A = Apothecary, Alchemist and also...

Wall of glassware, Medicine Man gallery, Wellcome Collection
My iPhone photo edited in Snapseed.

Don't you just love it when a little bit of research throws up information that justifies your very existence?

Well, that could be over-stating it a tad, but I couldn't resist a small snort of delight when I discovered that apothecaries — the forerunners of pharmacists and GPs — originally dealt in wine, herbs and spices. 
Of course they did.
A decent wine and a tasty meal is always good for what ails me.

Image credit : Wellcome Library, London

Mind you, I have my doubts about both the gourmand qualities and the provenance of the Ocul Cancr (crab eyes) and Sang Draco (dragon blood) that these jars once contained.
I reckon I'd need a hearty Merlot to go with either of those.

Cropped iPhone pic of oil painting

The American novelist Anne Tyler makes the ordinary extraordinary. One particular character of hers, Macon Leary's slightly eccentric sister, Rose, has stuck with me for decades — since I first read The Accidental Tourist. To help us understand what sort of person she is, Tyler reveals that Rose alphabetises her pantry. That detail has never left me. So extreme. Almost hyperbole. A perfect trait to give a control freak.

Imagine my shock when I discovered that Rose actually walks among us, looking for all the world like a normal human being. Alphabetical pantries and fridges with perfectly aligned foodstuffs. 
People really have those. 

Image credit: Wellcome Library, London

These last images suggest that perhaps it's a rare genetic condition that began with apothecaries.

Apothecaries
Alchemists
Alphabetising
and
Anal-retentives!

During the month of April, I am participating in the Blogging from A–Z Challenge.

My posts will all feature images of and by the Wellcome Collection, Euston, London: the free destination for the incurably curious.

Wellcome (sic) to my A- Z Theme Reveal

Welcome to the Wellcome Collection

One of my aims and claims for life off The Rock was that I would write more. Spend more time on my blog. 
Well... umm... 
Yeah... nah... 
So, a short-term solution to my long-term tendency to procrastinate = to publicly commit.
And here it is. My commitment to you.

I am stepping up for the 2017 A-Z Challenge. After April Fools Day, I will post something inspired by consecutive letters of the alphabet every week-day in April. 

I promise.






All twenty-six entries will be inspired by my new fave haunt, the Wellcome Collection on Euston Road, close to Euston Square in London. This mind-boggling place advertises itself as: The free destination for the incurably curious. An entirely apt description for this eclectic collection.

I'm gonna try editing some of my pics

Henry Wellcome, an entrepreneurial American pharmacist with an all-consuming interest in medicine, art and the way the two intersect, moved to London in 1880. He and a college friend were responsible for the innovation that compacted medicinal powders into tablet form. Nice one, guys.
Together they founded a pharmaceutical empire. 

A Victorian reminder not to be vain

SIR Henry (something tells he would have preferred me to refer to him by his eventual title) was an obsessive collector with unlimited wealth. Medical artefacts, images about pharmacy, art with a scientific bent, specimens of anything that was once living, instruments used for any vaguely medical function, it's all here. Truly. Twenty-six entries cannot come close to doing it justice. 

Inside the Reading Room

Did I mention that the building itself is fabulous?
Plus it has a book shop.
AND the cafe makes the best coffee in London.
I'm in love with this place. 

My entries won't necessarily be about the object/image I'm featuring; they will be responses. My responses. 
Whatever they may be.

I also promise I'll be delighted and grateful if you join me on this April adventure.

Post No.5

I've been 'gunna' write a post for over a week now. 

Sorta tried. Sorta didn't. 

Despite having a shiny new laptop.

Despite being in a whole new world.

Despite wasting so many empty hours that Level 100 of both Bubble Witch and Panda Pop are both well within sight.

And when I look at my 'reasons', I find myself not just back on The Rock but right back in my youth. Back in my insecurities, back in my need to please, stuck in the back of my own mind. 

Having people read my posts brings me happiness. It keeps me connected, reminds me of what I value and, I guess, helps me feel I have worth. Or perhaps worth is not quite the right word. Maybe a more accurate way to express this is to say that having people read what I write helps me to feel that I have a point. That there is some sort of point to me. 

To my being. 

To my being at all.

Domed roof of the ancient cold store at Kew Gardens

Before we left The Rock, I was full of ideas about what might inspire my blog posts: objects in museums;  shows, exhibitions and plays; restaurants, cafes and shops; architecture, gardens and people-watching.  I even thought I might call the whole blog Wendy OFF the Rock while I am here on the other side of the globe.

But then I got stuck. 

After a mere four posts from London, I became bogged.

And what was the mind-cement?

'Are you going to write a funny one again this week?  They're the best.''I especially enjoyed your post about the lights... it made me laugh.''I always read right to the end of the humorous ones.'

I got stuck in my need to please.

I paralysed myself with the desire for approval.

Nothing funny about that.

So here for your enjoyment...

or not...

are some of the things I haven't written about:

The walk home from Marks & Sparks food hall

Celadon bowls that survived a shipwreck in the year 1100

Inside the Apollo Theatre

Bulgogi tacos at Jin Juu

I think I'm unstuck now. 

I wasn't expecting that...

Last year I told you how I'd started a gratitude jar. 
I also confessed to being rubbish at following or creating daily routines. 
The plan idea vain hope was that this positive activity of routinely recording something for which I was thankful, or perhaps, more likely, the nightly moment of guilt at not yet having completed the task, would turn things around. My gratitude jar would inspire a new positive habit.

Not even close.

By May, it was accumulating little more than dust. 
Round-about July, I tipped out the bits of paper and filled the vase with flowers: the instant gratification of the flowers preferable to the long-term benefits of repetition.

I suck at routine. I suck even harder at change.

But I knew when my life was relocated to the other side of the planet, I was going to have to embrace change. In lots of ways. And in lots of things.
And in me. 
So I decided it would be wise to start with a small change in my behaviour. 
Well, to be honest, it's not that small. Not for me.
But it's not huge...

Anyway, size isn't the issue here. What I decided was that I would make a conscious and quite deliberate effort to make more eye-contact with people. Anyone. 
Everyone. 
And I pledged to myself that I would smile more, even when on a crowded London street, or in a train lined with phone-focussed commuters.

The consequences have, so far, been both gratifying and perplexing in equal measure. 

Certainly, it requires some thoughtful lip and cheek muscle action on my part to generate a perfectly casual, genuine-looking lips-together smile and avoid looking loopy... or creepy. I don't think I've actually frightened anyone. So far.
However, I have found that the smile-to-smile-response ratio doesn't seem to be consistent. Whilst there is, undeniably, a higher rate of return from women, a great many still insist on pretending I am invisible. And on some days, so many people barrel straight into me, or shove in front of me, or remain propped rock-like in my path that I begin to believe I am invisible. 

But that's not what I wasn't expecting. What has really taken me by surprise is how often, now, with my routinely eye-level gaze, I catch sight of someone amidst the hoi-polloi who looks familiar, a face that matches another, a sparkling champagne bead image that pirouettes to the surface of my memory. 

Now, I understand about doppelgängers. Apparently, the chance of having a living one is 1:135. More if you add animals to the mix. No, that's not what I have found befuddling.

The thing I wasn't expecting is that nine times out of ten, after the image has registered and I've done the mental double-take, after I've marvelled at the glistening pearl of memory bobbing at the very top of my mind... it pops in my face.

The bubble bursts as I realise that I have just matched that random-whoever-on-the-street with a specific-someone from my experience... just exactly the way they used to look. Decades ago. When we were at school, or uni or in a hot smoky pub dancing to a live band. In the '80s.
Long ago and far away.

What do you think? Is this a cause for concern...this seeing people as they were? Is it an inevitable product of aging, or a trait uniquely and weirdly my own?
And should I persist with my puckery old-lady lips-together smile and continue trying not to look loopy...or creepy? 
Or would I be better off just working on that invisibility thing?

Zumba!

'I would luv to see a video of you at yoga and zumba, now that would be a giggle sis.'

Perhaps I’m being my characteristically oversensitive self, but I confess to being a tad affronted by this decidedly unflattering and considerably less than supportive response to my revelation that after a rather overly lengthy period of relative inertia, I have commenced a rigorous fitness regime of Zumba on Tuesday mornings, and yoga on Thursday evenings. 

(Can you tell I’m reading George Eliot again at the moment? Check out the word count on that sentence. I could've gone for a PB if I’d chucked in a semi-colon.)

But back to the topic at hand. 

Never in my 58 years have I attempted either Zumba or yoga. 

I was rubbish at aerobics back in the day. And I have given a couple of those women-only 45-minute circuit gyms a bit of a thrashing at various times over the years but, generally, the thought of exercising in front of anyone other than the dog terrifies me. 

I hyperventilate at the mere prospect of being in near-proximity to spandex, lycra, short shorts, and racer-backed sports tops. And a wall of mirrors will see me slink as far to the back of the room as possible.

That's not 100 per cent accurate.

I plant myself in the far corner of the back wall of any exercise class, even if there isn’t so much as a square-millimetre of reflective surface in the near vicinity.

So, no schmancy high-class gyms for me. I’m taking both classes at the local community centre… in the same room that hosts the Chinese playgroup, the ukulele ensemble and the LGBT Alcoholics Anonymous meetings. Secretly, I’m hoping that one glorious day a monumental scheduling error will result in all of us being in there together.

Lindale, the Zumba instructor, is a ridiculously cheerful once-professional dancer who frequently entreats us to 'open the chest' and  optimistically implores the use of 'beautiful arms'. The hour-long class features pretty much the same routines each week, and after 4 weeks, I’m actually starting to anticipate what comes next, because Lindale isn’t one for counting beats or shouting out instructions about what to do next. He’s having too much fun merengue-ing with his invisible partner, shimmying his maracas, and voguing wherever the opportunity arises.

Staying in step is particularly tricky during the ‘rest’ songs. 
Especially the saucy jazz classic Fever. 

While I favour Peggy Lee’s moves:  

Lindale seems to be channeling Madge:

Or maybe Madge's backing dancer... 

What’s that I hear you say?
Fever doesn’t have a salsa-inspired Zumba beat.Well, I did say it was a rest song.

But…

Ahhh…

Well…

The truth is it’s a Zumba Gold class. 

Yes… OK… I admit it... It’s only Zumba for geriatrics. But it can be tricky. Really it can. Not as tricky as yoga (and no, it's not yoga for the over 50) but it's still tricky. 


And I still think my brother is mean.

He should read more George Eliot.

Making light of it all...

Short days and dull skies. Lack of light. 

I feared that central London life would cloud my spirit in damp grey, begrime my thoughts, stir the black dog into mindless circling in the fog. 

I thought I’d ache for golden sun. 

I needn’t have. Our little attic cave has none of that.

What it DOES have, is so many goddamned  sources of artificial light that I swear the lux levels are leaking through my eyelids and infiltrating my dreams. 

The smoke detectors have blinking green lights.

The security panel has a glowing red light.

And in what can only be considered every disco-divas dream, the stair lights change colours. I shit you not.

Look!

I boogie my flat arse up and down to those babies most every night and I'm here to tell you they don't stop till I've had enough.

Magic motion-activated LED strips illuminate the wardrobe as the doors open. Ever so convenient and niftily, they also turn themselves off after a wee-while if the dressee has neglected to close said wardrobe.

Slight hiccup with that the other night though. 

I don't know about you, but I favour the internal thermostat control method employed by 99.9% of menopausal women at night and stick one foot out from beneath the covers whenever I  need to cool down.

Yep. The bedroom, which, I might add, has four downlights and two wall-sconces all operated by two-way switches both at the doorway and beside the bed... not MY side of the bed mind you...HIS side of the bed... but anyway, the bedroom is so small that my preferred method of heat-relief caused a spontaneous party in the wardrobe. 

HE was not amused.

But to be fair, I think it was probably my giggling that pissed him off.  

The bathroom mirror boasts a touch-operated wrinkle-enhancing frame, able to be switched from startling white-light apparently designed to reveal every sun-spot and enlarged pore, to a gentle soft glow, just low enough to fool a 58-year-old woman into thinking she's done a pretty good job of concealing every sun-spot and enlarged pore with her deftly applied tinted moisturiser.

Possibly because the it's both windowless and about the same size as the wardrobe, the bathroom also has a motion-activated light. Meaning, of course, that if one needs to have anything more than a quick whizz, one will soon find oneself pants-down in the dark, at which point it becomes necessary to flail one's arms about in a most unlady-like manner to remedy the situation.

Lack of light is most certainly not a problem up here in the attic cave.

Up here, where The Bee Gees live on.

Wendy OFF The Rock

 'What do you think you're going to miss about Australia?'

We were enjoying our usual early morning dog walk when my neighbour nonchalantly asked this huge question.

This immense, vast, frightening question.

The first thing to break through the universe of silence and seas of tears that surrounded it was, 'Well, aside from some people I love very much... and my dog... the space. I think I'm going to find it difficult to adjust to not having vast open areas of sky and sea outside my window. And to living in a small flat...'

Of course the answer to such a monstrous large question is impossible to predict before the event.

We've only been living in this small London flat for a month, so my life still has a surreal not-quite-right holiday feeling. I haven't yet had time to feel the ache of distance because I've been occupied with busy stuff. Daily trivia: what to cook for dinner, where to buy a decent pan so I can cook whatever I'm going to cook for dinner, how to carry home and then lug up five flights of rickety stairs said pan and ingredients to cook said dinner... 

Now, however, that daily trivia is punctuated by moments of sheer amazement and wonder — a puddle turned to ice, a big red bus navigating our little street, a plaque quietly declaring that someone who changed the world once lived on that spot, a glimpse of a Victorian sitting-room through a Harley Street window —snapshot moments I remind myself never to take for granted.

Here is no domed welkin; instead, stone spires, brick dwellings and glass towers highlight and reflect all the sun sends their way. Or doesn't send. Or can't send through the fog or the rain or the drooping clouds.

Here is no rhythmic rumble of the sea, no rolling water rebounding off rocky ledges and shell-strewn sand. But sometimes, unexpectedly, the cry of a gull reaches through the city's chatter, beckoning me to turn my head. Reminding me to look up and beyond.

Over the next few years, while we're living here in London, the answer to my friend's colossal question will no doubt become more clear. 

No doubt I'll write about it some more, and I hope you'll be with me to help make sense of it all... or non-sense of it all... 
of my new life as Wendy OFF The Rock.