Tagged

A little while ago I was tagged by the Fulham Reactionary. I must, therefore, in the traditions of tagging, supply six weird things about myself:

People who get tagged need to write a blog entry of their own 6 weird things as well as stating this rule clearly! Three people need to be tagged and their names listed. Finally a comment needs to be left on each tagged person's blog...

So, here goes!

1. Heights are probably my biggest phobia. I don’t get vertigo; it doesn’t even make me feel particularly queasy. But I do experience some very strange shooting-pain sensations in my feet. I usually feel a lot lighter than my twelve-and-a-bit stones, too, which makes something to grip on to a must.

   This is rather bizarre, considering my favourite place in Cheshire is Beeston Castle. This is a castle famous for being stuck on top of a rocky crag, with views of eight different counties.
   

2. For the second thing, I think my obsession with genealogy, is worth mentioning. It’s meant that I have spent large amounts of money on allsorts of genealogy and census websites. I have subscriptions with Ancestry.co.uk and Genesreunited, and have managed to find a lot of distant relatives. A very satisfying thing, when you belong to a small family like me.

   I have also spent a lot of time, physically finding things. I have looked through the St Catherine’s index in Sale library, many-a-time. But, most of all, there have been numerous visits to cemeteries dotted throughout Wales and the bordering English counties, where my ancestors came from. I can think of nothing more satisfying than finding the grave of a long-lost ancestor, and placing a single flower on it, which says to anyone who may see it that ‘this person hasn’t been forgotten’.

3. I have a massive football programme collection, which has meant that I have been to allsorts of matches and grounds in a bid to collect more. That's taken me from tiny no-facility grounds like Accrington Stanley and Hyde United, to Premiership teams like Tottenham Hotspur and Blackburn Rovers.

4. I think I mentioned before that I love the Ray Mears/Bear Grylls type of wilderness survival show.

   I would love to see if I could make a go of living in a survival situation, but this is probably me being rather delusional. It is very easy watching such programs from the comfort of a centrally-heated house, with a fridge stocked to the rafters, and getting carried away about being an SAS soldier. But, that said, it's fun to dream of eating boiled nettles and drinking pine-needle tea, whilst sat around a campfire!

5. I drink ludicrous amounts of coffee, sometimes. It's not unknown for me to have about seven mugs-worth whilst I am in work.

6. Finally, it's bizarre to think that I am so obsessed with learning languages now, when I was so useless at them whilst I was at school.

   We were streamed into two sets in German, and, based on peformances in French, I was put in the higher class. Sadly, I was truly woeful and finished bottom of the class.

   Then, when we had to choose options in the third year, I wanted to - and believed I was good enough to - take French. The French teacher was, however, distinctly underwhelmed, and tried to put me off taking it. When that failed, she put me in the no-hopers group, and boy were they no-hopers! Sadly, this meant that I had only a slim chance of achieving a 'C' grade, and ended up with a 'D'.

   These memories drive me on, in my quest for fluency in Italian.
   

Okay, well that's it. Now I have to nominate three people to tag, and I hope that they do not get offended by my doing so. So, I will tag the New Zealand Conservative, Sam Tarran and the Mild Colonial Boy.