wendy house

Mumsie helped with my wedding outfit decisions. What goes with my fabulous new Royal Stewart tartan kilt:

• Sox or stockings? Stockings – Mumsie didn’t think it was good form to reveal my bare knees to strangers. I take after Dad in the knee department, he once won a nobbly-knees contest
• Red or Black stockings? Black stockings – Mumsie felt it would be ok to wear black to a wedding nowadays. The colour is no longer reserved for mourning.  Several wedding guests were dressed completely in black. Tiger, who was actually in mourning wore a black shirt. One guest wore a white lace dress, risking a clash with the Bride’s outfit
• Red or Black shoes? Red shoes – Celebratory flatties for lots of jigging on the post-vows disco dancefloor
• White or Black shirt? White shirt
  
• Leather or velvet jacket? Leather jacket
  
• Hat or no hat – No hat!!!!!!  No-one at the wedding wore a hat.  4 women were sporting fascinators at the ceremony, but no hats or tiarras. A trend that’s changed dramatically in my wedding-going career

wendy: do you have a mobile phone?

mumsie: yes, dad has one

wendy: take it with you, it will help us meet-up, when I get off the train I’ll send you a text so you know I’m on my way

The next evening there’s a message from mum on the landline phone. This phone is now used only as a direct line to mum and dad

mumsie: ….we’ll charge-up the phone overnight on Saturday then switch it on a 8am on Sunday morning….

at this point I realise that using the mobile phone is not part of my parents everyday life.  I’ve probably caused a bit of a kerfuffle, house discussions about how to use the mobile phone…

My 90 year aunt rubs her distorted, arthritic, hands.  Despite this distortion I find her hands beautiful. Her gently winkled skin doesn’t betray her grand age

Knarled and dapper

Mumsie and her elder sister try to remember the names and professions of their long-past elderly relatives who were mainly females:

• Hetty, Emma, Amy Parkinson….
• unmarried

Even the married female relatives lived as-if they were unmarried – without their husbands, running thier own businesses:

• a Milliner – HATS!!!
• a sweetshop owner

…

Words of wisdom from  an almost stranger* and Mumsie.  Mumsie passed on this wisdom while we walked between the car park and Bristol Hippodrome

mumsie: don’t put candles on window sills

wendy: because they’ll melt in the sunshine?

mumsie: yes, tealights, those short ones in individual containers are alright because they keep their shape  when they melt

I’ve now placed some tealights in glassware on my new glass window shelves…..

* Past tips provided by Alan the hairdresser.   Lucia the hairdresser, a partying product designer, an Essex girl, an anonymous  manicurist, a Jackson’s sales assistant, a bus stop philanthropist, a mini salesman, Windows Network Diagnostics, Flat Eric, a girl on a London commuter train, a Redmond based software developer and Reading Police.

mumsie: this morning I heard mam talking in the room next door. I heard her clear as day, even though I know she died in 78.   I was listening to you 

The year started well as I rolled out of bed in my warm brushed cotton, red tartan, pyjamma set. Mumsy buys the best christmas pressies with her Marks and Spencers loyalty card. As the teapot brewed I lifted the cupboard‘s lid and logged in.

The warm, fluffy feeling started fading as Microsoft’s .NET framework announced an ‘unhandled exception‘ in MY ‘application‘.  My cheeky little application had the afrontary to so something without proper handling? Naughty!’

This verbose .NET Framework message appeared to offer me 2 choices in the first paragraph:

• ignore this error (continue button)
• force my application to close (quit button)

The second paragraph is written in jargon about turning on functions, configuring, clients, trace-logs and SDKs.  This is 2012, good practice for producing software error messages has been around for decades. Why is Microsoft still showing me outrageously poorly designed dialogs? Especially first thing in the morning of the new year.  pfft. I choose to ignore this message because it didn’t enable me to make an informed decision – which ‘application’ of mine is exceptional?

A few moments later I got a BIG clue about the exceptional  ‘application’. Mozilla:

• raised it’s hand with a message
• started its conversation with me by  apologising. Nice! This takes ownership for having caused the problem and sets the tone of the conversation with me as one of respect to me
• tells me firefox will try to fix the problem – doesn’t expect me to fix it
• politely asks for me to give them diagnostic information. Which I did

I really like the tone of voice, the attitude, of Mozilla when talking to me

As I poured my second mug of tea another potential culprit for the ‘application’ that Microsoft .NET framework found ‘exceptional’ raised it’s hand

The large, ugly, Sony Viao update dialog insisted that I update my netbook software then told me I had to reboot the cupboard.  It’s direct instructional approach feels rather rude. I follow the instructions because I’ve been trained by years of poor software to feel helpless and follow this type of condescending instruction

It’s like being in the 1990′s all over again

Do0-do Doo-do

In the 1940s mumsie’s family moved into a 3 bedroomed rented red-brick terrace house

Three of the children shared one room, one bed. They slept sideways across the double-bed.  The only married son, a Naval rating, lived with his wife in the 3rd bedroom. The first time my aunt had lived somewhere other than an orphanage, sleeping in a dormatory

The 1890′s house had a luxury modern convenience, a flushing toilet in a brick outbuilding. One of mum’s jobs was to tear the Sunday newspaper into squares, thread the squares onto  string and hang them in the outhouse. Newsprint rubbed off on her hands. The damp air in the outhouse made the paper soggy

Even in this household of 7, there was never a queue to use the one toilet. Every bedroom contained porcelain chamber pots. Mumsie calls a chamber pot a ‘po’. You could do your business in the bedroom, leave the po under the bed then carry it to the toilet to be emptied. Mum and Dad agreed that it was important that no-one saw you carrying the Po to be emptied

Even though toilets were designed to be sat on and peed into, it sounds as if,  that’s not how they were first commonly used. I remember in the 1980′s that my grandparents kept chamber pots, a commode in their bedroom

Making sure you got your phone calls was a complicated affair in the days before cell phones and answer machines. Especially for a teenager. This is just one of the problems I encountered – after coming home from a long, fun night practicing with the marching band:

Mumzie: Graham called while you were out

Wendy: Graham! Which Graham? What did he say?

Darn, now mum knows there are several Grahams in my life and he might have told her something personal.

Mumzie: there’s more than one Graham? He didn’t say what it was about dear, just said to let you know he’d called

Double darn

Clearly this is a discreat Graham. Can’t pick one out from the rest based on that description. So now I have to work out in which order to phone them back. Then how to start the conversation without giving away that I don’t know if I’m returning a call, or calling them for the first time? Then I have to work out how to advise mumzie on taking future calls from Grahams, to help her work out which one called without saying “which Graham are you?” which would make each of them feel insignificant, and they’re not. They’re all special in different ways

Life’s so complicated!

Once the joy of the tinkling bells had worn off I looked towards the end of the isle. Mum and dad weren’t there

It wasn’t fair, they could walk fast or slow. Slow was the only speed I could walk. Slow or running.  They always walked fast, I had to run, whizzing passed so many fascinating things. I’d only taken a moment to listen to the bells while mum and dad wandered off.

I ran to the end of the isle, glancing both ways then looked down every isle. From a safe distance, I even checked the escalators. No mum, dad or brothers. I hadn’t got lost. I know where I am. They are lost.  Welling tears were barely held by remembering mums’ instructions

‘what to do when you are lost’

1. stay in the last place that you saw mum, dad, your brothers or school teacher
2. do not talk to strangers
3. talk to a policeman and they will help you find mum and dad

Standing by the silent bells, soggy red-faced, I wondered if mum and dad were also staying in the last place they saw me, not talking to strangers. People were watching me and talking to each other. A lady bent down and asked if I was alright. I tried so very hard to follow rule 2, not talking to this stranger. It tooks seconds for me to fail. Mucus spluttered

I’ve lost my mummy!

Why did everyone seem so calm? Why weren’t they crying too? My friends and I always cried together. Maybe these strangers were going to take me away to an orphanage and I’d never see mum and dad again. The lady leant forward to grab me.  I scrambled out of her reach towards the bells, crying louder in the hope that someone would join in.

Wearing her angry face, Mum appeared at the end of the isle to rescue me. When angry, she walks faster. I ran all the way home trying to slow mum by singing  I want to hold your hand.

scribble inspired by Nick’s recent musings on lost children

In my valiant steps to curb my consumerism, mend my waywardness, I partake of old-fashioned passtimes such as darning socks and spurious knitwear. Mumsie taught me how to darn. Darning wasn’t a syllabus item on the compulsory (for females) Home Economics course provided by Chipping Sodbury Comprehensive school. A lot of useful home economics were omitted from my Home Economics education. It wasn’t comprehensive by any stretch of the imagination.

Recently I’ve added ‘Brickette‘ making to my many economic home skills. Here’s the recipe

1. Borrow a brickette maker (I failed at this first step – I bought one)
2. Use a large (not plastic) bag to collect the shreddings from the confidential document shredder at work.
3. Empty the shreddings into a large waterpoof container (Bucket!)
4. fill the bucket with wate
5. Leave the shreddings to soak for 3 days
6. Scoop the soggy shredded paper from the bucket into the bricket maker and squish into a brickette
7. Leave the soggy brickette in the sun tor dry-out. I’ve placed my first brick in my log-store

Three days to make one brick. I only have one bucket. I wonder how many bricks I’ll be able to make this summer? I wonder how well they’ll work as fuel on the woodburner. Apparantly it is possible to make brickettes from tea bags…

As a pre-school child one of my absolute favourite games was Wednesday’s washing the bathroom floor. Mumsie would fill up a beach-bucket with warm foamy water, give me a smallhand-size brush and leave me in the bathroom. I was allowed to slop the hot foamy water all over the floor. What FUN! When I’d finished I told mum and she’d come in and finish off the details with her own BIG bucket of soapy water and a towel. I’d help with the towel

During my first week at school, when I got home on Wednesday I asked for my bucket to help wash the bathroom floor, but mum had already done it. I cried

Psychologists call this ‘Classical‘, as oppose to ‘Operant’ conditioning, where a person (originally tested with dogs) learns to associate the co-occurence of an event (bell ringing) with a rewarding experience (enjoyment of food) such that when the event contiunes without the reward the dog behaives as-if the reward is coming.

For me this was associating ‘fun’ with washing the floor, the association still exists to this day. As soon as the hot soapy water hits the bathroom floor, I’m thinking ‘YAY Bubbles, SWISH!

Thanks to mumzie for having the insight to let this happy association happen

The opening piece of the evening was Morrow from Gattaca (re-used as a ‘theme’ in the film Atonement). Mistaking the track for Departure, within minutes tears were streaming down my face.

wendy: I first fell in love with Nyman’s music in 1983 when I saw the Draughtsman contract

mumsie: I remember, you’ve been playing Nyman’s music to me ever since

As we talk I realise how each time I purchased a Michael Nyman album I would bring it to mum and dads then play it to mumsie, insisting that she listened. I remember her continuing to do the laundry, prepare dinner, vacuum the house, never seeming to take time out to focus on just listening.

Now, watching the Bournmouth Symphony Orchestra (BSO) perform pieces that  I’d only previously heard. I noticed new things; how the lead Violin spoke to the lead Viola in Trysting fields, how the voices of different instruments came from different places. Listneing to music in the car, the instruments seem to be disembodied, the have no place to come from.

After the tuba’s and french horns had made some floor rocking contributions to ‘a watery death’:

mumsie: he does like his brass

wendy: which one is the Cor anglais?

mumsie: next to the Oboe’s, the tall thing that loops to the floor and back

wendy: woodwind?

mumsie: yes

Mumsie was pleased to recognise all the pieces. The closing scheduled piece, Memorial, was Nyman’s tribute to the victims of the 1985 Heysel stadium disaster. They decided to add a lightweight encore before letting us loose on the watery night streets of Bristol. Mum was pleased, evidently the BSO don’t normally do encores.

Michael Nyman wrote ‘Departure‘

By the time I came along mumsie was a skilled child-manipulating propaganda machine. She’d gathered tips and tricks from other parents, Dr. Spock, and refined her practice on my elder brothers

Whenever we left the house mumsie always carried paper and coloured pencils. If I was cheeky enough to declare that I was bored Mumsie would remind me that:

• only stupid people couldn’t entertain themselves
• I should have bought something with me to make sure i didn’t get bored
• she had paper and coloured pencils if I hadn’t bothered to bring anything

I don’t remember the last time I was bored or even what being bored actually feels like.  Mumsie gave me the lifelong gift of being able to entertain myself, anywhere. 

Alas, along the way I picked up my own intolerance of others that lack this gift.

I’ve picked up lots of little idiosyncrasies from darling mumzie like, for example, dont touch the walls, hold onto doors or doorframes in a house. Such things are so well learned that I dont even know that I have learned them. Until, I see someone else break the unknown rule and a little shiver runs down my spine as I fight the urge to ask them not to do it, just as my mumzie once asked me not to do it.  

It is easy to go through life without touching a wall, a door frame or a door.

Strange that it should be so difficult to silently watch someone else touch them.

It’s time for plant rescue.

Plant rescue is just before the perenials begin to die for the winter. The local garden centres sell the dying plants at half price.

All year round I rescue plants from mumzies garden, she just volunteers to pull them up then pots them for me to take home. Honeysuckle, virginia creeper, oriental grasses, small alpines, her garden is gradually reproducing in mine.

Lots of singing and dancing in the isles at the Bristol Hippodrome production of The Niel Sedaka story “Laughter in the rain“.   Mumzie was jigging and clapping during the substantial encore pastiche of Sedaka songs.  Other than being familiar with the songs I knew nothing about Niel Sedakas life and I fully enjoyed the production.  

3  smiles: Ratings explained

Audience.   Given that the  production could be enjoyed with little knowledge of Niel Sedaka  it was sad to find the Hippodrome less than a quarter full on a Friday night.   Mumsie and I happily moved from our cheap seats to closer seats with a more expensive view.  Judging by the silver hair, short people with warped backs the audience were mainly over 60 years. At 46 I was probably the youngest audience member.

Venue. 1912 building with tiers,  boxes and a huge dome all  decorated in Rococo style gold plasterwork providing a lavish music hall feel. During the production I decided to pick-up a copy of Carol King’s ‘Tapestry’ and some Niel Sedaka music.   Sadly, the Hippodrome didn’t provide the opportunity for the audience to purchase this kind of related merchandise.

Production. Niel’s story moved from song to song, highlighting the personal significance of each song ‘Oh Carol’, ‘breaking up is hard to do’, and  ‘last song together’.   Some songs were cast  with a slightly new significance to move the story forward.   For example, according to album notes ‘the immigrant’ was originally written as a comment of John Lennon’s application for US citizenship being rejected.   In  this production it is sung when Niel leaves the US to come to the UK where he feels  he will be given more creative freedom to develop as an aritst than the US allowed him.   Some of the significant life events were fascinating, for example,  10cc  encouraging Niel to record any song he wanted in anyway, resulting in Solitaire then ay its inception Elton John  asking Niel to be one of Rocket Record’s artists.

The photographs of story-contenporary, buildings, people, places, and record covers projected on the backdrop as Niel’s story unfolded were fascinating social-cultural history.

Brochure

brrrrrrriiiiiiiinnng  brrrrrrriiiiiiiinnng

wendy house:   Hello!

BT operative (BT-OH!):   Hello,   is Mr or Mrs House available

wendy house: my parents don’t live here

BT-OH!: Do you pay the bills?

wendy: Are you selling me something?

BT-OH: this phone number is a BT phone number and we have a special offer on Broadband

Phone sales people often want to talk to my mother, dad or to-be-arranged-husband.   It will be sad when my reply is ‘my parents are dead’ until then it’s mildly comical.

Mumzie:    come next door with me,   to feed the goldfish

Wendy:  yes please,   how is she?

Mumzie: she died last week.  

Her children thought they’d inherit the house,  were planning to move in.   They would have been good neighbours.   But she had a  reverse mortgage which means the bank owns the house and is selling it.

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.

Matrix starts chasing her tail.    She has never chased her tail before. I stop making the bed to watch her playfulness,   she is bearing her teeth and growling.   She falls over, her bowels open and her body twitches wildly.   After  less than a  minute she stops convulsing and lies still.   I pick her up and carry her to a warm soft bed on the floor by the phone while I call the emergency vet.   Matrix and I cry as I dial.    

While  the vet questions me. Matrix stops crying and starts to walk around.   Yes her breathing is normal,   yes her movement is normal.   She’s not dragging her back legs.   Her pupils are no longer dilated.   The vet advises me to keep her warm,   let her eat and drink and  watch her closely for an hour.   The vet says it is fairly common for aging cats to have seizures.

I called mumzie.   “Oh yes dear,   Jason had a seizure while he was sleeping,   about 4 years before he died.    He hardly noticed it,  I did because he emptied his bowels all over our nice new sofa, what a mess”

Peacefully, Matrix watched while I cleaned the mess.

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…

In the early 1980′s student’s didn’t have mobile phones.  

I lived in downtown Birmingham on the 18th floor of a towerblock full of students.   The towerblock  had one,    ONE,  public phone in the entrance way.   Always a long queue  and no soundproof surround.     I rarely phoned mumsie.   Only when I was near a phone booth that didn’t have half a dozen people queuing  to use it.   Normally this would be  in the early hours of the morning at gig’s.     I would use the change I had saved for the bus home to call mumzie.     She wasn’t always best-pleased by my sense of timing.   The calls went something like

Wendy:   Helllllloooooooo mumsie!

Mumsie: do you know what time it is?

Wendy: It’s TIME to call mumzie!

Mumsie:   Have you been drinking?

Wendy:   could well be!

Mumsie:   Oh Gwendolyn!   Are you eating properly?

Wendy:   Chips and curry sauce fresh, ahem,  from the van,   YUMMY!

Mumsie:   we worry about you darling

Wendy:   ARRRRR!   You’re so sweet,   there’s no need to worry mum,   I’m nearly all grown up but I’m fast running out of change…

beep-beep-beeep-beep-beep-beep

Mumsie:   goodnight dear, take care…

One such call happened  after listening to the live version of this little gem…

Spear of Destiny sing They’ll never take me alive

In 1983 a poster in the local Student’s Union said ‘The Housemartins are quite good,   London – 0, Hull – 4  .   Being as the ever sensible and caring mumzie hails from Hull and ‘quite good’ is well-worthy praise I popped along to enjoy an unexpectedly outstanding evening of hip wiggling, cardigan-wearing, socialist music of fitting proportions.        They also had a fairly prophetic perspective on bankers.

The Housemartins sang sheep

Before I had any influence over the parental record collection, and I’m not sure that I do now,  mumzie would play music by  artistes that included at least one keyboard.   Mumzie has an impressive vinyl collection covering Rachmaninoff   through early Niel Sedaka to Barbara Dickson.   Her collection judiciously excludes Barry Manilow and the flamboyant charms of Liberace.  

In 1975 Mumsie was thrilled by a Niel Sedaka cover featuring multiple keyboards,   and a man called ‘captain’ wearing a hat.     Though still pre-teen, I was beginning to develop serious scepticism about my parent’s music tastes…

The Captain and Tenille sang ‘love will keep us together’ in  1975.  

I do love the sound of a banjo before bedtime.   This lullaby  is the first song that I remember singing.   During those good old days, sing-along-a-mumzie was a regular and highly valued feature of my daily life (1966).    The lullaby musical genre appears slightly  under-exploited by current popsters.

The Seekers sang Morningtown ride

Thanks to Scarlet for introducing ‘jukebox monday’ on her blog, an idea I am shamelessly apeing here in The Wendy House.

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.  

Mumzie:   GWENDOLYN!   Remember to shut the fridge door after you’ve used the milk

Wendy:   ………

In the US my fridge door was weighted,   it fell shut automatically.   Slightly irritating when making a cup of tea at a leisurely pace.   Here in the UK my fridge door is not weighted.   If I forget to shut it the fridge tries to cool the whole kitchen.  

Memories of mumzies wise words shiver around the room…

BT Support Engineer:   Mrs. House…

Wendy:   …my mother isn’t here

BT Support Engineer:   can I talk to her?

Wendy:   I don’t see why,   its my phone,   my home,   my internet connection and I’m 44,   why do you need to talk to my mother?

BT Support Engineer:   Ms. House?

Wendy:   Yes?

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