All that you never wanted to know

I went to Maifest yesterday at my old student residence. That’s the Fest where the ex residents are invited to come back to meet the new residents and bore entertain them with tales of how things were back in the day. It was my first Maifest as a former resident, but seeing as I only moved out 2 months ago I didn’t have any back in the day stories to tell. Not that I would tell them if I did, but y’know. Mostly I spent the day telling people that I do not, in fact, still live there. I’m now wondering whether anybody actually noticed I was gone. I had planned to come home fairly early, but instead ended up sitting up all night drinking beer, finally making it home at 8am. I then went to bed, but only for a few hours. Seriously need curtains for the bedroom – the whole bright sun shining in on me thing makes daytime napping difficult. And now it’s 3:45pm. I’m still in my pyjamas and I’ve just eaten a whole 200g packet of chocolate raisins. You may decide for yourself what that says about me.

Anyway, I spotted this meme over at Home Office Mum’s blog and in the absence of other inspiration decided to steal it for today’s post.
So, what I have to do is answer the following questions. Oh, and I also have to replace one question and add one question. Fair enough.

1. What are your current obsessions?
Taking photographs. I took one of a purple tree on my way home this morning. Why? Because I could. Chocolate raisins. Adding books to my huge list of things I want to read some day. Facebook. And my blog of course, but that kind of goes without saying.

2. Which item from your wardrobe do you wear most often?
Black trousers. I wear them for work. Work is all I do. therefore I wear my black trousers all the flipping time. I seriously need to get a life.

3.Tell me your current most played song.
A Long December by Counting Crows. I am listening to it on repeat even as I type. no idea why I’m so into it at the moment. I just love it. I’m also listening to All For You by Sister Hazel a lot. “Words can’t say and I can’t do enough to prove it’s all for you“. Was this song written about me?

4. Last thing you bought?
Food actually, but I’m guessing that isn’t what you want to know. Other than that I believe it was 4 champagne glasses from Nanu Nana. They were 95 cents each. How could I possibly resist?

5. What are you listening to?
A Long December by Counting Crows. Still.

6. Wine or chocolate?

What do you mean or? Surely it has to be wine and chocolate!

7. Favourite holiday spots?
Somewhere that isn’t here. Anywhere. Please, just take me away.
Seriously? I adored Rome. Really want to go back. Also Austria. I miss looking at snow capped mountains. Just don’t ask me to climb the bloody things.

8. Reading right now?
On the tram: A Dragon Lance book. In German. At home: Nothing actually. How is that possible?

9. Four words to describe yourself.
Pretty much permanently confused. (Hence the title of the blog)

10. Guilty pleasure?
Naturals crisps in Balsamic Vinegar flavour. If I carry on like this I’ll be the size of a house by June.

11. Who or what makes you laugh until you’re weak?
Katyboo‘s blog. Clue. Possibly the funniest film ever. Also Belgian Waffle. So two out of my three things are blogs. I’m sure that’s significant in some way.

12. Favourite spring thing to do?
Eat icecream. Spend time outdoors before it becomes too hot for me to cope.

13. Planning to travel to next?
England. In July. For a friend’s wedding.

14. Best thing you ate or drank lately?
Baked potato with lashings of cheddar cheese. I rarely get to eat any cheddar cheese here so when I do it’s as if Christmas, Easter and my birthday have all come and once.

15. When did you last get tipsy?
Last night. First time in months.

16. Favourite ever film?
Usually I say A League of Their Own, but really it’s a toss up between that and Edward Scissorhands.

17. Care to share some wisdom?
I have no wisdom of my own to impart so instead I give you a quote from the Dragonlance Chronicles, Volume 2. “If we deny love that is given to us, if we refuse to give love because we fear the pain of loss, then our lives will be emptier, our loss greater“. Or, in other words, take a chance people. At least if it all goes wrong you’ll still have the memories.

18. Song you can’t get out of your head?
Before I chased it away with Counting crows I had that Umberella (ella ella) song in my head. It was playing in a shop the other day and it’s been haunting me ever since. I don’t even like the bloody song!

19. One thing you’d really like to do this year
Ugh. Why must you asked such difficult questions?
If you’d asked me three months ago I’d have said get a flat, but I’ve done that now and I can’t think of anything else.

20. What or who makes you irrationally rage and totally not proud of yourself at the same time?
Old people on trams. I hate the way they expect you to give up your seat for them, even if they’re only going one stop. And if you fail to stand up they just glare at you until you do. It drives me mad! And then I feel guilty because they are old people after all.

If you could have chosen your own name what would you be called?
When I was younger I always wanted my name to be Abigail. I’ve no idea why, or where I even got the name from, but I always thought it sounded so much more interesting than Beverley.

OK, now it’s over to you. I’m not actually going to name specific bloggers,  so anyone who wishes may consider themselves tagged.

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My red letter is…

Ages and ages ago Hails over at Coffee Helps was giving away letters for a memey type thing. It’s quite simple really – you take your assigned letter and write a blog post based around it. The idea is to think of ten things beginning with that letter that are meaningful to you.

My letter is T. Here are my ten things…

TRAVELING.
I ♥ traveling. Getting to see new places, learn new customs, hear new languages. How could anybody not love it? I’m not sure if it’s because I was brought up in an army family or what, but staying on one place all the time just sounds incredibly boring to me. As does going on holiday to the same place every year. I want to go everywhere. See everything. Experience as much as I can. And I love the fact that I’m actually living in an era where this is possible. No more 3 days donkey ride to get to the next village. No, I simple hop on a plane (or even a train) and within hours I’m wherever I want to go. It’s fabulous!

TOFFIFEE
Does anybody not know these sweets? They’re little cups of toffee with a hazelnut buried in nougat in the middle and a then a thick disk of chocolate over the top. I could eat them all day! It’s actually a good job there are only about 12 in a pack otherwise I could seriously make myself sick eating them. They were invented in Germany by the way. I knew there was a reason I liked this country…

THUNDERSTORMS
I adore thunderstorms. They’re exciting and awesome and slightly scary all at once. I especially love it when there’s forked lighting. Forked lightning is probably the coolest weather phenomenon. I also find thunderstorms strangely erotic. I always want sex when it’s thundering outside.
Wow, I can’t believe I just said that. On the internet!

TIGER’S EYE
Tiger’s eye is the birthstone for Leo, which is my star sign. It’s much, much nicer than the birthstone for August (my birth month), which is peridot. Peridot is green. A really strange pale green that reminds me of snot. Awful. Tiger’s Eye on the other hand is a kind of orangey brown. It has light bits and darker streaks, so it looks stripy like a tiger. You can also get red tiger’s eye, whch -as the name suggests – is a reddish version of tiger’s eye. Below you can see a photo of my red tiger’s eye necklace. It was a Christmas present from Jan and is my second favourite piece of jewellery. (My absolute favourite is a necklace of golden leaves that I inherited from my step-mum).

TREGARRICK
Tregarrick is a book by Keith Chatfield. It’s not my favourite book nor has it ever been my favourite, but my copy is special to me because it’s signed. My Auntie, who knew my ambition was to be a writer, had it signed for me and gave me it for my tenth birthday. The dedication that the write wrote in the book is wishing me luck with my dream. I haven’t achieved my ambition of becoming a writer yet (a couple of poems published by Forward Press doesn’t really count)but maybe I shall one day. And it’s nice to know my Auntie believed in me back then.

THIRTEEN
I’ve always loved the number thirteen. Not only because I was born on the 13th, although that is part of the reason. I’ve just always been fascinated with the fact that people believe it to be unlucky. As a child I remember wondering how a number could be unlucky. I mean, it’s just a number, right? Any anyway, obviously it must have been lucky for me. After all, I did come into existence on that day. The 13th is still my favourite number even now, and Friday 13th my favourite day. If it was up to me every Friday 13th would be a holiday. (And employers around the world breathe huge sighs of relief at the fact that I am not in charge…)

TERRY PRATCHETT
What can I say, the man’s a flipping genius! How could you not like the guy that invented Death of Rats? And Granny Weatherwax. And the luggage. At least three of my favourite books were written by him. He’s just so funny, and all of his observations are absolutely spot on. Plus, how could you not love somebody who describes being diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer’s as “an embuggerance”?

TEN THINGS I HATE ABOUT YOU
There are so many things I like about this film. The soundtrack (Letters to Cleo! Semisonic! Sister Hazel!) The fact that Heath Ledger looks pretty darn fine in it. (I still can’t believe he’s dead. The guy was only a few years older than me. People my age aren’t supposed to die!). The poem. The bit where Bianca punches Joey. Yes it is probably a chick flick and yes it is cheesy in places but I really don’t care. I love it.

TOMI UNGERER
He is a French artist. He illustrated the Flat Stanley books, among other things. He also wrote and illustrated some children’s books of his very own. He also does political and erotic art. The erotic art makes me laugh – a lot. Here‘s a picture by Tomi Ungerer. And here‘s another one. They are good, no?

TEA
I always have lots of teabags in the house. Both ordinary black tea and the fruity kinds (which are technically infusions because they don’t actually contain any tea). There’s nothing quite like curling up on the sofa with a good book and a nice hot drink when it’s cold, rainy and windy outside. Coffee is good too, but it takes so long to make (unless you use instant which sort of defeats the point of a nice hot drink) and in my world hot chocolate is only for bed time – or for drinking in cafes where you can get them to put a mountain of cream on the top. So a nice hot cup of tea it is, or even a pot if I feel that way inclined.

OK, I think that’s 10. Phew. That was hard.
Now it’s over to you lot. If you want a letter just leave me a comment and I shall assign one to you. Let the memeing begin…