JOURNAL August 2012
es entur v d a ’s ilson W w o Foll k at: .co.u t daily o p s log rs2.b a w t n //a http:
Original photographs of Wilson used by kind permission of TamanduaGirl: www.livingwithanteaters.com
wednesday
Hello readers!
New Dad is "too ill" to write his journal today, so I'm doing it for him! He apparently has "toothache" but he is being such a baby about it. We anteaters don't actually have teeth, but my mum, Mrs Vermilingua, knows many sovereign cures for toothache which she has passed down to me. For example, a mouthful of live Fire Ants is guaranteed to distract anyone from the pain of toothache. I happen to have some live Fire Ants, but will New Dad try this traditional family remedy? No he will not! Instead, he goes whining to the dentist's receptionist, who told him to come back the next day. I wouldn't have New Dad treated like that, so I phoned the receptionist myself and gave her a piece of my mind. New Dad was soon in with the dentist being given two kinds of Antibiotics. Judging by the name, ANTibiotics, I'll bet this is just some fancy medicine made out of Fire Ants... New Dad was a real baby at the dentists, but to cheer him up I did give him one of my "I've Been Brave at the Dentist" stickers. Wilson Vermilingua OBE XXXXX
THURSDAY Today I am feeling much better, thanks for asking. My tooth has more-or-less stopped hurting and I’ve had to to face the fact that tomorrow the good people from the Readymix Company are scheduled to pump six tons of concrety goodness (Wilson’s expression, not mine) onto the back lawn. I could see no alternative but to tell Wilson about the surprise trip to the midlands. He was very excited, but rather than cancel the Readymix order has merely postponed delivery until we return. At least that will give me some time to think of something to distract him from his Easter Island Heads scheme... In the meantime, we’re both busy packing. FRIDAY So, we’re all packed and ready to go. Wilson insisted on packing his bucket and spade and his Speedos, even though we’ll be almost 100 miles from the coast. He’s never been on holiday before to anywhere that wasn’t a seaside resort; I do hope he’s not disappointed. I’ve had to promise W that we’ll listen to BBC Five Live Olympics on the journey up, as he doesn’t want to miss the Olympic Pillow Fighting Finals – I don’t know where he gets these ideas… BTW, like the new car? Wilson chose the colour – he thought it looked very ‘boyish’! Ironbridge, Here We Come!
saturday Here we are in Ironbridge! During the journey up I was telling Wilson the history of Ironbridge, how the first iron bridge in the world was built there in 1781, made possible by a new steel smelting process etc when he interrupted me. ‘We’re going to look at an old bridge?’ he asked, a note of incredulity in his voice. ‘Well, yes we are, but it’s much more than just…’ ‘An old bridge,’ he continued. ‘We have an old bridge in Uckfield that we drive over every day, yet we’re travelling more than 200 miles to look at another old bridge.’ He rolled his eyes and shook his head in disbelief. ‘I can only say this place had better have magnificent sandy beaches. Wake me up when the Olympic Pillow Fighting starts.’ With that he sank down into his seat and went to sleep for the rest of the journey.
sunday Wilson is still in a bit of a sulk that we’ve not come on a beach holiday, but last night he was sitting up in his bed reading some of the Ironbridge Attractions leaflets he picked up in Reception. Suddenly he called out to me, ‘New Dad! Are you awake?’ ‘Um… yes,’ I replied, waking with a start. ‘What’s wrong?’ ‘Look at this! They’ve got a Tar Tunnel! I want to go to the Tar Tunnel!’ He has developed an inexplicable desire to visit what is, even according to the promotional leaflet, an old, lowceilinged, brick-lined tunnel with tar ‘oozing out of the walls.’ Who can predict what will float an anteater’s boat? Anyway, I’ve promised W that we will visit, but I think we should leave it until later in the week, to give him something to look forward to. Today we went to take a look at Ironbridge’s eponymous Iron Bridge. W was a little bit underwhelmed, especially when I refused to let him climb up the girders, but he perked up once we’d visited the local souvenir shops and he’d bought himself an Ironbridge T-shirt and some Cheesy Wotsits.
monday We’ve had a brilliant day at the Blists Hill Victorian Village Museum in Ironbridge. In the picture you can see Wilson talking to the lady who looked after the shire horses. She told him he could have a ride on the cart if he came back later, after she and the horses had delivered the beer barrels to The New Inn pub round the corner. W really liked the horses, and since meeting them has talked about them almost constantly. I know W quite well now, and I’m pretty sure I know what he’s thinking. He’s thinking that he should have held out for a pony, instead of getting bargained down to a goldfish!
tuesday While waiting for the beer delivery to be completed we spent some time at the Victorian Fairground. Wilson said none of the rides compared to The Big One at Blackpool… though I thought he looked a bit shaken as I lifted him out of the chair-o-plane!
Then back into the village for Wilson’s horse and cart ride. W declared that this was ‘the best thing ever’ and that ‘horses are definitely the way forward.’
wednesday In the Victorian High Street we noticed a photographer’s shop, and Wilson has had his portrait taken in the formal style of his ancestor, Great Great […] Grandfather, Alberto Victor Gutiérrez-López. The top hat was a bit on the large size, but the photographer fixed that with some kitchen-towel padding and some Gaffer Tape. Ouch — small bald patch in fur! W says that his portrait is ‘his proudest possession’. After Antony. And his OBE (which, he confesses to me, he seems to have mislaid). And his Polaroid of him with his mum, Mrs. Vermilingua. And, it gradually emerges, quite a lot of other stuff… When we get home, he says he will frame it and put it in pride of place on the mantelpiece. thursday At last, we get to visit The Tar Tunnel! After so much anticipation I can’t see how this can be anything but a huge anticlimax, but Wilson is so excited to finally be going. ‘I’ve dreamed of this day,’ he said, as we went through the entrance…
friday Well, I have to admit that The Tar Tunnel was a great success. As the guide leaflet said, it is a low-ceilinged, brick-lined tunnel with tar oozing out of the walls - no more, no less but Wilson seemed to love it, pointing out all the speciallygooey oozy bits to Antony. W did get a bit of tar in his fur, but the nice lady in reception said that happened all the time and cleaned it off. W was a bit disappointed that he couldn’t buy a souvenir bottle of tar (or Bottle-oTar as he insists on calling it) in the gift shop, but he bought some postcards, a stick of rock and a badge instead. For myself, I thought it was alright. But then, I had banged my head on the ceiling a lot more often than W had!
saturday Wilson is very tired today – he had a disturbed night last night because Antony had nightmares about the Tar Tunnel and kept waking him up. Had to return to Blists Hill again first thing today, so Wilson could say goodbye to the shire horses. In the photo you can see W talking to one of the horses, while keeping a very firm grip on a still-nervous Antony. W has formed quite an attachment to them. But he’s still not having a pony. However, the holiday is not quite over yet – on the way home I hope to visit the RAF Museum at Cosford. I know W likes that sort of thing, what with his ancestral connection to flying and so on...
sunday We visited the Cosford RAF Museum on the way home, and Wilson loved it! All the exhibits were protected by barriers and “Do Not Touch” signs, but whatever I said W just ignored them, shouting ‘Flying - it’s in my blood!’ all the time. In the end I just pretended we weren’t together and hoped Security wouldn’t ask us to leave. In the photo you can see W explaining to Antony all about his Great, Great … Grandfather, the legendary “Blue Baron”, and his heroic exploits during the Great Ant Wars of 1921…
monday Home again, at last. Throughout the journey home, Wilson pretended he was flying a GAW (Great Ant Wars) fighter plane. Harmless, but the constant engine noises and Gatling Gun sound effects did get a little tiresome after a few hours. W said he really loved the holiday, although he’s a bit miffed he missed the Olympic Pillow Fighting finals, and he can’t even find out who won. I let him stay up to see the Olympic Closing Ceremony last night, so now he’s still sound asleep in the tumble dryer, snoring gently.
tuesday To stave off the ennui and anticlimax following our holiday, we visited a garden centre for a look round and a cup of coffee. While we were there, Wilson spotted some very small Easter Island Heads. He examined them closely, while I held my breath, hardly daring to hope… ‘These are cool!’ W suddenly announced, ‘and we’ll be able to afford lots of them!’ I wasted no time in loading several of the heads onto a trolley and whisking them off to the checkout. Before I paid, I extracted a promise from Wilson that as soon as we got the heads home, he would telephone Readymix and cancel the six tons of concrete. He agreed, on one condition…
wednesday Before Wilson would promise to cancel his Readymix order, he asked me to agree to buy him one more garden ornament. I asked him what it was, and he scuttled off to the Stoneware section, reappearing a few minutes later carrying what I thought was the ugliest and most repellent thing I had ever seen in my life. It was a rock... with false teeth. My face fell. ‘If I can have this, the Readymix is toast!’ Wilson announced cheerfully. Well, it’s horrific and it’s ugly… it’s hideous, horrible, frightful, awful, ghastly, vile, revolting, repellent, repulsive and repugnant. It’s grotesque, disgusting, monstrous, misshapen, deformed and disfigured… but it’s cheaper and smaller that six tons of concrete, and W likes it. I reluctantly nodded to the woman on the checkout and she rang it up. ‘Oh, thanks, New Dad!’ W exclaimed as we pushed the trolley back to the car, ‘This is well funny!’
thursday Wilson has just finished installing the Easter Island Heads in the garden. Against all expectations, they don’t actually look quite as bad as I expected… except that the grinning rock has been positioned in pride of place. Ugh! Wilson says the rock’s name is sTONY, and he keeps asking my advice about sTONY’s dental hygiene: should W brush his teeth, take him to the dentist etc. He says that he’s asked sTONY, but he won’t reply(!) He stonewalled him! Ha ha!
friday Wilson was watching Sky News this morning and saw an item about a retirement home for elderly elephants in Thailand. W has a soft spot for elephants, and now he’s in a dilemma about whether the proceeds from his Grand Charity Garden Open Day and the ticket sales from the Wilson Vermilingua OBE Museum of Old Stuff should go to the elephant retirement home or, as originally planned, to the Sloth Orphanage... saturday One of Wilson’s friends, Sheila, emailed him to say she thinks the elephants are a more deserving case than the sloths… but W is not an anteater who makes decisions lightly, nor does he yield to public opinion. Sherlock Holmes, one of W’s all-time heroes, described really intractable conundrums as ‘three pipe’ problems. Wilson retired to the living room, settled himself into the arm chair with a caterers’ pack of Cheesy Wotsits, and announced, ‘It is quite a three bag problem, and I beg that you won’t speak to me for fifty minutes.’ Eventually he emerged, declaring that he had formulated a solution which would benefit both the sloths and the elephants. I don’t mind Wilson using Holmes’ methods, but I’m pretty sure that he thinks of me as his Watson - good-hearted but bumbling, a sincere but dim sidekick. Incidentally, here’s another photo of W at the RAF Museum. Just out of frame there was a security person telling Wilson to ‘get out of that plane NOW!’
sunday Wilson finally emerged, his mouth and paws stained orange and clearly on a Cheesy Wotsits high, with what he claimed was a solution to his elephants/sloths dilemma. He proposes that admission to the Grand Charity Garden Open Day be by cash, which will be donated to the Elderly Elephants sanctuary, while admission to the Wilson Vermilingua OBE Museum of Old Stuff And A Robot should be by donation of teddy bears, which will be sent off to the Sloth Orphanage. This seems both over-complicated and fraught with problems, but W is in no mood to hear that right now - he is totally spaced out in a Cheesy Wotsit-induced world of illusion‌ in fact, he’s gone back to bed to sleep it off.
monday I have discussed with Wilson what I think are the problems with his plan. Principal among these is my fear that families might turn up for the Grand Charity Garden Open Day, intending to visit the Wilson Vermilingua OBE Museum of Old Stuff And A Robot, but at the last minute the children refuse to part with their teddy-bears. I foresee a lot of harrowing scenes and bad publicity. W grudgingly agreed and said he would think of another plan… but without the benefit of chemical aid this time, as he has sworn off Cheesy Wotsits. He says he just can’t handle the come-down. I don’t know what he’s up to, but he’s borrowed my camera and popped in to town for an hour. tuesday Wilson has shut himself away on the iMac all day today – he wouldn’t even come out for coffee, saying that he was ‘too busy’ and asking me to leave it on a tray outside the door. He won’t tell me what he’s doing, so I can but fear the worst: another doomed money-making scheme. PS. I’ve just received a confirmation email for a huge order of printer ink. W must be planning to do a LOT of printing!
wednesday Wilson has just explained his new scheme to me. He intends to turn the Uckfield Bridge into a World Heritage Site and run tours of it, the money raised being donated to the Elderly Elephants’ home. He has already produced a brochure to promote his tours. This sounds to me like another doomed venture, like the ‘Haunted Uckfield’ tour… but who knows? I hope I’m wrong and it’s a great success. thursday Wilson has begun his publicity campaign to promote his Uckfield Bridge tours. He has fly-posted several buildings in town (which he knows I don’t approve of) and also been handing out leaflets to passers-by. Now he’s home again, researching what there is to say about a relatively unremarkable smalltown bridge. Good luck with that!
friday Wilson has just returned from handing out some more of his Uckfield Bridge Tour leaflets in town. While he was out, he noticed that a few of his posters had been vandalised: someone had written an “F” in front of the word Uckfield on one of them and scrawled “RUBISH!” across another. Someone had even drawn a pair of glasses on W’s face! He thought that the poster with the “F” on was too rude to ignore, so he changed the “F” into a “D”. Sweet. W was surprised by this ‘mindless vandalism,’ concluding that ‘it’s probably the parents’ fault!’ He has now returned to researching the history of the bridge online. saturday I’ve persuaded Wilson to give me the Uckfield Bridge Heritage Tour, so I can give him some feedback. My real fear is that there is little to say and nothing to see, and I’d hate for him to be standing in front of a party of disgruntled tourists who’ve paid £5 each when he realises this for himself. W says he should be ready for a dry-run tomorrow.
sunday Antony and I turned up at the Uckfield Bridge and waited for our tour guide. Wilson had popped round the corner for a few minutes to prepare himself. After a little while W reappeared, approached us with a smile and welcomed us to the Uckfield Bridge Heritage Tour Experience. We had assembled under the River Uck sign at one end of the bridge; W pointed at the sign and explained that the Uckfield Bridge was a bridge crossing the River Uck, which had previously been called the River Ouse. If it were still called the River Ouse, the town would probably be called Ousefield, and this would be the Ousefield Bridge. A good start, I thought, although I could tell W was very nervous. I held Antony out to him, thinking it might calm him down, and he took him gratefully.
Next, Wilson showed us (well, just me by now) the stone plaque commemorating the building of the original bridge in 1617. ‘After more than 200 years, they knocked the old, stone bridge down and built a new one out of iron, just like the iron bridge at Ironbridge!’ he enthused, ‘But better!’ He pointed to another plaque, dated 1858, which marked the building of the new bridge. ‘So this is the 1858 bridge?’ I asked. ‘Um, not exactly,’ W replied, ‘there was a bit of an accident and that one fell down,’ he confessed.
I asked Wilson when I could have a proper look at the bridge. ‘You can’t,’ he replied bluntly. ‘There’s nowhere you can go to look at the bridge apart from if you stand on that big pipe over the river. But that doesn’t look very strong.’ ‘Can’t you see it from the railway station platform?’ I asked, ‘Or the garden of the café over the road?’ ‘No, I’ve tried all those places,’ he confessed, ‘and you can’t see it from anywhere. There’s always something in the way. Oooh look, there are some ducks!’ he shouted, deftly changing the subject. You can feed those with the Heritage Tour Duck Food I’m producing, except I haven’t got any with me today because I haven’t quite finished designing the Limited Edition Souvenir Bags.’
Wilson reached behind a wall and produced a big photograph, telling me that this was a picture of the traction engine that knocked the bridge down, lying under the bridge, taken by Uckfield photographer Mr George Bingham Towner.
‘On Saturday 27 June 1903 a steam traction engine was being driven over the bridge by Mr Horace Wright and by Mr Frederick Bennett who was the steerer, and Mr Alfred Yeomans who probably did something else. When they were half way over the bridge pulling two trucks loaded with stone, the bridge broke and the traction engine fell straight down. Mr French the fireman and Dr Sweet the doctor helped the men up, and they weren’t badly hurt.’
Wilson stopped for a moment and referred to his notes, before continuing. ‘Repairing the bridge took a long time and it didn’t reopen until May 1904. Mr John Fife said that the new bridge was better than the Tower Bridge, the Tay Bridge and the Forth Bridge, but he might have been trying to be funny. Any Questions? No? Then that concludes the Uckfield Bridge Heritage Tour, I shall serve your refreshments in a minute.’ Wilson then tried to sell me a souvenir stone from the original bridge. I asked him if it was genuine. ‘It’s a genuine stone,’ he replied, a little shiftily. ‘No, I mean is it genuinely from the original bridge?’ I persisted. ‘Probably. I found it under the new bridge, so where else would it be from? Or perhaps it’s one of the stones that fell out of the carts the traction engine was pulling over the bridge. Either way it’s a brilliant souvenir and well worth £5!’ I declined the souvenir stone and the refreshments, and thanked Wilson for a very interesting tour.
Wilson, Antony, the Genuine Souvenir Stone and I retired to a nearby pub for a debrief of the Uckfield Bridge Heritage Tour. ‘What did you think of the tour, then? Wilson asked, expectantly. ‘Well…’ I said, but before I could continue, W stopped me. ‘You hated it, didn’t you? I can tell.’ ‘No,’ I replied, I didn’t hate it at all. I thought the tour was very good indeed.’ ‘But?’ ‘The trouble isn’t the tour, it’s the bridge itself. Its history is unimpressive, and after all it’s only just over 100 years old. And there’s nowhere you can go to look at the bridge, you can only stand on it. And although your talk was very interesting, the whole tour was over in just five minutes.’ W’s face fell a little. He reached under the Genuine Souvenir Stone and pulled out an envelope addressed to him. ‘I received this this morning,’ he said, passing it to me. I took out the letter, which was from Uckfield Hospital. The gist of it was that they’d become aware of Wilson’s Uckfield Bridge Heritage Tour and they were concerned about the refreshments he planned. They said that
following his previous tours with refreshments, the hospital had been overwhelmed with food-poisoning victims and they wanted to know the dates of his next tour so they could lay on extra emergency staff. Wilson shrugged in a resigned sort of way. ‘That about settles it, doesn’t it?’ he said. ‘Are you sure you wouldn’t like to buy the Genuine Souvenir Stone?’ ‘Oh, alright,’ I replied, handing over a £5 note, ‘As long as you carry it home…’ ‘You’ll have to carry it,’ he said. ‘My paws will be full what with Antony, the traction engine photograph and this £5 note. When you get it home, you can put it in the Wilson Vermilingua OBE Museum of Old Stuff and A Robot.’