Wendy's wisdom
Shortly after Wendy died, Jenny emailed me to say "I'd never thought before how many times I quote things Wendy has said, things like - any fat you lose floating around in the atmosphere waiting to land on someone, babies knowing everything when they're born then slowly forgetting by the time they learn to speak, all walking book writers being called colin, and so on. So she still makes me laugh."
This started me thinking about Wendy's many unique, quirky and insightful sayings. Here are a few that come to mind:
This started me thinking about Wendy's many unique, quirky and insightful sayings. Here are a few that come to mind:
- You're falling in front again! (said when she had fallen behind on a walk)
- It's fallen to part! (I think she got this originally from Duncan when he was a toddler)
- Nature abhors a flat surface (surfaces in our house always seemed to be covered with stuff)
- When Wendy began holding the TV remote control in the night as a comfort-thing, she called it her remotey. She asked me to bring remotey into hospital for her, along with her white fleece blankie when she was in LGH in July. (Tim had a comfort blanket called "blankie" when he was a toddler, and our grandson Sam had a "silkie")
- Duncan's dog Lloyd, and then later Tim's dog Bear were both our grand-dogs
- Wendy had different "modes" of walking on a mountain: Prince Charles mode was hands-behind-back with head down, while mule mode was staring intently at her feet to make sure they were still moving.
- Cronin's Law states that you can't get 10 people on a mountain before 12:00 noon. (There are other versions, but I think this is the original form).
posted by Macro @ 16:11
3 Comments:
At 31 January 2008 at 20:34 ,
Jenny said...
Here's another one that I'm finding out to be very true - how "you need an electric sander to get weetabix off a high chair"...
At 25 February 2008 at 17:04 ,
Macro said...
Another that I remembered when I was talking to someone about the the Coast to Coast walk, which we did in about 1996 (I think). Our third day out was a really tough one (Borrowdale to Paterdale in one stage), and we only got to our lunch stop at Grasmere around 5:00pm. At this point, Wendy and Elaine decided to cash in their APW or Accreditation of Prior Walking. The term came from Wendy's educational experience. There, APL (Accreditation of Prior Learning) basically means you can get a qualification without doing a course if you can show you have already covered all the outcomes. She and Elaine decided they had earned their APW by doing the next bit, over Grisedale Hause to Paterdale, on previous walks. So no need to do it again. They caught buses and taxis round the mountain, while Jenny, Mark and I slogged on over the mountain. APW became a well-worn catch phrase over the years, but I'm pretty sure that was its first use.
At 27 February 2008 at 17:08 ,
Macro said...
And here's another: No ironic deaths! I can't remember exactly where this started. Maybe on the way to the hospital where a biopsy confirmed her melanoma diagnosis. Or maybe on Wendy's last quick holiday at the end of August. Imagine: to get to our Auberge above Grenoble, we had to drive up a steep winding mountain road, with sharp hairpins and long drops. Combine this with driving on the wrong side of the road, and an unfamiliar car. Anyway, wherever it was, at some point Wendy thought I was driving a bit fast (or maybe we were on the wrong side of the road) and she said: Now slow down, we don't want any ironic deaths! This became a regular catch-phrase to mean something like take care, I'm dying soon enough but please not now on the way to the hospital...
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