Memes & Themes

Don't faint Suburbia and Growing Our Own, at last I'm responding to your tags! I do like doing these, so forgive my tardiness and here goes :)

1. The rules of the game are posted at the beginning.

2. Each player answers the questions about themselves.

3. The player tags 5 people and leaves a comment telling them they've been tagged & asking them to read their Blog.

Q. What were you doing 10 years ago?
A. Dreaming of quitting Earthwatch (an environmetal charity) and starting my own business. I did just 5 months later.

Q. Name 5 snacks you enjoy
A. Chocolate (obviously), popcorn, nuts, fresh fruit (especially from the allotment) and salad cream sandwiches

Q. Things I would do if I were a billionaire
A. I once made the shortlist for Who Wants to be a Millionaire and spent the week thinking about what I'd do with the money if I got on and won. After the usual dreams about donations to my favourite charities, world travel, a house with a garden large enough for an orchard etc. I came to the conclusion that the only real change I wanted in my life was my commute to work. I no longer have that commute, but I'd like to spend my billion on trying to invent an instant transporter system to end the nightmare for those who still have to.

Q. Five jobs that I have had
A. As a student I worked on a farm in Nottinghamshire testing peas for their tenderness (using a tenderometer) and chopping up ten tonne blocks of ice from Grimsby into much smaller chunks with a pickaxe.

As a civil servant I reunited someone with their savings certificates they'd lost whilst parachuting over Italy during WWII.

As a systems analyst/business analyst I designed an application form that was available at all our post offices for a number of years and also worked out how many millions it would cost a medium sized building society to convert their computer systems to the euro

As a freshwater biologist I devised a method to sample Mediterranean wetlands using invertebrates as environmental indicators and splashed about on a number of Welsh and English rivers looking at salmon and trout populations.

Whilst at Earthwatch I organised a number of volunteer weekends in my role as Events & Education Co-ordinator - including ones at the herbaria at Kew and The Natural History Museum. My job was sponsored by Marks & Spencer and I had to go to their head office and give a regular account of my activities.

I need to add a sneaky sixth job - NAH and I realised pretty early on that computing and engineering didn't exactly grab people's attention at parties. So we invented spoof jobs to talk about instead. Mine was designing Crazy Paving.

Q. Three bad habits
A. I could have used all 3 of Suburbia's and NAH threatened to provide me with an extensive list, but here are 3 of my very own:

I leave all the pots and pans to soak instead of washing them straight away. When NAH is away this can be for days - shhh don't tell him!

I'm a daydreamer - I could spend all my time just gazing out of the window. I call it thinking!

I leave the stuff I'm working on spread out for me to return to. Trouble is I have several projects on the go at once. If I put them away, those projects just won't get looked at for a while - I found a jumper I was knitting over 20 years ago in a cupboard the other day...

Q. Five places I have lived
A. Excluding the location of this blog and temporary residences of just a few weeks or months -Birmingham (hometown), Newcastle (student), Durham (first paid job), Cardiff (2nd time student) and Corsham (first place NAH and I lived in after getting married)

Q. Five people I want to know more about:
A. I've just started delving into NAH's and my family's history and have hit paydirt already. On my list are:

T.E. Lawrence aka Lawrence of Arabia - NAH's dad's cousin was a friend of his and was the first curator at Clouds Hill cottage after Lawrence's death

Norma Proctor - my grandad's cousin who sang Rule Britannia at The Last Night of the Proms in the 1970s

Jesse Boot - one of NAH's great great uncles was a pharmacist and knew the founder of our familiar high street chemist's

William Booth - a relative on my dad's side was The Salvation Army's founder's second in command

Thomas Hardy - I hated his books when forced to read them at school, but NAH's aunt says there's a character in one of them who might be his great grandfather

Tum, tee, tum, tee, tum - now who to tag:

Authorblog - it's about time he had a taste of his Sunday Roast!

GardenJoy4Me - I'm looking forward to her take on all of this...

Turquoise - returning the favour of my first ever tag! Thanks Lisa, you tagged me just in time to prevent me from giving up blogging :)

The Plot Thickens - Simon, I'm returning the favour from your recent tagging ;) My response to yours is up next.

Threadspider - Just to keep you on your toes.

There's no obligation to play if you don't want to, but I'm dying to find out what you all have to say :)

Comments

  1. Yolanda Elizabet Heuzen8 May 2008 at 07:54

    It's nice to know abit more about you. BTW I've linked with you,hope that's OK, will you do the same?

    cheerio!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Esther Montgomery8 May 2008 at 08:50

    Between the ages of eleven and fourteen, I used to travel to school on the London Underground.

    It was quite a long way. One of the ways I passed the time with my friends was like this:-

    If we found ourselves jammed between lots of people in the area in front of the doors (which was quite often) we would talk about something interesting enough to grab the attention of eavesdroppers.

    Gradually, we would introduce made-up things and let the conversation get more and more absurd so we could see how long it took before the grown-ups around us realised it was all nonsense. (We could tell by their expressions.)

    This game sort of overlaps your boring comute item and your invented professions.

    Esther
    ESTHER IN THE GARDEN

    ReplyDelete
  3. Esther Montgomery8 May 2008 at 12:33

    Mentioned you on today's posting - ESTHER IN THE GARDEN re. landslide.

    Hope ok.

    Esther

    ReplyDelete
  4. Ewa8 May 2008 at 19:27

    VP,
    interesting to know little bit more of you :)
    Greetings from Poland :)

    ReplyDelete
  5. CanadianGardenJoy9 May 2008 at 00:05

    VP ............................................................................................................. and !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
    Joy

    ReplyDelete
  6. VP12 May 2008 at 14:59

    Yolanda - thanks for stopping by and thanks for the link. You'll see that I've returned the favour :)

    Esther - I must add your game to our repertoire! Thanks for the mention too :)

    Ewa - hello again! Glad you enjoyed it

    Joy - don't worry, whenever and whatever you feel like doing...

    ReplyDelete

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I love hearing from you and welcome thoughtful conversations :)

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