Okay, so you wanna know more?
| Like I'd admit to anything above, ooooh, say 37? | |
| Birmingham, England - Britain's second (and best) city; apart from the bus drivers ... and the rush hour traffic ... and the sheer numbers of people in the city centre at lunchtime ... and that bloody awful iron man at the top of New Street. | |
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| Totally mad, yakky, funny, tall, handsome Yorkshireman - NOW MARRIED! | |
| Sons. Three of them. All drop-dead gorgeous. [Proud mother alert!] Also now a grandmother (at such a ridiculously young age) which is pretty neat. | |
1. I’m a proud Brummie living in Birmingham, UK, possibly the greatest city on the planet. It has more canals than Venice and more trees and parks than any other European city. I’d never live anywhere else. S'great.
2. I’m a young forty-something (I’ve been telling my sons for years that I’m 37; “Weren’t you 37 last birthday?” they ask suspiciously. “No,” I tell them, “I was 36 last year, obviously!”). I'm also now a grandmother which (to my great relief) I find I rather like.
3. I have a very dry sense of humour, but people seem to like me even if they don’t always ‘get me’.
4. I’m happily married.
5. I have three gorgeous, clever, handsome, adorable, fantastic sons who have now all left home (wah!). I'm currently suffering from acute Empty Nest Syndrome (but the granddaugher helps with this - she only lives next door, with her parents of course, not on her own, she's only two).
6. I have a soul mate who travelled from Yorkshire to Birmingham every single weekend for two years to see me, so figured he was serious. UPDATE: married him.
7. I’m a secretary working in Birmingham city centre. The daily commute is just dire. UPDATE: Gave it up for the sake of my sanity and humanity, and now work from home ... often in my garden in summer.
8. I have congenital anosmia, which means I was born with no sense of smell. This has good and bad points; good means I can’t smell people’s farts or cow dung, bad means I keep blowing up the gas oven and can never buy my own perfume. I was interviewed by a radio station about it which, if you're brave enough, you can hear here.
9. I’m a massive film buff, especially British Comedy (Richard Curtis rocks!). All time favourites include Close Encounters, Yentl, As Good As It Gets, All That Jazz, Priscilla Queen of Desert, Stepping Out, Four Weddings, Love Actually, About a Boy, Kinky Boots and The Piano. I hate war films and westerns, which is unfortunate for my Husband, who loves them.
10. As the daughter of a now retired gardener, I’m a garden freak, primarily because I get to wear long skirts and straw hats and look like a mad old biddy wielding a trowel.
11. I’d like to become a recluse (with my Husband) in some remote cottage full of Labradors, wear long skirts and straw hats and churn out best selling novels in front of a window with a view. So far got the skirts, the hats and the window with a view.
12. I’m an atheist, but I never talk religion or politics. I know about them, I just don’t want to talk about them.
13.
I try to keep a positive outlook on life, hence my obsession with
Smiley Faces 
and the song,
Don’t Worry, Be Happy (that’ll be in your head
all day now … altogether now, do do do do do do do do do …).
14. I’m a chronic, incurable, insatiable bibliophile. I lurve books. My motto is: When I have a little money I buy books, if there’s any left over I buy food [Desiderius Erasimus] (or, in my case, fags and whisky, then food). Favourite authors include Stephen King, Michael Crichton, Wendy Holden, Andrea Newman, Orwell and Dan Brown.
15. I’d like Catherine Zeta Jones to play me in a film of my life (this is after I become a rich and famous novelist, of course). John Wayne would have to be exhumed and taught to speak broad Yorkshire to play my Husband, sons would be Marilyn Manson, Keanue Reeves and Harry Enfield’s Kevin. Should be a good film, a cross between the Adams Family and Absolutely Fabulous. In fact, bugger Catherine Zeta Jones, she’d demand too much money anyway and she’d never capture the essential essence of meeee … Patsy Stone would be perfect.
16. I like my life. I like it a lot.
17. Lifelong ambitions include riding through the Grand Canyon on a Harley Davidson, winning the lottery and giving up work (ting DONE!), taking a ‘road trip’ around the world with my Husband in a battered but reliable camper van, being around when they discover an antidote for old age so I can live forever and see more of the world with my Husband in a camper van after giving up work (ting), and horse riding across some American prairie.
18. I don’t cook any more. My Husband would rather I didn’t. In fact, he would much prefer I stay out of the kitchen altogether, which suits me just fine. I burn stuff. I burn everything. Cooking is so boring I usually wander off to do something more interesting and forget about it – and, because I can’t smell, I don’t normally realise anything’s burning until the fire brigade turn up. (“Carbon’s good for you,” I used to tell my long-suffering sons whenever I placed a burnt meal in front of them. “In such vast quantities,” they’d drawl. Cast-iron stomachs they’ve got now.)
19. I hate shopping, any kind of shopping, unless its done in a garden centre or a bookshop. Even the weekly grocery is done like an episode of Supermarket Dash (“No! Don’t pause! Don’t stop! Keep running! Lob the stuff in and let’s get out of here!”).
20.
I am happy. Nearly all the time. Is this normal?
