Tag you're it...

The lovely Beth from Thoughts from the Hearthfire has tagged me. The idea is to share ten random facts about myself. This is harder than one might first think, but anyway, here goes...

1. I suffer from koumpounophobia. No seriously, I do. I particularly dislike plastic ones, and unnecessary ones, oh don't get me started on those. Ick, yuck, yucky, yucky yuck. 
2. I'm also a bit traumatised by butterflies. They just flutter about oblivious to everything. I am not a flower butterflies. Stop scaring me. There is a reason behind this trauma, you can read about it here.
3. I have, if it's possible, too many red shoes. This summer, after a particularly bad spate of not putting my shoes away, the bubba arranged them all in a pretty long line. They are all different shapes, sizes and shades, so it's alright really. Isn't it?
4. I have a black cat called Merlin, you may have seen him skulking around the blog.
5. I can't make pancakes. This could be described as problematic in a country that makes lots of money out of selling crepes, and Pancake day used to get me into a bit of a cold sweat, but guess what? I live in a country that sells ready made ones in the supermarket. Thank you France. 
6. I am a pescatarian, not to be mistaken with Presbyterian. I live with two of the biggest meat eaters in the world and I apparently make a mean steak, but ... no... mmm... I just can't do it. 
7. Since owning my first pair of DM's way back then, I have never been without a pair, or two, or three (and two of them are shades of red).
8. I don't wear a watch, probably because I can't read them, although I used to come out with some complete BS about not wanting to be tied down by time. The folly of that became apparent when I started teaching and realised that I needed to know when playtime and PE ended. I bought a watch, this honking big black thing with big numbers that didn't make it any easier to tell the time. One day I was twirling it around my finger and flinging it into the air (you see I still didn't wear it) while waiting for the kids to line up and... well you can tell how this ends, right?
9. I have a tree tattoo on my right ankle. Sometimes I forget that it's there and then I admire it all over again. 
10. I'm terribly bad with time. When people asked my religion I used to say that my dad raised me to be  late. My friends used to tell me to be somewhere half an hour earlier than they were planning to be there knowing I would be late. And do you know, it's never my fault.

So now, I'm supposed to tag some peeps. So, I'm going to cheat big time. If you are doing the Writer's Platform-Building Campaign, and you like this tag, then take it, do it and just drop me a message in the comments section to let me know you've done it. I look forward to reading your random facts and I'll add the link to the bottom of this post just here...

• Who will be first?

Catching up - Part III: A wordy kind of post

So while I’m catching up I go and find myself something else to do. Next Monday is Blog Action Day (see above) and the focus this year is The Environment. I found this while I was searching for some stuff for the Eco-Ecole Club (try saying that very fast, over and over). I figured the little darlings have got enough to be getting on with for the moment, so I’ll do this one. Don’t know what I’m going to post yet. The other options were to donate your blogs’ proceeds of the day to a charity. Hang on! Are you lot making money out of this?

Anyway, I’m now going to tackle the book meme that Vanilla tagged me for ...ooh eons ago. Mmm... when you take out Vanilla’s answers this seems like a manageable book meme.

Total number of books owned
Well there’s a little pile there by the fireplace, that bookcase there, there’s some more on the phone table, that other bookcase...Look everywhere I am there are books: at home, at work, in my bag, there’s even a book under my pillow. I have more than enough for one person really, but then again you can never have enough. Does that answer your question?

Last book bought
I don’t live in the land of readily available English language books, then again I’m not deprived of books, but I do like to make part of my trips back to Blighty involve book shopping. So I bought:

The Weather Makers by Tim Flannery

Twenty love poems and a song of Despair by Pablo Neruda

Lady Friday by Garth Nix, the 5^th in the Keys to the Kingdom series. I’m not entirely sure about this series of books, but the first book, Mister Monday has got probably the best prologue I’ve ever read.

The Art of Travel by Alain de Botton.

Last book read

The Weather Makers by Tim Flannery and Coven of One by ole Minx.

Five books which mean a lot to you

Only 5...

The House at Pooh Corner by A.A. Milne. If I can’t cross a bridge without playing Pooh Sticks, it’s because of A.A. Milne, and E. H. Shephard’s drawings. I really dig Pooh bear because there are days when I feel of very little brain. You know if we all lived our life like Pooh we probably wouldn’t get an awful lot done, but we’d eat a lot of honey!

Setting Free the Bears by John Irving. It was probably the first book that made me cry. It was hysterically funny, so full of historical resonance (the first time I read it was as the then Yugoslavian state began to fall apart) and dreadfully sad too. And yeah I’ve read it a few times along with quite a lot of other Irving books.

Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. I read this shortly after moving to Mexico. Living in Latin America so fully explained why Magic Realism emerged there and vile pretenders like Louis de Berniers will never do anything more than write poor parodies. Anyway back to Love in the Time of Cholera; Marquez draws you in and makes you believe absolutely every word. Your heart beat quickens, you sigh and gasp, its beauty on a page.

Heaven Eyes by David Almond. I remember putting the book down in complete awe and realising I had just read the best Magic Realist since Marquez. Who is Heaven Eyes? We never know, but this is a story that will stay close to your heart for years to come and fill you with hope.

Oh no... I’m at five and there are so many more... Ok. Last year I read History of the World in 10½ chapters. You couldn’t put a more disparate bunch of themes together and tie them together with a woodworm if you tried, or unless you were Julian Barnes. I have an absolutely terrible memory and yet I think I can just about remember everything he writes about love in the chapter entitled parenthesis. This is the sort of love I want to believe exists.

I’m not going to tag anyone for this meme as it’s been going around for a while and if you haven’t done it already then you SHOULD. Let me know if you do have a go. Also as this is quite long I won’t add a Phoktober bit, but do check it out here. I’ll catch up on that tomorrow!

Catching up - Part II: The Nice Bit

So here is Part II of the catching up, see I’m getting there.

Apparently I am ubernice, see it says so here. I like to keep mentioning this because it’s not often you get called nice and it brings a smile to your face. I don’t know about you, but I hear that word and my eyebrow arches so high it disappears into my hairline. Anyway this latest little badge (to add to my thoughtfulness and schmoozyness) came to me via Maht at The Moon Topples. And if I’m ubernice (see I’ve mentioned it again) it’s going to be kind of hard to find someone who tops that, but here goes:

Debi Alper – as the only blogger that I have met in the flesh so far, I can totally vouch for her niceness. She gave me a big hug and smiled a lot and was really nice the whole time we wandered along the South Bank.

Scarlett at From the shores of introspect and retrospect – Now despite the fact that I am quite possibly the worst commenter in the history of blogging, this chick is the Queen of Bloggy Enthusiasm and Positivity. My question Scarlett is: How do you do it?

Jon M at Writing in a Vacuum – Again I always leave Jon’s page with a smile on my face. He is so nice that you almost wish you could give him a little hug (and his gorehounds). Oh and he’s collecting these awards, so I have to help, don’t I?

And then there’s Canterbury Soul – He’s fully deserving of this award, he’s just always so nice. Oh and the thing that wins him this award hands down is the fact that he’s a Liverpool supporter, that’s just got to make him a good guy.

Kimy is a fairly new reader of my blog and again I apologise for commenting so infrequently, but I do read you on the feeder thingamajig. Anyway, Kimy is always posting these little quotes that are sure to get your brain cells working in a good way, so I think she is also deserving of a ‘nice’ award.

I have to say that in comparison to the other two award things I’ve received this is probably the ‘nicest’ design as well. OK already, enough niceness.

Phoktober 8^th

In terms of the comments yesterday it seems that most of you liked the pictures of Tibo (rolls eyes) or the water shot. Obviously I can’t force you lot to share my love of gargoyles, so here’s another shot of the fountain.

Catching up

What feels like forever ago I got tagged by Vanilla to do a book meme, then I think this whole Phocotober thing was mentioned, then I got tagged to do the Shameless Lions collective story and then despite not doing any of the above I got an award! But sometimes real life intervenes to keep your fingers away from the keyboard and you may have noticed a lack of me talking about books, writing a story, showing pictures or displaying nice new shiny awards. I do kind of plan to put all that right (this week, not in one post).

But First on the list. I’ve been in touch with the tamer of the pride and apologised, but I won’t be joining in with the Collective Story at the Shameless Lions Writing Circle, which you can find here. I pass the story onto to Maht at the Moon Topples. The Pride is now home to a few homeless lions as well so if you didn’t get one the first time round get in quick.

Seeing as I’m not doing this catch up in any particular order, I’m now going to post some random photos. They are all old photos because although I did have my camera in my bag all week it was raining on Monday when I came home, it was raining on Tuesday. It was raining on Wednesday, Thursday I was tired and Friday I may have been a little tipsy!

Phokotber 1^st

This was taken when I first got my camera a couple of years ago. I fell in love with those swimming pool pictures by David Hockney eons ago and have probably been messing about with the idea reflections on water ever since.

Phokotber 2^nd

I think that Sacre Coeur is quite possibly the most hideous church in all existence, although that one in Lyon is a close second. Despite that I love this little park in its shadows.

Phokotber 3^rd

And something has always got to have it’s redeeming features; gargoyles are always supercool.

Phokotber 4^th

See! This one is in Troyes (pronounced trois – of course) in the Champagne region, or near it, or around it (I once posted a photo of somewhere where I wasn’t too sure of the location and I got this anonymous comment telling me exactly where I had been and where I had not been). It’s not a great photo, but have I mentioned that gargoyles are supercool?

Phokotber 5^th

And flying buttresses are also cool.

Phokotber 6^th

Troyes is a very oldey worldy town and I kind of like the fact that they are keeping it like that. Although if they could please move table service into the 21^st century I would also be grateful.

Phokotber 7^th