wendy house

.Listen to the city at night while I watch this sail boat, felucca, cross the Nile after sunset. 

Later that evening I experienced the rare treat of watching a whirling dervish.  The whirling Dervish are traditionally Sufi people and the dance takes them to another plain of consciousness.  Kiddies often discover whirling without any input from religious organisation.  Whirling is a natural way of connecting with the earth,  in my case normally by falling over.  I loved their outfits, the music, the balance, skill and peace.

The sounds of Egypt were so much more beautiful than the sounds of western cities.

The word ‘Coptic’ appears to refer to an Egyptian language spoken in Pharonic times and currently written with the Greek alphabet. 

The language is now used in the Coptic church,  a christian church with it’s own Pope (not the Catholic one).  The apostle Mark reputedly bought christianity to Egypt in the first century AD when Egypt was governed by Rome, Emperor Nero.  

The Copts seceded from the other Christian churches in the 5th century because they rejected the decision of the Council of Chalcedon (451) that Christ had a dual nature, both human and divine, believing instead that he had a single, divine nature. 

Christianity is now the largest minority Religion in Egypt.  About 95% of Egyptians are Muslim.  The christains have a difficult relationship with the state, government and some Muslims. 

The external architecture of the christain churches was such that I found them difficult to spot.  The give-away sign was a cross,  normally on a dome.

I visited the 7th century St. Mary’s hanging church in Coptic Ciaro.  Called the ‘hanging’ church because it is built overhanging the Roman gatehouse of old Cairo.  This church was increadibly beautiful.  Painted walls with motif’s that often looked celtic, arabic writing, gold-leaf. 

Wall panels were delicately carved wood inlaid with ivory in regular geometric designs.  Often straight lines constructed to enable you to see circles and curves.  The colours created a warm celebratory atmosphere,  very different from the white-washed walls of many Church of England churches.  This celebration in art appeals to me. 

I was suprised to find the paintings of people (Mary, Jesus, Saints) depicted very pale-skinned people that looked like North Europeans,  an over-emphasis on pale skins given the likely colouring of the people portrayed.  They were at least portrayed with brown-eyes and dark hair.

falls mainly when Wendy has arrived on Holiday (not on a plain in Spain).

In Egypt it only rains for a few minutes every year.  I managed to make a trip especially to the rain clouds to witness the annual event, live, as it happens, in Alexandria.  Can you see the rain cloud sneaking up behind the Alexandria citadel? 

Children ran around the street with cloths ready to wipe the local cars clean.  There was general excitement.  Clearly this was a special social occassion.  Warm rain in Alexandria.  A wonderful memory.

Here come the Rozzers

Wandering the streets of Cairo was quite tricky.  Mainly because it was tricky to avoid the Tourist police on most street corners.  They hide in their little houses.  Luckily graffitti artists often leave warnings for the tourists.  This one helped me disguise myself as a local before I was Policed.

Egyptian guide: We will go to Bomay’s pillau

Clearly I was misunderstanding what my Egyptian guide was telling me,  though visiting Bombay’s pillau in Alexandria did sound rather facinating.  The sign at the Sarapeiona temple we visited cleared-up the mystery.  The Sarapeona temple was built by Hadrian in the second century,  the same Hadrian that walled-out the Scotttish from England.  Unfortunately those darned Christians destroyed this non-christian the temple in the 4th century….   the pillar remained standing

Pompey’s pillar

No rice.  No connection to the Indian city.

Ceasars son-in-law, Pompey, had a history of disputes with Ceasar. Pompey travelled to Alexandria hoping to find refuge with the Egyptians. Upon arrival Pompey was beheaded by Ptolemy XIII as un unsolicited favour to Ceasar.  Ceasar didn’t approve.  Subsequent tourists looking for Pompey’s tomb mistakenly named the pillar in the Sarapeiona temple after him. The name remained with the pillar.

 I’ve been lured away to stay with a friend’s family in Cairo. How lucky is that?

There will be sunshine on sand, pyramids, sweat, bizarreness in bazaars,  bobbing on boats, the grandest of floppy hats and the lovely Egyptian people.

Sand maybe getting into crevices, interferring with normal blog posting services, friction and chaffing.  Please be patient, we apologise for any inconvenience this may cause

(Sax warning)

Madness sang night boat to Cairo

6am Heathrow Terminal 1 is quiet.  A young couple myself eating breakfast in the ‘Ristorante pizzeria cafe bar’.  I choose the vegetarian breakfast omelette,  testing the viability of a possible new years resolution, it tastes good

My day has already involved an exploding movement-sensitive light as I left the Wendy house. It rained glass upon me.  Luckily I had my hood-up against the rain and didn’t get sprayed with glass.   In the Reading rail-air bus terminal I met an elderly Australian gent.  He looked at my fake Australian zebra skin hat with no comment while he bemoaned the rain outside and having to visit Britain (Wales) to see his terminally ill mother. 

No queues at checkin or security clearance.  SWEET

The customs officer said ‘Cairo is too far north for that hat’  We laughed

In a mock Bavarian village nestling in the Cascade mountains there is an store that specialises in selling Australian goods.  I purchased a fake Zebra skin cowboy hat that kept the sun from my neck in the Nevada desert and New York.  The Australian Zebra skin hat will be joining Eric and I in the Egyptian desert next week. 

Todays texts:

Friend in Cairo: How do you fancy camping overnight in the Desert next Thursday? Tents and drinks provided.

Wendy: YES PLEASE!

continue reading “desert holiday hat”

Words of wisdom from an almost stranger*. in this case a girl on the commuter train to London Paddington:

“don’t wear Ecco shoes,  they’ll make you look like a really boring old person”

I would have followed this advice

except 

Ooops!  it’s toooooo late

I picked up these little green dudes in a sale,  as preparation for my upcoming HOLIDAY in CAIRO.  They have the phrase ‘pat pending’ on the sole.  Just like the wacky races character.  I love that!  The garish green is pretty darn cool too,  for a wrinkly, if this is what boring old people wear,  then so be it.

* Past tips provided by Alan the hairdresser.  Lucia the hairdresser, an anonymous manicurist, a Jackson’s sales assistant, a bus stop philanthropist, a mini salesman, Windows Network Diagnostics, Flat Eric and Reading Police.

On Holiday!  Out in the country!  Sheep, cows, fields, tractors, all the advantages of rural living.  Anything could happen…

The farmers boys sang in the country

Questions have been asked. 

The anwers are mostly: YES,  Hooray!  Holiday in September.

This holiday is a secret mission. I can divulge it will be near Cornwall with the aid of mud, dirt, earth and soil.  Though not necesssarily in that order or spelking.  Blog posts will be coded.  Blog post codes will protect the anonymity of people I meet, tail and snoop around.

The Wendy House alert level has been raised to amber.  Over excitement is setting in with

• Spates of chaotic packing, unpacking, repacking
• Oubreaks of listing
• Incidents of falling over
• Tears before bedtime
• Turbo injected fiction

I’ll send you some blog post cards with the blog post codes

wish me luck

x

The natural harbour at Falmouth is one of the cheapest places to store large, unused, container ships. 

We counted 7 of these large automotive carrier ships stored in the tiny, otherwise picturesque, Falmouth harbour.  The ships are waiting for the automotive industry to either come out of recession or decide to send them to the scrap yard.

At Pendennis castle, a wedding party finished their breakfast then photographic sessions in time for the bride to be whisked away by the whirling winds of passion and tears of happiness mixed with the rain.  Beautiful.  A groom tackling a kilt would have added a cherry to my experiential cake.

On a Falmouth street an elderly gentleman caught me gazing into his front garden, admiring the plants.

He came out and apologised that his wife, who maintained the garden, wasn’t available to give me a tour of the tiny garden and name specific plants.

Spotty dog and I then accompanied him on his walk down a steep hill to the dentist.  On the walk he told us how his house was once a Quaker school and brief histories of several other houses on the street.

Cornish folk are extremely personable.

Cornish bus drivers would check when people got on their buses that they knew where to get off and how to get back. 

The passengers slept thought the journey while the buses dodged the plants which grabbed at them from the side of the high hedgerows encroaching from either side of single-lane roads.

The locals on Helston bowling green persistently tried to get Spotty dog and myself to join them because they needed what they called ‘young-blood’ especially that of ladies.  Spotty dog and myself managed to escape with all our own blood before the games ended

Beach hut anyone? 

 Delivered, installed, then removed at no extra cost.

Holiday warning!  Cornwall here we come!

With my

Rod Stewart haircut,

Oakley sunglasses,

figure hugging fab frocks,

I’ll be wandering over the rocks on the coast.    

Rock chic!

There will also be the standard Wendy, none-rock chic, outbreaks of:

• A bit of paddling
• collecting pretty coloured, pocket-sized, pebbles 
• eating fish and chips wrapped in newspaper for supper
• wearing Sunhats galore (consecutively)
• reading a book about the Medici
• blowing rasberries at the seaguls
• riding the local BUSES on windy cliffside roads

Excitedness levels are already Amber.  OH!

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: