The stand alone ‘hoolie’

Sandman

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It was so fantastic to feel our neck of the woods coming alive last Sunday as the Anglesey Sandman Triathlon 2011 set up shop in Newborough Forest. Despite a ghastly morning outlook of downpours and whipping winds, around 11-ish the sky brightened and beautiful zippy September sunshine lit us all up. Deep broad chasms of awe and respect to all these competitors who challenge themselves with this kind of toil. And OK, the sea, for once, looked like an ironing board with a bit of a frill at the edges for waves – but all the swimmers would have been just as game to face a hoolie (the kind that had the kitesurfers at Rhosneigr breaking speed limits the previous Sunday), so RESPECT and big time congratulations to everyone. (http://angleseysandman.com/)

Living as we do in walking distance of all of this and frankly wishing there was a bit more going on, it was great to have an event like this bringing folks here. Purists may baulk, but we’d love to see a nice café down by the beach offering hot chocolate and sticky buns on wintry Sunday afternoons to help the dog-walkers defrost, or a chilled glass and a Greek Salad in July. How about a shop selling beautiful locally made woodwork and other skilled crafts? How about a bookshop with tales of the forests? Or a dog walkers emporium to support the sartorial requirements of what the best dressed terriers are wearing this autumn? And their owners? Hot soup, an open fire and new bandanas for kitesurfers, a pocket guidebook or ipod app suggesting 100 ways to make good use of this amazing beach in foul weather – I can think of a few:

Play Spanish bats with your dog (kind of wooden tennis will drive your pooch nuts with excitement).

Jump the waves in wellies with your toddlers.

Collect fragments of jasper in a toy bucket, then throw them all back where you found them.

Spin giant fronds of seaweeds in a twizzle and see your collie go wild trying to snap at it.

Jog through the forest’s fragrant paths and harmonize with your inner yang or yong or something.

Collect cowry shells in a bucket, then throw them all back where you found them.

Try to stop thinking about the Red Sea.

Practise trying to say Llanfairpwllgwyngyll in a loud voice on the top of a sand dune.

Treasure hunt the most giant stranded jellyfish, but certainly don’t put them in a bucket or throw them anywhere.

Tickle the sea amemones in rock pools (but only for a minute to be fair).

Bury your boyfriend in sand up to his elbows, facebook this image.

Collect muscles when the tide is low, spend idle hours back at home scraping the little blighters and wishing that barnacles would just stick to boats.

Try not to think about buying seafood in Jeddah.

Experiment with natural energy generated turbines.

Make a sand sculpture and then decorate it with pebbles.

Fish for mackerel, fly a kite, kitesurf.

Pretend to everyone nearby that you can see a shoal of seals, “ooh-aah” a lot with your hand up to your forehead and pointing.

Try not to think about Greek tavernas and warm olives.

Can’t stop thinking about Greek tavernas and warm olives.

Give up and go to the Greek Taverna in Bangor, ………eat olives.

Beachwalking

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Luvvinit….See ya soon.

Zorba the SQUEAK meets Wart Wisdom

Zorbs

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Seemed like we were going to get an Indian Summer yesterday so we tootled off to Llanberis  to watch our friend sell Zorb rides on the lake. False alarm on the weather mind you, it was blinkin’ chilly in the hills. But that’s the mainland for you, always a different climate to over here. Anyways, I guess it was sheltered in the Zorbs – which are basically big bubbles you rotate on water by running non-stop inside like a hamster, and then crashing into your mates in theirs like a sort of intergalactic dodgem. Looks more fun that way. Bit advanced for our laddo though, so we just stared for a while, sure he’d enjoy it when he’s seven. There was no enticing the doctor in one…….not today anyway.

Meanwhile we’ve got decorating going on, and we’ve managed to panic all the secret spiders in the house into putting in surprise drop-in’s in unlikely and frankly disturbing places. One the size of my palm, sprawled out by the kettle made me jump skywards with a squawk.   Seems to be a rash of them about, and it’s so weird that you can’t hear their footsteps isn’t it? OK so I know their feet are tiny, but their legs look so big it’s like a proportion thing, honestly looks like they should be clumping about. Made me think of that one about the dating spider who says to his girlfriend “Can i hold your hand your hand your hand your hand your hand your hand?”

Giggling Gem

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Anyhow, managed to scramble the over-sized monster into a jam jar and whizz it out across the bushes in the front garden, so it lives to freak out some other neighbours, which at least is a better fate than that of the squished toads who bought it under the wheels of our dog-walking fraternity estates this week. Living as we do in the midst of the biggest amphibian metropolis in North Wales. Our lane at this time of year is the veritable M25 of our shiny squatting friends. After three days though, the remains have totally disappeared off the tarmac which seems a bit odd. Do toad bits vaporise after a limited time? Or was someone out there real early with a Dyson?

Toads………..warts….

Did you know that if you get a wart in Egypt they tell you you got sneezed on by a horse? Not the doctors I mean, but folk tell you. I mean that’s pretty specific isn’t it? And to treat warts, the general method involves reciting something to a raw egg, and then making a hole inside it, inserting grains of corn (to the number of your warts) into the egg………..wait a few days and Bingo, silky smooth skin once more. Not the doctors treatment I mean, btw, but specialist wart healers. Try that for a job description. Not too sure about the science here, but I’m certainly thinking of standing well back next time I take BB down to feed Dobbin, and there won’t be any nostril tickling from us, no siree. Mind you if you think this is strange, I haven’t told you the one about how to get pregnant by stuffing an onion up your privates – as advised by senior country ladies in northern Egypt. But much more about that in the book (the one in the offing).

Folklore comes in handy sometimes, like when BB got his first nettle sting last week. No tears, just stared at his left hand a bit and rubbed it on his little leg as I pranced off into the undergrowth to get a doc leaf. A few mins later and the little lumps had vanished. Must be more local scary/weird folklore tales to tell though – send yours in to my comments and we can review them afresh with a bit of 21st century zest…….or soy sauce if you prefer.

Toodlepip.

Dr Egypt and the Swan’s Vast Margarita.

Shams TV

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Here we are by Malltraeth bay and the tide is right in, one lone swan floating effortlessly on the water like an ice cube – only with a reeeeally long neck so not actually like an ice cube at all. But hey, BB woke me up at 4.30am and decided to head bang the early hours of the morning away, so any chance of an analogy by 10.30am, sitting in the wee Renault with my Mac perched precariously on one knee in the drivers seat, is frankly, a bit of a wonder. I drove down here to ensure he got some kind of a morning nap, enticing him into the car seat with a baby apple off the tree and a puffed corn ring chaser. And I’ve got to hand it to the Renault manufacturers, they sure do make a soporific engine noise, only takes 4.5 minutes before he’s snoring at the sunroof, mouth open, dreaming of his next banana custard and dysonning the living room, Gigglebiz chirruping in the background – toddler Heaven.

This little village is the place where that bird draughtsman genius Tunnicliffe used to conjure up his magic on paper – but you wouldn’t know that to visit here. Strange to me that there’s no kind of ‘Tunnicliffe Experience’ going on here to promote the area a bit. But then again that’s very much the Western side of Anglesey for you – p & q (peace and quiet) in spades, usually with a dash of a rainstorm or a sustained flash of afternoon sunshine. But today it’s one of those garden-badminton-opportunity days. Not a breath of wind, and just the swan gliding in the vast margarita of the bay, hiding her giant flapping feet below the surface and wondering why the blonde in the Renault is staring at her and tapping.

I love my Mac, (thanks Apple) and that’s much more of a wonder than a bad analogy. And every day I wake up positively goggling with delight to be in a digital world so even if you’re as cut off as we presently are, you kind of aren’t at the same time. Last night I posted my latest entry on the blog and got responses in a few minutes from all over, from Saudi to Brazil and from Scotland to America just for starters. I totally love that, you get to feel global from a little kitchen in this Celtic outpost of Britain (kind of like the window-sill of Wales).

Which brings me neatly on to blankets – is there anything I can do in my own small way to promote the amazing woollen tapestry industry of north wales? There’s a beautiful, authentic and precious craft hanging on by it’s fingertips and again strangely the big local shop which is the regular pit-stop for tourist coaches passing through Anglesey at Llanfairpwllgwyngyll (yes, really folks and that’s just the beginning of the name), well they sell Scottish wool products. Not that the Scottish woollen industry isn’t fantastic in it’s own right – but consarnit, this is Wales, an area of high unemployment and out on the limb of UK investment  (though with money for squirrel sign-posts, bizarrely). We visited Brynkir woollen mill last week, got a really snugly baby blanket, and admired the GORGEOUS products in their deserted mill shop, employs only 2 workers and you would hardly know the place was there. Can there be a place for apprentice weavers in the modern age to revitalise a dying craft? Surely with a bit of a will, some design and marketing flair, there’s a chance of a Phoenix moment. Makes me get all passionate for some reason, and I’m not even Welsh. Hate to see beautiful crafts die out, I guess. Adding some pictures on this one today so you can see what I’m blethering on about. Rant over…..moving on…

Yasser speaks a few words of Welsh now with an amazingly accurate pronunciation – on account of the Arabs having a fair sprinkling of the throaty “ccCChhh” sounds in their own tongue. He’s enjoying the surprise of throwing in a phrase or two at work, unexpected coming from Dr Egypt. I think he’ll pick it up quickly, and be spared the hell of 13 verb conjugations in the present tense alone of standard Arabic grammar horror (more of that in my forthcoming book which is in the offing, or inning or something). We’re so lucky that English is simples. I go, we go, they go, etc etc..…lucky old us, easy-peasy lemon squeezy. One of the things I like about speaking other languages is that it gives you the chance to uncover and express other parts of your personality and let rip according to the emotional inclinations of that nationality. I mean I think language classes at school kind of missed this important point. If you think about it, how much more fun is it to speak Italian if you can do authentic and feeling Godfather impersonations and let out the macho side of your nature play out? (yeah, and I’m a girl, so how’s that for an uncovering huh?). Pretty hard to do that with the monotone of your English English. And in Arabic I’ve discovered for one thing that you can give a terrifically extended and warm welcome hello to everyone by saying it about 7 times in different ways upon meeting your host or guest depending on the circs. (should take the first 5-8 minutes of the conversation). Kind of hard to be THAT hospitable in English English. Mind you, after hubbie’s question about why we raise our tone with such enthusiasm to say ‘Byeee!’ with flourish at the end of meeting or conversation in our culture, I’m kind of left wondering myself what that one’s all about. Happy to end the contact? Relieved to scurry off to attend to pruning the lettuces or something? Add to comments on this please.

And talking of countries, have decided not to exhibit in Romania this autumn (actually northern R, bordering Moldova and kind of off the beaten track – what the heck IS a beaten track by the way, who beat it and why?). Maybe Bucharest another time.  Getting ready for a little bit of exhibiting in London in October. Kind of weird to be showing in a place I could actually drive to for once, and not having to negotiate with any of my alternate or additional personalities is making it eerily simples. Now if I pretend to be Ukrainian I could add in a bit of that exotic pzazz galleries seem to love. Maybe I should go to Moldova and negotiate from there just for fun. Phewie….young one in bed and not woken up for over an hour…must be getting delirious.

Chin chin.