Tagged

I got tagged by bunny, kudos to ol' bright eyes!

So here goes...

1 When I was nine, I went to Holland to stay with my Dutch Aunt. She was a teacher, so that holiday we packed in every educational visit within a 50km radius. I had a great time, attested to by a scrapbook she encouraged me to write. One day we pitched up at a very old building. Inside was bare except for an unfeasibly large set of scales. Aunt told me to hop up & sit on one side which I did & out from the shadows, as if on rollers, glided a sepulchral, aged man in a suit, who proceeded to stack weights on the other scale. He never spoke. I eventually summoned the courage to ask what on earth was going on, to which Aunt replied blithely 'Oh, he's weighing you to see if you're a witch.'

So in my scrapbook, I have two certificates, one in Dutch, one in English, which officially prove that I am NOT a witch!

2 One of my relatives invented the bouncing bomb in order to bash the Nazis during WWII which was immortalised in the film The Dambusters

3 I occasionally work for a good friend who's a psychic medium. She's dyslexic so I do her paperwork. There are usually other people there when we work...only I can't see them. Cue 'Twighlight Zone' theme tune!

4 I have been 'flashed' at by men on public transport & in the parks of most European capitals. All of them were flaccid & I have to say I find this very insolent as I much prefer the erect member, especially when I'm eating lunch!

5 I have been tailgated (transitive verb: to drive dangerously close behind) by the Queen driving a huge, fuck-off Range Rover. She was literally up my arse, but that's a whole other story. (Jeesh, I've got some work to do!)

6 My favourite tipple is dry white wine. When I get a bit tipsy I tend to start singing, which is fine if I'm at a festival or have musician friends at my parties...not so fine if I'm on a shoot...yet another story...I shudder at the horror of my shame!

7 When I'm tired, I stroke a ribbon through my fingers. OK, bear with me...psychologists (god bless 'em) call them transference objects, things that soothe & comfort a child when separated from their parents, like a teddy, or their own thumb. Mine was & is, a ribbon & here is for why...When I was little, I didn't have duvets, I had sheets & a big pink blanket with a silky border. When I was put to bed, I'd rub my fingers up & down the silky bit & fall asleep. When I was older & went to school, the height of fashion was to have your hair tied in two big bunches on either side of your head. Mine were so tight I was given a mini face-lift each morning & to top it all, Mum tied two lovely tartan ribbons round each one...I had the shadow of a were-rabbit & looked constantly surprised. However there was an upside to this, as towards the end of a long day at school playing marbles & the recorder (the only things I remember ever doing that first year) if I got a bit sleepy, I'd lay my head on the desk, stroke my hair ribbon & be asleep in two shakes of a lamb's tail. Later, I carried a ribbon in my pocket so that I was assured of a similarly fast route to forty winks. This was invaluable at uni, but I had the advantage that half of my lectures were in a darkened room as they involved looking at slides. I slept through an entire section on Dutch landscape painting, which was really boring as Holland is completely flat (I know, I've been there), not even so much as a burning witch to alleviate it.

8 However, I get really turned on in art galleries.

So, in summation, I'm a horny, ribbon-rubbing, art-lover, from war-mongering stock, with an interest in the paranormal, who surely doesn't weigh as much as a witch now because I've put on a few pounds & witches are supposed to float, right?

Wow, sounds like I've just written my resume for an internet dating site...royal flashers need not apply!

Unfortunately I can't keep on playing this game as I have no friends who haven't been tagged. I'll have to think of something else to ask them...