterton. 

His vibrant orange hair glowing,  his purple velvet breaches full of warm lively texture in the daylight.  The torn paper on the floor.  His face white as marble.  Clearly dead.  I was captivated,  I stood studying the painting for what seemed, to a 7 year old, like eons.  I fell intrigued.  Who was this beautiful man?  Why was anyone that beautiful, dead before being old and wrinkly? 

He became my first love.  He was a local Bristol boy,  I was a local Bristol girl.  Later I read Peter Ackroyd’s book ‘Chatterton’ and wondered whether his death was an accident or deliberate. I visit St. Mary’s Redcliffe occassionally,  the place where Chatterton reportedly discovered the manuscripts on which he forged his texts.  He has remained young, beautful, and with my thoughts. 

From AElla

O! Synge untoe mie roundelaie,
O! droppe the brynie teare wythe mee,
Daunce ne moe atte hallie daie,
Lycke a reynynge ryver bee;

Mie love ys dedde,
Gon to hys death-bedde,
Al under the wyllowe tree.

My plan for choosing ‘A’ level’s was to pick topics where I got the best results.  Unfortunately my selection strategy didn’t work.  My results were the same in all topics.  Straight B grades.  I needed another strategy for deciding what to study for ‘A’ levels.  Mum and dad had clear guidance

Parents:  ‘you can’t go wrong with maths and physics,  you can become an engineer,  you can learn how to solve practical problems and look after yourself and your home properly’

Wendy: but I really enjoy Art, English Literature and History

Parents: You can study Art, English literature and History in your spare time,  you’ll be motivated to do it.  You probably wont study maths and physics in your spare time

This made sense to me. 

I talked to my English teacher.  He was furious,  I had a talent that I should nurture,  he would never speak to me again if I chose Math’s over English.  I chose Maths, Physics and History.  He never spoke to me again.  Complying with emotional blackmail is not a personal strength.   History covered literature (Nietzsche) and art (Futurism, Cubism).  

Since that fateful decision I’ve played with writing, painting, sketching, and plagued you with my laxadaisical spelling and grammar.

Wendy email text: July 3rd, Niel Sedaka at the Colston Hall – can you come if I get tickets?

Mumxie email text:  Cannot come sailing on the Danube  Sorry

This is mumsie’s second email to me.  If I flatter myself,  as I am wont to do,  possibly her second email to anyone.  I can’t help but be impressed by both content and style. 

Naturally I followed this revelation with a phone-call to discover Bucharest, Saltzburg, Vienna and butler-service were involved (and a new kitchen but that’s another story),   thus clearly justifying turning down free Neil Sedaka tickets and an evening out with their adorale only daughter. 

Mum saw Niel Sedaka on his last UK tour. 

Darn, foiled again…

Dad:  you can make elecronics stop working just by walking into a room
Wendy:  I thought I was being paranoid
Dad: No.  Not Paranoid. You have a talent for disrupting electronics
Wendy: thanks dad, its good to know I’m not paranoid
Neverland:.

 

There is a branding, marketing, styling opportunity in the tea-cosey market which is woefully or wonderfully underdeveloped depending on your perspective.  This collection didn’t prompt me to part with £5.37 

My main tea-cosey was hand-made by my talented sister-in-law.  My name is sewn on the inside incase a moment of scattiness leads to my losing it (the tea cosey).  It fits on my head as snug as a custom-made hat.  That kind of personal tailoring does take some beating and these shop displayed tea coseys just aren’t up to par.

Years before I read Peter Pan when I was less than 4ft tall I had an imaginary friend.  Without wings, he could fly into my bedroom at night while my unsuspecting family carried-on their downstairs life-after-my-bedtime.  Unlike Peter pan, John wore ordinary clothes:  flared corduroy jeans, t-shirt, jumper and daps.  You could easily miss noticing John in a crowd of shorter children.  John had an ordinary quiet, thoughful, way about him.  His silences matched mine.  He was good company.

John could fly right through the force-field that protected me from the monsters beyond the wardrobe.  The force-field that looked like bedroom walls but was infact protection that moved with me as I travelled through planet Wendy.  John knew how to co-pilot the big red double-decker bus,  the bus that was cunningly disguised as my single bed.   Unlike my real friends John didn’t scream or throw the extra pillow at the slimey poison-tongued Lizards that chased the bus.  John could use his powers of flight to lift the bus out of the swamp.  John was magic,  he could corale the heard of wild unicorns into the wardrobe without saying a single word.   He was my secret, special friend. 

John stopped joining my evenings when, in my teens, evening adventures moved into the world beyond my parents home. I wonder if John’s still out there,  whether he grew up or maybe became someone real.

Sometimes I miss him 

Sometimes

Waiting for a local bus,  for local people, locally, my other brother skipped up to me with a big smile and HELLLOOOOOO Wendy HaHaHa.  I jumped up to hug him (he’s 6 ft 4).

skippy:  Here’s the bus,  three busses at once,  OooooOOOOoo HaHaha

I walked toward the first double decker

skippy:  WRONG!   we want the single decker, Hahahahaha

Wendy:  Oh (signifying disappointment at not getting the double decker)

Skippy is on the bus and has placed himself in the centre of the back row of 5 seats by the time I’ve joined the line and paid for a ticket.  I look down the bus too see him at the end of the isle,  he shows me all of his teeth and claps his hands,  then raises one hand and waves it at me, as if I might be leaving, while laughing.   I show him my recently cleaned teeth and run down the bus to take a seat next to him.  We chat loudly during the journey.  I laugh everytime Skippy talks because his enthusiasm and volume is brillliant.  He is clearly happy to be with his little sister and I with him.

Skippy is looking forward to the Easter special Dr. Who episode,  he tells me about it.  I posit that maybe this bus is a TARDIS and one of the passengers is a time lord disguised as a local,  the conversation deteriorates from here on. 

Hoorah!

 A fairly typical secondary school conversation about my brother in the late 1970’s:

Secondary School Peer (SSP):  you know your brother?

Wendy:  yes, I know both of them,  do you mean [name]?

SSP: No,  the other one,  what’s wrong with him?

Wendy:  What do you mean ‘what’s wrong with him’

SSP:  well,  you know he’s not normal…

Wendy:  how is he not ‘normal’?

SSP:  you know,  skipping down the corridors, laughing to himself and clapping his hands

Wendy:  Oh (signifying acknowledgement that my other brother does all these things), yes, he does that when he’s happy

SSP: he’s happy in the corridors at school?

Wendy: yes,  he’s always been able to entertain himself and find things to make him smile

SSP: He’s weird

He  is still a happy soul, able to entertain himself and skip down the street when he’s happy.  It’s as cute in a man in his 50’s as it was for a boy in his teens.  I just bounce,  I find that the less complex up-down movement reduces the likelihood that I will fall over. 

A deficit of skipping must be a very sad thing,  as indeed the beautiful, be-hatted, talented, lip-synch-averse, wiggly, much missed Billie MacKenzie recognised:

The Associates sang Skipping

 Can you see them?

Scary!

A family of biddies and the bunnies (SylvaC).  I really must put a cap on the bunny habit,  before I am lured into the church of the cosmic bunny,  or the odd hare that creeps in for a quick box while gazing at the moon. 

Lucid dreaming is apparantly quite rare.  Excel has told me that the 10 friends and family who replied to my emailed question ‘do you lucid dream?’ were all wildly over educated, regularly creative (musicians, poets, designers, teenager), and all except 1 are either not-married or over the age of 30.  More specifically:

5/10 people do Lucid dream, including:

• 2/5 males
• 3/5 girls
• 3/3 immediate relatives

It’s fun,  I’d highly recommend it if you don’t already indulge…

Bros:  he was alright except for the lists

Wendy:  the lists?

Bros:  Yes,  the lists,  you remember how he would make lists all the time for even trivial things?

Wendy:  errr,  yes,  of course,  the lists

It appears that my brother has not yet noticed my pocket-size book of lists that has travelled all over the world (and Reading) with me. Nor has he recognised the intrinsic Wendy-appeal of someone that blazenly employs lists in public.

climbs trees with a nylon sleeping bag for a sleep-out party with his friend

puts his bum against the open window of the car so that his silent but deadly fart doesn’t disturb the other car occupants then giggles incessantly for 20 miles

chops off his fingertip with an axe then runs around shaking his hand to increase the polkadot patterning on mums walls

makes a multi-level gerbil cage out of an old sideboard

sings into a microphone strapped to a standard lamp,  without removing the lampshade

writes the name of the girl that he loves on the inside flap of his school canvas haversack in different pens,  fonts and colours

ramps up the volume on the house stereo and arranges an echo, closes the window blinds,  peeks through then whispers in high volume ‘this is the voice of god’ when he sees a schoolchild in uniform walking by outside

earnestly says ‘you’ve failed?  how did that happen,  you’re the clever one’

Takes me into a record shop and says,  you can have any record you want,  its on me.  I pick the first Album he ever bought ‘Ride a White Swan’ by T.Rex

Persuades a friend to drive him to the warehouse 2hrs away where I’m holding my 21st birthday shindig,  Gives me 6 marbles and waits for me to be disappointed,  then gives me a hipflask full of Napoleon Brandy saying ‘I was going to have it engraved with to my wonderful sister,  but I didn’t’,  stays at the warehouse when his friend decides to drive back before midnight

Says of his visits to me at university ‘I wish my time at University had been as good as this’

Calls his first cat ‘f*ck-off’ because the cat followed him back from a superstore and he didn’t want it to,  then takes the cat everywhere in his Trenchcoat pocket and renames her Hoagie after Hoagie Carmichael

Drives a soft-top MG Midget despite his head creating a big upward dent in the roof because he’s 6ft4

 corrects my pronunciation

During a conversation about films that are substantially at variance with the books that provided their original title and approximate plot and characters: 

Wendy:  W’thering Heights

Bros:  WUH,  Wuh-thering Heights

Wendy: yes,  that’s what I said W’thering Heights

Bros:  Wendy,  Wuh-thering has a U in it

niece & her friend: (snigger,  sniggger,  snigger,  hiding mouths behind hands and flashing smiles at each other and checking to see if we ‘adults’ notice)

Bros:  (shakes his head and tuts)

 Wendy:  (decides not to mention that Bros appears to have failed to count the double-u)

viewer of my desktop background (vomdb):  are they yours?

Wendy: (?????) I took the picture

vomdb:  yes, but are they yours?

Wendy:  I don’t own the flats,  but they looked pretty in the sunset so I took a photograph of them

womdb:  are they your children playing football?

Wendy:  no,  but that’s my shadow behind the shadow of that tree

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.

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.

Wendy aged 12 (1975): can I have my ears pierced?
Mumzie: when your are 18yrs
Wendy: will you pay for it?
Mumzie: yes, when you are 18yrs
Wendy: if I pay for it can I have it done now?
Mumzie: yes if I choose the place that you get it done and come with you.

-

Wendy aged 18 (1981): remember you said you’d pay for me to have my ears pierced when I’m 18.
Mumzie: you’ve had them pierced already, I’m not paying for a second piercing, I’ll throw you out, if you get them pierced a second time.

-

Mumsie didn’t notice the second piercing for nearly 6 months.  Rather than throw me out she sighed very heavily and used the mumsie version of the Chinese water torture.  almost lethal.

The younger generations of the House family have, more topical, gory, body-piercing stories, because time has changed the etiquette of piercings

I did my upmost to light family festive barneys by:

• eating a whole jar of pickled beetroot at one meal.
• Using the wrong remote-control (choice of 6) to change TV channels. 
• asking for porridge.
• Securing the largest portion of Triffle.
• mentioning that ‘run cmd’ provides access to a DOS window in XP

First time Taxiing Bros:

Bros:  are we going the usual way (voice stress indicates some concern)

Wendy: I don’t know,  you’ll have to direct me to the usual way

Bros:  it’s the other way

Wendy: 180 degrees in the other direction is going the usual way?

Bros: Yes

I turn around in the car park of a local Medical centre.  Bros. explains this is the medical centre he normally uses.  It will close for-ever when another one is completed further away from his home.  Approaching Bristol, Bros continues describing the usual way then comments that he hasn’t done this for 2 years so the Roads might have changed.  I managed to reproduce near-enough the usual way.  A way I had never taken because Uncle Vaughan set the usual way for my brother.

Mini Wendy’s are herded by their parents into providing their Maiden Aunts with helpful lists lest they get the normal bizarre undesirable obscurities she normally offloads their way in the name of goodwill.

Lets take a moment for a thematic analysis of these lists.  The 13yr-old has covered her back against seemingly being disapointed by adding the item ’surprises’ to her clearly titled pink,  heart-bulleted, picture illustrated, word-document list.  Outstanding job,  not least the request for a hair straightner,  dropping the clearly superflous e was a stroke of pure genious.

By age 15yrs the Mini Wendy has grasped the usefulness of hyperlinks and chosen them over pictorial representations.  The top-shop and over the kee socks references are clearly fashion references that perhaps I could learn from.  Hmmm…   And the lassie has clearly dealt with my impending myopia,  excellent forward thinking there.

Good to see the mini Wendy’s are developing the Wendy trait for list construction.  Clearly the girls are growing into fully rounded capable young Wendys

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…

My parents moved home in April 1982 when I was 18yrs studying for my A level’s in June 1982. 

Mum & Dad had been looking for a new home earnestly since 1977.  After 2 years of their looking I no longer took their house- hunting seriously.  I saw a fussiness that would rule-out all almost-right choices.  Hmmm….  like parents like daughter?  lets just not go there.  Suddenly in January 1982 they found a house nowhere near my school and succssfully purchased it.  They placed me in a foster-home for me to cover April 1982 thru June 1982.  Due to a vicious bout of the flu I was bed-ridden and couldn’t join in the choice.

My parents picked hosts who were a couple starting on their second marriage,  both recently divorced from their first marriages.  He was a ‘Royal Engineer‘ who was thoroughly commited to the Faulklands war that started in April 1982 both were staunch supporters of the Ronald Regan and conservative Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.   I hated the stink in the home.  Their Labrador puppy peeing on the floor daily didnt help. The couple made it clear that my coloured friend should not come to their house.  She was not an appropriate person for me to spend time with.  They explained to me that it embarressed them and lowered the tone of the neighbourhood to see her walking towards their house.  Soon it became obvious that my male-friends were also not allowed to call at this house, apparantly it made their home look like it was a brothel. 

I had friends of all colours and genders,  but only the white females were allowed to be seen walking to their house.  Even this honoured class had to be dressed appropriately,  meaning some form of Victorian image of demure.  Village life in 1982.  It may be village life today.  At the time I was furious with my parents for leaving me there.  Retrospectively I think I learned a lot of valuable lessons from the difficult experience of living with these people.