Obviously, I haven't shared enough with you because three people tagged me to do this About Me meme before I had chance to write the post. It's a list of questions based on the Guardian's Q&A feature, and was started by Kerry Jean Lister. First, the lovely Jenn from Momma on the Rocks tagged me because she said she was really curious what I would say. Gulp. Then, my great friend Garry from The Blog Up North tagged me too and before I had chance to draw breath, so did my namesake Kate from What Katie's Kids Did Next.
So, they're curious which means I have to inflict you all with the answers to all these questions. I think there's 27 so this could take a while...
Which living person do you most admire, and why? Anyone who has overcome adversity.
When were you happiest? That's a tough one. I can remember times when I was unhappiest the most so perhaps I was happy the rest of the time. It was probably around the time we got married.
What was your most embarrassing moment? Oh God, there is only one that springs to mind. Last summer, I was catching up with doing some competitions and saw one on the MSE boards that was a totally bizarre prize - it was 24 carat gold plated butt-plug. I did a copy and paste and shared it with a friend, in a kind of "you're never going to believe this" kind of way. Around the same time, I finished a Gallery post and went to tweet the link to my newly published post. I pasted the URL into Tweetdeck and it shortened, mentioned Tara so she could see it and hit send. A few minutes later, she came back to me with "what in the hell". I'd tweeted a link to the competition. Oops. Cue lots of panic from me, deleting the tweet and starting again, whilst my mentions went mad. I blushed so hard, it took about half an hour to cool down again. I can giggle about it now but at the time, oh boy.
Aside from property, what’s the most expensive thing you’ve bought? Probably my car.
What is your most treasured possession? I wear a ring on my finger that was given to me by a neighbour. She and her sister lived together after her husband died when I was quite small. She had married late in life and she was an invalid so neither had children. They kind of adopted our family - my mum lost her own mum around the time they moved into the road. As children, we would regularly visit them - we all had our own time to go to see them, and have tea with them. They looked after us and gave us cash gifts when I was in my late teens as they had no-one else to spend the money on. My mum found her dead on the floor one Valentine's Day and her sister insisted we all choose a piece of jewellery to keep. I found out afterwards that it's actually quite valuable cos it's antique but that was never the point. I'll never sell it.
Where would you like to live? Barcelona. No contest. If someone were to offer us a decent enough income, I would go without thinking about it. I feel at home there. I relax as soon as we arrive.
What’s your favourite smell? I think it will have to be food-related. Freshly ground coffee, bread baking, bacon cooking in the pan, all for a start. Imagine if you were doing all three at once - the smell would be heavenly.
Who would play you in the film of your life? Well, Garry has told me I look like Allison Janney from the West Wing. But I think she's a bit too tall and sleek to be me. So, Christina Hendricks would have to play the rest of me.
What is your favourite book? Either The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time by Mark Haddon or Possession by A.S. Byatt.
What is your most unappealing habit? Paranoia. Sometimes it's justified, sometimes it's not.
What would be your fancy dress costume of choice? Heck, I don't do fancy dress! Nell Gwynne perhaps?
What is your earliest memory? I have blogged about this before. Either banging my head against a fence cos I had a migraine at age 2 (think this is a false memory) or looking through the fence at playgroup at primary school and wanting to be a schoolgirl.
What is your guiltiest pleasure? Food probably, I like it way too much.
What do you owe your parents? My independence.
To whom would you most like to say sorry, and why? Only my Dad, that he developed such a terrible illness that robbed him of everything over time. Alzheimer's is a terrible disease.
What or who is the greatest love of your life? Twitter?
What does love feel like? Your stomach churning but a feeling that you can't take the smile off your face at the same time.
What was the best kiss of your life? A kiss in a car park once.
Which words or phrases do you most overuse? "You know what the rules are". "What do we do in the morning?" "Come on chicken" and "Eating!"
What is the worst job you’ve done? I worked in a food factory for most of one day. I walked out when I realised we were being used as cheap labour and expected to put our lives on hold and the job first.
If you could edit your past, what would you change? Nothing. I can't think of anything anyway. My life is what it is. It made me who I am today, for good and bad.
What is the closest you’ve come to death? I developed appendicitis when I was 4 and was rushed to hospital to have my appendix taken out . Apparently, it was taken out just before it burst.
What do you consider your greatest achievement? Still being in one piece by the age of 46. It's up there with giving birth to my children.
When did you last cry, and why? Yesterday, when I was feeling down about something.
How do you relax? Tweeting and blogging.
What single thing would improve the quality of your life? Having enough money not to have to worry about how the bills will get paid every month.
What is the most important lesson life has taught you? You never know when life is going to pull the rug from underneath you. Enjoy the now as much as you can because it can be taken away in an instant.
That's me.
I'm supposed to tag people so here goes:
Sandy at Baby Baby
