:: The Wendy House ::

HIF: Did you enjoy your holiday in Italy?

Wendy:  yes

HIF: are you all fresco’d out?

Wendy:  yes

The Piccolomini library in Siena was outstanding, fabulous books, floor tiles, wall frescos, ceiling frescos, quiet ambience, excellent lighting and virtually no other visitors.

The driver smokes a short filterless cigarette, awaits a passenger. 

Not any passenger. 

Not Flat Eric.   

A passenger from a windowless room.

We passby,  missing the passenger emerge, missing the small car leave.

Stylish wheels in Florence with low environmental impact enable the locals to surrepticiously pass by large and well protected

glass

window

panes

Bangladeshi restaurant in Earley, Reading.

Dressed in white shirts and black neatly ironed trousers the Garden of Gulab staff welcomed me into their restaurant and were able to find a table for one in the crowded restaurant.  The customers looked and sounded pale skinned English,  the staff looked and sounded more Asian. 

My choice was a Balti.  I love Balti’s,  ever since I started eating them in the mid 1980s in a local Birmingham Sparkbrook restaurant on Ladypool Road.  The Ladypool road restaurant I used had no flatware and the staff would treat you as if you were an irritant if you had the afrontery to insult their food by asking for flatware.  I learned to eat my food properly,  with my fingers. 

It’s not easy. 

In the Garden of Gulab I ate my meal with my fingers leaving the impressive, superfluous, traditional English flatware untouched.  In Birmingham I was given a thick soft damp heated flanel to clean my hands after the meal.  In the Garden of Gulab I was given an individually plastic-wrapped disposable wet-paper-wipe.  Functionally sufficient yet lacking the touch of quality that I had learned to enjoy.  The food was excellent if disappointingly mild compared to my Birminghan experiences.  The balti arrived in an ordinary metal dish,  not the sizzling hot Balti bowl that it had been cooked in.  

Mumzie doesn’t like Indian food,  I think she’d thoroughly enjoy this place and the food. 

The waiter bought a complimentary small brandy to my table explaining it was because I had finished my main meal quickly.  

Excellent English-i-fied version of an Indian restaurant and charming staff. 

What is the best 45th birthday present for a Wendy?  A four day weekend in Siena with spottydog as

• tour organiser.
• tour guide. 
• conversational sparring partner. 
• first-aid specialist,  she’ll have the plasters for when I fall-over, which she reliably informs me that I will, because I’ll be looking up at the architecture rather than at street-level obstacles.
• personal shopper,  because she has this uncanny skill for inducing me to part with cash like no other person I have ever met.
• extended memory.

Excitedness levels have already reached amber.  Spotty dog has cunningly avoided booking through the recently defunct XL, travelling at ridiculous hours of the day,   waiting at transport interchanges for silly, silly, times and other such icky nonsense.

Excellence

included multiple boob-topped churches,  deserted dawns shared with the departed,   livingly sociable sunsets announced by rather flat church bells,   mules trains,  smiling old people,   sculpted young people,  versataile windmills,  stylish alleys often containing sleek kitties,  oodles of sunshine, beer and clear blues. 

On top of all these standard Greek holiday experiences I learned about the real sailing motoring experience from a chain-smoking German skipper in the company of a pack of youngsters.  I learned real sailing involved:

1. being prepared not to sail.
2. feeling sick.
3. not doing a poo in the loo of a boat moored in a Greek harbour.
4. wearing white to hide the cumulative sea-salt crystals.
5. knowing knots.
6. charging small ‘devices; in Tavernas.

<list-overdose event warning>

Below is a list of the stuff that GAP recommended that I pack where the ticks (US = check mark) indicate how many of an item I carried.  Items not actively used during the holiday are struck-through:

• Passport (with photocopies)  ü
• Travel insurance (with photocopies) ü
• Airline tickets (with photocopies) ü
• Euros and travellers cheques ü
• Credit or debit card (see personal spending money) ü
• G.A.P Adventures vouchers, pre-departure information and dossier ü
• Any entry visas or vaccination certificates required ü
• Camera and film ü
• Reading/writing material üüüü
• Cover or plastic bags for backpacks ü
• Flashlight ü
• Windproof/waterproof jacket/rain poncho ü
• Small towel and swim wear üüü
• Warm sweater ü
• 4 shirts/t-shirts üü
• Sunhat üüüü
• 2 pair of shorts üü
• 1 pair of long trousersü
• 1 pair hiking pants/track pants ü
• Hiking boots/sturdy walking shoes (for shore excursions) ü
• Sport shoes with light colored soles/sport sandals (while on board) ü
• Biking gloves (if you wish to participate in sailing - optional) ü
• Sunblock ü
• Sunglasses üüüü
• Toiletries (biodegradable) ü
• Flashlight ü
• Watch or alarm clock ü
• Water bottle ü
• First-aid kit (should contain lip salve, Aspirin, Band Aids, anti-histamine, any extra prescription drugs you may be taking). ü

Striking holiday characteristics hidden in the above list include my:

• Not falling-over (band-aids not used) .
• Not loosing my passport.
• Not wearing more than one pair of shoes during the fortnight.
• Only getting 4 mosquito bites.  I think the high winds helped.
• Wearing only 3 different pairs of glasses during the fortnight.
• Managing with only 4 hats,  I suspect I needed more.
• Being able to see by the light of the moon.
• not wearing trousers or knickers.

<list-overdose temporarily suspended>

t may be in the park,  but e is defintiely in the Greek Island beach disco bar.

In a disco infected bar on Santorini one of the pack commented on the extensive evidence of e-nhancements:

Poodle: I can’t believe all the boob jobs around here,  its increadible!

Wendy: you mean like that girl in the sequinned bikini?

Poodle:  Yes,  and that girl,  and that one, and…

The disco smelt of e-strogen affilitated enhancements and the bar music played ‘…you are just a sexy girl, nothing but a sexy girl…’ 

Poodle and my un-enhanced selves looked beautiful in our simple gently curved, gravity aligned, purity.

7am on our non-sailing day on Ios while the rest of the crew slept  I found some deliciously freshly baked pain au chocolate in the port Bakery.  The merchandising of bakery goods at this early (late?) hour implies some party island requirements.

All day large ferries docked in the harbour and hundreds of young adults with backpacks and wheely-suitcases rolled on and off.

After mooring we grabbed our towels and wash bags and trooped off to the public showers.  We took turns using the showers for 3 Euros a turn.  It felt sooooooooo luxurious washing the crystalised Aegean salt from skin and hair in a room large enough to be able to wave your arms around,  a classic shower requirement.  No longer did I feel like a walking emery board or look like I suffered from all over body dandruff.

Real sailing experience #4: wearing white hides the cumulative sea-salt crystals

Over dinner we consulted with our cruise director (weather forcast) and persuaded Afghan to let us stay a second day and night on Ios.  No-one wanted a repeat rinse in the washing machine…..

We arrived in Ios exhausted.  The skipper explained we could not use the showers or do ‘number twos’ while in the harbour because Greek boat effluence is ejected directly into the harbour.  The small island harbours would quickly become noticably fowled if all the moored boat-crews used soap-suds and did our poos in it.  Afghan suggested that we could

‘get a free coffee when paying a couple of Euros to use toilets in the local hostelrys’

[seadog laughter]  Ha HA HA HA!’

real sailing experience #3: do not poo in the loo of a boat moored in a Greek harbour

After introductions Afghan told us that the weather forecast was too rough to complete a sail to the next Island, even Ferry’s were being cancelled due to the seasonally characteristic high winds known as the meltemi.  While clearly a good decision given the high waves,  this was a damping suprise to the whole pack. Afghan explained using essential information omitted from the promotional material, girls are in control:

‘mother nature is our cruise director’ 

 ‘the Aegean is a bitch’

[seadog laughter]  Ha HA HA HA!’

 real sailing experience #1:  be prepared not to sail. 

The pack spent the first afternoon on-land bonding at a beach-side disco-Taverna called JoJo’s; drinking beer, dancing, talking, reading books, sunbathing, sketching, meeting other tourists, swimming and making cell-phone calls/texts.  

In  subsequent blog posts my companions on our recent Aegean odyssey are represented by canines to allow your imagination to create scenes potentially more bizarre than the actual events.  Meet the pack arranged in order of sailing experience:

• JoJo: the 50ft Bavaria50 yaught, chartered by GAP, that housed the pack for 10 days this summer.
• Afghan Hound (50s):  JoJo’s skipper, German. Single, daughter at college.  Afghan wants to provide a genuine sailing experience, provide each pack member with a good, safe, holiday and manage the Greek based team of GAP skippers.
• Chocolate Labrador (46): Rhode Island, US, married.  Owns a small sail boat.  Labrador is using time when sailing-unenthusastic spouse is working away to indulge passions for sailing and exploring foriegn cultures.  Labrador has attempted to learn Greek conversation with the support of utube.  I met Labrador in 2004 when we shared a room on a GAP tour of Costa Rica.  Labrador doesn’t snore or produce smelly farts in the night.  Knowing this, we planned to share a cabin on JoJo.
• Border Collie (44): Reading, UK, steadily single (me, Wendy),  I have an ancient RYA Dinghy sailing licence, level 2, acquired at a Royal Navy training base.  The training methodology involved a perplexing frequent use of the Anglo-Saxon word for copulation in an apparently unsystematic and technically inaccurate manner.  I joined in with the liberal and unsystematic use of this term which did appear to stump the Navy trainers.  For a couple of years I owned a Byte that successfully decorated my garage in the US.  I want to explore the current and past Greece at a leisurely pace, repeatedly dive off JoJo, avoid the sunshine, drink beers, read books, practice sketching and bolster my memory with notes and photographs.
• Golden Retriever (30): Minnesota, US, has pottered about on boats on the Great lakes,  is married to
• Springer Spaniel (30): Minnesota, US, has also pottered about on boats on the Great Lakes.  Spanial has known the Retriever since pre-school,  started dating in high school.  They are interested in Temples,  archeological artefacts, museums, social anthropological history and sunbathing on-deck.
• Red Setter (30): Seattle, US, recently divorced.  No sailing experience. Red doesn’t tolerate unfairness, and is equipped with the intellect to quickly talk-back when encountering mistreatment and unfairness.  Red wants to dance and explore culture.  This is the first vacation Red has taken alone abroad,  Red arrived early and tried out the Youth Hostel in Thira.
• Standard Poodle (26): Sidney, Australia, Greek parents, no sailing experience, unmarried and behaving as if in love.  This involved cell phone predominantly attached to ear and conversations like ‘no you hang-up first’ and sleeping with the cell-phone clasped between both hands on their sternum.  Poodle had saved a long time to be able to afford this holiday which started in Spain,  involved visiting family in Athens and ould continue after the sail in Corfu.  Poodles luggage was of a different opinion.  It never arrived in Greece. As far as I know it is still AWOL. Poodle arrived with the bare essentials; cell-phone, credit card, swimwear and toothbrush looking forward to meeting the luggage, sunbathing,  dancing and partying. 

Inside Jojo before setting sail:               

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…  

The travel company has provided a trip dossier that includes a very specific pre-holiday check-list on what to pack!  Useful and appealing to my listophilia:   

I’m a tad concerned about the lack of underwear and nightwear worn by my fellow passengers, self, and the skipper. Publically displayed jiggly-bits can put one off one’s beer or book.  The lack of ’dressing’ requirements for evenings in the Taverna, or Temple visiting, is also a tiny disappointment.  Luckily for the male guests there are no requirements to bring skirts or dresses. All the listed gear fits into this holdall with space to spare, for an unlisted skirt, underwear, binoculars and possibly a pretty dress.   I’m still waiting for my promised paper airline ticket to arrive…

While packing a day-bag to attend a local water-festival I noticed that my Oakley prescription sunglasses were not,  as expected, nestled amongst my collection of spectacles dating back to 1979,  in my spectacle drawer. 

There was a minor panic outbreak  because I will need these glasses for my rapidly impending Greek Sailing Holiday.  I quickly searched all sensible places where I may have put a pair of sunglasses.  They weren’t anywhere sensible.  The following morning I double-checked all the sensible places,  the following morning I looked in a few down-right silly places to put sun glasses (e.g. spare tea caddy).

3 days later,  my morning random search for the oakleys included my winter-jumper draw. There they were,  between two wool jumpers…..  

The passport under the sink and the sunglasses between the woolly-jumpers are two of the Wendy House mysteries that may never be explained…

in less than one hour of excited pre-holiday preparation I called the:

• credit card company to check on how to deal with a lost or stolen card while out of England and gave them the dates and location of my travel to make sure they didn’t cancel my card when used in GREECE.
• medical insurance company to verify my coverage and what I should do when I fall over in GREECE.
• home insurance company to order a copy of my policy and check on what’s covered if taken out of the country (to GREECE) and find out if I need to replace my locks*.
• Water authority** to check some billing details.
• mumzie to let her know that I’m ok,  haven’t fallen over today,  yet and I will be safe when abroad.

* Apparantly, my contents are insufficiently valuable for them to require that I upgrade the Wendy House stable-door bolts.

** This has nothing to do with my HOLIDAY,  but I was on a roll with the phone-calling and wanted to keep the momentum going.

Red excitedness characteristics:

• falling over.  Think or how the USS enterprise wobbles and throws the crew from side to side when attacked by the klingons or travelling through an asteroid belt.
• dribbling.  Pouring tea becomes particularly tricky leaving drips all over the place.
• Perpetual waffling. A striking lack of precision in speach and writing rather like rambing only not in the countryside but in words and really not worthy of reading. Editor skills are desperately needed during a red alert to head-off the waffle effect.
• tears before bedtime. Over spilt tea,  bruised knees, being misunderstood etc

Why now?

Only 4 weeks before my Greek sailing holiday!  I’ve made the lists & purchased the essentials.  From here-on in its all about getting over-excited. 

The Euro may not have been adopted by the UK as national currency but the UK has adopted providing easy access to the Euro.  I can pick-up my Euros, for my rapidly impending Greek holiday,  at this bank cash machine in downtown Reading!  Hoorah!  

My debit account card will actually work in Greece charged in GBP at the conversion rate on the day of purchase and a per transaction fee of 75 pence.

Amber excitedness characteristics:

• unpredictable outbreaks of persistent smiling.
• mugs of undrunk tea appearing around the house because I’ve forgotten that I have already made myself a cup of tea.
• frequent brief outbursts of hyper-inactivity.  Sitting-still to enjoy thinking about whatever I’m getting excited about.
• increased incidences of burbling.

Why now?

This year I’ll be sailing to half a dozen or so Islands in Greece with 7 strangers and a friend for 10 days on a 50ft yaught.  The trip bochure tells me that  Hemingway ‘Would have’ turned up at the Island of Sifnos,  that we can visit the Kitron Brewery on Naxos.  All over the Islands we can admire ancient architecture,  visit Churches, Temples and many many Tavernas.  Snorkling, dolphins and beaches are also mentioned.   

OooOoOOooOoOoOOoOoHHHHHHHHHhhhhhhhh

the Ray Bans are out!

Things to be aware of when flying from Heathrow to SeaTac:

How white are my knees after 6 days in Spanish August sunshine?  WHITE
How big was the person in this seat before me?  BIG
Was the pink spotty dress  just the ticket for travelling? YES
How long have my nails grown?  SCRATCHY LONG.
Focus?  what’s focus?  pre-flight BEER

forty-third in a series of posts describing the experience of taking tea,  or not taking it in this case,  English style.

Thursday Tiffin #43: withdrawal

It is highly likely that I haven’t had a cup of tea for days by now because I’m on HOLIDAY in SPAIN where its probably too HOT for proper tea. 

When I know for sure where I am and what I’m doing and whether it involves tea or not I’ll write a comment on this post about withdrawal symptons.    I can’t really be sure what’s happening because I wrote this blog entry before I left for SPAIN and used that automatic post-it widget doobry to post it now. 

Gosh,  I hope I’m alright

fifty-third in a Wednesday series of posts attempting to uncover the many mysteries of my singleness

Reason #53: see reasons 1 though 52

I’m on Holiday in SPAIN,  Madrid,  its and exotic place,  surely you can’t expect me to write sensible reasons for being single when I’m on HOLIDAY.  You’ll have to satisfy your curiosity with a bit of re-visiting earlier gems of delightful rationality because I’m GONE.  Let’s say it together, with feeling,

GONE

MADRID

SPAIN

HOLIDAY 

(gosh,  I hope I’m alright)

for 6 days in Madrid. 

Flat Eric is the biggest thing in my case,  closely followed by my sketching and wash kits… …then some token clothes and a tin of loose-leaf tea.  Books, mobile phone, laptop, music player, hats and glasses are in my carry-on handbag (US = purse).  Eric in baggage = e-baggage.

It is all that a Wendy thinks she needs.  I could be wrong…

Gosh,  I hope Eric and I arrived in Madrid together.

P.S. do not ask what Eric is doing with his paws.  It’s unpublishable.

Fifteen more books successfully released to the safety of half-price books.  In Exchange, three books paroled to the comfort of my handbag  No cash changed hands.  Bargain,  I gained book-shelf space and topically useful books… ..I feel a few more books coming on…. 

Libraries are fabulous social resources whose being is radically changing nature with the emergence of the Internet as an archive and social resources.  This Library,  Escorial, near Madrid has just made it onto my list of way-too-many-places I hope to visit.  I’ll have to use the bus* or train to get there  Brrrrrrmmmmmmm….Brrrrrrmmmmmmmm…..  

Without even leaving Madrid I may get to see an Eygyptian temple, a Palace where the Spanish Inquisition did some of its inquisiting,  fabulous deliberately leaning buildings, a very ornate post-office, a stadium bull ring, a crystal palace inspired by the London Crystal palace,  bars that Earnest Hemmingway drank in (not all of them),  graveyards, and of course the essential very tall thing for tourists to go to rather like Seattle’s Space Needle and Portsmouth’s Millenium tower.  

Then there are castles to be checked out,  like the Alcazar…  just outside Madrid…  more buses!!

* I like riding on buses

The factory announced it’s closing for the week starting July 31st.  Time for Wendy’s summer outing!  Leaving the USA,  leaving the UK,  leaving ex-English colonies, venturing into the heart of the Spanish ex-empire.  Madrid, during their infierno wearing a sheath dress in pink leopard-skin print.  Of course!

Excitement levels have risen passed new-haircut appointments towards which glasses & hats can come with me dilemmas?  Professional Wendy-observers are safely predicting regular outbreaks of:

• tourist-y activities:  Loitering around the Paseo del Prado,  taking in an art gallery or two.  Day trip to Toledo (if I haven’t already disintegrated in the 40 degrees heat)
• Wendy-y activities:  People watching over a glass of warm red wine,  sleeping,  photographing buildings and doorways,  riding buses and trains,  falling over,  talking nonsense to strangers,  exploring bars that claim hemmingway drank there,  high frequency of not making decisions.

 All examples here use a teabag in a mug with hotwater poured onto the bag.  The first photograph is in the kithcen of a Portsmouth home.  Using a pint of semi-skimmed milk from Asda and a mug featuring St Georges cross in front of a glass electric kettle.

 This is on a beach in Cornwall near Cawsand.  3 mugs of tea and two mugs of chocolate for the short people.  An inovative water-boiling-on-the-beach contraption helped ensure the water was the right temperature for tea brewing.  Once the tea had brewed sausage sandwiches were made then we finished off with another cup of tea.  The perfect way to start and wrap-up a hike to the beach.

 This is from home in Bristol.  It’s the pre-breakfast table at 7am,  my first, second and third cuppa of the day normally come from this productive little pot.  That is cup number 2 and I’m about to refill the pot with fresh tea for the biddies as they start to wake up and potter about.

Conversation in the currency exchange shop:

manager:  are you a city fan?

Wendy:  city?

manager: Manchester

Wendy: I’m a Pompey fan (sniggers)

manager:  I don’t like Zidane

Wendy:  he’s French

Algerian Customer: he’s Algerian, Like I’m Algerian,  though I am an American citizen and I drive a Mercedes that’s my Mercedes there (points out of