One recent Sunday afternoon the neighbours, local Reading celebrities, and a gal from West Sussex dropped by to warm the wendy house over lashings of tea and cake. A jolly civilised affiar with a little bit of dribbling. During the goings-on I discovered many useful facts including:
- a local granny can climb the walls to escape from a locked cemetry after dusk.
- the Wendy House was converted from a garage in 1968 partly explaining the dangerous staircase.
- my nieghbours have lived all over the world - Kenya, Italy, India, Edinburgh before settling in Reading. Excellent company.
- the Readibus preferred gift to welcome a newcomer is a bottle of wine.
- the bath works best for a person under 5ft 2 (as do the stairs).
- house numbers evolve. One person’s home had evolved from without number to number 4 then number 2…
I suspect I missed some real news treats while in the Kitchen warming the pots, I wonder what other goodies these people are going to share with us in the upcoming years….
obviousness
pressies are a good thing.
disguises
encountered in a 24hr period last week:
- can I see your ID card please? asked the cashier in the Fridge before checking-out my beers. The legal requirement for purchasing alcohol in Washington State is 21yrs. I look all of my 42yrs. Cautious organisations standardly check beer purchasers ID if they look 30 or under and some standardly check everyones’ ID. The cashiers in the Fridge only check some people. They normally allow me to purchase my beer without having to whip out my drivers licence as evidence of post-21-ism. That this cashier felt the need to check my ID for my age was a flattering pressie.
- Bonus laughter. In line with my occassional soppiness theme an expected package, Poetry BOOK, arrived with a pertinent hand written quote of JM Barrie (who authored another Wendy, my antithesis) and a jacket review from the bespectabled John Hegley. As if Smelling that book was not pressie enough, it arrived with 2 unexpected performance poetry CD’s and a hand-written note indicating these are bonus laughter. Smelling and listening at the same time, with laughter thrown in for good measure. Hooray! If I slip some tea into the mix I’m on track for thrills and spills, literally and literature-ally.
- Can you come out to play? I like this one A LOT that’s about 700x more than normal liking. I may not always be able to come out to play, but being asked is simply gush-inducingly good, it’s like saying ‘we like you’. Luckily this invite involved going to a local brwery and I was more than able to drop my vacuuming and join the fun. Thanks, keep up the good work
- Getting to car share and not having to drive. Excellent. More than one American that passengered in LooSea pointed out that that either a crash helmet would be a worthy accessory, LooSea has an unusual affinity with the Interstate curb, or the fast approaching red traffic lights. I dislike imposing this experience on Americans without full informed consent. By contrast my UK friends have commented that my driving is somewhat dull. In the NW USA I miss the full suprise-steering-opportunities and dislike the unwarranted, excessive, amount of stopping.
- Visitors. Mum and Dad arrived from the UK. That’s a lot of travel-time and money to see me. Well, they have explored the US equivalent of castles on the East coast (Civil war battle grounds) on the way. My place isn’t a battleground, pump engine or castle but they’re visiting it nonetheless. I feel the need to impress the biddies (parents) by not falling over, being too scatty, or making the fluff-balls (cats) too fluffy while they’re here… …especially since I can’t impress them with my driving skills. Normally they fight over who doesn’t get to ride shotgun. Mum normally loses then sits rigidly holding tightly to each side of her seat while dad falls asleep (i.e. unconsciousness is preferable) in the back.
- Trust. Asking a friend if I could blog about his Regency Tea parties. Without any hesitation, non-specific ‘erm’-ming, or conditional statements like “only if you don’t mention the Yak” he said YES. That’s like saying ‘I trust you to produce something publishable without offending me or the many and varied other guests’.
- Blog comments and snooper statistics. Wow, people actually read this stuff! You realise this means that I’ll keep writing these unsolicited thoughts, you’re such sweeties ;-)
That’s an exceptionally present-full 24hrs. Seven is good for me (number of items listed above), like 5 red cars in a row is a super good day for Christopher.
PRESSIES
I lurffff pressies
Today IS posty-present-prince-parent-parcel-’preciation day. Two parcels!!!
1) The WhitePrince of Barcelona (aka Eyan girl-sort-your-’postrophes) mixed some Club-bub-bub-bub-bubbing CDs of ‘Pyjama non-classics’ that I’m listening to now. NAUGHTY Lyrics. UNPUBLISHABLE.
D-D-D-Dancing
in the Wendy House toooooooonight!
2) Christmas present with STRICT instructions not to open before December 25th. Mumzie KNOWS how to taunt me!
I’m way behind on making packages for the last Christmas post to Europe. Planning for a creativity weekend followed by parcels to posty… FUN!
Wendy D-D-D–Dancing-B-B-B-Bouncing
Books and t-shirt both received a thorough face-hugging sniff…
W
