A-Z of me

This is a meme created by the Real Housewife of Suffolk County, who lists the questions here. I came across this via Melksham Mum’s recent blogpost.

These are my answers to the questions:

ANORAK…Do you have a sad side?
Yes, I am a bit of an anorak. I love Doctor Who and have done since I was a child. I could have chosen to call my blog Anorak Mummy but I thought Minibreak Mummy sounded much more glamorous.

BODY…What physical attribute would you most like to change?
My feet are very broad across the toes and this makes it difficult to find nice shoes. This is one of the reasons I am so impressed with my new shoes from Hotter.

CELEBRITY…Which one would you most like to date and why?
David Tennant. But actually it is not really him so much as some of the characters he has played, particularly Benedick in Much Ado About Nothing.

DEBUT …Tell us about your first ever blog post. What made you start blogging?
My first blog post was about going to see a Tori Amos concert. What made me start blogging was that other people were doing it and I wanted to join the conversation. I started on LiveJournal but recently began to find that rather limited, so set up this Minibreak Mummy blog on WordPress. (I did an audioboo about how I got from e-mail to facebook, twitter and blogging)

ERROR …What’s been your biggest regret?
That I stayed in a job where I was miserable for too long. In the end I took the very scary step of leaving that job without another job to go to, and that turned out to be the best thing I ever did.

FUNNY – who’s making you laugh?
Tennant and Tate in Much Ado About Nothing made me laugh harder than anything else this year.

GRAND…If we gave you one right now what would you spend it on?
A trip to Italy, preferably including Siena &/or Bologna. I want to practice my Italian and buy some lovely stationery!

HOLIDAY… What’s your favourite destination?
San Francisco and Northern California. We went there on our honeymoon and again a few years later so that I could be ‘Best Person’ at my friend’s wedding.

IRRITATE… What’s your most annoying habit?
H gets irritated when I am very literal. For example, he will say, “Do you know where the Radio Times is?” and I’ll reply, “Yes.”

JOKER…Whats your favourite joke {the one that makes you laugh everytime you hear it}?
A joke Antonio Carluccio told at the Good Food Show, which only makes sense if you understand Italian pronunciation. I’ll try to write down as best as I can here:

A man from Italy, recently arrived in London, goes into a delicatessen. He says to the woman behind the counter, “Give me a quickie.” She gives him a withering look and says, “It’s pronounced quiche“.

KENNEL… Do you have any pets?
No. I’d quite like a cat but they make me sneeze.

LOVE…Are you single, married, engaged, living with a long term partner?
I am married and have been for just over 12 years. I think we make a good team.

MEAL… Whats your ultimate starter, main and dessert?
Very hard to choose. How about Pumpkin Flower Risotto (as eaten in a cafe in Italy), followed by Roast Salmon with Mash and Samphire (as eaten in a restaurant in Wales) and then Eton Mess (as served up by my friend who blogs at NakedLunch) for afters?

NOW…If you could be anywhere right now where would you be and who with?
At the seaside with H and the bonkers boy, eating fish and chips out of newspaper.

OFF DUTY…What do you do in your spare time?
I’m tempted to ask ‘What spare time?’ as I no longer seem to have any. I suppose this is partly because I’ve got into blogging and reading other blogs recently…

PROUD MOMENTS …What are you most proud of?
Extremely proud of the bonkers boy of course. Also proud that I’ve managed to get a job I love.

QUEASY …What turns your stomach?
The sight of blood, especially my own.

RELAX…How do you relax?
There’s a list of things I do to relax here.

SONG…Whats your favourite song of all time?
Running up that Hill by Kate Bush, partly because it is the first track on a really awesome album. (I always used to say that ‘Running up that Hill’ was my native American name, because it spells Ruth)

TIME …If you could go back in time and relive it again, when would you choose?
These are tough questions! I don’t really believe in revisiting the past and prefer to try to make the most of now. But there are a couple of points where I would like to be able to pop back and tell myself it would all turn out ok. One example would be the aforementioned leaving the job without another job to go to. Another example would be the time I was struggling to cope with a young baby who cried from 4.30pm til 1.30am nearly every night for several weeks.

UNKNOWN…Tell us something about yourself that no one else knows?
Gosh is there anything that I know about myself that no one else knows? Maybe people who didn’t know me as a child might not know that I used to like sitting in the airing cupboard at home, because it was warm and I could sit there undisturbed by siblings. I could see out through the slats but people couldn’t see me.

VOCAL…. Who is your favourite artist?
Kate Bush. I’m so excited that she’s got a new album due out in November.

WORK….. What is your dream job, and are you doing it now?
My dream job is to be a University Librarian and I’m doing it now.

XRAY…Any broken bones?
Yes – a distal radius fracture when I slipped and fell on an icy pavement in January this year.

YIKES…What’s been your most embarrassing moment?
I still cringe when I remember the time when I was 17 and I introduced a speaker at a small fundraising event I’d organised for Amnesty International. The speaker was a victim of torture and I said that I hoped people would enjoy the evening...

ZOO…. If you were an animal, which one would you be?
A cat. They can pretty much suit themselves!