Guten Tag!

Yesterday I got a message from Gillian at tales from a happy house saying she had "tagged" me. Being new to this blogging lark I was a bit mystified as to what "tagging" entailed but all was revealed in her post here. 


These are the rules...

^ Post these rules

^ Post 11 things about yourself

^ Answer the questions provided by the one who tagged you

^ Create 11 new questions for the people you tag

^ Go to their blog and tell them they've been tagged!

Eleven random facts about me:

1. I write (when not on the computer) with a fountain pen and always in the same blue-black ink.
2. I love blue and white china.
3. I am most comfortable in ... jeans... and won't leave the house without ... perfume (expensive perfume, I am afraid).
4. Monday is my one complete day off a week which I usually spend with my best friend, S.
5. I hate not to be busy and for the house to be untidy so, like Mrs Tittlemouse, I am "always sweeping and dusting the soft sandy floors", "polishing my little tin spoons" (or the equivalent!) and am never far from my dust-pan and brush! This doesn't mean my house is perfectly kept - far from it, just that I try!
6. I have two degrees - the first in Classics and the second in Theology.
7. I am married to D who generously weathers my eccentricities*, is a model railway fanatic and who can mend almost anything under the sun that is broken. 
8. My current favourite Sunday afternoon activity is reading Iliad Book III, in Greek, with my son who got bored with translating sentences such as, "The slave fell in the river.", "The horse chased the slave into the river.", "The slave chased the horse into the river.", "The general's horse chased the soldier into the river." etc etc" and wanted to read some "real" Greek. My Greek is rustier than I thought though!
9. I get withdrawal symptoms if I am away too long from a kitchen to potter and bake in so can only stay in hotels for Short Periods.
10. I "don't do" wheelie bins, petrol pumps, or sock-darning. Occasionally necessity precludes a complete embargo on the first two, (although never the last,) but I do my best!
11. My favourite quotation is from Pope John Paul II, who said after the attempt on his life, "There is no such thing as coincidence within the providence of God." I don't believe this means that everything is predestined or that we don't have free will but I do believe there is no such thing as coincidence within the providence of God and lots of experiences in my life have brought that home to me in a very compelling way.

*D gave me this for Christmas. It is on my study door and I wear it with pride.
As you may be able to see, originally the wording was in the plural
 but as I am the only woman in the house, we painted out the superfluous ss!
Yes, it is hung at that angle on the door!

Questions from Gillian

1. Tea or Coffee? Tea - Earl Grey. I drink gallons of the stuff with organic soya milk in it. The soya isn't for any reason other than I happen to prefer it to milk in tea. I don't drink coffee at all - it disagrees with me  - but I love the smell so I love making it for other people especially in that whizzy Nespresso machine.
2. What book are you reading at the moment? "Leaving Alexandria" by Richard Holloway. I got to know Richard Holloway while I was a university student in the 80s - the reviewers have it right, his is "one of the most  humane and engaged minds of our times" which answers the next question really as well. 
3. Who inspires you? See above, but lots of people come into this category not least, but not only, in blogland.
4. Do you have a favourite craft? Sewing and crochet - difficult to choose between them so I had better put them equal first! Both are a passion.
5. What is your guiltiest pleasure? On-line shopping - Amazon for books, on-line stores such as Laughing Hens, Fancy Moon, Consider the Lily, Purl Soho, Cucumber Patch for fabric and yarn, and for other bits and pieces, Cath Kidston, Berry Red, Cabbages and Roses, Lily Lolo, Space NK, Annick Goutal... how long do you want me to go on for?!!
6. As a child, what did you want to be when you grew up? An artist like my French great-grandmother.
7. What is your favourite song? "A Soft Place To Fall" by Allison Moorer from the film "The Horse Whisperer".
8. What is your earliest memory? Being at my grandparents on the eve of my sister's birth and being given the dolls' cot that had belonged to my mother as a child. It was a simple, wooden affair, painted in a soft mushroom colour and with webbing straps across the base. It had a proper, quilted mattress in a bold green and white check print, punctuated with little, bright, red mattress buttons and a side panel you could raise and lower just like a life-size cot. At two and a half I thought it was absolutely fabulous and my favourite china-headed doll, Marian, that had also belonged to my mother (and whose insides, rather alarmingly, had a tendency to spill out, necessitating frequent emergency surgery, with an old fashioned button hook, the sort you used, to hook loops over those tiny buttons on Victorian boots) was laid most tenderly within it without delay.
9. Do you have a favourite soap opera? No. I am afraid I don't watch any television at all apart from occasional episodes of Top Gear which I probably shouldn't find as entertaining as I do! 
10. What is your most treasured possession? My health. I encounter a lot of people facing very serious health or incapacity problems through my work and I know that I don't have the courage that I see in so many of them. It's very humbling and a constant reminder to be grateful for the health one currently has.
11. What would you last meal be? Sorry, this is going to be a mite fussy in a "When Harry Met Sally" kind of way, but you did ask! A big plateful of steamed English asparagus; (not the very thin spears or sprue as I think it's called, but decent, thick ones. Not so thick you can't eat the whole spear though), drizzled with thick, green, organic, extra-virgin olive oil, from Le Mas de Gourgonnier in Provence; home-made, crusty, white bread (no butter); a big bowl of recently picked, English raspberries, still warm from the sun, with some caster sugar to sprinkle on the top and some thick, yellow cream from the farm down the road; a greeny-gold, oaked, Australian Chardonnay to wash it all down; last but not least, the company of those I love.

My questions... 

1. If you were invited to make a piece of art, what medium would you use?
2. What clothes are you most comfortable in?
3. If you had an unexpected afternoon to yourself and not a care in the world, how would you spend it?
4. Do you have things you "don't do" like my wheelie bins and if so, what are they?
5. What do you panic most about losing?
6. What is your favourite quotation?
7. What is your ideal holiday?
8. If you wear lipstick, what shape is the end, once it's no longer new? (I dimly remember this should tell you something about someone but I can't for the life of me remember what! My lipsticks, however they start, always become flattened off, to an almost completely level surface - see pic. If anyone knows what this signifies, please tell me!)
9. Do you have a habit you would like to drop or one you would like to adopt?
10. What everyday article would you most miss if it were suddenly unavailable?
11. What is your favourite perfume? 

And I would like to tag...

Ali at domesticali

Angela at collected yarns
Anne at life in mud spattered boots

Bev at dinkyflowerpots

Natalie at natalie ellett designs

Ali, Angela, Anne, Bev and Natalie, 

to paraphrase Gillian, these "five blogs of yours are ones that I really enjoy reading 

- I hope you enjoy the tagging experience" 

I hope also that you don't mind me tagging you. 

Please feel free to respond or not. x E