Alice’s Bucket List

It takes a lot to make this cynical old queen cry. Okay, I confess. It doesn’t. I cry at sentimental films cleverly contrived to elicit an instant emotional response. I cry when Karen (Emma Thompson) realises that her husband Harry (Alan Rickman) is having an affair in Love Actually. I weep when Mary (Joan Plowright) and Arabella (Judi Dench) wave farewell to Luca (Baird Wallace) in Tea with Mussolini. I am inconsolable when Ste (Scott Neal) and Jamie (Glen Berry) run through the forest to the soundtrack of Make Your Own Kind of Music by the Mamas and Papas in Beautiful Thing. It’s an acting thing and it gets me every time.

Alice Pyne is not acting. Alice has cancer and she has a blog. She writes:

‘Hi, I’m 15 years old and live with my parents and sister in Ulverston. I’ve been fighting cancer for almost 4 years and now I know that the cancer is gaining on me and it doesn’t look like I’m going to win this one 😦 I’m hoping to write in here as much as I can and I’m also going to show my bucket list which I’m trying to get done before I have to go. Hopefully, I’ll update as I tick each one off the list :)’ Alice’s Bucket List

I began to read Alice’s wish list out loud to Liam. I had to stop half way through. It was all too much. Her courage astounds and humbles me. It should humble us all. Alice has restored my faith in humanity. Thank you Alice.

Money Talks

Hanife, our formidable landlady and the matriarch of an old, monied Bodrum family dropped by with produce from her prodigious garden. She regularly provides us with various treats such as just-picked fruit, freshly baked pastries and sticky honeyed dough balls. There’s an age old and noble tradition in Turkey that if a neighbour presents a gift of food on a plate you must respond in kind. A plate must never be returned empty. Our habit is to return the dish with the rent money. Canny Hanife doesn’t seem to mind judging by the smile of her face.

Pansies on the Go

Google Blogger has just released a new mobile phone version of the Perking the Pansies Showcase which makes reading the Showcase on the go a breeze.

Perking the Pansies Showcase

Fat Fly Season

The weather has finally turned glorious after an unpromising start but it’s fat fly season. Turkish flies are so much bigger and more annoying than their British relatives. Liam has become a serial bug killer, declaring chemical war on the troublesome pests. Busy bees are buzzing about the buds, all manner of creepy crawlies are creepy crawling, the mozzie net is up and the duvet reduced to a sheet.

I climbed an old rickety ladder to turn on the solar hot water system and we bought a ceiling fan for the bedroom which I proudly installed. I used extra long screws to fix it to the ceiling. I can’t be sure I haven’t punctured the flat roof. We’ll know next time it rains. We feared decapitation when we first turned it on. Liam flicked the switch and we watched the blades slowly rotate like a turbo-prop. Hey presto, I’m now a qualified electrical engineer as well as a bone fide plumber.

Cut Glass

Umm?

The mercury has risen. Summer is suddenly slapping us about the face like a sweaty flannel and the pansies are wilting.  We took a stroll in the blazing sunshine along the refurbished promenade for a spot of lunch by the breezy harbourside. The Town is looking splendid, dressed in brand new quality livery. A new avenue of elegant adolescent saplings has been planted rising above a riot of red bedding flowers. The municipal gardeners should be proud of their speed and skill.

We took a seat at a waterside café near Castle Square to quench our thirsts. We sniggered like spotty school boys when the waiter placed the glasses on the table. They reminded us of something but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it.

Separating the Wheat from the Chavs

Released from the bonds of vacuous acquaintance we’ve separated the wheat from the chavs, emigrey-wise. Pretentiousness and reinvention is something of a lifestyle choice for many. I’m surprised our hosts indulge it with such good humour. I guess it helps to keep the economy turning, particularly during the lean months. Dyed-in-the-wool conservatism (both with a large and a small C) is unsurprising since the majority of emigreys tend to be a generation above us. Even so, the moral absolutism from the binge whingers is hard to stomach and the irony of widespread, thinly disguised racism and xenophobia is lost on most.

American Idol

A pansy flasher from Los Angeles prompted me to do a bit of digging about and I think I’ve just exceeded my 15,000th American hit. I can’t be completely certain as WordPress doesn’t  do geographical stats so I cobbled the figures together from other sources. However, what is clear is that around a fifth of pansy fans now come from across the pond. I’m at a complete loss as to why this is. Perking the Pansies is about expat life in a faraway land written in a peculiarly British camp Carry On style with a side of extra bite. I never imagined my irreverent drivel would appeal to our Yankee cousins who’ve developed a different brand of humour since independence. I hoped I might capture a few punters in New York and San Francisco but it seems that the pansies have penetrated every single state in the Union. I feel like a minor American Idol.

Talking of the City of Angels, I have many fun memories of my whirlwind tour of southern California way back in 1991. I was rendered speechless by the sheer scale of the larger than life city, fell head over heels for the charm of Laguna Beach, got gloriously drenched at SeaWorld*, screamed like a girl at Disneyland, leered lasciviously at the muscle marys  pumping iron on Venice Beach and laughed out loud at the absurdity of Palm Springs. The final part of my all too brief break saw me tripping the light fantastic in seedy West Hollywood, epicentre of gay life in LA LA Land. I lodged at the San Vincente Inn, a delightful gay hotel back in the day. Alas it now appears the place has degenerated into a cesspit of shameless debauchery.  None of that happened to me, more’s the pity.

*I don’t really approve of performing animals these days even when it’s done which such care as is the case with SeaWorld.

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Fancy a Ride?

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My Delinquent Toenail

Ouch

My delinquent toe nail finally snapped off after a few days flapping about in the wind and snagging on the mozzie net. I’ve always been careless with stairs. I think it’s my stumpy size five feet. If I were a drag queen I would have no problem finding a high heel to slip into. Statistically, stairs are the most dangerous part of any house. In fact they are one of the most hazardous environments anywhere and second only to Libya and Afghanistan.

Fancy a Ride?

We invited Bodrum Belle Jessica over for supper. Jessica is a fine and elegant lady of a certain age and happy disposition. We had a thoroughly enjoyable evening of fun and fare after which Liam offered to escort our graceful guest home, a distance of only a few hundred metres. As he returned to the house Liam noticed a blacked out Range Rover slowly cruise past and stop just ahead of him. Liam walked past the mysterious car. The car drove off slowly and stopped again. This game of cat and mouse continued three or four times. Liam passed by a final time. The driver’s window descended and a middle aged Turkish man with grey hair and a bushy tash asked ‘Would you like to drive somewhere?’ A startled Liam declined his kind but misguided offer. The car drove off at speed leaving a cloud of dust in its wake, presumably towards the windswept promontory between Bodrum and Gümbet where curious men go at night. When Liam got home he relayed his stalker tale with a boastful flourish thinking he’d still got it whatever it is. Next time Jessica comes to dinner I’ll escort her home.

Road Runner Writing

Although I get a buzz from it, this blogging lark is a cumbersome business that requires dedication, stamina and forethought. In order to preserve an independent life away from the keyboard, I write fast and frequently.  After all, we migrated to rest our weary bones not to develop a repetitive strain injury (actually I’ve got that already which is why I use a full size keyboard and an odd looking roller mouse thingy).

The trouble with the Road Runner approach to my minor art is the inevitability of typos, grammar errors and daft gaffes when I speed write or replace a word and don’t recheck the sentence. Changing a positive to a negative can have a devastating effect on the meaning and get me into hot water. Added to this I become word blind and simply don’t see the clangers staring me in the face. Spell checkers help a bit though WordPress employs American spellings that just get in the way. Liam does his best to proof read my posts but he isn’t always on hand to slap my injured wrist.

I beg your indulgence for my slipshod style. God help me for the book.