Pull up a chair and get yourself a brew...
ABOUT WROODLES
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IT STARTED WITH A DOODLE. JUST WITH WORDS.
Wroodles comes from Writing Doodles — little observations about people, behaviour and the strange things we humans do without always realising we’re doing them.
Most of us know a Peacock Pete, a Gobbie Gertie or a Moaning Minnie. Sometimes we might even recognise a little bit of them in ourselves. That’s the idea behind Wroodles.
We take familiar personalities, habits and everyday situations, exaggerate them just enough to make them funny, and then look at what’s really going on underneath. Because humour has a rather useful way of getting through where lectures don’t — it involves a bit of psychology.
Wroodles isn’t about judging people or putting them into boxes. Quite the opposite. It’s about understanding ourselves and each other a little better — while having a laugh along the way.
Somewhere during all this writing and doodling, the characters needed somewhere to live. So, we gave them a village.
Unfortunately, they invited their friends.
WELCOME TO WROODLES VILLAGE
Words that make you think & smile
The people-watcher in residence...
ABOUT MARK
I’ve spent much of my working life doing something I didn’t realise I was doing at the time — watching people.
My background has been rather varied: finance and accountancy, business, consulting, training, mentoring and teaching, developing my own business and helping other business owners, with quite a few less predictable life adventures and experiences thrown in along the way. Much of it involved working and travelling with people from completely different backgrounds and learning how to communicate with each of them.
Put me in a room with accountants, engineers, factory workers or business owners and I’d naturally change the way I communicated. Not because the people were fundamentally different, but because we don’t all think, communicate or absorb information in the same way.
And somewhere along the way I became fascinated by the little things people do. The posturing. The facial expressions. The need for approval. The person in a meeting who suddenly becomes three inches taller when the boss walks in. The person who has to go one better. The moaner. The worrier. The attention-seeker. And occasionally the wonderfully eccentric person who couldn’t care less what anybody thinks.
I began scribbling observations down, sometimes as little poems and bits of nonsense. Eventually those observations became Wroodles — Writing Doodles.
I’ve been fortunate enough to travel quite widely, usually preferring the side street to the tourist attraction. Whether travelling through Sri Lanka in a hired tuk-tuk, walking towards Everest Base Camp or wandering off on my own somewhere unfamiliar, I’ve always been more interested in the people and the journey than ticking off the destination.
People are fascinating, frequently ridiculous and rarely quite what they first appear to be. I don’t think we should take ourselves too seriously.
I’m a Yorkshireman, which may explain the dry sense of humour. Or it may just be an excuse. Either way, Wroodles is where I’ve finally found somewhere useful to put a lifetime of observations.
And unfortunately for everyone I’ve ever met, I’m still watching.
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Mark Humphries
Yorkshireman. Professional noticer.
Village noticeboard
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Questions, kind words, or a character you think deserves documenting? Pin a note to the noticeboard below, or write directly to mark@wroodles.club.
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Hear about new residents, new books, village gossip and the occasional bit of nonsense.
No spam. We’ve already got enough irritating characters.
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