wendy house

 OMD sang Electricity

OMD quickly earned a favoured position in my teenage heart when I first heard Electricity. This song reminds me of home, of warmth and comfort. Most of all reminds me of Dad getting excited about Pylons, happily ethusing.  His excitement is contagious.

Dad started work for an electricity supply company in the early 1950′s.  Exciting times for an Engineer specialising in supplying electricity to the UK.  Building infrastructure, planning routes to lay cables and overhead lines. Dad is still passionate about the details of the tools of his trade.  He has photograph albums dedicated to Pylons.

He’s recently returned from a trip to China. He treated us to the holiday photo’s on the family TV. Amongst the photographs of temples, rivers, mountains, village streets were numerous photographs of pylons. 

Whenever I see a Pylon, transformer, dam, or insulator I think fondly of Dad.  How his face lights up and he starts talking about what’s interesting about this particular thing, its age, its construction process, its location or ability to withstand high winds.

Not only is his excitment contagious,

I now find myself taking photographs of Pylons whenever I go on holiday.

Every visit to my parents’ home brings new suprises

Each suprise like a crumb on a trail leading into a the blackest forest.  

My parents are gently walking into thier story of old age, fumbling into darkness and deafness.  Holding each others hands, quibbling like children, I watch them waddle away. 

Hailstones on the hearth.   Straight down my parents chimney the hailstones  bounce across the floor where the cats catch them before they melt.   But nothing interrupts the family Dr. Who Festival.   Dr. Who is on the Edge of Destruction.   Breaths are bated.

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.