Grandson and tag mark 2

Visited Daughter 1 today and took Grandson out for a walk shortly after taking this picture. He has a bit of a cold. He's delicious all the same. I can't get over how soft his skin is, how wide his smile is, how much he bounces up and down with his lovely shrieky giggle.

He's much more interesting than my answers to the set questions will be, so I'll be brief:

Shoplifting - have you ever? Goodness me, no. Far too scared even if I wanted to.

Slapping children - yes or no? Well, no in theory. Can't remember doing it, but...

Shower every day? Never! Hate showers. Bath every day. (Sorry, environment.)

All is fair in love and war - yes or no? No.

Queue jumping - do you? Of course not. I'm British.

Social class barriers in Britain - vanishing or not? Don't think so, or only a bit.

Cap on benefits - yes or no? Hmm. Not sure. Don't think so.

Marmite? Yuck.

Why blog? To communicate.

Tribute bands? yes or no? I have no views. Even original bands - not really.

I won't ask anyone to do this because I know some people don't like to, but here are some questions, if anyone is lacking inspiration and would like to be questioned:

1. What would be your (at least faintly possible) dream job?
2. What era would you like to live in, if not now?
3. What super power would you choose?
4. Would you prefer to be more beautiful or richer?
5. Exactly how tidy are you?

A picture of the cats as kittens and a bit of a tag thing

They're bigger than this now.

One of the problems of posting every day is that I have less time to visit and comment on other people's blogs (and I do have rather a lot on my Favourites list) so I'm having a minor catch-up tonight and discover that I've been tagged by Libby on http://d-scribes.blogspot.com/2012_02_01_archive.html (can never remember how to do the proper linky thing). I'm a bit hesitant about doing this because my bloggy friends probably know too much about me anyway. However, I have nothing much else to say so here goes.

The instructions are to:

* post 11 random facts about yourself
* answer 10 questions
* make up 10 questions for the next tagee
* suggest 10 people to tag

Some facts :
1. When I was a little girl I had a ball on an elastic string and I pretended that it was my dog.
2. I would like to go to Iceland.
3. I've wanted to go there since doing a year (or was it two?) of Old Icelandic at university - reading the sagas in the original language.
4. Unfortunately I've forgotten a lot of it. Who am I kidding? Most of it.
5. A strange boy told my friend Dorothy and me the facts of life when we were 12 and picnicking on Arthur's Seat, Edinburgh's city hill. Actually, she already knew. But I didn't. I was very surprised.
6. He offered us half a crown to do it with him. We weren't tempted.
7. I invented bungee jumping (the general idea - it needed some refinement) as a punishment for my horrible maths teacher. I used to imagine shoving her off a tower block with elastic tied round her ankles. I should have patented the idea (this would be about 1965.)
8. My granny used to have a square of asbestos in her kitchen - she put in on the gas flame and then put the teapot on top, to keep the tea hot and stewed, the way my grandpa liked it. This doesn't now seem like a good idea but they lived to be 86 and 89.
9. My friend Dorothy was killed when she was knocked down by a car at the age of twenty-three. Another friend died at the same age, a year earlier, in a car crash. I often think about all the life they missed. And it had a great effect on me too. You never quite recover from such events.
10. If I lived on my own, I would possibly never cook again. It doesn't seem like a good use of time (unlike this, of course...).
11. Not all that long ago I wrote a little hello email to my dad's email address. He died nearly 5 years ago. I thought it would bounce back but it didn't and I know it's silly but ... I found that slightly comforting. Yesterday was his birthday. I haven't forgotten him.

Ok, that's enough. I'll do the rest tomorrow.

Nothing much to report

I’ve been tagged by Kathy of "I Can Run Too" - and she certainly can.

I feel, however, that I have to apologise for the amazing dullness of my life, about to be revealed. I mean, it hasn’t seemed dull to me, but it’s a bit short of events such as moving to a different continent, marrying several times, winning the Nobel Prize or (thank goodness) suffering life-threatening injuries. However, in all its blandness, here it is.

Jobs I’ve Held: various student jobs such as ticket seller, social work administration assistant; and then English teacher, first at a secondary (high) school and then at two different further education colleges.

Movies I Can Watch Over & Over: Hmm. I can’t sit still for even one whole film, really, but I have seen “Four Weddings and a Funeral” more than once – bits of it, anyway. I also enjoyed “Sliding Doors”, “Groundhog Day” and “Back to the Future”. Nothing exciting or violent. I have a nervous disposition.

My Guilty Pleasures: Blogging. Eating chocolate. But not both at once – one mustn’t overdo things.

Places I have lived (in order): Goodness, how boring: Edinburgh. Not that Edinburgh itself is boring, but never moving away does show a certain lack of initiative. My homes since birth, all five of them, have been within an eight-mile radius. How embarrassing.

Shows I enjoy: “University Challenge”, “Coronation Street”, some documentaries. I don’t watch much television, not because I don’t like any but because I very seldom get round to looking to see what’s on. Also I can't sit still. And once term starts I don’t have time. English teachers have lots of marking to do in the evenings.

Places I Have Been on Holiday: France, Germany, Spain, the US, Canada, Ireland, Wales, Holland, Belgium, various places in Scotland and England. This sounds as if I’m terribly well-travelled, but in fact I’ve been to a lot of these only once, and you must remember that I’m 57 so the holidays have been very spaced out. Places we love and often go to are Crieff in Scotland and Heacham in Norfolk.( Hello to the person from Stevenage, Norfolk, who seems to drop into this blog quite often.)

Favourite Foods: Raspberries, dark chocolate, sweetcorn, peas.

Websites I Visit Daily: Lots of blogs, though not all daily. (See Guilty Pleasures.)

Body Parts I Have Injured: Nothing much. I’m a cautious person. Not even my heart. I married my first real boyfriend and he’s still around, and still being nice.

Awards I’ve Won: Just school prizes really. Certainly no sporting awards! A university degree – does that count? – oh, and a small university bursary.

Nicknames I’ve Been Called: Mainly variations of my name, but, as a child, Snookie and Toots. You’d think that, as a teacher, I’d have acquired some insulting nicknames but if so, I’m happily unaware of them. My husband sometimes calls me Prune. This dates from our youth, when I didn’t look at all prune-like. I’m probably growing into this one.

Can I tag Molly Bawn, Ragged Roses, Paul of Paulz Blog (though I don’t think he reads me much) and Patra? Sorry that I can’t do the underlining thing, but there they are in my Blogroll.