An Interview with Me!

I offered to be interviewed by Sandi, at Cheaper than Therapy.

1. When did you start blogging? What caused you to start?
I had to check back to see when I started blogging. It was July 2006. I was inspired by my younger daughter’s blog and the first posting had a Word, a Butterfly, a Moth and a Flower for the month’. The word was Drndl or Dirndl. Whilst the latter spelling is more correct the former is more fun because it has no vowels and that is the way it was spelled in a novel I had just read about the seventeenth century... A dirndl is a type of traditional dress worn in southern Germany and Austria, based on the historical costume of the Alpine peasants. It became popular in Austria as a fashionable dress among the upper classes between 1870 and 1880.

2. I'm in awe at the number of blogs you have. Which one is your favorite and why?
That’s a difficult question, Sandi. I suppose it has to be the “Rambles from My Chair”. It’s my ‘main’ blog and its also the one which allows me to wander at will from subject to subject. “Words, Words, Words (and Phrases)” is probably the most useful one I do as people seem to appreciate the opportunity to learn the occasional new word or phrase in what I hope is a fairly easy-going manner. The other great thing about “Rambles from my Chair” is that it has a list of my blogging friends down the side and that’s very important to me.

3. If you could take one person to dinner, either alive or dead, who would it be and why? Where would you eat?
I love writers and poets who are slightly eccentric and have a mind of their own. So I would like to take Oscar Wilde to dinner and hear at first hand some of his outrageous views and humour. I would take him to a Chinese restaurant and have a banquet. Hopefully that would be a fairly novel experience for him and I find the relaxed atmosphere of slowly arriving courses a good way of combining dinner and conversation.

4. What is your favorite guilty pleasure?
Smoking. Actually, most of my ‘pleasures’ are guilty ones because I love cheese, liqueurs, chocolate and strawberries and all of them are migraine triggers!

5. You are stranded on a desert island and have the option of keeping just one personal belonging. What would it be and why?
The logical part of me wants to reply with something useful along the lines of a Swiss Army Knife but I would really want a photo of my family. My elder daughter got married last year and there were some wonderful photos taken on the day and this one would be my desert island choice.


(My brother - GB; son - Richard,; me; daughter - Bryony; son-in-law Mark; wife - Jo; daughter - Helen; and her partner - Ian.)

Thanks to Sandi for not making the questions too searching. (I was dreading ‘most embarrassing moment’ type ones. Actually, one advantage of getting older is that one doesn’t get so embarrassed about them any more and I may blog about it one day. It’ll give me a chance to tell you about Jo’s most embarrassing moment, which is hilarious!)