Everything you ever wanted to know about me, but were too afraid to ask…
The lovely Jessica over at The Bookworm Chronicles has kindly nominated me for the One Lovely Blog Award – thanks, Jessica! 😀
Here are the rules…
- Thank the blogger who nominated you and link back to them.
- Share 7-15 facts about yourself.
- Nominate 9-15 bloggers you admire and contact them.
The first one is easy – thank you, Jessica! Much appreciated. 😀
The second one is harder – obviously I can’t tell you about my career as a Russian spy, nor reveal that secretly I’m Donald Trump’s hairdresser. You already know about my legendary iron willpower and my favourite hobby – chocolate-guzzling. But I think I’ve found a few facts that are quite revealing – perhaps TOO revealing! I shall let you decide…
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1. My cat Tommy once won an award for being the Bravest Cat in Scotland, but he refused to attend the ceremony, so I had to accept it on his behalf in front of a bunch of newspaper photographers. Fifteen minutes of fame… except they all printed the picture of the Bravest Dog instead, because he showed up. There’s a life lesson there…
2. When I was four, I had my first boyfriend. His dad worked for Coca-Cola as a delivery driver, so he would bring me a free bottle of Coke every day. Then his dad changed jobs, so I chucked him.
3. I once had a picnic with a bunch of armed policemen beneath the Arc de Triomphe in Paris. At 3 a.m. With wine.
4. My second boyfriend had a rocking horse. I’d always wanted a rocking horse…
5. During a sports day at the school I worked at, I got caught on video teaching some of the boys how to make water bombs to splat the teachers.
6. I once spent an evening in the kitchen hunting a mouse the cats had brought in and released… while the cats sat on the sofa in the living room watching a DVD of David Attenborough’s Life of Birds.
7. I once worked for 3 weeks as a chalet maid at Butlins Holiday Camp in Clacton-on-Sea, before getting a major promotion to the hot-dog stand.
Hi-de-Hi!*
8. My third boyfriend lasted from about age 9 to 11, then we went to different schools. The next time we met, we were sixteen. I had just been to the dentist and my mouth was so numb I couldn’t speak clearly and was kinda dribbling. One could see he felt he’d had a lucky escape…
9. When my mother collapsed during a holiday in France and was taken to hospital, my French wasn’t good enough and the doctor couldn’t speak English, so I had to mime her medical history. The angina was fine, but the prolapsed uterus stretched my acting abilities to their limit…**
10. When I fell madly in love aged 12, I graffitied “I Love Ronnie” all over my pencil case and school bag. Then a couple of weeks later I fell out of love with Ronnie and in love with Ian – my mother refused to replace the bag and case. This is why I don’t have tattoos…
Aah! Darcy!
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There! I think it’s safe to say you know everything about me now! As usual, I’m not going to nominate specific blogs, since you’re all lovely! So, to be fair, I think you really ought to reveal something about yourself in the comments below…
*For non-Brits and young people, this is not me! It’s Su Pollard, who played a chalet maid in an old sitcom called Hi-de-Hi…
**She was fine!
FictionFan's Book Reviews 
Ah, bless, that made me laugh! Of course, now I am desperate to hear Tommy’s story and why he was the bravest cat in Scotland. I have chased lizards around the living room as well – they are very good at hiding in the smallest crannies.
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Haha, glad you enjoyed it! Ah, poor Tommy had a terrible accident when he was just a lad – he got hit by a car and should really have died, or at the very least have lost one of his legs. But fortunately, it was during the weekend so the normal vet was shut and we had to go straight to the fantastic Vets Hospital, where coincidentally the consultant surgeon was on duty. He said he thought he might be able to save him, and his leg, if he could do some fairly experimental stuff – so given the alternative, I let him. Three months of surgeries and skin grafts later, my sweet boy had become a firm favourite with all the people at the hospital, so they nominated him… and now, seven years later, he’s still a perfect little four-legged friend!
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What a little hero, bless him! So pleased he made it!
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😀 He’s my special boy, for sure!
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I love this, FictionFan! I always thought you had some sort of secret spy identity! 😉 – That late-night picnic sounds fantastic, too. And about tattoos? You know, I never did understand why people would get boy/girlfriends’ names tattooed on them. Those things do change over time…
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Haha, glad you enjoyed it! 😀 The picnic was on my 21st birthday, which made it particularly memorable! Ha – tattoos are certainly not recommended for someone as fickle as I was back in the day, that’s for sure! 😉
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This is the most hilarious post ever! Now I have questions: what did Tommy do to merit the bravery award? Did you find the mouse? Were the water bombs used?
My first boyfriend happened when I was five. I gave him my Robin pin, while my BFF gave her boyfriend her Batman pin. After the pinning we broke up.
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Glad you enjoyed it! 😀 Ah, poor Tommy had a horrific accident when he was young – got hit by a car, and the Vets Hospital basically put him back together again. So after three months of surgeries and so on, they’d all fallen in love with him, and nominated him for the award – my brave boy! Haha! I did find the mouse – three days later, when it popped out from behind a cabinet to eat the cats’ food… And yes, the water bombs were a huge success! Well, with everyone except the teachers… 😉
Haha!` You should have demanded your pin back! Still, I remember all these early boyfriends with affection, which is more than can be said for some of the later ones… 😉
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Brilliant and it all adds to the mental picture – glad your Mum was ok!! In the spirit of sharing my first boyfriend was called Kevin and he was a Policeman’s son and I got into trouble for giving him the word ‘breakfast’ as the example of one beginning with ‘b’ – we were five at the time!
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Poor Mum – she’d probably have killed me for telling that story! 😉 Haha! It’s funny how we all remember our first boyfriends so clearly – and let’s face it, breakfast is the most important meal of the day! 😉
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Absolutely love your points. Have a huge smile on my face!
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Glad you enjoyed it! 😀
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This made me laugh out loud several times, FF! For that reason, I really hope you’re not completely done revealing all your secrets to us. 🙂
My first boyfriend’s name was Sean, and for my birthday he gave me neon-coloured shoelaces. It was the mid-eighties, and it was cool to use these shoelaces for more than just your sneakers – hair ribbons, necklaces, etc… I felt awful, though, because I didn’t really like him – I was just too afraid of hurting his feelings to tell him I didn’t want to be his girlfriend.
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Glad you enjoyed it – I knew all these early boyfriends would come in useful for something one day… 😉 Haha! Poor Sean! I hope you returned the laces when you dumped him… 😉
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Hmm… no… I don’t think I did. 😦
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Haha! Poor boy! 😉
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I knew most of these, but a boyfriend who brought Coca-Cola, and you didn’t share? No fair! 🙂
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Ah, that was my secret life while you were all at school! Happy days! 😉
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Haha FF I knew you would have some brilliantly fun facts to share – I can totally sympathise about hunting after a mouse once the cat gets bored of it – and I hope you have a great Easter too 😀
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Haha! Glad you enjoyed it! Oh, my previous cats were terrible for releasing live creatures around the house – fortunately, the current two are useless hunters, so the worst I get now is a slug! Which is considerably better than a rat… 😀
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Yes, considerably better! We’ve not had any mice recently – my dad said the last mouse was punching her on the nose, which seems to have put her off!
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Haha! Ninja Mouse! Maybe a superbreed is evolving… I shall tell the cats! 😉
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Got a kick out of the mental picture of YOU chasing the mouse while the kitties enjoyed a good movie! And I’ve no doubt a boy who brought you a Coke every day would have been a fine catch! Great post, FF, and yes, I enjoyed learning these things about you. My turn, you say? Well, okay, here goes — When I was in elementary school, the nuns insisted we eat everything on our lunch plates (something about starving children in Biafra). One day, we had peas — HUGE things, when I was accustomed to “baby” peas in butter sauce. I scooped those peas into my milk carton, but I’ve never been able to lie very well, and Sister must have suspected something. She shook the carton before I could toss it in the trash, found the peas sloshing within, and sent me back to the table until I’d eaten them. Of course, I refused so I had to sit there and miss recess as punishment. No wonder our friend PorterGirl has a “thing” about nuns, haha!!
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Haha! Those two cats (the ones before T&T) nearly drove me insane bringing in little creatures, dead or alive! Thankfully T&T don’t seem to hunt – or at least they don’t seem to catch anything – hurrah!
Haha! We used to get the starving children in Biafra guilt thrown at us too, by our parents! I used to explain that they were welcome to my custard, but I thought they’d rather have something less slimy. I like to think I’ve developed more empathy (or tact) since those days… 😉
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Can we please have another 5 facts to make it 15…it DOES say 7-15.
As I had to sign the official secret’s act when I offered myself employment, I’m afraid I can’t reveal anything about myself. I am currently wearing a Donald Trump wig (possibly trimmed by you in your POTUS hairdresser guise) and a glue on Viva Zapata moustache in order to avoid drawing attention to myself.
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I was running out of childhood boyfriends, I fear – and somehow the later ones didn’t provide as much humour! (At least, not humour of the variety suitable for the blog… 😉 )
Haha! Be careful with the Trump wig – one unfortunate gust of wind and you could be strangled! But I imagine the moustache looks very fetching on you…
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I am jealous of Tommy’s fame!!!
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So is his sister Tuppence! Seven years on, she still hasn’t forgiven either of us… 😉
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aww Tuppence I love that name
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😀 Makes her sound much sweeter than she is… 😉
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Thank you for the smiles 🙂 Probably the most scary thing that has happened to me was in Nicaragua in the mid 80s. I was volunteering picking coffee beans and we slept in barns near the coffees fields. At night we had to take turns sitting up with the local pickers to watch for Contras who sometimes attacked in the early hours. One night a young Nicaraguan woman and I were sitting eyes and ears peeled for an hour (she with a gun), listening to suspicious noises of approach. Eventually one of the leaders came along and stealthily approached the unnerving noises, he turned his torch on and revealed a massive (waist-high) pig quietly foraging in the night. We finally breathed out…..
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Glad you enjoyed it! 😀 Haha! Gosh, no wonder you were scared! I think I’ll have to scratch out Tommy’s name on the Bravery Award and send it to you instead! Mind you, I think I might have been nearly as scared of the pig as the Contras… and I’d definitely have been terrified of the girl with the gun… 😉
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Well, what can I say? A-Maz-Ing!!! Ha ha! My life is much more mundane, and mostly consists these days of chasing mice around the kitchen too.
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Haha! Glad you enjoyed it! 😀 These cats do like to keep us active, don’t they? Fortunately, the current cats aren’t really hunters, unlike my last two, so mostly what I get now are slugs… yuck!
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Thank you for sharing so many funny stories! I’m not very good with secrets so I generally tell everyone everything, then don’t need to think about what I should and shouldn’t tell. However, since everyone is sharing their secrets, my first boyfriend came along when I was in secondary school, but I don’t want to tell the rest of the story about what happened when we went behind the shelter sheds because it is too embarrassing….
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Glad you enjoyed it! 😀
Hahaha! Ooh, but you MUST tell! Go on, your secret will be safe… I mean, who’ll see it here?? 😉
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Thanks for the insights, FF – great fun! For my part, I have a morbid fear of rats and mice, which I trace back to my first visit to India. I would’ve been watching David Attenborough with your cats, rather than chasing the mouse with you. That said, I quite like handling snakes (they eat rodents, after all) and I have been known to dine on deep-fried spiders 🙂
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Glad you enjoyed it! (Also delighted your book, Behind the Night Bazaar, is finally being listed at a normal price over here – did you have to beat up the publishers? Looking forward to reading it at last! :D)
Urrghh!! I couldn’t eat a spider, or any other insect, if my life depended on it – I’m such a wuss! I might be able to handle a snake – I’m not sure. We don’t get many in Glasgow! As for mice, I can’t bear them, but my last cats were super hunters so I had to deal with them – my system was to trap them in a Tupperware bowl I kept specially for the purpose, and then release them outside – I couldn’t actually touch them with my hands…. *shudders*
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Brilliant! I was similarly shallow aged 4 – my boyfriend had the last name Clements, and I was only with him because it reminded me of the song ‘Oranges and Lemons’. Your boyfriend was better 😉
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Haha! That sounds like a slightly less mercenary reason for love, at least! I fear my boyfriends were only welcome if they brought gifts… though I like to think I got nicer as I grew up… 😉
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You were an early starter in the boyfriend department! Nowadays, you’d be on Facebook. Young people don’t get out and about like they used to.
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I know – I’m not quite sure what the attraction was. I mean, for me it was the Coke, but I don’t know what he got out of it! I don’t remember making much effort to fascinate him… 😉 Yes, I’m glad I’m not a kid today, to be honest.
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So you’re Donald’s hairdresser… Please never come near my head xD I’ve had too many mishaps with my hair already, I don’t need a disaster! The 9th fact had me laughing so hard, I can’t even express it in my mother tongue either, mouhahaha! This post is full of win :p
Okay, one thing about myself… I’m awesome :p
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Haha! He really needs a sculptor rather a hairdresser… 😉 My poor mother would probably be horrified I told that story, but I couldn’t resist sharing! Hahaha! Yes, you are! Me, too! 😉
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Ah this is fantastic – great blog. I once spent a night chasing a mole round the kitchen that one of the cats had brought in. I realised in the course of that evening I might be mole-phobic. Shortly afterwards I decided to move to London where no mole could get me! Bravest cat – bloody hell!!!!!!!
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Glad you enjoyed it! 😀 Haha! They keep us on our toes, don’t they? We laughed about Tommy’s award, because actually he’s a complete wuss – he spends most of his life hiding behind me whenever there’s another cat around. Even his sister!
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