The Liebster Award

I've been nominated for the Liebster Award by the wonderfully creative Etta Stark. Check out her blog post here:

The Liebster Award is passed around the blogging community in order to promote great blogs and find out a bit more about the bloggers who make them.

Ok, so here are the questions that Etta set for me to answer:

1. Do you make New Years Resolutions? How did this year's go?
Hmmm - New Year's resolutions - you make 'em - you break 'em! I once vowed not to eat chocolate for a whole year. That resolution lasted a week. I haven't bothered making any since! However, I do feel that New Year is a good time to look forward with purpose.

2. What is your earliest memory?
I remember being pushed in a pram down a country lane, where there were huge swathes of moon pennies growing wild. By moon pennies I mean ox-eye daisies - lovely tall flowers with white petals and large yellow centres.

3. Would you ever have plastic surgery? What would you have done?
I don't think so - unless I were disfigured in an accident. I actually think that a face with laughter lines and a few wrinkles looks attractive ... but ask me again in 20 years time about the wrinkles and see if I've changed my mind :D

4. What's your most recent earworm?
I had to look that word up! Right. Got it - a catchy tune. And the answer is ... Barbie Girl. I hate it but it haunts me!

5. Do you have any superstitions that you have to follow?
Only one, and that is I have to hold my breath if I walk under a ladder. There is a very sound reason for this. Many years ago I defied superstition and walked under a ladder ... and got blobs of green paint splashed on my hair. The odds of it happening again are remote but if I must go walking under ladders, my psyche is placated if I hold my breath whilst doing so!

6. What would you eat at your last meal?
Fish and chips. Sod the calories.

7. Did you write as a child? What sort of things did you write?
Yes, I was always reading and writing. I used to make up the most fantastical improbable stories about going to the moon with a mouse. I'd climb inside a rocket which was cunningly disguised as a red post box. Imagination is a wonderful thing!

8. Who is your hero?
The underdogs. The many unsung heroes who live life selflessly and leave happiness in their wake. And the character Aragorn in Lord of the Rings. (I admit to being influenced by the fact that I find Viggo Mortenson as sexy as hell.)

9. Do you have any recurring dreams?
No. Though that's not strictly true as I have had the same dream 3 times over a period of 35 years. It's a very weird and disjointed dream and I don't understand it at all.


10. If I were a visitor to your home town for a day, what would your recommend I see and do?
If you were into walking in the countryside I'd tell you to bring your walking boots and off we'd go to explore Derbyshire. You'd see hills and dales, stunning scenery, an ancient castle, a few caves, and end up in the pub.

11. Describe your perfect holiday.
I can say what it wouldn't be - laying on a beach towel every day for 2 weeks getting fried by the sun holds no appeal for me. (I have red hair - the nasty sun turns me into a mobile tomato). I'd love to explore Bhutan one day and visit Tiger's Eye monastery. Check out the link - isn't that fabulous? Trouble is, I'm not sure I'd manage the climb! I'd need one of those whizzy two-wheel scooter thingies.

**********
Right, thanks for the questions Etta. And now onto the next bit – 11 Amazing Facts about me ... including some not quite so amazing.


1. When I was 8 I had two pet mice called Tom and Monty. I kept them in the outhouse in a deluxe mouse cage with all mod cons. They were my pride and joy, and then one day when I went in, the bars of the cage had been prized apart and all that was left of my dear friends were a couple of bits of ears and tail ends. Oh the horror! I later saw the neighbour's bastard cat sitting on the garden wall licking it's lips (Do cats have lips??!) and I just KNOW it was him! Tom and Monty - you were the best!

2. When I was a kid I used to love reading stories about Narnia, and would go scurrying round the house looking for secret entrances. To my surprise and delight I discovered a little door in one of the attic rooms (I lived in a large Victorian semi detached house). The door led to the eaves and was partly hidden by an old trunk (sadly it contained no treasures, just a pile of old tatty moth-eaten curtains) and was around 2 feet high with an aperture just big enough to crawl into. Myself and my friend went exploring. We took a torch and a picnic (cheese sandwiches and apples) and sat there on planks of wood in that cobweb infested gloomy place and thought it was wonderful ... until my friend put her foot through the floor and damaged the bedroom ceiling below. Ah happy days.

3. My first taste of unrequited love was when I was 13 or 14 and fell head over heels for a boy called Clarence (yes, honestly, that was his name). He worked in a wet fish shop and smelled rather strongly of ... fish. But I wasn't deterred. Any opportunity I got, I'd go and blow all my spending money on bits of haddock. I went off him big time when I discovered he already had a girlfriend. Bitch!!

4. I used to work in a research establishment with lots of whacky old boffins, one of whom would get up at dawn and go fishing, cook his catch, wrap it in foil and put it on the radiators at work until he was ready to eat it. He stunk the place out. Hey - this is another fishy tale. I do hope I haven't got some sort of deep rooted fish complex! Help!

5. When I was camping with the girl guides it rained solidly for 3 days and it was miserable, then the sun came out and a bus load of boy scouts arrived and camped at the opposite end of our field. Myself and a friend got into frightful trouble because we were caught paddling with two boy scouts wearing only our vests and knickers. (Let me just clarify that we girl guides were the ones wearing vests and knickers.)

6. I have a thing for the bad guys in movies and my favourite bad guy is Alan Rickman.

7. When I was around 19 or 20 I went out drinking with a girl friend and we went back to her house and she told my I could stay the night. She pointed to a bedroom containing a double bed and I gratefully got in - and woke up the following morning next to her Grandma! I suppose it could have been worse - it might have been her Grandad!

8. I once presented a paper to 100 people and was very pleased to see that I had their attention, as they were leaning forward smiling at me. I later discovered I had some spinach from lunch stuck in my front teeth. Oh what humiliation! Cringe. Cringe.

9. Before I left home I lived with my mother, who used to have this guy come round every few weeks delivering bags of potatoes. Not surprisingly we called him .... the potato man! He asked mom out on a date and when she politely declined - he asked me! Now I find that quite an insult!

10. I once went to a barbecue party and put a big sausage on the grill. It later exploded and flew threw the air, burning the nose of a guy I'd had my eye on for some time but was too scared to approach. That sausage brought us together! Hey - it's a change from fish ...

11. Many years ago I got stuck in a lavatory and had to wait until someone smashed the door open to let me out.


**********
There we are. Hope you have been suitably entertained. And now I would like to nominate the following people for the Liebster Award:
Trent Evans
Blossom and Thorn
[Um, I thought I'd better check with the rest of them first. Watch this space!]

And here are the questions for my nominees:

1. What was your worst ever job?

2. What is your favourite way to relax?

3. What is the proudest moment of your life ?

4. What is the craziest, maddest, zaniest thing you have ever done?

5, What is your favourite film, and why?

6. What is your favourite line from a movie and why?

7. What inspires you as a writer?

8. What would be your ideal night out?

9. What is the most embarrassing thing you have ever experienced?

10. When you were young, what did you want to be when you grew up?

11. Would you eat a plate of witchetty grubs if someone offered you a million pounds?!

Rules
The rules of the Liebster Award are:

1.    Thank the person who nominated you, and post a link to their blog on your blog.

2.    Display the award on your blog — by including it in your post and/or displaying it using a “widget” or a “gadget”. (Note that the best way to do this is to save the image to your own computer and then upload it to your blog post.)

3.    Answer 11 questions about yourself, which will be provided to you by the person who nominated you.

4.    Provide 11 random facts about yourself.

5.    Nominate 5 – 11 blogs that you feel deserve the award, who have less than 1000 followers. (Note that you can always ask the blog owner this since not all blogs display a widget that lets the readers know this information!)

6.    Create a new list of questions for the blogger to answer.

7.    List these rules in your post. Once you have written and published it, you then have to:

8.    Inform the people/blogs that you nominated that they have been nominated for the Liebster award and provide a link for them to your post so that they can learn about it (they might not have ever heard of it!)